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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Events by Famous Historians,
+Volume 03, by Various
+
+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: The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Rossiter Johnson
+        Charles Horne
+        John Rudd
+
+Release Date: June 6, 2008 [EBook #25712]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT EVENTS, VOLUME 03 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Famous painting of the head Jesus Christ
+
+(By steadily gazing at the eyes in the picture they will be seen to
+suddenly open.)
+
+Painting by Gabriel Max.]
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT EVENTS
+
+BY
+
+FAMOUS HISTORIANS
+
+A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY, EMPHASIZING
+THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS, AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES
+IN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS
+
+NON-SECTARIAN           NON-PARTISAN           NON-SECTIONAL
+
+ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOST
+DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE, INCLUDING BRIEF
+INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED
+NARRATIVES, ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY. WITH THOROUGH INDICES,
+BIBLIOGRAPHIES, CHRONOLOGIES. AND COURSES OF READING
+
+EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
+
+ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.
+
+ASSOCIATE EDITORS
+
+CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D.
+
+JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
+
+_With a staff of specialists_
+
+_VOLUME III_
+
+[Illustration: Decorative]
+
+The National Alumni
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1905,
+
+BY THE NATIONAL ALUMNI
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+VOLUME III
+
+                                                           PAGE
+
+_An Outline Narrative of the Great Events_,                  xi
+      CHARLES F. HORNE
+
+_Germanicus in Germany (A.D. 13-16)_,                         1
+      TACITUS
+
+_The Crucifixion (A.D. 30)_,                                 23
+      FREDERIC WILLIAM FARRAR
+
+_The Rise and Spread of Christianity (A.D. 33)_,             40
+      RENAN
+      WISE
+      NEWMAN
+
+_Burning of Rome under Nero (A.D. 64)_,                     108
+      SIENKIEWICZ
+      TACITUS
+
+_Persecution of the Christians under Nero (A.D. 64-68)_,    134
+      FREDERIC WILLIAM FARRAR
+
+_The Great Jewish Revolt_
+_Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem (A.D. 70)_,             150
+      JOSEPHUS
+
+_Destruction of Pompeii (A.D. 79)_,                         207
+      PLINY
+      LYTTON
+
+_The Jews' Last Struggle for Freedom_
+_Their Final Dispersion (A.D. 132)_,                        222
+      CHARLES MERIVALE
+
+_Martyrdom of Polycarp and Justin Martyr_
+_Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians (A.D. 155)_,         231
+      HOMERSHAM COX
+      POLYCARP
+
+_Persecution of the Christians in Gaul (A.D. 177)_,         246
+      FRANÇOIS P. G. GUIZOT
+
+_Beginning of Rome's Decline_
+_Commodus (A.D. 180)_,                                      263
+      EDWARD GIBBON
+
+_Eventful Reign of Sapor I, King of Persia (A.D. 241)_,     277
+      GEORGE RAWLINSON
+
+_Conversion of Constantine_
+_Decline of Paganism (A.D. 300-337)_,                       289
+      JOHANN L. VON MOSHEIM
+
+_First Nicene Council_
+_Rise and Decline of Arianism (A.D. 325)_,                  299
+      JOHANN L. VON MOSHEIM
+      ARTHUR P. STANLEY
+
+_Foundation of Constantinople (A.D. 330)_,                  320
+      EDWARD GIBBON
+
+_Julian the Apostate Becomes Emperor of Rome (A.D. 360)_,   333
+      EDWARD GIBBON
+
+_The Huns and Their Western Migration (A.D. 374-376)_,      352
+      MARCELLINUS
+
+_Final Division of Roman Empire_
+_The Disruptive Intrigues (A.D. 395)_,                      364
+      J. B. BURY
+
+_Universal Chronology (A.D. 13-409)_,                       385
+      JOHN RUDD
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+VOLUME III
+
+                                                                 PAGE
+
+_Famous painting of the head of Jesus Christ_ (_page 23_),
+      By Gabriel Max.                                    Frontispiece
+
+_Queen Thusnelda, wife of Arminius, taken prisoner
+by the soldiers of the Roman general Germanicus_,                  4
+      Painting by H. Koenig.
+
+
+
+
+AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE
+
+TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF
+
+THE GREAT EVENTS
+
+(THE PERIOD OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE)
+
+CHARLES F. HORNE
+
+
+So vast and wonderful a construction was the Roman world, so different
+from our own, that we are apt to imagine it as an arrangement far more
+deliberately planned, far more mechanically complete, than it appeared
+to its own inhabitants.
+
+From a cursory glance, we may carry away wholly mistaken conceptions of
+its thought and purpose. Thus, for instance, the Roman Republic never
+assumed the definite design of conquering the world; its people had only
+the vaguest conception of whither the world might extend. They merely
+quarrelled with their neighbors, defeated and then annexed them.
+
+At almost any time after Hannibal's death, Rome might have marched her
+legions, practically unopposed, over all the lands within her reach. Yet
+she permitted a century and a half to elapse ere Pompey asserted her
+sovereignty over Asia. It was left for Augustus to take the final step,
+and, by absorbing Egypt, make his country become in name what it had
+long been in fact, the ruler of the civilized world.
+
+Thus, too, we think of Augustus as a kindly despot, supreme, and
+governed only by his own will. But his compatriots looked on him as
+simply the chief citizen of their republic. They considered that of
+their own free will, to escape the dangers of further civil war, they
+had chosen to confer upon one man, eminently "safe and sane," all the
+high offices whose holders had previously battled against one another.
+So Augustus was Emperor or Imperator, which meant no more than general
+of the armies of the Republic; he was Consul, or chief civil
+administrator of the Republic; he was Pontifex Maximus, high-priest of
+the Republic. He could have had more titles and offices still if he
+would have accepted them from an obsequious senate.
+
+But the title of "king," so obnoxious to Roman taste, Augustus never
+sought, nor did his successors, who were in turn appointed to all his
+offices. For nearly three centuries after the one-man power had become
+absolute, Rome continued to call itself a republic, to go through forms
+of election and ceremonial, which grew ever more and more meaningless
+and trivial.
+
+Augustus seems to have felt the tremendous weight of his position, and
+to have tried honestly to divide his authority. He invested the
+trembling senate with both power and responsibility. In theory, it
+became as influential as he. But the appointment of its members, and
+also the supreme control of the armies, remained always with the
+Imperator; and thus the senate continued in reality little better than a
+flickering shadow. Under the reign of a well-meaning emperor, it loomed
+large, and often dilated into a very valuable and honorable body. In the
+grip of a tyrant, it sank at once to its true aspect of helpless and
+obsequious submission.
+
+
+THE "ROMAN PEACE"
+
+To the outside world the reign of the emperors was welcome. The
+provinces were governed by salaried officials, whose conduct was
+seriously investigated. The hideous extortions and cruelties of the
+governors sent out in the earlier days of the Republic almost
+disappeared. This milder rule seemed happy in the contrast. An emperor
+might be a brute at home, but his personal cruelties could scarce spread
+over an entire world. Money for even the hugest extravagances of only
+one man, the provinces could supply. At first they scarce felt the
+drain.
+
+For two entire centuries after Augustus had assumed power, the world
+flourished and apparently prospered under the "Roman peace." The ruins
+of Pompeii, the tale of its destruction, show how well and how lazily
+the upper classes and even the masses lived.[1] The legions were scarce
+needed except for petty wars along the frontier. The defeat inflicted by
+the German barbarians was avenged, and the northern wilderness seems to
+have come very near to sharing the fate of Gaul.[2] But the long
+campaigns were costly and apparently valueless. No taxes flowed into the
+treasury from the poor half-subjugated savages; and the emperor Tiberius
+contemptuously declared that he would leave them to fight among
+themselves. Another frontier strife completed the subjugation of Spain.
+Another added Britain to the Empire. Another made temporary conquest
+over Dacia and extended the Asian boundary. There were minor revolts in
+Gaul.
+
+Then the Jews, roused to sudden religious frenzy and believing
+themselves invincible, burst into rebellion.[3] Titus stormed their
+capital and burned their Temple. But the lesson was wasted on the
+stubborn, fanatical race, and sixty years later they flared out again.
+Roman relentlessness was roused to its fullest rage, and accomplished
+against them the destruction of prophecy. Their cities were razed to the
+ground, and the poor remnant of the race were scattered abroad. Yet,
+apparently imperishable, refusing to be merged with other men, they
+remained a people though without a country. They became what they are
+to-day, a nation of wanderers.[4]
+
+One other tumult, more central and in that sense more serious, intruded
+on the Roman system. Just a century after the rise of Augustus, the
+tyrannies of his successor Nero became so unbearable that even his own
+senate turned against him; and he was slain, without having appointed a
+successor. The purely military character of the Empire was at once
+revealed. Different armies each upheld their own general as emperor. The
+claimants attacked one another in turn, and the strongest won. The
+turmoil lasted for only a year or so, just long enough for the distant
+legions to gather around Rome; the bloodshed was nothing as compared to
+former ages; the helpless senate acquiesced in each new proclamation of
+each successful army; and the rest of the world, scarce even jarred in
+its daily course, flowed on as before.
+
+On the whole, then, these two hundred years were one long period of
+peace. It was Augustus who for the first time in centuries closed the
+gates of the war-god's temple in Rome. He encouraged literature, and we
+have the "Augustan" age. He boasted that he found Rome built of bricks,
+and left it of marble. He and his successors did far more than that.
+They constructed roads extending from end to end of their domains.
+Communication became easy; a mail post was established; people began to
+travel for pleasure. The nations of the world intermingled freely, and
+discovered, for the first time on earth, that they were much alike. The
+universal brotherhood of man may be not even yet fully recognized and
+welcomed; but the first step toward its acknowledgment was taken under
+imperial Rome.
+
+
+CHRISTIANITY
+
+This brings us to a very solemn thought. Many earnest men have believed
+that they see a divine Providence running through the whole course of
+history, and nowhere more obvious than here. They point to the careers
+of both Greece and Rome as being a special preparation for the coming of
+the Christ. The mission of Greece, they tell us, was to arouse the mind
+of man, to make him capable of thought and sensitive to spiritual
+beauty; that of Rome was to teach him the value of law and peace, and
+yet more, to draw all men together, that all might have opportunity to
+hear the lessons of the new faith.
+
+Certain it is that at any earlier date it would have seemed practically
+impossible for a religion to spread beyond a single people. Not only was
+communication between the nations faint and intermittent, but they were
+so savage, so suspicious of each other, that a wanderer had to meet them
+weapon in hand. He must have a ship to flee to or an army at his back.
+Now, however, under the restraint of Roman law, strangers met and passed
+without a blow. Latin, the tongue of law, was everywhere partly known.
+Greek was almost equally widespread as the language of art and culture.
+
+The Hebrews, too, had done their share in the work of preparation. They
+had developed the religious sense, beyond any of the Aryan peoples.
+Their religion had become a part, the main part, of their daily lives.
+They believed it, not with the languid logic of the Romans, not with the
+sensuous pleasure of the Greeks, but fiercely, fervidly, with a passion
+that swept all reason to the winds.
+
+Among them appeared the Christ, born in the days of Augustus, crucified
+in those of Tiberius.[5] His teaching was mainly the doctrine of love,
+which Buddha had announced five hundred years before, but which was new
+to the Roman world; and the promise of life beyond the grave, which many
+races had more or less believed in, but which never before had been made
+to carry a vision of such splendor and such glory. He also advocated
+non-resistance to enemies, a principle which the early Church obeyed,
+but which has found small favor among the masses of later Christians.
+
+These teachings, then, were none of them wholly unconceived before; but
+they were enforced by a life so pure, a manner so earnest, as compelled
+respect. Converts became many; and one of these at least took literally
+the command of the Master, to proclaim the faith to all peoples of the
+earth. The apostle Paul, stepping beyond the narrow bounds of Judea,
+preached Christianity to mankind.[6]
+
+Paul was the first great missionary. The earlier faiths of Greece and
+Rome had not sought to extend themselves, because they did not recognize
+the brotherhood of man. The new faith insisted upon this, insisted on
+our duty to our fellows; and so under Paul's leadership every Christian
+became a missionary, teaching, uplifting the downtrodden, giving them
+hope, not of this world, but of an infinitely brighter one. The faith
+spread faster than ever world conquest had been spread before. Scarce a
+generation after the Crucifixion it had permeated the Empire, and Nero,
+to divert from himself the suspicion of having burned Rome, accused the
+Christians.[7]
+
+This led to their first persecution. They were tortured as a punishment
+and to extort confession. Most of them stood nobly by their doctrine of
+non-resistance, and endured heroically a martyrdom which they looked on
+as opening the gates of heaven.[8]
+
+Their devotion drew to them the first serious notice of the Roman
+authorities. Hitherto they had been regarded merely as a sect among the
+Jews. But now, with reluctant admiration of their courage, there came
+also a recognition of their rapid growth and a suspicion of their
+motives. The Romans could not understand such devotion to a mere
+religion; and they always feared lest the faith was something more, a
+cloak for nameless crimes, or a secret conspiracy of rebellion among
+their slaves, who would some day turn and rend them.
+
+Thus while Nero's attack on the Christians was in a sense an accident,
+the blind rush of a half-crazed beast, the later persecutions were often
+directed by serious and well-intentioned emperors and magistrates. The
+Romans were far from being intolerant. They had interfered very little
+with the religions of their subject races, and had, indeed, adopted more
+than one foreign god into their own temples. They were quite willing
+that the Christ should be worshipped. What they could not understand was
+that reverence to one god should forbid reverence to another.
+
+It was the new religion which was intolerant, which, in the passionate
+intensity of its faith, attacked the old gods, denied their existence,
+or declared them devils. When a man was summoned before a Roman court on
+the charge of being a Christian, he was not, as a rule, asked to deny
+Christ; only, there being a general impression that his sect was evil,
+he was required to prove his honest citizenship and general good
+character by doing reverence to the Roman gods.[9]
+
+In spite of persecution, some writers say because of it, Christianity
+spread. Toward the end of the first two hundred years of the Empire, it
+seemed about the only prosperous institution in a world which was
+beginning to go badly. During the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the last of
+the "good" emperors (161-180), troubles, some accidental, some inherent
+in the Roman system, were gathering very dark.
+
+The curse of inaction, of wealth without liberty, of intellect without a
+goal to strive toward, had long been corrupting the upper classes. Now,
+a terrible plague swept the world from end to end, so that laborers
+became scarce, lands went untenanted, taxes unpaid. The drain of
+supporting Rome's boundless extravagance, in buildings, feasts, and
+gladiatorial displays, began to tell upon the provinces at last. Newer
+and ever harsher methods had to be employed to wring money from
+exhausted lands. Driven by their sufferings to cling to religion as a
+support, men thought of it more seriously; and a cry went up that earth
+was being punished for its neglect and insult of the ancient gods. The
+Christians were persecuted anew.[10]
+
+
+THE PERIOD OF DECAY
+
+The reign of Commodus,[11] son of Marcus Aurelius, marks the beginning
+of a century which sank almost into anarchy. He was murdered, and his
+guards auctioned the Empire to the highest bidder. Once more the legions
+fought against each other and placed their generals upon the throne.
+During ninety-two years there were twenty-five emperors fully
+acknowledged, besides a far larger number of claimants who were
+overthrown before Rome had time to hear of and salute them. The Imperial
+city was no longer mistress of the world; she was only its capital, as
+feeble and helpless as the other cities, which these unstable emperors
+began at times to favor in her stead.
+
+The barbarians also, who through all these ages were growing stronger
+while Rome grew weaker, became ever a more serious menace. The internal
+disorder of the Empire left its frontiers often unguarded. The Germans
+plundered Gaul in the West, the Persians ravaged Asia in the East. In
+fact, so comparatively strong had the Persians grown that one emperor,
+venturing against them, was defeated and captured, and lived out his
+miserable life a Persian slave. Rome could not rescue him.[12]
+
+In the year 284 there came to the front an emperor "of iron,"
+Diocletian. He did what Augustus had done three centuries before,
+re-formed and recast the government of the world. The last empty
+ceremonies of the Republic were discarded. Even the pretence of Rome's
+leadership was brushed aside. The Empire was divided into four
+districts, each with a capital of its own, and Diocletian selected three
+other generals to share its rule with him. He and his colleagues
+restored the long-lost peace. They chastised the barbarians.
+Diocletian's reforms saved the Roman fabric from what seemed inevitable
+extinction, and enabled it to exist in some shape for almost another two
+hundred years.
+
+His system of division did not, however, save the Empire from civil
+wars. No sooner was his restraining hand removed than his colleagues
+fought among themselves, until Constantine overthrew his antagonists and
+once more united the entire Empire. Constantine became a Christian.[13]
+
+It has been repeatedly asserted that his conversion was one of policy
+rather than belief; and there could be no stronger evidence of the
+changed position of the new faith. Diocletian had ordered a persecution
+against it, the last and most terrible which its martyrs suffered. But
+all that was best and most energetic and most living in the moribund
+Empire seemed to have gathered round the Church. The persecution did but
+emphasize its worth and influence.
+
+Constantine did not force his followers to change their beliefs with
+him; but he encouraged and rewarded those who did. Under him was held
+the first general council of the faith. The bishops gathered from all
+the different cities of the world to compare ideas and settle more
+exactly the doctrines to be taught. Christianity stepped out from its
+hiding-place and supplanted paganism as the state religion of the
+Empire.[14]
+
+As though the unimportance of Rome were not thus sufficiently
+established, Constantine abandoned the decaying capital altogether, and
+built himself a new city, Constantinople, at the junction of Europe and
+Asia. This became the centre of the changing world. Built upon the site
+of an old Greek colony, it was almost wholly Greek, not only in the
+nationality of the people who flocked to it, but in the manners of the
+court which Constantine created around him, in the art of its
+decorators, in the language of its streets.[15] The Empire remained
+Roman only in name. The might of a thousand years had made that name a
+magic spell, had sunk its restraining influence deep in the minds of
+men. It was not lightly to be thrown aside.
+
+Julian, a nephew of Constantine, who after an interval succeeded him
+upon the throne, abandoned the adopted religion of his family, and tried
+to revive paganism.[16] Julian was a powerful and clever man; he seems
+also to have been an honest and an earnest one. But he could not turn
+back the current of the world. He could not make shallow speculation
+take the place of earnest faith. Altruism, the spirit of brotherhood,
+which was the animating force of Christianity, might and later somewhat
+did lose itself amid the sands of selfishness; but it could not be
+combated by one man with a chance preference for egotism.
+
+Julian turned to a worthier purpose. He died fighting the barbarians.
+These, held back for a time by Diocletian and Constantine, were
+recommencing their ravages with renewed force. And now a change comes
+over the character of the invasions. Hitherto they had been mere raids
+for plunder; but now a huge, far-reaching, racial movement was in
+progress.
+
+From the distant plains of Asia came the vanguard of the Huns, a race of
+horsemen, whose swift steeds enabled them to scatter or concentrate at
+will around slower-paced opponents.[17] The Huns swept over Southern
+Russia, then occupied by the Goths, the most civilized of the Teutonic
+tribes. The Goths, finding themselves helpless against the active and
+fierce marauders, moved onward in their turn. They crossed the Danube,
+not as a raiding troop, but as an entire nation, and, half begging, half
+demanding a place of refuge, they penetrated into the world of
+civilization. With them came fearful stories of the Huns; but these
+latter, sweeping off in another direction, failed for a while to follow
+up the fugitives.
+
+As for the Goths, after they had defeated and slain one emperor, they
+were given lands and temporarily subdued by Theodosius the Great, the
+last ruler to hold the entire Roman domain. In 395 Theodosius, dying,
+divided his possessions, quite like a hereditary monarch, between his
+two sons, both mere boys.[18] To the elder he gave Constantinople and
+the East, to the younger Rome and the West. So instead of one kingdom
+there were two. Partly through its own disorganization, partly from the
+pressure of the barbarians, the Roman world had burst and fallen into
+halves. These proved two very helpless and feeble halves in the hands of
+their boy rulers; and the eager Teutons, finding themselves no longer
+withheld, began that remarkable series of plundering invasions by which
+they overwhelmed the ancient world.
+
+
+[FOR THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS GENERAL SURVEY SEE VOLUME IV.]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] See _Destruction of Pompeii_, page 207.
+
+[2] See _Germanicus in Germany_, page 1.
+
+[3] See _Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem_, page 150.
+
+[4] See _Jews' Last Struggle for Freedom_, page 222.
+
+[5] See _The Crucifixion_, page 23.
+
+[6] See _Rise and Spread of Christianity_, page 40.
+
+[7] See _Burning of Rome under Nero_, page 108.
+
+[8] See _Persecution of the Christians under Nero_, page 134.
+
+[9] See _Martyrdom of Polycarp and Justin Martyr_, page 231.
+
+[10] See _Persecutions of Christians in Gaul_, page 246.
+
+[11] See _Beginning of Rome's Decline_, page 263.
+
+[12] See _Eventful Reign of Sapor I, King of Persia_, page 277.
+
+[13] See _Conversion of Constantine_, page 289.
+
+[14] See _First Nicene Council_, page 297.
+
+[15] See _Foundation of Constantinople_, page 320.
+
+[16] See _Julian the Apostate_, page 333.
+
+[17] See _The Huns and Their Western Migration_, page 352.
+
+[18] See _Final Division of the Roman Empire_, page 364.
+
+
+
+
+GERMANICUS IN GERMANY
+
+A.D. 13-16
+
+TACITUS
+
+     When the Germans first became known to the Romans--about B.C.
+     112--they showed themselves as warlike tribes along the northern
+     borders of Italy and in various parts of Gaul, where Cæsar
+     afterward had frequent encounters with them, driving them across
+     the Rhine into their own country. But Cæsar's knowledge of them was
+     confined to those tribes whose dwellings were near the Rhine,
+     beyond which he did not pursue them.
+
+     Augustus fortified against the Germans along the Rhine, and Drusus,
+     his step-son, took command against them, defeating them in several
+     expeditions (B.C. 13-9). As a reward, he received for himself and
+     his posterity the surname of Germanicus, conqueror of Germany. He
+     died at the age of thirty.
+
+     His son, Germanicus, born B.C. 14, was sent, in A.D. 12, to command
+     the forces on the Rhine. After quelling serious mutinies among his
+     legions he crossed the Rhine and attacked and routed some of the
+     German tribes who had been actively aggressive against the Romans.
+     During the following year he defeated other tribes, and after his
+     return across the Rhine he was persuaded by Segestes to aid him
+     against his son-in-law Arminius (the Latin name for Herman), by
+     whom Segestes was besieged and who, according to Tacitus, became in
+     the end the deliverer of Germany from the power of the Romans. But
+     before he was able to render this service to the German peoples he
+     had many hardships to endure, and at the hands of Germanicus he met
+     with severe reverses.
+
+     Arminius had defeated Varus, who, by reason of that disgrace,
+     killed himself (A.D. 10), and the despatch of Germanicus to command
+     the German legions was ordered in the first instance to revenge the
+     overthrow of his predecessor. Although it required several
+     campaigns, the work of Germanicus was so effectual that he withdrew
+     in the end, at the command of Tiberius, with advantage on his side,
+     and, returning to Rome, enjoyed a triumph (A.D. 17). His name is
+     preserved in history, alike for his military talents and services,
+     for his attainments in literary pursuits, and his nobleness of
+     mind.
+
+
+In the consulship of Drusus Cæsar and Caius Norbanus a triumph was
+decreed to Germanicus; the war continuing. He was preparing with all
+diligence to prosecute it in the summer, but anticipated it by a sudden
+irruption early in the spring into the territories of the Cattians: for
+he had conceived a hope that the enemy was divided into opposite parties
+under Arminius and Segestes, both remarkable for perfidy or fidelity
+toward us: Arminius was the incendiary of Germany, but Segestes had
+given repeated warning of an intended revolt at other times and during
+the banquet immediately preceding the insurrection, and advised Varus
+"to secure him and Arminius and all the other chiefs; that the
+multitude, bereft of their leaders, would not dare to attempt anything;
+and Varus would have an opportunity to separate the guilty from the
+innocent." But fate decreed it, and he was slain by Arminius. Segestes,
+though drawn into the war by the universal agreement of the nation in
+it, yet continued to disapprove of it; his detestation being augmented
+by motives of a domestic nature, for Arminius had carried away the
+daughter of Segestes, already betrothed to another: the son-in-law
+hated, the fathers-in-law were at enmity; and those relations which are
+bonds of affection between friends fomented the animosities of enemies.
+
+Germanicus therefore handed over to Cæcina four legions, five thousand
+auxiliaries, and some tumultuous bands of Germans who dwelt on this side
+the Rhine; he led, himself, as many legions, with double the number of
+allies, and erecting a fort in Mount Taunus, upon the site of one raised
+by his father, he pushed on in light marching order against the
+Cattians; having left Lucius Apronius to secure the roads and the
+rivers, for, as the roads were dry and the rivers within bounds--events
+in that climate of rare occurrence--he had found no check in his rapid
+march, but on his return apprehended the violent rains and floods. He
+fell upon the Cattians with such surprise that all the weak (through sex
+or age) were instantly taken or slaughtered. The young men swam over the
+Adrana and endeavored to obstruct the Romans, who commenced building a
+bridge; then, repulsed by engines and arrows and having in vain tried
+terms of peace--after some had gone over to Germanicus--the rest
+abandoned their cantons and villages and dispersed themselves into the
+woods. Mattium, the capital of the nation, he burned, ravaged the open
+country, and bent his march to the Rhine; nor durst the enemy harass his
+rear, which is their custom whenever they have fled, more from craft
+than fear. The Cheruscans had purposed to assist the Cattians, but were
+deterred by Cæcina, who moved about with his forces from place to place;
+and the Marsians, who dared to engage him, he checked by a victory.
+
+Soon after arrived deputies from Segestes, praying relief against the
+violence of his countrymen, by whom he was besieged; Arminius having
+more influence with them than himself, because he advised war, for with
+barbarians the more resolute in daring a man is the more he is trusted
+and preferred in times of commotion. To the deputies Segestes had added
+Segimund, his son; but the young man hesitated from self-conviction; for
+the year when Germany revolted, having been created priest at the Ubian
+altar, he had rent the fillets and fled to the revolters: yet, induced
+to rely upon Roman clemency, he undertook the execution of his father's
+orders, was graciously received, and conducted with a guard to the
+Gallic bank of the Rhine. Germanicus thought it worth while to march
+back, fought the besiegers, and rescued Segestes with a numerous train
+of his relations and followers, in which were ladies of illustrious
+rank, and among them the wife of Arminius--the same who was the daughter
+of Segestes--with a spirit more like that of her husband than her
+father; neither subdued to tears, nor uttering the language of
+supplication, but her hands folded within her bosom, and her eyes fixed
+upon her teeming womb. There were, likewise, carried off the spoils
+taken at the slaughter of Varus and his army, and given as booty to most
+of those who then surrendered.
+
+At the same time appeared Segestes himself, of vast stature, and
+undaunted in the consciousness of his fidelity. In this manner he spoke:
+"This is not the first day that I have approved my faith and constancy
+to the Roman people: from the moment I was by the deified Augustus
+presented with the freedom of the city I have chosen my friends and
+enemies with reference to your interests, and that not from hatred of my
+country--for odious are traitors even to the party they prefer--but,
+because the interests of the Romans and Germans were the same, and
+because I was inclined to peace rather than war. For this reason, before
+Varus, the then general, I arraigned Arminius, the ravisher of my
+daughter and the violator of the league with you. Put off, from the
+supineness of the general, and seeing there was little protection in the
+laws, I importuned him to throw into irons myself and Arminius and his
+accomplices: witness that night--to me I would rather it had been the
+last! More to be lamented than defended are the events which followed.
+However, I cast Arminius into irons, and was myself cast into irons by
+his faction: and now, on the first opportunity of conferring with you, I
+prefer old things to new, peace to turbulence; and at the same time I
+might be a fitting mediator for the German nation, with no view of
+reward, but to clear myself of perfidy, if they would rather repent than
+be destroyed. For the youth and inexperience of my son I implore pardon.
+I admit my daughter has been brought into this state by constraint; it
+will be yours to consider which should preponderate with you--that she
+is the wife of Arminius or the daughter of Segestes." The answer of
+Germanicus was gracious: he promised indemnity to his children, and
+kindred, and to himself, as a retreat, a place called "Vetera," in the
+province; then returned with his army, and by the direction of Tiberius
+received the title of _Imperator_.
+
+[Illustration: Queen Thusnelda, wife of Arminius, taken prisoner by the
+soldiers of the Roman general Germanicus
+
+Painting by H. Koenig]
+
+The account circulated of the surrender of Segestes, and his gracious
+reception, affected his countrymen with hope or anguish as they were
+severally prone or averse to the war. Acting upon a temper naturally
+violent, the captivity of his wife and the child in her womb subjected
+to bondage drove Arminius to distraction: he flew about among the
+Cheruscans, calling them to arms against Segestes, against Germanicus;
+nor did he refrain from invectives--"An excellent father! a great
+general; a valiant army, whose many hands had carried off one bit of a
+woman! That before him three legions fell, three lieutenants-general;
+for his method of carrying on war was not by treason nor against
+pregnant women, but openly, against armed hosts. That the Roman
+standards were still to be seen in the German groves, there suspended by
+him to his country's gods. Segestes might live upon the vanquished bank;
+he might get the priesthood restored to his son; but the Germans would
+ever regard the fellow as the guilty cause of their having seen between
+the Elbe and Rhine rods and axes and the toga. That to other nations who
+know not the Roman domination, executions and tributes were unknown;
+and as they had thrown them off, and as Augustus (he who was enrolled
+with the gods) had retreated without accomplishing his object, and
+Tiberius, his chosen successor, let them not dread an inexperienced
+stripling and a mutinous army. If they preferred their country, their
+parents, and their ancient possessions, to masters and new settlements,
+they should follow Arminius, who led them to glory and liberty, rather
+than Segestes, who conducted them to infamous servitude."
+
+By these means not the Cheruscans only were roused, but the bordering
+nations; and Inguiomer, paternal uncle to Arminius, a man long in high
+credit with the Romans, was drawn into the confederacy. Hence Germanicus
+became more alarmed, and to prevent the war falling upon him with
+unbroken force, sent Cæcina with forty Roman cohorts to the river
+Amisia, through the territories of the Bructerians, to effect a division
+in the army of the enemy. Pedo, the prefect, led the cavalry along the
+confines of the Frisians; he himself, embarking four legions, sailed
+through the lakes; and at the aforesaid river the whole body met--foot,
+horse, and fleet. The Chaucians, upon offering their assistance, were
+taken into the service; but the Bructerians, setting fire to their
+effects and dwellings, were routed by Lucius Stertinius, despatched
+against them by Germanicus with a band lightly armed. And amid the
+carnage and plunder he found the eagle of the Nineteenth legion lost in
+the overthrow of Varus. The army marched next to the farthest borders of
+the Bructerians, and the whole country between the rivers Amisia and
+Luppia was laid waste. Not far hence lay the forest of Teutoburgium, and
+in it the bones of Varus and the legions, by report, still unburied.
+
+Germanicus, therefore, conceived a desire to pay the last offices to the
+legions and their leader; while the whole of the army present were moved
+to deep commiseration for their kinsmen and friends, and generally for
+the calamities of war and the condition of humanity. Cæcina having been
+sent before to explore the gloomy recesses of the forest, and to lay
+bridges and causeways over the watery portions of the morasses and
+insecure places in the plains, they enter the doleful scene, hideous in
+appearance and association. The first camp of Varus appeared in view.
+The extent of ground and the measurement of the _principia_ left no
+doubt that the whole was the work of three legions. After that a
+half-decayed rampart with a shallow foss, where their remains, now sadly
+reduced, were understood to have sunk down. In the intervening portion
+of the plain were whitening bones, either scattered or accumulated,
+according as they had fled or had made a stand. Near them lay fragments
+of javelins and limbs of horses. There were also skulls fixed upon the
+trunks of trees. In the adjacent groves were the savage altars, where
+they had immolated the tribunes and centurions of the first rank. Those
+who survived the slaughter, having escaped from captivity and the sword,
+related the sad particulars to the rest: "Here the commanders of the
+legions were slain; there we lost the eagles; here Varus had his first
+wound; there he gave himself another, and perished by his own unhappy
+hand. In that place, too, stood the tribunal whence Arminius harangued.
+How many gibbets he erected for the execution of his captives; what
+trenches he dug; and how, in proud scorn, he made a mock at the
+standards and eagles."
+
+The Roman army which was on the spot buried the bones of the three
+legions six years after the slaughter: nor could anyone distinguish
+whether he buried the remains of a stranger or of a kinsman; but all
+considered the whole as friends, as relations, with heightened
+resentment against the foe, at once sad and revengeful. Germanicus laid
+the first sod used in raising a tomb, thus rendering a most acceptable
+service to the dead, and showing that he shared the sorrows of the
+living, a proceeding not liked by Tiberius; whether it were that upon
+every action of Germanicus he put a malignant construction, or that he
+believed that the impression produced by the sight of the unburied slain
+would dampen the ardor of the army for battle and inspire them with fear
+of the enemy. He also said that "A general invested with the office of
+augur and the most ancient religious functions ought not to have put his
+hand to the ceremonies of the dead."
+
+Arminius, retiring into pathless places, was pursued by Germanicus, who,
+as soon as he reached him, commanded the horse to advance and dislodge
+the enemy from the post he had possessed. Arminius, having directed his
+men to keep close together and draw near to the wood, wheeled suddenly
+about, and to those whom he had hid in the forest gave the signal to
+rush out. Then the Roman horse were thrown into disorder by the assault
+of a new army, and the cohorts sent out to support them, broken in upon
+by the body of troops that fled, had augmented the consternation, and
+were now being pushed into the morass--a place well known to the
+pursuers, but dangerous to those unacquainted with it--had not
+Germanicus drawn out the legions in order of battle. Hence the enemy
+became terrified, our men reanimated, and both retired without advantage
+on either side. Germanicus, soon after, returning with the army to the
+Amisia, reconducted the legions, as he had brought them, in the fleet;
+part of the horse were ordered to march along the sea-shore to the
+Rhine. Cæcina, who led his own men, was warned that, though he was to
+return through well-known roads, yet he should with all speed pass the
+causeway called the Long Bridges. It is a narrow causeway, between vast
+marshes, and formerly raised by Lucius Domitius. The rest of the country
+is of a moist nature, either tough and sticky from a heavy kind of clay
+or dangerous from the streams which intersect it. Round about are woods
+which rise gently from the plain, which at that time were filled with
+soldiers by Arminius, who, by short cuts and quick marching, had arrived
+there before our men, who were loaded with arms and baggage. Cæcina, who
+was perplexed how at once to repair the causeway decayed by time and to
+repulse the foe, resolved to encamp in the place, that while some were
+employed in the work, others might begin the fight.
+
+The barbarians, having made a vigorous effort to break through the
+outposts and fall upon those employed in the works, harass the troops,
+march round them, and throw themselves in their way. A mingled shout
+arose from the workmen and the combatants; all things equally combined
+to distress the Romans--the place deep with ooze, sinking under those
+who stood, slippery to such as advanced; their bodies were encumbered
+with their coats of mail, nor could they hurl their javelins in the
+midst of water. The Cheruscans, on the contrary, were inured to
+encounters in the bogs: their persons tall; their spears long, so as to
+wound at a distance. At last the legions, already giving way, were saved
+from defeat by the approach of night; the Germans not feeling fatigue on
+account of their success, without refreshing themselves with sleep, even
+then diverted all the courses of the springs which rise in the
+neighboring mountains into the plains; thus the ground being flooded,
+and the work, as far as they had carried it, overturned, the soldiers
+had all to do over again. Cæcina, who had served forty years, either
+under others or in command, was experienced in the vicissitudes of war,
+prosperous or disastrous, and thence undaunted. Weighing, therefore, all
+probabilities, he could devise no other expedient than that of
+restraining the enemy to the wood until he had sent forward all the
+wounded and baggage; for between the mountains and the marshes there
+stretched a plain large enough to admit a small army. To this purpose
+the legions selected were: The Fifth, for the right wing, and
+Twenty-first, for the left; the soldiers of the First legion to lead the
+van of the Twentieth to oppose the pursuers.
+
+It was a restless night to both armies, but from different causes. The
+barbarians, with festive carousals, songs of triumph, or horrid cries,
+filled the vales below and echoing wood. Among the Romans were feeble
+fires, low broken murmurs; they leaned, drooping here and there, against
+the pales, or wandered about the tents, more like men wanting sleep than
+quite awake. The general, too, was alarmed by direful visions during his
+sleep; he thought he heard, and saw, Quintilius Varus, rising out of the
+marsh, all besmeared with blood, stretching forth his hand and calling
+upon him, but that he rejected the call, and pushed back his hand as he
+held it toward him. At break of day the legions, posted on the wings,
+whether from perverseness or fear, deserted their post and took sudden
+possession of a field beyond the bogs; neither did Arminius fall
+straight upon them, though they lay open to assault; but when the
+baggage was set fast in the mire and ditches, the soldiers about it in
+disorder, the order of the standards confounded, and--as usual at such a
+time--each man acting hastily for himself, when the ears are slow to
+catch the word of command, he then commanded his Germans to charge,
+exclaiming vehemently, "Behold! Varus and his legions again subdued by
+the same fate!" Thus he cried, and instantly, with a select body, broke
+through the mass, and chiefly against the horse directed his weapons.
+Floundering in their own blood and the slippery soil of the marsh, they
+threw their riders, overturned all they met, and trampled on those that
+were on the ground. The greatest distress was around the eagles, which
+could neither be carried against a shower of darts nor be planted in the
+slimy ground. Cæcina, while he sustained the fight, had his horse shot
+and, having fallen, would have been overpowered had not the First legion
+come up to succor him. Our relief came from the greediness of the enemy,
+who ceased slaying, to seize the spoil. And the legions, as the day
+closed in, by great exertion got into the open and firm ground. Nor was
+this the end of their miseries; a palisade was to be raised, an
+intrenchment digged; their instruments, too, for throwing up and
+carrying earth, and their tools for cutting turf, were almost all lost.
+No tents for the soldiers; no remedies for the wounded. While dividing
+among them their food, defiled with mire or blood, they lamented that
+mournful night; they lamented the approaching day, to so many thousand
+men the last.
+
+It happened that a horse which had broken his fastenings and, as he
+strayed about, become frightened by a noise, had run over some that were
+in his way. This raised such a consternation in the camp--from a
+persuasion that the Germans had forced an entrance--that all rushed to
+the gates, especially to the postern,[19] as the farthest from the foe
+and safer for flight. Cæcina having ascertained that there was no cause
+for alarm, but unable to stop them or hold them back, either by his
+authority or prayers or even by force, prostrated himself on the
+threshold of the gate; and thus at length by appealing to their
+humanity--for if they proceeded it must be over the body of the
+general--he blocked the passage, and the tribunes and centurions
+satisfied them the while that it was a false alarm.
+
+Then assembling them in the court, and desiring them to hear him with
+silence, he warned them of their difficulties, and their duty under
+them: "That their sole hope of safety was in their valor, but that must
+be guided by counsel; that they must keep close within their camp till
+the enemy, in hopes of taking it by storm, came up nearer to them; then
+make a sudden sally on every side, that by this sally they might make
+good their way to the Rhine; but if they fled, more forests, deeper
+marshes, and the fierce attack of the foe still remained to them; but
+that if they conquered, honor and renown awaited them." He reminded them
+of all that was dear to them at home, and the rewards to be obtained in
+the camp, but suppressed all mention of defeat. He next distributed
+horses, first his own, then those of the tribunes and leaders of the
+legions, to all the bravest warriors, without any flattery, that these
+first, and afterward the infantry, might charge the enemy.
+
+The Germans were in no less agitation from hope, eagerness, and the
+opposite counsels of their leaders. Arminius proposed "To let them march
+out, and to beset them again in their way when they got into marshes and
+difficult passes." Inguiomer advised measures more resolute and
+acceptable to barbarians--"To invest the camp; it would be quickly
+captured; there would be more captives, and the plunder uninjured." As
+soon therefore as it was light, they level the ditch, cast hurdles into
+it, attempt to scale the palisade, there being but few men on the
+rampart, and those who were, standing as if paralyzed by fear. But when
+they were hampered in the fortifications, the signal was given to the
+cohorts; the cornets and trumpets sounded at once, and instantly,
+shouting and charging, they poured down upon their rear, telling them
+tauntingly "that there were no thickets, no marshes, but equal chances
+in a fair field." The enemy, expecting an easy conquest, and that the
+Romans were few and half-armed, were overpowered with the sounds of
+trumpets and glitter of arms, which were then magnified in proportion as
+they were unexpected; and they fell like men who, as they are void of
+moderation in prosperity, are also destitute of conduct in distress.
+Arminius fled from the fight unhurt, Inguiomer severely wounded. The men
+were slaughtered as long as day and rage lasted. At length, at night,
+the legions returned, and though distressed by the same want of
+provisions and more wounds, yet in victory they found all
+things--health, vigor, and abundance.
+
+Meanwhile a report had spread that an army was cut off, and a body of
+Germans on full march to invade Gaul; so that, under the terror of this
+news, there were those whose cowardice would have emboldened them to
+demolish the bridge upon the Rhine, had not Agrippina forbidden the
+infamous attempt. This high-minded woman took upon herself all the
+duties of a general, and distributed to the soldiers, gratuitously,
+medicines and clothes, according as anyone was in want or wounded. Caius
+Plinius, the writer of the German wars, relates that she stood at the
+head of the bridge as the legions returned, and bestowed on them thanks
+and praises; a behavior which sunk deep into the heart of Tiberius, for
+these attentions he thought were not disinterested; nor was it against
+foreigners she sought to win the army; for nothing was now left the
+generals to do, when a woman paid her visits of inspection to the
+companies, attended the standards, and presumed to distribute largesses;
+as if before she had shown but small tokens of ambitious designs in
+carrying her child (the son of the general) in a soldier's uniform
+about the camp and desiring that he be styled Cæsar Caligula.
+Already Agrippina was in greater credit with the army than the
+lieutenants-general, or even the generals--a woman had suppressed a
+sedition which the authority of the Emperor was not able to restrain.
+These jealousies were inflamed and ministered to by Sejanus, who was
+well acquainted with the temper of Tiberius, and supplied him with
+materials for hatred, prospectively, that he might treasure them up in
+his heart and draw them out augmented in bitterness.
+
+Germanicus handed over the Second and Fourteenth of the legions, which
+he had brought in ships, to Publius Vitellius to conduct them by land,
+that his fleet, thus lightened, might sail on the shoally sea, or run
+aground with safety when the tide ebbed. Vitellius at first marched
+without interruption while the ground was dry or the tide flowed within
+bounds. Presently the ocean beginning to swell by the action of the
+northwest wind upon it, and also by the influence of the equinoxial
+constellation--at which season the sea swells most--the troops were
+miserably harassed and driven about. The lands were completely
+inundated; the sea, the shore, the fields, had one uniform face: no
+distinction of depths from shallows, of firm from treacherous footing;
+they were overturned by billows, absorbed by the eddies; beasts of
+burden, baggage, and dead bodies floated among them and came in contact
+with them. The several companies were mixed at random, wading now breast
+high, now up to their chin; sometimes, the ground failing them, they
+fell, some never more to rise. Their cries and mutual encouragements
+availed them nothing; the noise of the water drowning them; no
+difference between the coward and the brave, the wise and the foolish;
+none between circumspection and hap-hazard, but all were involved in the
+sweeping torrent. Vitellius at length, having by great exertion gained
+the higher ground, withdrew the legions thither, where they passed the
+night without fire and without food, many of them naked or lamed, not
+less miserable than men enclosed by an enemy--for even such had the
+resource of an honorable death, while these must perish ingloriously.
+Daylight restored the land, and they marched to the river Unsingis,
+whither Germanicus had gone with the fleet. The legions were then
+embarked, while rumor reported that they were sunk; nor was their escape
+believed until Germanicus and the army were seen to return.
+
+Stertinius, who had been sent before to receive the submission of
+Sigimer, the brother of Segestes, had now brought him and his son to the
+city of the Ubians; both were pardoned, the father promptly, the son
+with more hesitation, because he was said to have insulted the corpse of
+Varus. For the rest, Spain, Italy, and the Gauls vied in supplying the
+losses of the army, offering arms, horses, money, whatever each had at
+hand. Germanicus, applauding their zeal, accepted only the horses and
+arms for the war; with his own money he assisted the soldiers; and, to
+soften by kindness also the memory of the late disaster, he visited the
+wounded, extolled the exploits of individuals, and, looking at their
+wounds, with hopes encouraged some, with a sense of glory animated
+others, and by affability and attention confirmed them all in devotion
+to himself and to his service. Between the Romans and the Cheruscans
+flowed the river Visurgis. On its bank stood Arminius, with the other
+chiefs, inquiring whether Germanicus was come; and being answered that
+he was there, he prayed leave to speak with his brother. This brother of
+his was in the army, his name Flavius, remarkable for his fidelity, and
+for the loss of an eye under Tiberius. Permission was then granted.
+Flavius, advancing, was saluted by Arminius, who having removed his own
+attendants, requested that the archers ranged upon our bank might
+retire. When they were gone--"How came you," he asked his brother, "by
+that deformity in your face?" The brother having informed him where and
+in what fight, he desired to know "what reward he had received"? Flavius
+answered, "Increase of pay, the chain, the crown, and other military
+gifts"; which Arminius treated with derision, as the vile wages of
+servitude.
+
+After that they began in different strains. Flavius urged "the Roman
+greatness, the power of Cæsar, the severe punishment inflicted on the
+vanquished; and the clemency vouchsafed to those who submitted; that
+neither the wife nor son of Arminius was treated as a captive." Arminius
+to this opposed "the claims of country, their hereditary liberty, the
+domestic gods of Germany; their mother, who joined in his prayer that he
+would not prefer the character of a deserter, and a betrayer of his
+kinsmen and connections, in short, of his race, to that of their
+general." From this they gradually proceeded to invectives; nor would
+the interposition of the river have restrained them from an encounter,
+had not Stertinius, running to him, held back Flavius, full of rage and
+calling for his arms and his horse. On the opposite side was seen
+Arminius, menacing furiously and proclaiming battle. For most of what he
+said in this dialogue was in Latin, having, as the general of his
+countrymen, served in the Roman camp.
+
+Next day the German army stood in order of battle beyond the Visurgis.
+Germanicus, who thought it became not a general to endanger the legions
+in the passage without bridges and guards, made the horse ford over.
+They were led by Stertinius and Æmilius, one of the principal
+centurions, who entered the river at distant places to divide the
+attention of the foe. Cariovalda, captain of the Batavians, dashed
+through where the stream was most rapid, and was by the Cheruscans--who
+feigned flight--drawn into a plain surrounded by woods. Then starting up
+at once, and pouring upon him on every side, they overthrew those who
+resisted, and pressed after those who gave way, who at length, forming
+themselves into a circle, were assailed by some hand-to-hand, by others
+were annoyed by missiles. Cariovalda, having long sustained the fury of
+the enemy, exhorted his men to break through the assailing bands in a
+solid body; he himself charged into the thickest, and fell under a
+shower of darts--his horse also being killed--and many nobles fell
+around him. The rest were saved by their own bravery, or by the cavalry
+under Stertinius and Æmilius, which came up to their assistance.
+
+Germanicus, having passed the Visurgis, learned from a deserter that
+Arminius had marked out the place of battle; that more tribes also had
+joined him at a wood sacred to Hercules, and would attempt to storm our
+camp by night. The deserter was believed, the enemy's fires were in
+view, and the scouts, having advanced toward them, reported that they
+heard the neighing of horses and the murmur of a mighty and tumultuous
+host. Being thus upon the eve of a decisive battle, Germanicus thought
+it behooved him to learn the sentiments of the soldiers, and deliberated
+with himself how to get at the truth; "the reports of the tribunes and
+centurions were oftener agreeable than true; the freedmen had servile
+spirits; friends were apt to flatter; if an assembly were called, there,
+too, the counsel proposed by a few was carried by the clamorous plaudits
+of the rest. The minds of soldiers could, then, only be thoroughly known
+when, by themselves, free from all restraint, and over their mess, they
+gave unreserved utterance to their hopes and fears."
+
+At nightfall, taking the path leading by the place of divination,[20] he
+went out with a single attendant, a deerskin covering his shoulders,[21]
+and proceeding by a secret way where there were no sentinels, entered
+the avenues of the camp, stationed himself near the tents, and eagerly
+listened to what was said of himself, while one magnified the imperial
+birth of his general, another his graceful person, very many his
+firmness, condescension, and the evenness of his temper, whether
+seriously occupied or in moments of relaxation; and they confessed that
+their sense of his merits should be shown in battle, protesting at the
+same time that those traitors and violators of peace should be made a
+sacrifice to vengeance and to fame. In the mean time one of the enemy
+who understood Latin rode up to the palisades, and with a loud voice
+offered, in the name of Arminius, to every deserter a wife and land,
+and, as long as the war lasted, a hundred sesterces a day. This affront
+kindled the wrath of the legions. "Let day come," they cried, "battle
+should be given, the soldiers would themselves take the lands of the
+Germans, lead away wives by right of conquest; they, however, welcomed
+the omen, and considered the wealth and women of the enemy their
+destined prey." About the third watch[22] an attempt was made upon the
+camp, but not a dart was discharged, as they found the cohorts planted
+thick upon the works, and nothing neglected that was necessary for a
+vigorous defence.
+
+Germanicus had the same night a cheering dream: he thought he
+sacrificed, and, in place of his own robe besmeared with the blood of
+the victim, received one fairer from the hands of his grandmother
+Augusta. Elated by the omen, and the auspices being favorable, he called
+an assembly, and laid before them what in his judgment seemed likely to
+be advantageous and suitable for the impending battle. He said "that to
+the Roman soldiers not only plains, but, with due circumspection, even
+woods and forests were convenient. The huge targets, the enormous spears
+of the barbarians, could never be wielded among trunks of trees and
+thickets of underwood shooting up from the ground like Roman swords and
+javelins, and armor fitting the body; that they should reiterate their
+blows, and aim at the face with their swords. The Germans had neither
+helmet nor coat of mail; their bucklers were not even strengthened with
+leather or iron, but mere contextures of twigs, and boards of no
+substance flourished over with paint; their first rank was armed with
+pikes, in some sort, the rest had only stakes burned at the end, or
+short darts. And now to come to their persons, as they were terrific to
+sight, and vigorous enough for a brief effort, so they were utterly
+impatient of wounds; unaffected with shame for misconduct, and destitute
+of respect for their generals. They would quit their posts or run away
+before the enemy; cowards in adversity, in prosperity despisers of all
+divine, of all human laws; if weary of marches and sea voyages, they
+wished an end of these things, by this battle it was presented to them.
+The Elbe was now nearer than the Rhine; there was nothing to subdue
+beyond this; they had only to place him, crowned with victory, in the
+same country which had witnessed the triumphs of his father and uncle,
+in whose footsteps he was treading." The ardor of the soldiers was
+kindled by this speech of the general, and the signal for the onset was
+given.
+
+Neither did Arminius or the other chiefs neglect solemnly to assure
+their several bands that "these were Romans; the most desperate
+fugitives of the Varian army, who, to avoid the hardships of war, had
+put on the character of rebels; who, without any hope of success, were
+again braving the angry gods, and exposing to their exasperated foes,
+some of them backs burdened with wounds, others limbs enfeebled with the
+effects of storms and tempests. Their motive for having recourse to a
+fleet and the pathless regions of the ocean was that no one might oppose
+them as they approached or pursue them when repulsed; but when they
+engaged hand-to-hand, vain would be the help of winds and oars after a
+defeat. The Germans needed only remember their rapine, cruelty, and
+pride; was any other course left them than to maintain their liberty,
+and, if they could not do that, to die before they took a yoke upon
+them?"
+
+The enemy thus inflamed, and calling for battle, were led into a plain
+called Idistavisus. It lies between the Visurgis and the hills, and
+winds irregularly along, as it is encroached upon by the projecting
+bases of the mountains or enlarged by the receding banks of the river.
+At their rear rose a majestic forest, the branches of the trees shooting
+up into the air, but the ground clear between their trunks. The army of
+barbarians occupied the plain and the entrances of the forest; the
+Cheruscans alone sat in ambush upon the mountain, in order to pour down
+from thence upon the Romans when engaged in the fight. Our army marched
+thus: the auxiliary Gauls and Germans in front, after them the foot
+archers, next four legions, and then Germanicus with two prætorian
+cohorts and the choice of the cavalry; then four legions more, and the
+light foot with the mounted archers, and the other cohorts of the
+allies; the men were on the alert and in readiness, so that the order of
+march might form the order of battle when they halted.
+
+As the bands of Cheruscans who had impatiently rushed forward were now
+perceived, Germanicus commanded the most efficient of his horse to
+charge them in the flank, and Stertinius with the rest to wheel round to
+attack them in the rear, and promised to be ready to assist them at the
+proper moment. Meanwhile an omen of happiest import appeared; eight
+eagles, seen to fly toward the wood and to enter it, caught the eye of
+the general. "Advance!" he cried, "follow the Roman birds; follow the
+tutelar deities of the legions!"
+
+At once the foot charged, and the cavalry sent forward attacked their
+flank and rear, and, strange to relate, the two divisions of their army
+fled opposite ways; that in the wood ran to the plain, that in the plain
+rushed into the wood. The Cheruscans between both were driven from the
+hills; among them Arminius formed a conspicuous object, while with his
+hand, his voice, and the exhibition of his wounds he strove to sustain
+the fight. He had vigorously assaulted the archers, and would have
+broken through them had not the cohorts of the Rhætians, the
+Vindelicians, and the Gauls advanced to oppose him. However, by his own
+personal effort and the impetus of his horse he made good his passage,
+his face besmeared with his own blood to avoid being known. Some have
+related that the Chaucians, who were among the Roman auxiliaries, knew
+him and let him go; the same bravery or stratagem procured Inguiomer his
+escape; the rest were slain on all hands; great numbers attempting to
+swim the Visurgis perished either by the darts showered after them or
+the violence of the current, or, if they escaped these, they were
+overwhelmed by the weight of the rushing crowd and the banks which fell
+upon them. Some, seeking an ignominious refuge, climbed to the tops of
+trees, and, concealing themselves among the branches, were shot in
+sport by the archers, who were brought up for the purpose; others were
+dashed against the ground as the trees were felled. This was a great
+victory, and withal achieved without loss on our side.
+
+This slaughter of the foe, from the fifth hour[23] of the day until
+night, filled the country for ten miles with carcasses and arms. Among
+the spoils, chains were found, which, sure of conquering, they had
+brought to bind the Roman captives. The soldiers saluted Tiberius as
+"Imperator"[24] upon the field of battle, and, raising a mount, placed
+upon it, after the manner of trophies, the German arms, with the names
+of all the vanquished nations inscribed below.
+
+This sight filled the Germans with more anguish and rage than all their
+wounds, afflictions, and overthrows. They, who were just now prepared to
+abandon their dwellings and retire beyond the Elbe, meditate war and
+grasp their arms; people, nobles, youth, aged, all rush suddenly upon
+the Roman army in its march and disorder it. Lastly, they chose a
+position shut in by a river and a forest, the inner space being a
+confined and humid plain; the forest, too, surrounded with a deep marsh,
+except that the Angrivarii had elevated one side by erecting a broad
+mound to part them and the Cheruscans. Here their foot were posted;
+their horse were concealed among the neighboring groves, that they might
+be on the rear of the legions when they had entered the wood.
+
+Nothing of all this was a secret to Germanicus. He knew their counsels,
+their stations, their overt movements and their concealed measures; and
+turned their subtlety to the destruction of themselves. To Seius Tubero,
+his lieutenant, he committed the horse and the plain; the infantry he
+so formed that part might pass the level approaches into the wood, and
+the rest force their way up the rampart; whatever was arduous he
+reserved to himself, the rest he committed to his lieutenants. Those who
+had the even ground to traverse easily forced an entrance; but they who
+were to storm the rampart were battered from above, as if they had been
+assaulting a wall. The general perceived the inequality of this close
+encounter, and, drawing off the legions a small distance, ordered the
+slingers and engineers to discharge their missiles and dislodge the
+enemy. Immediately darts were poured from the engines, and the defenders
+of the barrier, the more conspicuous they were, with the more wounds
+were beaten down. Germanicus, having taken the rampart, first forced his
+way at the head of the prætorian cohorts into the wood, and there
+fought, foot-to-foot. Behind the enemy was the morass, behind the Romans
+the mountains or the river; no room for either to retreat, no hope but
+in valor, no safety but in victory.
+
+The Germans were not inferior in courage, but in their method of
+fighting and the nature of their arms; as their vast numbers, hampered
+in narrow places, could not push forward, nor recover their immense
+spears, nor practise their usual assaults and rapid motions, being
+compelled by their crowded condition to adopt a stationary manner of
+fighting. On the contrary, our soldiers, with shields fitted to their
+breasts, and their hands firmly grasping their sword hilts, could gash
+the brawny limbs and naked faces of the barbarians, and open themselves
+a way with havoc to the enemy. Besides, the activity of Arminius now
+failed him, being either exhausted by a succession of disasters or
+disabled by his recent wound. Nay, Inguiomer, too, who flew from place
+to place throughout the battle, was abandoned by fortune rather than
+courage. Germanicus, to be the easier known, pulled off his helmet, and
+exhorted his men "to prosecute the slaughter; they wanted no captives,"
+he said; "the extermination of the people alone would put an end to the
+war!" It was now late in the day and he drew off a legion to pitch a
+camp; the rest glutted themselves till night with the blood of the foe;
+the horse fought with doubtful success.
+
+Germanicus, having in a public harangue praised his victorious troops,
+raised a pile of arms with this proud inscription: "That the army of
+Tiberius Cæsar, having subdued the nations between the Rhine and the
+Elbe, had consecrated these memorials to Mars, to Jupiter, and to
+Augustus." Of himself he made no mention; either fearful of provoking
+envy or that he felt satisfied with the consciousness of his own merit.
+He next charged Stertinius with the war among the Angrivarians, and he
+would have proceeded had they not made haste to submit; approaching as
+supplicants, and making a full confession of their guilt, they received
+pardon without reserve.
+
+The summer being now far advanced, some of the legions were sent back
+into winter quarters by land; the greater part Cæsar put on board the
+fleet and conveyed them along the Amisia to the ocean. The sea, at first
+serene, resounded only with the oars of a thousand ships or their
+impulse when under sail; but presently a shower of hail poured down from
+a black mass of clouds; at the same time storms raging on all sides in
+every variety, the billows rolling now here, now there, obstructed the
+view and made it impossible to manage the ships. The soldiers, too,
+unaccustomed to the perils of the sea, in their alarm embarrassed the
+mariners, or, helping them awkwardly, rendered unavailing the services
+of the skilful. After this, the whole expanse of air and sea was swept
+by a southwest wind, which, deriving strength from the mountainous
+regions of Germany, its deep rivers, and boundless tract of clouded
+atmosphere, and rendered still harsher by the rigor of the neighboring
+north, tore away the ships, scattered and drove them into the open
+ocean, or upon islands, dangerous from precipitous rocks or the hidden
+sand-banks which beset them. Having got a little clear of these (but
+with great difficulty), the tide turned, and, flowing in the same
+direction as that in which the wind blew, they were unable to ride at
+anchor or bale out the water that broke in upon them. Horses, beasts of
+burden, baggage, even arms, were thrown overboard to lighten the holds
+of the vessels, which took in water at their sides and from the waves
+running over them. Around them were either shores inhabited by enemies
+or a sea so vast and unfathomable as to be supposed to be the limit of
+the world and unbounded by any land. Part of the fleet was swallowed
+up; many ships were driven upon remote islands where, without a trace of
+civilized humanity, the men perished through famine, or were kept alive
+by the carcasses of horses that were dashed upon the same shore. The
+galley of Germanicus alone reached the coast of the Chaucians[25] where,
+during the whole period of his stay, both day and night, amid the rocks
+and prominences of the shore, he reproached himself as being the author
+of such overwhelming destruction, and was hardly restrained by his
+friends from destroying himself in the sea. At last, with the returning
+tide and favoring gale, the shattered ships returned--almost all
+destitute of oars, or with garments spread for sails, and some towed by
+those which were less disabled. He repaired them hastily, and despatched
+them to search the islands. By this diligence the greater part were
+recovered; many were by the Angrivarians (our new subjects) redeemed
+from their more inland neighbors and restored; and some, driven into
+Great Britain, were sent back by the petty kings. Each according to the
+remoteness of the region he had returned from recounted the wonders he
+had witnessed: "the impetuosity of whirlwinds; strange birds; sea
+monsters of ambiguous form between man and beast"--things either seen or
+fancied from the effects of fear.
+
+Intelligence of this wreck animated the Germans with hopes of renewing
+the war, which Germanicus, perceiving, resolved to check. He commanded
+Caius Silius, with thirty thousand foot and three thousand horse, to
+march into the country of the Cattians; he himself, with a greater
+force, invaded the Marsians, where he learned from Malovendus, their
+general--lately taken into our subjection--that the eagle of one of
+Varus' legions was hidden underground in a neighboring grove kept by a
+slender guard. Instantly two parties were despatched: one to face the
+enemy and draw him from his position, the other to march around upon the
+rear and open the ground. Success attended both. Hence Germanicus,
+advancing toward the interior with greater alacrity, laid waste the
+country and destroyed the effects of the late disaster. The foe,
+wherever they engaged, were instantly defeated; nor (as was learned from
+the prisoners) were they ever more dismayed. "The Romans," they
+exclaimed, "are invincible; no calamities can subdue them; they have
+wrecked their fleet, their arms are lost, our shores are covered with
+the bodies of their horses and men; and yet they have invaded us with
+their usual spirit, with the same firmness, and as if their numbers were
+increased."
+
+The army was thence led back into winter quarters, full of joy to have
+balanced, by this prosperous expedition, their misfortunes at sea; and
+by the bounty of Germanicus their happiness was increased; since to each
+sufferer he paid as much as he declared he had lost; neither was it
+doubted but that the enemy was tottering and concerting measures for
+obtaining peace, and that the next summer would terminate the war.
+Tiberius, by frequent letters, pressed him "to come home to the triumph
+decreed him." He urged also that he had experienced enough of events and
+casualties; he had indeed fought great and successful battles, but he
+must likewise remember his losses and calamities, which (however, owing
+to wind and waves, and no fault of the general) were yet great and
+grievous. He himself had been sent nine times into Germany by Augustus,
+and effected much more by policy than arms. It was thus he had brought
+the Sygambrians into subjection, thus the Suevians, thus King Maroboduus
+had been obliged to submit to terms. The Cheruscans, too, and the other
+hostile nations--now the Roman honor was vindicated--might be left to
+pursue their own intestine feuds. Germanicus besought one year to
+accomplish his conquest, but Tiberius assailed his modesty with fresh
+importunity, by offering him another consulship, the duties of which
+would require his presence; he added "that if the war were still to be
+prosecuted, he should leave materials for the fame of his brother,
+Drusus, who, as there then remained no other enemy, could acquire the
+title of _Imperator_, and earn the privilege of presenting the laurel in
+Germany alone." Germanicus persisted no longer; though he knew that this
+was all hypocrisy, and that through envy he was torn away from a ripened
+harvest of glory.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[19] There were four gates to a Roman camp. Livy says so in express
+terms: "_Ad quatuor portas exercitum instruxit, ut, signo dato, ex
+omnibus portubus eruptionem facerent._" The several gates were the
+_prætorian_; the gate opposite to it, at the extremity of the camp,
+called the _decuman_; and two others, called the _right_ and _left
+principals_, because they stood on the right and left sides of the camp,
+fronting the street called _Principia_.
+
+[20] In the camp a place was set apart for taking the auspices, on the
+right of the general's tent.
+
+[21] He assumed this disguise in order to appear like a German soldier.
+
+[22] The Romans divided the night into four watches. Each watch was on
+duty three hours, and then relieved by the next in turn. The third watch
+began about the modern twelve at night.
+
+[23] It appears that the battle was fought in July or the beginning of
+August, _adulta jam æstate_. If so, the _fifth_ hour nearly agrees with
+our nine in the morning.
+
+[24] In the time of the republic, the title of Imperator was given by
+the soldiers in the field of battle to the commander-in-chief. The
+custom ceased under Augustus, who annexed the title to the imperial
+dignity, the prince being then generalissimo of all the armies of the
+empire. The name of Imperator, it is true, was afterward given to the
+general who gained a victory; but that was not done without the special
+permission of the prince. The same rule was observed under the following
+emperors; and accordingly we find that Tiberius was saluted Imperator;
+but the soldiers did not presume to do that honor to Germanicus.
+
+[25] The mouth of the Visurgis, or the Weser.
+
+
+
+
+THE CRUCIFIXION
+
+A.D. 30[26]
+
+FREDERIC WILLIAM FARRAR
+
+     The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ took place on Friday of the
+     Passover week of the Jews, in the year A.D. 30. This day is known
+     and now generally observed by Christians as Good Friday.
+     Crucifixion, as a means of inflicting death in the most cruel,
+     lingering, and shameful way, was used by many nations of antiquity.
+     The Jews never executed their criminals in this way, but the Greeks
+     and Romans made the cross the instrument of death to malefactors.
+     The cross was in the shape either of the letter T or the letter X,
+     or was in the form familiar in such paintings of the Crucifixion as
+     the well-known representation of Rubens. It was the usual custom to
+     compel the criminal to carry his own cross to the place of
+     execution. The cross was then set up and the criminal was usually
+     tied to it by the hands and feet and left to perish of hunger and
+     thirst. Sometimes he was given a narcotic drink to stupefy him. In
+     the case of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ the victim was fastened
+     to the cross by nails driven through his hands and feet.
+
+     As Dr. Judson Titsworth has plainly pointed out, the men who were
+     crucified with Jesus Christ were not thieves, but robbers (this is
+     the term also used below by Farrar), or perhaps Jewish patriots, to
+     the Romans political rebels and outlaws. They would then be classed
+     with Jesus under the accusation that they were not loyal to the
+     sovereignty of the Roman Emperor. During the procuratorship of
+     Pontius Pilate there was a widely prevailing spirit of sedition and
+     revolt among the Jews, and many rebels were sentenced to
+     crucifixion. Such a rebel was the robber Barabbas, whom Pilate
+     wished to substitute for Jesus as the victim of popular fury. The
+     "robber" episode of the Crucifixion is treated by Farrar with a
+     picturesque effect which heightens the vivid coloring in his
+     account of the supreme event that marks "the central point of the
+     world's history."
+
+
+Utterly brutal and revolting as was the punishment of crucifixion, which
+has now for fifteen hundred years been abolished by the common pity and
+abhorrence of mankind, there was one custom in Judea, and one
+occasionally practised by the Romans, which reveal some touch of
+passing humanity. The latter consisted in giving to the sufferer a blow
+under the armpit, which, without causing death, yet hastened its
+approach. Of this I need not speak, because, for whatever reason, it was
+not practised on this occasion. The former, which seems to have been due
+to the milder nature of Judaism, and which was derived from a happy
+piece of rabbinic exegesis on Prov. xxxi. 6, consisted in giving to the
+condemned, immediately before his execution, a draught of wine medicated
+with some powerful opiate. It had been the custom of wealthy ladies in
+Jerusalem to provide this stupefying potion at their own expense, and
+they did so quite irrespectively of their sympathy for any individual
+criminal. It was probably taken freely by the two malefactors, but when
+they offered it to Jesus he would not take it. The refusal was an act of
+sublimest heroism. The effect of the draught was to dull the nerves, to
+cloud the intellect, to provide an anæsthetic against some part at least
+of the lingering agonies of that dreadful death. But he, whom some
+modern sceptics have been base enough to accuse of feminine feebleness
+and cowardly despair, preferred rather "to look Death in the face"--to
+meet the king of terrors without striving to deaden the force of one
+agonizing anticipation, or to still the throbbing of one lacerated
+nerve.
+
+The three crosses were laid on the ground--that of Jesus, which was
+doubtless taller than the other two, being placed in bitter scorn in the
+midst. Perhaps the cross-beam was now nailed to the upright, and
+certainly the title, which had either been borne by Jesus fastened round
+his neck or carried by one of the soldiers in front of him, was now
+nailed to the summit of his cross. Then he was stripped naked of all his
+clothes, and then followed the most awful moment of all. He was laid
+down upon the implement of torture. His arms were stretched along the
+cross-beams; and at the centre of the open palms the point of a huge
+iron nail was placed, which, by the blow of a mallet, was driven home
+into the wood. Then through either foot separately, or possibly through
+both together as they were placed one over the other, another huge nail
+tore its way through the quivering flesh. Whether the sufferer was
+_also_ bound to the cross we do not know; but, to prevent the hands and
+feet being torn away by the weight of the body, which could not "rest
+upon nothing but four great wounds," there was, about the centre of the
+cross, a wooden projection strong enough to support, at least in part, a
+human body which soon became a weight of agony.
+
+It was probably at this moment of inconceivable horror that the voice of
+the Son of Man was heard uplifted, not in a scream of natural agony at
+that fearful torture, but calmly praying in divine compassion for his
+brutal and pitiless murderers--aye, and for all who in their sinful
+ignorance crucify him afresh forever: "Father, forgive them, for they
+know not what they do."
+
+And then the accursed tree--with its living human burden hanging upon it
+in helpless agony, and suffering fresh tortures as every movement
+irritated the fresh rents in hands and feet--was slowly heaved up by
+strong arms, and the end of it fixed firmly in a hole dug deep in the
+ground for that purpose. The feet were but a little raised above the
+earth. The victim was in full reach of every hand that might choose to
+strike, in close proximity to every gesture of insult and hatred. He
+might hang for hours to be abused, outraged, even tortured by the
+ever-moving multitude who, with that desire to see what is horrible
+which always characterizes the coarsest hearts, had thronged to gaze
+upon a sight which should rather have made them weep tears of blood.
+
+And there, in tortures which grew ever more insupportable, ever more
+maddening as time flowed on, the unhappy victims might linger in a
+living death so cruelly intolerable that often they were driven to
+entreat and implore the spectators or the executioners, for dear pity's
+sake, to put an end to anguish too awful for man to bear--conscious to
+the last, and often, with tears of abject misery, beseeching from their
+enemies the priceless boon of death.
+
+For indeed a death by crucifixion seems to include all that pain and
+death _can_ have of horrible and ghastly--dizziness, cramp, thirst,
+starvation, sleeplessness, traumatic fever, tetanus, publicity of shame,
+long continuance of torment, horror of anticipation, mortification of
+untended wounds--all intensified just up to the point at which they can
+be endured at all, but all stopping just short of the point which would
+give to the sufferer the relief of unconsciousness. The unnatural
+position made every movement painful; the lacerated veins and crushed
+tendons throbbed with incessant anguish; the wounds, inflamed by
+exposure, gradually gangrened; the arteries--especially of the head and
+stomach--became swollen and oppressed with surcharged blood; and while
+each variety of misery went on gradually increasing, there was added to
+them the intolerable pang of a burning and raging thirst; and all these
+physical complications caused an internal excitement and anxiety which
+made the prospect of death itself--of death, the awful unknown enemy, at
+whose approach man usually shudders most--bear the aspect of a delicious
+and exquisite release.
+
+Such was the death to which Christ was doomed; and though for him it was
+happily shortened by all that he had previously endured, yet he hung
+from soon after noon until nearly sunset before "he gave up his soul to
+death."
+
+When the cross was uplifted the leading Jews, for the first time,
+prominently noticed the deadly insult in which Pilate had vented his
+indignation. Before, in their blind rage, they had imagined that the
+manner of his crucifixion was an insult aimed at _Jesus_; but now that
+they saw him hanging between the two robbers, on a cross yet loftier, it
+suddenly flashed upon them that it was a public scorn inflicted upon
+_them_. For on the white wooden tablet smeared with gypsum, which was to
+be seen so conspicuously over the head of Jesus on the cross, ran, in
+black letters, an inscription in the three civilized languages of the
+ancient world--the three languages of which _one_ at least was certain
+to be known by every single man in that assembled multitude--in the
+official Latin, in the current Greek, in the vernacular
+Aramaic--informing all that this Man who was thus enduring a shameful,
+servile death--this Man thus crucified between two _sicarii_ in the
+sight of the world, was "THE KING OF THE JEWS."
+
+To him who was crucified the poor malice seemed to have in it nothing of
+derision. Even on his cross he reigned; even there he seemed divinely
+elevated above the priests who had brought about his death, and the
+coarse, idle, vulgar multitude who had flocked to feed their greedy eyes
+upon his sufferings. The malice was quite impotent against One whose
+spiritual and moral nobleness struck awe into dying malefactors and
+heathen executioners, even in the lowest abyss of his physical
+degradation. With the passionate ill-humor of the Roman governor there
+probably blended a vein of seriousness. While he was delighted to
+revenge himself on his detested subjects by an act of public insolence,
+he probably meant, or half meant, to imply that this _was_, in one
+sense, the King of the Jews--the greatest, the noblest, the truest of
+his race, whom therefore his race had crucified. The King was not
+unworthy of his kingdom, but the kingdom of the King. There was
+something loftier even than royalty in the glazing eyes which never
+ceased to look with sorrow on the City of Righteousness, which had now
+become a city of murderers. The Jews felt the intensity of the scorn
+with which Pilate had treated them. It so completely poisoned their hour
+of triumph that they sent their chief priests in deputation, begging the
+governor to alter the obnoxious title. "Write not," they said, "'The
+King of the Jews,' but that 'He _said_, I am the King of the Jews.'" But
+Pilate's courage, which had oozed away so rapidly at the name of Cæsar,
+had now revived. He was glad in any and every way to browbeat and thwart
+the men whose seditious clamor had forced him in the morning to act
+against his will. Few men had the power of giving expression to a
+sovereign contempt more effectually than the Romans. Without deigning
+any justification of what he had done, Pilate summarily dismissed these
+solemn hierarchs with the curt and contemptuous reply, "What I have
+written I have written."
+
+In order to prevent the possibility of any rescue, even at the last
+moment--since instances had been known of men taken from the cross and
+restored to life--a quaternion of soldiers with their centurion were
+left on the ground to guard the cross. The clothes of the victims always
+fell as perquisites to the men who had to perform so weary and
+disagreeable an office. Little dreaming how exactly they were fulfilling
+the mystic intimations of olden Jewish prophecy, they proceeded,
+therefore, to divide between them the garments of Jesus. The _tallith_
+they tore into four parts, probably ripping it down the seams; but the
+_cetoneth_, or undergarment, was formed of one continuous woven texture,
+and to tear would have been to spoil it; they therefore contented
+themselves with letting it become the property of any one of the four to
+whom it should fall by lot. When this had been decided, they sat down
+and watched him till the end, beguiling the weary lingering hours by
+eating and drinking, and gibing, and playing dice.
+
+It was a scene of tumult. The great body of the people seem to have
+stood silently at gaze; but some few of them as they passed by the
+cross--perhaps some of the many false witnesses and other conspirators
+of the previous night--mocked at Jesus with insulting noises and furious
+taunts, especially bidding him come down from the cross and save
+himself, since he could destroy the Temple and build it in three days.
+And the chief priests, and scribes, and elders, less awe-struck, less
+compassionate than the mass of the people, were not ashamed to disgrace
+their gray-haired dignity and lofty reputation by adding their heartless
+reproaches to those of the evil few. Unrestrained by the noble patience
+of the sufferer, unsated by the accomplishment of their wicked
+vengeance, unmoved by the sight of helpless anguish and the look of eyes
+that began to glaze in death, they congratulated one another under his
+cross with scornful insolence: "He saved others, himself he cannot
+save;" "Let this Christ, this King of Israel, descend now from the
+cross, that we may see and believe." No wonder then that the ignorant
+soldiers took their share of mockery with these shameless and
+unvenerable hierarchs: no wonder that, at their midday meal, they
+pledged in mock hilarity the Dying Man, cruelly holding up toward his
+burning lips their cups of sour wine, and echoing the Jewish taunts
+against the weakness of the King whose throne was a cross, whose crown
+was thorns. Nay, even the poor wretches who were crucified with him
+caught the hideous infection; comrades, perhaps, of the respited
+Barabbas, heirs of the rebellious fury of a Judas the Gaulonite, trained
+to recognize no Messiah but a Messiah of the sword, they reproachfully
+bade him, if his claims were true, to save himself and them. So _all_
+the voices about him rang with blasphemy and spite, and in that long
+slow agony his dying ear caught no accent of gratitude, of pity, or of
+love. Baseness, falsehood, savagery, stupidity--such were the
+characteristics of the world which thrust itself into hideous prominence
+before the Saviour's last consciousness, such the muddy and miserable
+stream that rolled under the cross before his dying eyes.
+
+But amid this chorus of infamy Jesus spoke not. He _could_ have spoken.
+The pains of crucifixion did not confuse the intellect or paralyze the
+powers of speech. We read of crucified men who, for hours together upon
+the cross, vented their sorrow, their rage, or their despair in the
+manner that best accorded with their character; of some who raved and
+cursed, and spat at their enemies; of others who protested to the last
+against the iniquity of their sentence; of others who implored
+compassion with abject entreaties; of one even who, from the cross, as
+from a tribunal, harangued the multitude of his countrymen, and
+upbraided them with their wickedness and vice. But, except to bless and
+to encourage, and to add to the happiness and hope of others, Jesus
+spoke not. So far as the malice of the passers-by, and of priests and
+sanhedrists and soldiers, and of these poor robbers who suffered with
+him, was concerned--as before during the trial so now upon the cross--he
+maintained unbroken his kingly silence.
+
+But that silence, joined to his patient majesty and the divine holiness
+and innocence which radiated from him like a halo, was more eloquent
+than any words. It told earliest on one of the crucified robbers. At
+first this _bonus latro_ of the Apocryphal Gospels seems to have faintly
+joined in the reproaches uttered by his fellow-sinner; but when those
+reproaches merged into deeper blasphemy, he spoke out his inmost
+thought. It is probable that he had met Jesus before, and heard him, and
+perhaps been one of those thousands who had seen his miracles. There is
+indeed no authority for the legend which assigns to him the name of
+Dysmas, or for the beautiful story of his having saved the life of the
+Virgin and her Child during their flight into Egypt. But on the plains
+of Gennesareth, perhaps from some robber's cave in the wild ravines of
+the Valley of the Doves, he may well have approached his presence--he
+may well have been one of those publicans and sinners who drew near to
+him for to hear him. And the words of Jesus had found some room in the
+good ground of his heart; they had not all fallen upon stony places.
+Even at this hour of shame and death, when he was suffering the just
+consequence of his past evil deeds, faith triumphed. As a flame
+sometimes leaps up among dying embers, so amid the white ashes of a
+sinful life which lay so thick upon his heart, the flame of love toward
+his God and his Saviour was not quite quenched. Under the hellish
+outcries which had broken loose around the cross of Jesus there had lain
+a deep misgiving. Half of them seem to have been instigated by doubt and
+fear. Even in the self-congratulations of the priests we catch an
+undertone of dread. Suppose that even now some imposing miracle should
+be wrought! Suppose that even now that martyr-form should burst indeed
+into messianic splendor, and the King, who seemed to be in the slow
+misery of death, should suddenly with a great voice summon his legions
+of angels, and, springing from his cross upon the rolling clouds of
+heaven, come in flaming fire to take vengeance upon his enemies! And the
+air seemed to be full of signs. There was a gloom of gathering darkness
+in the sky, a thrill and tremor in the solid earth, a haunting presence
+as of ghostly visitants who chilled the heart and hovered in awful
+witness above that scene. The dying robber had joined at first in the
+half-taunting, half-despairing appeal to a defeat and weakness which
+contradicted all that he had hoped; but now this defeat seemed to be
+greater than victory, and this weakness more irresistible than strength.
+As he looked, the faith in his heart dawned more and more into the
+perfect day. He had long ceased to utter any reproachful words; he now
+rebuked his comrade's blasphemies. Ought not the suffering innocence of
+him who hung between them to shame into silence their just punishment
+and flagrant guilt? And so, turning his head to Jesus, he uttered the
+intense appeal, "O Jesus, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom."
+Then he, who had been mute amid invectives, spake at once in surpassing
+answer to that humble prayer, "Verily, I say to thee, to-day shalt thou
+be with me in Paradise."
+
+Though none spoke to comfort Jesus--though deep grief, and terror, and
+amazement kept them dumb--yet there were hearts amid the crowd that beat
+in sympathy with the awful sufferer. At a distance stood a number of
+women looking on, and perhaps, even at that dread hour, expecting his
+immediate deliverance. Many of these were women who had ministered to
+him in Galilee, and had come from thence in the great band of Galilean
+pilgrims. Conspicuous among this heart-stricken group were his mother
+Mary, Mary of Magdala, Mary the wife of Clopas, mother of James and
+Joses, and Salome the wife of Zebedee. Some of them, as the hours
+advanced, stole nearer and nearer to the cross, and at length the
+filming eye of the Saviour fell on his own mother Mary, as, with the
+sword piercing through and through her heart, she stood with the
+disciple whom he loved. His mother does not seem to have been much with
+him during his ministry. It may be that the duties and cares of a humble
+home rendered it impossible. At any rate, the only occasions on which we
+hear of her are occasions when she is with his brethren, and is joined
+with them in endeavoring to influence, apart from his own purposes and
+authority, his messianic course. But although at the very beginning of
+his ministry he had gently shown her that the earthly and filial
+relation was now to be transcended by one far more lofty and divine, and
+though this end of all her high hopes must have tried her faith with an
+overwhelming and unspeakable sorrow, yet she was true to him in this
+supreme hour of his humiliation, and would have done for him all that a
+mother's sympathy and love can do. Nor had he for a moment forgotten her
+who had bent over his infant slumbers, and with whom he had shared those
+thirty years in the cottage at Nazareth. Tenderly and sadly he thought
+of the future that awaited her during the remaining years of her life on
+earth, troubled as they must be by the tumults and persecutions of a
+struggling and nascent faith. After his resurrection her lot was wholly
+cast among his apostles, and the apostle whom he loved the most, the
+apostle who was nearest to him in heart and life, seemed the fittest to
+take care of her. To him, therefore--to John whom he had loved more than
+his brethren--to John whose head had leaned upon his breast at the Last
+Supper, he consigned her as a sacred charge. "Woman," he said to her, in
+fewest words, but in words which breathed the uttermost spirit of
+tenderness, "behold thy son;" and then to St. John, "Behold thy mother."
+He could make no gesture with those pierced hands, but he could bend his
+head. They listened in speechless emotion, but from that hour--perhaps
+from that very moment--leading her away from a spectacle which did but
+torture her soul with unavailing agony, that disciple took her to his
+own home.
+
+It was now noon, and at the Holy City the sunshine should have been
+burning over that scene of horror with a power such as it has in the
+full depth of an English summer-time. But instead of this, the face of
+the heavens was black, and the noonday sun was "turned into darkness,"
+on "this great and terrible day of the Lord." It could have been no
+darkness of any natural eclipse, for the Paschal moon was at the full;
+but it was one of those "signs from heaven" for which, during the
+ministry of Jesus, the Pharisees had so often clamored in vain. The
+early Fathers appealed to pagan authorities--the historian Phallus, the
+chronicler Phlegon--for such a darkness; but we have no means of testing
+the accuracy of these references, and it is quite possible that the
+darkness was a local gloom which hung densely over the guilty city and
+its immediate neighborhood. But whatever it was, it clearly filled the
+minds of all who beheld it with yet deeper misgiving. The taunts and
+jeers of the Jewish priests and the heathen soldiers were evidently
+confined to the earlier hours of the Crucifixion. Its later stages seem
+to have thrilled alike the guilty and the innocent with emotions of
+dread and horror. Of the incidents of those last three hours we are told
+nothing, and that awful obscuration of the noonday sun may well have
+overawed every heart into an inaction respecting which there was nothing
+to relate. What Jesus suffered _then_ for us men and our salvation we
+cannot know, for during those three hours he hung upon his cross in
+silence and darkness; or, if he spoke, there was none there to record
+his words. But toward the close of that time his anguish culminated,
+and, emptied to the very uttermost of that glory which he had since the
+world began, drinking to the very deepest dregs the cup of humiliation
+and bitterness, enduring not only to have taken upon him the form of a
+servant, but also to suffer the last infamy which human hatred could
+impose on servile helplessness, he uttered that mysterious cry, of which
+the full significance will never be fathomed by man: _Eli, Eli, lama
+Sabachthani?_ ("My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?")
+
+In those words, quoting the psalm in which the early Fathers rightly
+saw a far-off prophecy of the whole passion of Christ, he borrowed from
+David's utter agony the expression of his own. In that hour he was
+alone. Sinking from depth to depth of unfathomable suffering, until, at
+the close approach of a death which--because he was God, and yet had
+been made man--was more awful to him than it could ever be to any of the
+sons of men, it seemed as if even his divine humanity could endure no
+more.
+
+Doubtless the voice of the sufferer--though uttered loudly in that
+paroxysm of an emotion which, in another, would almost have touched the
+verge of despair--was yet rendered more uncertain and indistinct from
+the condition of exhaustion in which he hung; and so, amid the darkness,
+and confused noise, and dull footsteps of the moving multitude, there
+were some who did not hear what he had said. They had caught only the
+first syllable, and said to one another that he had called on the name
+of Elijah. The readiness with which they seized this false impression is
+another proof of the wild state of excitement and terror--the
+involuntary dread of something great and unforeseen and terrible--to
+which they had been reduced from their former savage insolence. For
+Elijah, the great prophet of the Old Covenant, was inextricably mingled
+with all the Jewish expectations of a Messiah, and these expectations
+were full of wrath. The coming of Elijah would be the coming of a day of
+fire, in which the sun should be turned into blackness and the moon into
+blood, and the powers of heaven should be shaken. Already the noonday
+sun was shrouded in unnatural eclipse; might not some awful form at any
+moment rend the heavens and come down, touch the mountains and they
+should smoke? The vague anticipation of conscious guilt was unfulfilled.
+Not such as yet was to be the method of God's workings. His messages to
+man for many ages more were not to be in the thunder and earthquake, not
+in rushing wind or roaring flame, but in the "still small voice"
+speaking always amid the apparent silences of Time in whispers
+intelligible to man's heart, but in which there is neither speech nor
+language, though the voice is heard.
+
+But now the end was very rapidly approaching, and Jesus, who had been
+hanging for nearly six hours upon the cross, was suffering from that
+torment of thirst which is most difficult of all for the human frame to
+bear--perhaps the most unmitigated of the many separate sources of
+anguish which were combined in this worst form of death. No doubt this
+burning thirst was aggravated by seeing the Roman soldiers drinking so
+near the cross; and happily for mankind, Jesus had never sanctioned the
+unnatural affectation of stoic impassibility. And so he uttered the one
+sole word of physical suffering which had been wrung from him by all the
+hours in which he had endured the extreme of all that man can inflict.
+He cried aloud, "I thirst." Probably a few hours before, the cry would
+have only provoked a roar of frantic mockery; but now the lookers-on
+were reduced by awe to a readier humanity. Near the cross there lay on
+the ground the large earthen vessel containing the _posca_, which was
+the ordinary drink of the Roman soldiers. The mouth of it was filled
+with a piece of sponge, which served as a cork. Instantly some one--we
+know not whether he was friend or enemy, or merely one who was there out
+of idle curiosity--took out the sponge and dipped it in the posca to
+give it to Jesus. But low as was the elevation of the cross, the head of
+the sufferer, as it rested on the horizontal beam of the accursed tree,
+was just beyond the man's reach; and therefore he put the sponge at the
+end of a stalk of hyssop--about a foot long--and held it up to the
+parched and dying lips. Even this simple act of pity, which Jesus did
+not refuse, seemed to jar upon the condition of nervous excitement with
+which some of the multitude were looking on. "Let be," they said to the
+man, "let us see whether Elias is coming to save him." The man did not
+desist from his act of mercy, but when it was done he, too, seems to
+have echoed those uneasy words. But Elias came not, nor human comforter,
+nor angel deliverer. It was the will of God, it was the will of the Son
+of God, that he should be "perfected through sufferings"; that--for the
+eternal example of all his children as long as the world should last--he
+should "endure unto the end."
+
+And now the end was come. Once more, in the words of the sweet Psalmist
+of Israel, but adding to them that title of trustful love which, through
+him, is permitted to the use of all mankind, "Father," he said, "into
+thy hands I commend my spirit." Then with one more great effort he
+uttered the last cry--"It is finished." It may be that that great cry
+ruptured some of the vessels of his heart, for no sooner had it been
+uttered than he bowed his head upon his breast and yielded his life, "a
+ransom for many"--a willing sacrifice to his Heavenly Father. "Finished
+was his holy life; with his life his struggle, with his struggle his
+work, with his work the redemption, with the redemption the foundation
+of the new world." At that moment the veil of the Temple was rent in
+twain from the top to the bottom. An earthquake shook the earth and
+split the rocks, and as it rolled away from their places the great
+stones which closed and covered the cavern sepulchres of the Jews, so it
+seemed to the imaginations of many to have disimprisoned the spirits of
+the dead, and to have filled the air with ghostly visitants, who after
+Christ had risen appeared to linger in the Holy City. These
+circumstances of amazement, joined to all they had observed in the
+bearing of the Crucified, cowed even the cruel and gay indifference of
+the Roman soldiers. On the centurion who was in command of them the
+whole scene had exercised a yet deeper influence. As he stood opposite
+to the cross and saw the Saviour die, he glorified God and exclaimed,
+"This Man was in truth righteous"--nay, more, "This Man was a Son of
+God." Even the multitude, utterly sobered from their furious excitement
+and frantic rage, began to be weighed down with a guilty consciousness
+that the scene which they had witnessed had in it something more awful
+than they could have conceived, and as they returned to Jerusalem they
+wailed and beat upon their breasts. Well might they do so! This was the
+last drop in a full cup of wickedness: this was the beginning of the end
+of their city and name and race.
+
+And in truth that scene was more awful than they, or even we, can know.
+The secular historian, be he ever so sceptical, cannot fail to see in it
+the central point of the world's history. Whether he be a believer in
+Christ or not, he cannot refuse to admit that this new religion grew
+from the smallest of all seeds to be a mighty tree, so that the birds of
+the air took refuge in its branches; that it was the little stone cut
+without hands which dashed into pieces the colossal image of heathen
+greatness, and grew till it became a great mountain and filled the
+earth. Alike to the infidel and to the believer the Crucifixion is the
+boundary instant between ancient and modern days. Morally and
+physically, no less than spiritually, the faith of Christ was the
+_palingenesia_ of the world. It came like the dawn of a new spring to
+nations "effete with the drunkenness of crime." The struggle was long
+and hard, but from the hour when Christ died began the death-knell to
+every satanic tyranny and every tolerated abomination. From that hour
+holiness became the universal ideal of all who name the name of Christ
+as their Lord, and the attainment of that ideal the common heritage of
+souls in which his spirit dwells.
+
+The effects, then, of the work of Christ are even to the unbeliever
+indisputable and historical. It expelled cruelty; it curbed passion; it
+branded suicide; it punished and repressed an execrable infanticide; it
+drove the shameless impurities of heathendom into a congenial darkness.
+There was hardly a class whose wrongs it did not remedy. It rescued the
+gladiator; it freed the slave; it protected the captive; it nursed the
+sick; it sheltered the orphan; it elevated the woman; it shrouded as
+with a halo of sacred innocence the tender years of the child. In every
+region of life its ameliorating influence was felt. It changed pity from
+a vice into a virtue. It elevated poverty from a curse into a beatitude.
+It ennobled labor from a vulgarity into a dignity and a duty. It
+sanctified marriage from little more than a burdensome convention into
+little less than a blessed sacrament. It revealed for the first time the
+angelic beauty of a purity of which men had despaired and of a meekness
+at which they had utterly scoffed. It created the very conception of
+charity, and broadened the limits of its obligation from the narrow
+circle of a neighborhood to the widest horizons of the race. And while
+it thus evolved the idea of humanity as a common brotherhood, even where
+its tidings were _not_ believed--all over the world, wherever its
+tidings _were_ believed, it cleansed the life and elevated the soul of
+each individual man. And in all lands where it has moulded the
+characters of its true believers it has created hearts so pure and lives
+so peaceful and homes so sweet that it might seem as though those angels
+who had heralded its advent had also whispered to every depressed and
+despairing sufferer among the sons of men: "Though ye have lien among
+the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove, that is covered with
+silver wings, and her feathers like gold."
+
+Others, if they _can_ and _will_, may see in such a work as this no
+divine Providence, they may think it philosophical enlightenment to hold
+that Christianity and Christendom are adequately accounted for by the
+idle dreams of a noble self-deceiver and the passionate hallucinations
+of a recovered demoniac. We persecute them not, we denounce them not, we
+judge them not; but we say that, unless all life be a hollow, there
+could have been no such miserable origin to the sole religion of the
+world which holds the perfect balance between philosophy and popularity,
+between religion and morals, between meek submissiveness and the pride
+of freedom, between the ideal and the real, between the inward and the
+outward, between modest stillness and heroic energy--nay, between the
+tenderest conservatism and the boldest plans of world-wide reformation.
+The witness of history to Christ is a witness which has been given with
+irresistible cogency; and it has been so given to none but him.
+
+But while even the unbeliever must see what the life and death of Jesus
+have effected in the world, to the believer that life and death are
+something deeper still; to him they are nothing less than a resurrection
+from the dead. He sees in the cross of Christ something which far
+transcends its historical significance. He sees in it the fulfilment of
+all prophecy as well as the consummation of all history; he sees in it
+the explanation of the mystery of birth, and the conquest over the
+mystery of the grave. In that life he finds a perfect example; in that
+death an infinite redemption. As he contemplates the Incarnation and the
+Crucifixion, he no longer feels that God is far away, and that this
+earth is but a disregarded speck in the infinite azure, and he himself
+but an insignificant atom chance-thrown amid the thousand million living
+souls of an innumerable race, but he exclaims in faith and hope and
+love: "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men; yea, he will be their
+God, and they shall be his people." "Ye are the temple of the living
+God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them."
+
+The sun was westering as the darkness rolled away from the completed
+sacrifice. They who had not thought it a pollution to inaugurate their
+feast by the murder of their Messiah, were seriously alarmed lest the
+sanctity of the following day--which began at sunset--should be
+compromised by the hanging of the corpses on the cross. And horrible to
+relate, the crucified often lived for many hours--nay, even for two
+days--in their torture. The Jews therefore begged Pilate that their legs
+might be broken, and their bodies taken down. This _crurifragium_, as it
+was called, consisted in striking the legs of the sufferers with a heavy
+mallet, a violence which seemed always to have hastened, if it did not
+instantly cause, their death. Nor would the Jews be the only persons who
+would be anxious to hasten the end by giving the deadly blow. Until life
+was extinct the soldiers appointed to guard the execution dared not
+leave the ground. The wish, therefore, was readily granted. The soldiers
+broke the legs of the two malefactors first, and then, coming to Jesus,
+found that the great cry had been indeed his last, and that he was dead
+already. They did not therefore break his legs, and thus unwittingly
+preserved the symbolism of that Paschal lamb, of which he was the
+antetype, and of which it had been commanded that "a bone of it shall
+not be broken." And yet, as he might be only in a syncope--as instances
+had been known in which men apparently dead had been taken down from the
+cross and resuscitated--and as the lives of the soldiers would have had
+to answer for any irregularity, one of them, in order to make death
+certain, drove the broad head of his _hasta_ into his side. The wound,
+as it was meant to do, pierced the region of the heart, and "forthwith,"
+says St. John, with an emphatic appeal to the truthfulness of his
+eye-witness--an appeal which would be singularly and impossibly
+blasphemous if the narrative were the forgery which so much elaborate
+modern criticism has wholly failed to prove that it is--"forthwith came
+there out blood and water." Whether the water was due to some abnormal
+pathological conditions caused by the dreadful complication of the
+Saviour's sufferings, or whether it rather means that the pericardium
+had been rent by the spear point, and that those who took down the body
+observed some drops of its serum mingled with the blood, in either case
+that lance thrust was sufficient to hush all the heretical assertions
+that Jesus had only _seemed_ to die; and as it assured the soldiers, so
+should it assure all who have doubted, that he, who on the third day
+rose again, had in truth been crucified, dead, and buried, and that his
+soul had passed into the unseen world.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[26] The disputed date of the Crucifixion of Jesus--long variously
+placed between A.D. 29 and 33--is definitely fixed by many later
+authorities at the year 30.
+
+
+
+
+THE RISE AND SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
+
+A.D. 33
+
+RENAN      WISE      NEWMAN
+
+     It is a favorite view of historians and critical students that
+     Jesus was born at a time when the world seemed especially prepared
+     for his birth. The correspondence between world conditions then and
+     the actual process of Christianity in its rise and early spread
+     appears to conform to evolutionary laws as regarded in the light of
+     modern interpretation.
+
+     In its origin Christianity is most intimately connected with
+     Judaism, the parent religion. The known world, however, in the time
+     of Jesus was largely under Roman dominion. This was true of the
+     land where Jesus was born. The Roman Empire was then comparatively
+     at peace, and it was the admonition of St. Paul that the first
+     Christians should maintain that peace. The wide sovereignty of Rome
+     gave the apostles of Christ access to different nations, many of
+     whom had become civilized under Roman influence. But pure
+     monotheism existed only among the Jews. All other nations had a
+     variety of gods and peculiar forms of worship. In most of the pagan
+     religions there were elements of truth and beauty, but they lacked
+     in ethical principles and in moral application to life. Most of
+     their priestcraft was a vulgar imposition upon the ignorance and
+     credulity of the common people. The prevailing philosophies--which,
+     among the more enlightened, took the place of religion--were the
+     Grecian, adopted also by the Romans, and the oriental, with
+     numerous followers in Persia, Syria, Chaldæa, Egypt, and likewise
+     among the Jews. But the philosophers were divided into antagonistic
+     sects. Out of such conditions no practical religion could develop.
+     In the doctrines of Buddhism were to be found the spirit and
+     purpose of a devout and humanely religious people, but the
+     intricate mythology and racial and other limitations of Buddhism
+     forbade that, although it conquered the half of Asia, it should
+     ever become a universal faith.
+
+     The condition of the Jews at this period was little better than
+     that of other peoples. Among the Jews there was a lack of
+     intellectual unity, and their moral ideals had been lowered.
+     Oppressed by Herod, the tributary Roman King--who, although
+     professedly a Jew, copied the open despisers of all religion--they
+     yielded to the influences of Roman luxury and licentiousness which
+     spread over Palestine. Although still conducted by the priests and
+     Levites and under the eye of the Sanhedrim or senate, the Jewish
+     religion had lost much of its earlier character. Like philosophy,
+     it was vexed with contending sects. Strict observance of the Mosaic
+     law and the performance of prescriptive rites and duties were in
+     the main regarded as the sum of religion.
+
+     The race of prophets appeared extinct until prophecy was revived in
+     John the Baptist. The successors of the Maccabæan patriots were not
+     animated by their spirit. There was widespread and passionate
+     expectation of a national messiah, but not such a messiah as John
+     proclaimed and Jesus proved to be; rather a powerful warrior and
+     vindicator of Jewish liberty. Galilee, the early home of Jesus, was
+     especially stirred with messianic fervor. In such a condition of
+     the national mind, and at such a stage of the world's empire, it
+     seems natural in the course of spiritual evolution that such a
+     teacher as Jesus--a spiritual messiah--should arise to be the
+     deliverer not of one people only, but of the world itself. Among
+     the Jewish doctors when Jesus was a child was at least one wise and
+     liberal rabbi, Hillel, a Pharisee, the great reformer of his time,
+     and "the most eminent Jew of the generation before the birth of
+     Jesus." At his feet the boy Jesus may have sat and learned lessons
+     of wisdom and liberality. It gives us a reassurance of spiritual
+     continuity to think that the teachings of Hillel may have "helped
+     to inspire the humane and tender counsels of the founder of
+     Christianity."
+
+     In grouping the glowing words of Renan, with their fine spiritual
+     interpretations and descriptive eloquence, the judgments of an
+     eminent contemporary Jewish scholar, and Newman's learned yet
+     simple portrayal of the Church as it took form in its early
+     environment, and as it was seen through the media of contemporary
+     governments, customs, and criticisms, it is believed that readers
+     will derive satisfaction, and will be aided in their own inquiries,
+     through this threefold presentation. On so vast a subject, with its
+     momentous implications, no single author, however profound his
+     genius, can do more than contribute a partial essay toward the
+     many-sided truth.
+
+
+JOSEPH ERNEST RENAN
+
+From the moment of the arrest of Jesus, and immediately after his death,
+it is probable that many of the disciples had already found their way to
+the northern provinces. At the time of the Resurrection a rumor was
+spread abroad, according to which it was in Galilee that he would be
+seen again. Some of the women who had been to the sepulchre came back
+with the report that the angel had said to them that Jesus had already
+preceded them into Galilee. Others said that it was Jesus himself who
+had ordered them to go there. Now and then some people said that they
+themselves remembered that he had said so during his lifetime.
+
+What is certain is that at the end of a few days, probably after the
+Paschal Feast of the Passover had been quite over, the disciples
+believed they had a command to return into their own country, and to it
+accordingly they returned. Perhaps the visions began to abate at
+Jerusalem. A species of melancholy seized them. The brief appearances of
+Jesus were not sufficient to compensate for the enormous void left by
+his absence. In a melancholy mood they thought of the lake and of the
+beautiful mountains where they had received a foretaste of the kingdom
+of God. The women especially wished, at any cost, to return to the
+country where they had enjoyed so much happiness. It must be observed
+that the order to depart came especially from them. That odious city
+weighed them down. They longed to see once more the ground where they
+had possessed Him whom they loved, well assured in advance of meeting
+him again there.
+
+The majority of the disciples then departed, full of joy and hope,
+perhaps in the company of the caravan which took back the pilgrims from
+the Feast of the Passover. What they hoped to find in Galilee were not
+only transient visions, but Jesus himself to continue with them, as he
+had done before his death. An intense expectation filled their souls.
+Was he going to restore the kingdom of Israel, to found definitely the
+kingdom of God, and, as was said, "reveal his justice"? Everything was
+possible. They already called to mind the smiling landscapes where they
+had enjoyed his presence. Many believed that he had given to them a
+rendezvous upon a mountain, probably the same to which with them there
+clung so many sweet recollections. Never, it is certain, had there been
+a more pleasant journey. All their dreams of happiness were on the point
+of being realized. They were going to see him once more! And, in fact,
+they did see him again. Hardly restored to their harmless chimeras, they
+believed themselves to be in the midst of the gospel-dispensation
+period. It was now drawing near to the end of April. The ground is then
+strewn with red anemones, which were probably those "lilies of the
+fields" from which Jesus delighted to draw his similes. At each step his
+words were brought to mind, adhering, as it were, to the thousand
+accidental objects they met by the way. Here was the tree, the flower,
+the seed, from which he had taken his parables; there was the hill on
+which he delivered his most touching discourses; here was the little
+ship from which he taught. It was like the recommencement of a beautiful
+dream--like a vanished illusion which had reappeared. The enchantment
+seemed to revive. The sweet Galilean "Kingdom of God" had recovered its
+sway. The clear atmosphere, the mornings upon the shore or upon the
+mountain, the nights passed on the lakes watching the nets, all these
+returned again to them in distinct visions. They saw him everywhere
+where they had lived with him. Of course it was not the joy of the first
+enjoyment. Sometimes the lake had to them the appearance of being very
+solitary. But a great love is satisfied with little. If all of us, while
+we are alive, could surreptitiously, once a year, and during a moment
+long enough to exchange but a few words, behold again those loved ones
+whom we have lost--death would not be death!
+
+Such was the state of mind of this faithful band, in this short period
+when Christianity seemed to return for a moment to his cradle and bid to
+him an eternal adieu. The principal disciples, Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel,
+the sons of Zebedee, met again on the shores of the lake, and henceforth
+lived together; they had taken up again their former calling of
+fishermen, at Bethsaida or at Capernaum. The Galilean women were no
+doubt with them. They had insisted more than the others on that return,
+which was to them a heartfelt love. This was their last act in the
+establishment of Christianity. From that moment they disappear. Faithful
+to their love, their wish was to quit no more the country in which they
+had tasted their greatest delight. More than five hundred persons were
+already devoted to the memory of Jesus. In default of the lost master
+they obeyed the disciples, the most authoritative--Peter--in particular.
+
+The activity of these ardent souls had already turned in another
+direction. What they believed to have heard from the lips of the dear
+risen One was the order to go forth and preach, and to convert the
+world. But where should they commence? Naturally, at Jerusalem. The
+return to Jerusalem was then resolved upon by those who at that time had
+the direction of the sect. As these journeys were ordinarily made by
+caravan at the time of the feasts, we now suppose, with all manner of
+likelihood, that the return in question took place at the Feast of
+Tabernacles at the close of the year 33, or the Paschal Feast of the
+year 34. Galilee was thus abandoned by Christianity, and abandoned
+forever. The little Church which remained there continued, no doubt, to
+exist; but we hear it no more spoken of. It was probably broken up, like
+all the rest, by the frightful disaster which then overtook the country
+during the war of Vespasian; the wreck of the dispersed community sought
+refuge beyond Jordan. After the war it was not Christianity which was
+brought back into Galilee; it was Judaism.
+
+Galilee thus counted but an hour in the history of Christianity; but it
+was the sacred hour, _par excellence_; it gave to the new religion that
+which has made it endure--its poetry, its penetrating charms. "The
+Gospel," after the manner of the synoptics, was a Galilean work. But
+"the Gospel" thus extended has been the principal cause of the success
+of Christianity, and continues to be the surest guarantee of its future.
+It is probable that a fraction of the little school which surrounded
+Jesus in his last days remained at Jerusalem.
+
+It is about this period that we can place the vision of James, mentioned
+by St. Paul. James was the brother, or at least a relation, of Jesus. We
+do not find that he had accompanied Jesus on his last sojourn to
+Jerusalem. He probably went there with the apostles, when the latter
+quitted Galilee.
+
+It is very remarkable that the family of Jesus, some of whose members
+during his life had been incredulous and hostile to his mission,
+constituted now a part of the Church, and held in it a very exalted
+position. One is led to suppose that the reconciliation took place
+during the sojourn of the apostles in Galilee. The celebrity which had
+attached itself to the name of their relative, those who believed in
+him, and were assured of having seen him after he had arisen, served to
+make an impression on their minds. From the time of the definite
+establishment of the apostles at Jerusalem, we find with them Mary, the
+mother of Jesus, and the brothers of Jesus. In what concerns Mary, it
+appears that John, thinking in this to obey a recommendation of the
+Master, had adopted and taken her to his own home. He perhaps took her
+back to Jerusalem. This woman, whose personal history and character have
+remained veiled in obscurity, assumed hence great importance. The words
+that the evangelist put into the mouth of some unknown woman, "Blessed
+is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked," began
+to be verified. It is probable that Mary survived her son a few years.
+As for the brothers of Jesus, their history is wrapped in obscurity.
+Jesus had several brothers and sisters. It seemed probable, however,
+that in the class of persons which were called "Brothers of the Lord"
+there were included relations in the second degree. The question is only
+of moment so far as it concerns James, whom we see playing a great part
+in the first thirty years of Christianity.
+
+The apostles henceforth separated no more, except to make temporary
+journeys. Jerusalem became their head-quarters; they seemed to be afraid
+to disperse, while certain acts served to reveal in them the
+prepossession of being opposed to return again into Galilee, which
+latter had dissolved its little society. An express order of Jesus is
+supposed to have interdicted their quitting Jerusalem, before, at least,
+the great manifestations which were to take place. People's thoughts
+were turned with great force toward a promise which it was supposed
+Jesus had made. During his lifetime Jesus, it was said, had often spoken
+of the Holy Spirit, which was understood to mean a personification of
+divine wisdom. He had promised his disciples that the Spirit would nerve
+them in the combats that they would have to engage in, would be their
+inspirer in difficulties, and their advocate if they had to speak in
+public. Sometimes it was supposed that Jesus suddenly presented himself
+in the midst of his disciples assembled, and breathed on them out of his
+own mouth a current of vivifying air. At other times the disappearance
+of Jesus was regarded as a premonition of the coming of the Spirit. Many
+people established an intimate connection between this descent and the
+restoration of the kingdom of Israel.
+
+The affection that the disciples had the one for the other, while Jesus
+was alive, was thus enhanced tenfold after his death. They formed a very
+small and very retired society, and lived exclusively by themselves. At
+Jerusalem they numbered about one hundred and twenty. Their piety was
+active, and, as yet, completely restrained by the forms of Jewish
+piety. The Temple was then the chief place of devotion. They worked, no
+doubt, for a living; but at that time manual labor in Jewish society
+engaged very few. Everyone had a trade, but that trade by no means
+hindered a man from being educated and well-bred.
+
+The dominant idea in the Christian community, at the moment at which we
+are now arrived, was the coming of the Holy Spirit. People were believed
+to receive it in the form of a mysterious breath, which passed over the
+assembly. Every inward consolation, every bold movement, every flush of
+enthusiasm, every feeling of lively and pleasant gayety, which was
+experienced without knowing whence it came, was the work of the Spirit.
+These simple consciences referred, as usual, to some exterior cause the
+exquisite sentiments which were being created in them. When all were
+assembled, and when they awaited in silence inspiration from on high, a
+murmur, any noise whatever, was believed to be the coming of the Spirit.
+In the early times, it was the apparitions of Jesus which were produced
+in this manner. Now the turn of ideas had changed. It was the divine
+breath which passed over the little Church, and filled it with a
+celestial effluvium. These beliefs were strengthened by notions drawn
+from the Old Testament. The prophetic spirit is represented in the
+Hebrew books as a breathing which penetrates man and inspires him. In
+the beautiful vision of Elijah, God passes by in the form of a gentle
+wind, which produces a slight rustling noise.
+
+Among all these "descents of the Spirit," which appear to have been
+frequent enough, there was one which left a profound impression on the
+nascent Church. One day, when the brethren were assembled, a
+thunder-storm burst forth. A violent wind threw open the windows: the
+heavens were on fire. Thunder-storms, in these countries, are
+accompanied by prodigious sheets of lightning; the atmosphere is, as it
+were, everywhere furrowed with ridges of flame. Whether the electric
+fluid had penetrated the room itself or whether a dazzling flash of
+lightning had suddenly illuminated the faces of all, everyone was
+convinced that the Spirit had entered, and that it had alighted on the
+head of each in the form of tongues of fire. The idea that the Spirit
+had alighted on them in the form of jets of flame, resembling tongues of
+fire, gave rise to a series of singular ideas, which took a foremost
+place in the thought of the period.
+
+The tongues of fire appeared a striking symbol. People were convinced
+that God desired to signify in this manner that he poured out upon the
+apostles his most precious gifts of eloquence and of inspiration. But
+they did not stop there. Jerusalem was, like the majority of the large
+cities of the East, a city in which many languages were spoken. The
+diversity of tongues was one of the difficulties which one found there
+in the way of propagating a universal form of faith. One of the things,
+moreover, which alarmed the apostles, at the commencement of a ministry
+destined to embrace the world, was the number of languages which were
+spoken there: they were asking themselves incessantly how they could
+learn so many tongues. "The gift of tongues" became thus a marvellous
+privilege. It was believed that the preaching of the Gospel would clear
+away the obstacle which was created by the diversity of idioms. There
+was in this a liberal idea; they meant to imply that the Gospel should
+have no language of its own; that it should be translatable into every
+tongue; and that the translation should be of the same value as the
+original.
+
+The custom of living together, holding the same faith, and indulging the
+same expectation, necessarily produced many common habits. All lived in
+common, having but one heart and one mind. No one possessed anything
+which was his own. On becoming a disciple of Jesus, one sold one's goods
+and made a gift of the proceeds to the society. The chiefs of the
+society then distributed the common possessions to each, according to
+his needs. They lived in the same quarter. They took their meals
+together, and continued to attach to them the mystic sense that Jesus
+had prescribed. They passed long hours in prayers. Their prayers were
+sometimes improvised aloud, but more often meditated in silence. The
+concord was perfect; no dogmatic quarrels, no disputes in regard to
+precedence. The tender recollection of Jesus effaced all dissensions.
+Joy, lively and deep-seated, was in every heart. Their morals were
+austere, but pervaded by a soft and tender sentiment. They assembled in
+houses to pray and to devote themselves to ecstatic exercises. The
+recollection of these two or three first years remained and seemed to
+them like a terrestrial paradise, which Christianity will pursue
+henceforth in all its dreams and to which it will vainly endeavor to
+return. Such an organization could only be applicable to a very small
+church.
+
+The apostles chosen by Jesus, and who were supposed to have received
+from him a special mandate to announce to the world the kingdom of God,
+had, in the little community, an incontestable superiority. One of the
+first cares, as soon as they saw the sect settle quietly down at
+Jerusalem, was to fill the vacancy that Judas of Kerioth had left in its
+ranks. The opinion that the latter had betrayed his master, and had been
+the cause of his death, became more and more general. The legend was
+mixed up with him, and every day one heard of some new circumstance
+which enhanced the black-heartedness of his deed. In order to replace
+him, it was resolved to have recourse to a vote of some sort. The sole
+condition was that the candidate should be chosen from the groups of the
+oldest disciples, who had been witnesses of the whole series of events,
+from the time of the baptism of John. This reduced considerably the
+number of those eligible. Two only were found in the ranks, Joseph
+Bar-Saba, who bore the name of Justus, and Matthias. The lot fell upon
+Matthias, who was accounted as one of the Twelve. But this was the sole
+instance of such a replacing.
+
+The body of Twelve lived, generally, permanently at Jerusalem. Till
+about the year 60 the apostles did not leave the holy city except upon
+temporary missions. This explains the obscurity in which the majority of
+the members of the central council remained. Very few of them had a
+_rôle_. This council was a kind of sacred college or senate, destined
+only to represent tradition and a spirit of conservatism. It finished by
+being relieved of every active function, so that its members had nothing
+to do but to preach and pray; but as yet the brilliant feats of
+preaching had not fallen to their lot. Their names were hardly known
+outside Jerusalem, and about the year 70 or 80 the lists which were
+given of these chosen Twelve agreed only in the principal names.
+
+The "Brothers of the Lord" appear often by the side of the "apostles,"
+although they were distinct from them. Their authority, however, was
+equal to that of the apostles. Here two groups constituted, in the
+nascent Church, a sort of aristocracy founded solely on the more or less
+intimate relations that their members had had with the Master. These
+were the men whom Paul denominated "the pillars" of the Church at
+Jerusalem. For the rest, we see that no distinctions in the
+ecclesiastical hierarchy yet existed. The title was nothing; the
+personal authority was everything. The principle of ecclesiastical
+celibacy was already established, but it required time to bring all
+these germs to their complete development. Peter and Philip were married
+and had sons and daughters.
+
+The term used to designate the assembly of the faithful was the Hebrew
+_Kahal_, which was rendered by the essentially democratic word
+_Ecclesia_, which is the convocation of the people in the ancient
+Grecian cities, the summons to the Pnyx or the _Agora_. Commencing with
+the second or the third century before Jesus Christ, the words of the
+Athenian democracy became a sort of common law in Hellenic language;
+many of these terms, on account of their having been used in the Greek
+confraternities, entered into the Christian vocabulary. It was, in
+reality, the popular life, which, restrained for centuries, resumed its
+power under forms altogether different. The primitive Church was, in its
+way, a little democracy.
+
+The power which was ascribed to the Church assembled and to its chiefs
+was enormous. The Church conferred every mission, and was guided solely
+in its choice by the signs given by the Spirit. Its authority went as
+far as decreeing death. It is recorded that at the voice of Peter
+several delinquents had fallen back and expired immediately. St. Paul, a
+little later, was not afraid, in excommunicating a fornicator, "to
+deliver him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit
+may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." Excommunication was held to
+be equivalent to a sentence of death. The apostles were believed to be
+invested with supernatural powers. In pronouncing such condemnations,
+they thought that their anathemas could not fail but be effectual. The
+terrible impression which their excommunications produced, and the
+hatred manifested by the brethren against all the members thus cut off,
+were sufficient, in fact, in many cases, to bring about death, or at
+least to compel the culprit to expatriate himself. Accounts like those
+of the death of Ananias and Sapphira did not excite any scruple. The
+idea of the civil power was so foreign to all that world placed without
+the pale of the Roman law, people were so persuaded that the Church was
+a complete society, sufficient in itself, that no person saw, in a
+miracle leading to death or the mutilation of an individual, an outrage
+punishable by the civil law. Enthusiasm and faith covered all, excused
+everything. But the frightful danger which these theocratic maxims laid
+up in store for the future is readily perceived. The Church is armed
+with a sword; excommunication is a sentence of death. There was
+henceforth in the world a power outside that of the State, which
+disposed of the life of citizens.
+
+Peter had among the apostles a certain precedence, derived directly from
+his zeal and his activity. In these first years he was hardly ever
+separate from John, son of Zebedee. They went almost always together,
+and their amity was doubtless the corner-stone of the new faith. James,
+the brother of the Lord, almost equalled them in authority, at least
+among a fraction of the Church.
+
+It is needless to remark that this little group of simple people had no
+speculative theology. Jesus wisely kept himself far removed from all
+metaphysics. He had only one dogma, his own divine Sonship and the
+divinity of his mission. The whole symbol of the primitive Church might
+be embraced in one line: "Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God." This
+belief rested upon a peremptory argument--the fact of the resurrection,
+of which the disciples claimed to be witnesses. To attest the
+resurrection of Jesus was the task which all considered as being
+specially imposed upon them. It was, however, very soon put forth that
+the Master had predicted this event. Different sayings of his were
+recalled, which were represented as having not been well understood, and
+in which was seen, on second thoughts, an announcement of the
+Resurrection. The belief in the near glorious manifestation of Jesus was
+universal. The secret word which the brethren used among themselves, in
+order to be recognized and confirmed, was _maran-atha_, "the Lord is at
+hand."
+
+Jesus, with his exquisite tact in religious matters, had instituted no
+new ritual. The new sect had not yet any special ceremonies. The
+practices of piety were Jewish. The assemblies had, in a strict sense,
+nothing liturgic. They were the meetings of confraternities, at which
+prayers were offered up, devoted themselves to _glossolaly_ or prophecy,
+and the reading of correspondence. There was nothing yet of
+sacerdotalism. There was no priest (_cohen_); the _presbyter_ was the
+"elder," nothing more. The only priest was Jesus: in another sense, all
+the faithful were priests. Fasting was considered a very meritorious
+practice. Baptism was the token of admission to the sect. The rite was
+the same as administered by John, but it was administered in the name of
+Jesus. Baptism was, however, considered an insufficient initiation. It
+had to be followed by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which were effected
+by means of a prayer, offered up by the apostles, upon the head of the
+new convert, accompanied by the imposition of hands.
+
+This imposition of hands, already so familiar to Jesus, was the
+sacramental act _par excellence_. It conferred inspiration, universal
+illumination, the power to produce prodigies, prophesying, and the
+speaking of languages. It was what was called the Baptism of the Spirit.
+It was supposed to recall a saying of Jesus: "John baptized you with
+water; but as for you, you shall be baptized by the Spirit." Gradually
+all these ideas became amalgamated, and baptism was conferred "in the
+name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." But it is not
+probable that this formula, in the early days in which we now are, was
+yet employed. We see the simplicity of this primitive Christian worship.
+Neither Jesus nor the apostles had invented it. Certain Jewish sects had
+adopted, before them, these grave and solemn ceremonies, which appeared
+to have come in part from Chaldæa, where they are still practised with
+special liturgies by the Sabeans or Mendaites. The religion of Persia
+embraced also many rites of the same description.
+
+The beliefs in popular medicine, which constituted a part of the force
+of Jesus, were continued in his disciples. The power of healing was one
+of the marvellous gifts conferred by the Spirit. The first Christians,
+like almost all the Jews of the time, looked upon diseases as the
+punishment of a transgression, or the work of a malignant demon. The
+apostles passed, just as Jesus did, for powerful exorcists. People
+imagined that the anointings of oil administered by the apostles, with
+imposition of hands and invocation of the name of Jesus, were
+all-powerful to wash away the sins which were the cause of disease, and
+to heal the afflicted one. Oil has always been in the East the medicine
+_par excellence_. For the rest, the simple imposition of the hands of
+the apostles was reputed to have the same effect. This imposition was
+made by immediate contact. Nor is it impossible that, in certain cases,
+the heat of the hands, being communicated suddenly to the head, insured
+to the sick person a little relief.
+
+The sect being young and not numerous, the question of deaths was not
+taken into account until later on. The effect caused by the first
+demises which took place in the ranks of the brethren was strange.
+People were troubled by the manner of the deaths. It was asked whether
+they were less favored than those who were reserved to see with their
+eyes the advent of the Son of Man? They came generally to consider the
+interval between death and the resurrection as a kind of blank in the
+consciousness of the defunct. At the time of which we speak, belief in
+the resurrection almost alone prevailed. The funeral rite was
+undoubtedly the Jewish rite. No importance was attached to it; no
+inscription indicated the name of the dead. The great resurrection was
+near; the bodies of the faithful had only to make in the rock a very
+short sojourn. It did not require much persuasion to put people in
+accord on the question as to whether the resurrection was to be
+universal, that is to say, whether it would embrace the good and the
+bad, or whether it would apply to the elect only. One of the most
+remarkable phenomena of the new religion was the reappearance of
+prophecy. For a long time people had spoken but little of prophets in
+Israel. That particular species of inspiration seemed to revive in the
+little sect. The primitive Church had several prophets and prophetesses
+analogous to those of the Old Testament. The psalmists also reappeared.
+The model of our Christian psalms is without doubt given in the
+canticles which Luke loved to disseminate in his gospel, and which were
+copied from the canticles of the Old Testament. These psalms and
+prophecies are, as regards form, destitute of originality, but an
+admirable spirit of gentleness and of piety animates and pervades them.
+It is like a faint echo of the last productions of the sacred lyre of
+Israel. The Book of Psalms was in a measure the calyx from which the
+Christian bee sucked its first juice. The Pentateuch, on the contrary,
+was, as it would seem, little read and little studied; there was
+substituted for it allegories after the manner of the Jewish
+_midraschim_ in which all the historic sense of the books was
+suppressed.
+
+The music which was sung to the new hymns was probably that species of
+sobbing, without distinct notes, which is still the music of the Greek
+Church, of the Maronites, and in general of the Christians of the East.
+It is less a musical modulation than a manner of forcing the voice and
+of emitting by the nose a sort of moaning in which all the inflections
+follow each other with rapidity. That odd melopoeia was executed
+standing, with the eyes fixed, the eyebrows crumpled, the brow knit, and
+with an appearance of effort. The word _amen_, in particular, was given
+out in a quivering, trembling voice. That word played a great part in
+the liturgy. In imitation of the Jews, the new adherents employed it to
+mark the assent of the multitude to the words of the prophet or the
+precentor. People, perhaps, already attributed to it some secret virtues
+and pronounced it with a certain emphasis. We do not know whether that
+primitive ecclesiastical song was accompanied by instruments. As to the
+inward chant, by which the faithful "made melody in their hearts," and
+which was but the overflowing of those tender, ardent, pensive souls, it
+was doubtless executed like the _catilenes_ of the Lollards of the
+Middle Ages, in medium voice. In general, it was joyousness which was
+poured out in these hymns.
+
+Till now the Church of Jerusalem presents itself to the outside world as
+a little Galilean colony. The friends whom Jesus had made at Jerusalem
+and in its environs, such as Lazarus, Martha, Mary of Bethany, Joseph of
+Arimathea, and Nicodemus, had disappeared from the scene. The Galilean
+group, who pressed around the Twelve, alone remained compact and
+active. The proselytism of the faithful was chiefly carried on by means
+of struggling conversions, in which the fervor of their souls was
+communicated to their neighbors. Their preachings under the porticoes of
+Solomon were addressed to circles not at all numerous. But the effect of
+this was only the more profound. Their discourses consisted principally
+of quotations from the Old Testament, by which it was sought to prove
+that Jesus was the Messiah.
+
+The real preaching was the private conversations of these good and
+sincere men; it was the reflection, always noticeable in their
+discourses, of the words of Jesus; it was, above all, their piety, their
+gentleness. The attraction of communistic life carried with it also a
+great deal of force. Their houses were a sort of hospitals, in which all
+the poor and the forsaken found asylum and succor.
+
+One of the first to affiliate himself with the rising society was a
+Cypriote, named Joseph Hallevi, or the Levite. Like the others, he sold
+his land and carried the price of it to the feet of the Twelve. He was
+an intelligent man, with a devotion proof against everything, and a
+fluent speaker. The apostles attached him closely to themselves and
+called him _Barnaba_, that is to say, "the son of prophecy" or of
+"preaching." He was accounted, in fact, of the number of the prophets,
+that is to say, of the inspired preachers. Later on we shall see him
+play a capital part. Next to St. Paul, he was the most active missionary
+of the first century. A certain Mnason, his countryman, was converted
+about the same time. Cyprus possessed many Jews. Barnabas and Mnason
+were undoubtedly Jewish by race. The intimate and prolonged relations of
+Barnabas with the Church at Jerusalem induces the belief that
+Syro-Chaldaic was familiar to him.
+
+A conquest, almost as important as that of Barnabas, was that of one
+John, who bore the Roman surname of Marcus. He was a cousin of Barnabas,
+and was circumcised. His mother, Mary, enjoyed an easy competency; she
+was likewise converted, and her dwelling was more than once made the
+rendezvous of the apostles. These two conversions appear to have been
+the work of Peter.
+
+The first flame was thus spread with great rapidity. The men, the most
+celebrated of the apostolic century, were almost all gained over to the
+cause in two or three years, by a sort of simultaneous attraction. It
+was a second Christian generation, similar to that which had been formed
+five or six years previously, upon the shores of Lake Tiberias. This
+second generation had not seen Jesus, and could not equal the first in
+authority. But it was destined to surpass it in activity and in its love
+for distant missions. One of the best known among the new converts was
+Stephen, who, before his conversion, appears to have been only a simple
+proselyte. He was a man full of ardor and of passion. His faith was of
+the most fervent, and he was considered to be favored with all the gifts
+of the Spirit. Philip, who, like Stephen, was a zealous deacon and
+evangelist, attached himself to the community about the same time. He
+was often confounded with his namesake, the apostle. Finally, there were
+converted at this epoch, Andronicus and Junia, probably husband and
+wife, who, like Aquila and Priscilla, later on, were the model of an
+apostolic couple, devoted to all the duties of missionary work. They
+were of the blood of Israel, and were in the closest relations with the
+apostles.
+
+The new converts, when touched by grace, were all Jews by religion, but
+they belonged to two very different classes of Jews. The one class was
+the Hebrews; that is to say, the Jews of Palestine, speaking Hebrew or
+rather Armenian, reading the Bible in the Hebrew text; the other class
+was "Hellenists," that is to say, Jews speaking Greek, and reading the
+Bible in Greek. These last were further subdivided into two classes, the
+one being of Jewish blood, the other being proselytes, that is to say,
+people of non-Israelitish origin, allied in divers degrees to Judaism.
+These Hellenists, who almost all came from Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, or
+Cyrene, lived at Jerusalem in distinct quarters. They had their separate
+synagogues, and formed thus little communities apart. Jerusalem
+contained a great number of these special synagogues. It was in these
+that the words of Jesus found the soil prepared to receive it and to
+make it fructify.
+
+The primitive nucleus of the Church at Jerusalem had been composed
+wholly and exclusively of Hebrews; the Aramaic dialect, which was the
+language of Jesus, was alone known and employed there. But we see that
+from the second or third year after the death of Jesus, Greek was
+introduced into the little community, where it soon became dominant. In
+consequence of their daily relations with the new brethren, Peter, John,
+James, Jude, and in general the Galilean disciples acquired the Greek
+with much more facility than if they had already known something of it.
+The Palestinian dialect came to be abandoned from the day in which
+people dreamed of a widespread propaganda. A provincial _patois_, which
+was rarely written, and which was not spoken beyond Syria, was as little
+adapted as could be to such an object. Greek, on the contrary, was
+necessarily imposed on Christianity. It was at the time the universal
+language, at least for the eastern basin of the Mediterranean. It was,
+in particular, the language of the Jews who were dispersed over the
+Roman Empire.
+
+The conversions to Christianity became soon much more numerous among the
+"Hellenists" than among the "Hebrews." The old Jews at Jerusalem were
+but little drawn toward a sect of provincials, moderately advanced in
+the single science that a Pharisee appreciated--the science of the law.
+The position of the little Church in regard to Judaism was, as with
+Jesus himself, rather equivocal. But every religious or political party
+carries in itself a force that dominates it, and obliges it, despite
+itself, to revolve in its own orbit. The first Christians, whatever
+their apparent respect for Judaism was, were in reality only Jews by
+birth or by exterior customs. The true spirit of the sect came from
+another source. That which grew out of official Judaism was the
+_Talmud_; but Christianity has no affinity with the Talmudic school.
+This is why Christianity found special favor among the parties the least
+Jewish belonging to Judaism. The rigid orthodoxists took to it but
+little; it was the newcomers, people scarcely catechized, who had not
+been to any of the great schools, free from routine, and not initiated
+into the holy tongue, which lent an ear to the apostles and the
+disciples.
+
+This family of simple and united brethren drew associates from every
+quarter. In return for that which these brought, they obtained an
+assured future, the society of a congenial brotherhood, and precious
+hopes. The general custom, before entering the sect, was for each one to
+convert his fortune into specie. These fortunes ordinarily consisted of
+small rural, semi-barren properties, and difficult of cultivation. It
+had one advantage, especially for unmarried people: it enabled them to
+exchange these plots of land against funds sunk in an assurance society,
+with a view to the Kingdom of God. Even some married people came to the
+fore in that arrangement; and precautions were taken to insure that the
+associates brought all that they really possessed, and did not retain
+anything outside the common fund. Indeed, seeing that each one received
+out of the latter a share, not in proportion to what one put in, but in
+proportion to one's needs, every reservation of property was actually a
+theft made upon the community. The Christian communism had religion for
+a basis, while modern socialism has nothing of the kind.
+
+Under such a social constitution, the administrative difficulties were
+necessarily very numerous, whatever might be the degree of fraternal
+feeling which prevailed. Between two factions of a community, whose
+language was not the same, misapprehensions were inevitable. It was
+difficult for well-descended Jews not to entertain some contempt for
+their coreligionists who were less noble. In fact, it was not long
+before murmurs began to be heard. The "Hellenists," who each day became
+more numerous, complained because their widows were not so well treated
+at the distributions as those of the "Hebrews." Till now, the apostles
+had presided over the affairs of the treasury. But in face of these
+protestations they felt the necessity of delegating to others this part
+of their powers. They proposed to the community to confide these
+administrative cares to seven experienced and considerate men. The
+proposition was accepted. The seven chosen were Stephanas, or Stephen,
+Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas. Stephen was
+the most important of the seven, and, in a sense, their chief.
+
+To the administrators thus designated were given the Syriac name of
+_Schammaschin_. They were also sometimes called "the Seven," to
+distinguish them from "the Twelve." Such, then, was the origin of the
+diaconate, which is found to be the most ancient ecclesiastical
+function, the most ancient of sacred orders. Later, all the organized
+churches, in imitation of that of Jerusalem, had deacons. The growth of
+such an institution was marvellous. It placed the claims of the poor on
+an equality with religious services. It was a proclamation of the truth
+that social problems are the first which should occupy the attention of
+mankind. It was the foundation of political economy in the religious
+sense. The deacons were the first preachers of Christianity. As
+organizers, financiers, and administrators, they filled a yet more
+important part. These practical men, in constant contact with the poor,
+the sick, the women, went everywhere, observed everything, exhorted, and
+were most efficacious in converting people. They accomplished more than
+the apostles, who remained on their seats of honor at Jerusalem. They
+were the founders of Christianity, in respect of that which it possessed
+which was most solid and enduring.
+
+At an early period women were admitted to this office. They were
+designated, as in our day, by the name of "sisters." At first widows
+were selected; later, virgins were preferred. The tact which guided the
+primitive Church in all this was admirable. The grand idea of
+consecrating by a sort of religious character and of subjecting to a
+regular discipline the women who were not in the bonds of marriage, is
+wholly Christian. The term "widow" became synonymous with religious
+person, consecrated to God, and, by consequence, a "deaconess." In those
+countries where the wife, at the age of twenty-four, is already faded,
+where there is no middle state between the infant and the old woman, it
+was a kind of new life, which was created for that portion of the human
+species the most capable of devotion. These women, constantly going to
+and fro, were admirable missionaries of the new religion.
+
+The bishop and the priest, as we now know them, did not yet exist.
+Still, the pastoral ministry, that intimate familiarity of souls, not
+bound by ties of blood, had already been established. This latter has
+ever been the special gift of Jesus, and a kind of heritage from him.
+Jesus had often said that to everyone he was more than a father and a
+mother, and that in order to follow him it was necessary to forsake
+those the most dear to us. Christianity placed some things above
+family; it instituted brotherhood and spiritual marriage. The ancient
+form of marriage, which placed the wife unreservedly in the power of the
+husband, was pure slavery. The moral liberty of the woman began when the
+Church gave to her in Jesus a guide and a confidant, who should advise
+and console her, listen always to her, and on occasion counsel
+resistance on her part. Woman needs to be governed, and is happy in so
+being; but it is necessary that she should love him who governs her.
+This is what neither ancient societies nor Judaism nor Islamism have
+been able to do. Woman has never had, up to the present time, a
+religious conscience, a moral individuality, an opinion of her own,
+except in Christianity.
+
+It was now about the year 36. Tiberius, at Capreæ, has little idea of
+the enemy to the empire which is growing up. In two or three years the
+sect had made surprising progress. It numbered several thousand of the
+faithful. It was already easy to foresee that its conquests would be
+effected chiefly among the Hellenists and proselytes. The Galilean group
+which had listened to the Master, though preserving always its
+precedence, seemed as if swamped by the floods of newcomers speaking
+Greek. One could already perceive that the principal parts were to be
+played by the latter. At the time at which we are arrived no pagan, that
+is to say, no man without some anterior connection with Judaism, had
+entered into the Church. Proselytes, however, performed very important
+functions in it. The circle _de provenance_ of the disciples had
+likewise largely extended; it is no longer a simple little college of
+Palestineans; we can count in it people from Cyprus, Antioch, and
+Cyrene, and from almost all the points of the eastern coasts of the
+Mediterranean, where Jewish colonies had been established. Egypt alone
+was wanting in the primitive Church, and for a long time continued to be
+so.
+
+It was inevitable that the preachings of the new sect, although
+delivered with so much reserve, should revive the animosities which had
+accumulated against its Founder, and eventually brought about his death.
+The Sadducee family of Hanan, who had caused the death of Jesus, was
+still reigning. Joseph Caiaphas occupied, up to 36, the sovereign
+pontificate, the effective power of which he gave over to his
+father-in-law Hanan, and to his relatives, John and Alexander. These
+arrogant and pitiless men viewed with impatience a troop of good and
+holy people, without official title, winning the favor of the multitude.
+Once or twice Peter, John, and the principal members of the apostolic
+college were put in prison and condemned to flagellation. This was the
+chastisement inflicted on heretics. The authorization of the Romans was
+not necessary in order to apply it. As we might indeed suppose, these
+brutalities only served to inflame the ardor of the apostles. They came
+forth from the Sanhedrim, where they had just undergone flagellation,
+rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Him whom
+they loved. Eternal puerility of penal repressions applied to things of
+the soul! They were regarded, no doubt, as men of order, as models of
+prudence and wisdom; these blunderers, who seriously believed in the
+year 36 to gain the upper hand of Christianity by means of a few strokes
+of a whip!
+
+These outrages proceeded chiefly from the Sadducees, that is to say,
+from the upper clergy, who crowded the Temple and derived from it
+immense profits. We do not find that the Pharisees exhibited toward the
+sect the animosity they displayed to Jesus. The new believers were
+strict and pious people, somewhat resembling in their manner of life the
+Pharisees themselves. The rage which the latter manifested against the
+Founder arose from the superiority of Jesus--a superiority which he was
+at no pains to dissimulate. His delicate railleries, his wit, his charm,
+his contempt for hypocrites, had kindled a ferocious hatred. The
+apostles, on the contrary, were devoid of wit; they never employed
+irony. The Pharisees were at times favorable to them; many Pharisees had
+even become Christians. The terrible anathemas of Jesus against
+Pharisaism had not yet been written, and the accounts of the words of
+the Master were neither general nor uniform. These first Christians
+were, besides, people so inoffensive that many persons of the Jewish
+aristocracy, who did not exactly form part of the sect, were well
+disposed toward them. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who had known
+Jesus, remained no doubt with the Church in the bonds of brotherhood.
+
+The most celebrated Jewish doctor of the age, Rabbi Gamaliel the elder,
+grandson of Hillel, a man of broad and very tolerant ideas, spoke, it is
+said, in the Sanhedrim in favor of permitting gospel preaching. The
+author of the Acts credits him with some excellent reasoning, which
+ought to be the rule of conduct of governments on all occasions when
+they find themselves confronted with novelties of an intellectual or
+moral order. "If this work is frivolous," said he, "leave it alone--it
+will fall of itself; if it is serious, how dare you resist the work of
+God? In any case, you will not succeed in stopping it." Gamaliel's words
+were hardly listened to. Liberal minds in the midst of opposing
+fanaticisms have no chance of succeeding.
+
+A terrible commotion was produced by the deacon Stephen. His preaching
+had, as it would appear, great success. Multitudes flocked around him,
+and these gatherings resulted in acrimonious quarrels. It was chiefly
+Hellenists, or proselytes, _habitués_ of the synagogue, called
+_Libertini_, people of Cyrene, of Alexandria, of Cilicia, of Ephesus,
+who took an active part in these disputes. Stephen passionately
+maintained that Jesus was the Messiah, that the priests had committed a
+crime in putting him to death, that the Jews were rebels, sons of
+rebels, people who rejected evidence. The authorities resolved to
+despatch this audacious preacher. Several witnesses were suborned to
+seize upon some words in his discourses against Moses. Naturally they
+found that for which they sought. Stephen was arrested and led into the
+presence of the Sanhedrim. The sentence with which they reproached him
+was almost identical with the one which led to the condemnation of
+Jesus. They accused him of saying that Jesus of Nazareth would destroy
+the Temple and change the traditions attributed to Moses. It is quite
+possible, indeed, that Stephen had used such language. A Christian of
+that epoch could not have had the idea of speaking directly against the
+Law, inasmuch as all still observed it; as for traditions, however,
+Stephen might combat them as Jesus had himself done; nevertheless, these
+traditions were foolishly ascribed by the orthodox to Moses, and people
+attributed to them a value equal to that of the written Law.
+
+Stephen defended himself by expounding the Christian thesis, with a
+wealth of citations from the written Law, from the Psalms, from the
+Prophets, and wound up by reproaching the members of the Sanhedrim with
+the murder of Jesus. "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart," said
+he to them, "you will then ever resist the Holy Ghost as your fathers
+also have done. Which of the prophets have not your fathers prosecuted?
+They have slain those who announced the coming of the Just One, whom you
+have betrayed, and of whom you have been the murderers. This law that
+you have received from the mouth of angels you have not kept." At these
+words a scream of rage interrupted him. Stephen, his excitement
+increasing more and more, fell into one of those transports of
+enthusiasm which were called the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. His
+eyes were fixed on high; he witnessed the glory of God, and Jesus by the
+side of his Father, and cried out, "Behold, I see the heavens opened,
+and the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of God." The whole assembly
+stopped their ears and threw themselves upon him, gnashing their teeth.
+He was dragged outside the city and stoned. The witnesses, who,
+according to the law, had to cast the first stones, divested themselves
+of their garments and laid them at the feet of a young fanatic named
+Saul, or Paul, who was thinking with secret joy of the renown he was
+acquiring in participating in the death of a blasphemer.
+
+In that epoch the persecutors of Christianity were not Romans; they were
+orthodox Jews. The Romans preserved in the midst of this fanaticism a
+principle of tolerance and of reason. If we can reproach the imperial
+authority with anything it is with being too lenient, and with not
+having cut short with a stroke the civil consequences of a sanguinary
+law which visited with death religious derelictions. But as yet the
+Roman domination was not so complete as it became later.
+
+As Stephen's death may have taken place at any time during the years 36,
+37, 38, we cannot, therefore, affirm whether Caiaphas ought to be held
+responsible for it. Caiaphas was deposed by Lucius Vitellius, in the
+year 36, shortly after the time of Pilate; but the change was
+inconsiderable. He had for a successor his brother-in-law, Jonathan, son
+of Hanan. The latter, in turn, was succeeded by his brother Theophilus,
+son of Hanan, who continued the pontificate in the house of Hanan till
+the year 42. Hanan was still alive, and, possessed of the real power,
+maintained in his family the principles of pride, severity, hatred
+against innovators, which were, so to speak, hereditary.
+
+The death of Stephen produced a great impression. The proselytes
+solemnized his funeral with tears and groanings. The separation of the
+new sectaries from Judaism was not yet absolute. The proselytes and the
+Hellenists, less strict in regard to orthodoxy than the pure Jews,
+considered that they ought to render public homage to a man who
+respected their constitution, and whose peculiar beliefs did not put him
+without the pale of the law. Thus began the era of Christian martyrs.
+
+The murder of Stephen was not an isolated event. Taking advantage of the
+weakness of the Roman functionaries, the Jews brought to bear upon the
+Church a real persecution. It seems that the vexations pressed chiefly
+on the Hellenists and the proselytes, whose free behavior exasperated
+the orthodox. The Church of Jerusalem, though already strongly
+organized, was compelled to disperse. The apostles, according to a
+principle which seems to have seized strong hold of their minds, did not
+quit the city. It was probably so, too, with the whole purely Jewish
+group, those who were denominated the "Hebrews." But the great community
+with its common table, its diaconal services, its varied exercises,
+ceased from that time, and was never reformed upon its first model. It
+had endured for three or four years. It was for nascent Christianity an
+unequalled good fortune that its first attempts at association,
+essentially communistic, were so soon broken up. Essays of this kind
+engender such shocking abuses that communistic establishments are
+condemned to crumble away in a very short time or to ignore very soon
+the principle upon which they are founded.
+
+Thanks to the persecution of the year 37, the cenobitic Church of
+Jerusalem was saved from the test of time. It was nipped in the bud
+before interior difficulties had undermined it. It remained like a
+splendid dream, the memory of which animated in their life of trial all
+those who had formed part of it, like an ideal to which Christianity
+incessantly aspires without ever succeeding in reaching its goal.
+
+The leading part in the persecution we have just related belonged to
+that young Saul, whom we have above found abetting, as far as in him
+lay, the murder of Stephen. This hot-headed youth, furnished with a
+permission from the priests, entered houses suspected of harboring
+Christians, laid violent hold on men and women, and dragged them to
+prison or before the tribunals. Saul boasted that there was no one of
+his generation so zealous as himself for the traditions. True it is that
+often the gentleness and the resignation of his victims astonished him;
+he experienced a kind of remorse; he fancied he heard these pious women,
+whom, hoping for the Kingdom of God, he had cast into prison, saying
+during the night, in a sweet voice, "Why persecutest thou us?" The blood
+of Stephen, which had almost smothered him, sometimes troubled his
+vision. Many things that he had heard said of Jesus went to his heart.
+This superhuman being, in his ethereal life, whence he sometimes
+emerged, revealing himself in brief apparitions, haunted him like a
+spectre. But Saul shrunk with horror from such thoughts; he confirmed
+himself with a sort of frenzy in the faith of his traditions, and
+meditated new cruelties against those who attacked him. His name had
+become a terror to the faithful; they dreaded at his hands the most
+atrocious outrages and the most sanguinary treacheries.
+
+The persecution of the year 37 had for its result, as is always the
+case, the spread of the doctrine which it was wished to arrest. Till now
+the Christian preaching had not extended far beyond Jerusalem; no
+mission had been undertaken; enclosed within its exalted but narrow
+communion, the mother Church had spread no halos around herself nor
+formed any branches. The dispersion of the little circle scattered the
+good seed to the four winds of heaven. The members of the Church of
+Jerusalem, driven violently from their quarters, spread themselves over
+every part of Judea and Samaria, and preached everywhere the Kingdom of
+God. The deacons, in particular, freed from their administrative
+functions by the destruction of the community, became excellent
+evangelists.
+
+The scene of the first missions, which was soon to embrace the whole
+basin of the Mediterranean, was the region about Jerusalem, within a
+radius of two or three days' journey. Philip the Deacon was the hero of
+this first holy expedition. He evangelized Samaria most successfully.
+Peter and John, after confirming the Church of Sebaste, departed again
+for Jerusalem, evangelizing on their way the villages of the country of
+Samaria. Philip the Deacon continued his evangelizing journeys,
+directing his steps toward the south, into the ancient country of the
+Philistines.
+
+Azote and the Gaza route were the limits of the first evangelical
+preachings toward the south. Beyond were the desert and the nomadic life
+upon which Christianity has never taken much hold. From Azote Philip the
+Deacon turned toward the north and evangelized all the coast as far as
+Cæsarea, where he settled and founded an important church. Cæsarea was a
+new city and the most considerable of Judea. It was in a kind of way the
+port of Christianity, the point by which the Church of Jerusalem
+communicated with all the Mediterranean.
+
+Many other missions, the history of which is unknown to us, were
+conducted simultaneously with that of Philip. The very rapidity with
+which this first preaching was done was the reason of its success. In
+the year 38, five years after the death of Jesus, and probably one year
+after the death of Stephen, all this side of Jordan had heard the glad
+tidings from the mouths of missionaries hailing from Jerusalem. Galilee,
+on its part, guarded the holy seed and probably scattered it around her,
+although we know of no missions issuing from that quarter. Perhaps the
+city of Damascus, from the period at which we now are, had also some
+Christians, who received the faith from Galilean preachers.
+
+The year 38 is marked in the history of the nascent Church by a much
+more important conquest. During that year we may safely place the
+conversion of that Saul whom we witnessed participating in the stoning
+of Stephen, and as a principal agent in the persecution of 37, but who
+now, by a mysterious act of grace, becomes the most ardent of the
+disciples of Jesus.
+
+From the year 38 to the year 44 no persecution seems to have been
+directed against the Church. The faithful were, no doubt, far more
+prudent than before the death of Stephen, and avoided speaking in
+public. Perhaps, too, the troubles of the Jews who, during all the
+second part of the reign of Caligula, were at variance with that prince,
+contributed to favor the nascent sect.
+
+This period of peace was fruitful in interior developments. The nascent
+Church was divided into three provinces, Judea, Samaria, Galilee, to
+which Damascus was no doubt attached. The primacy of Jerusalem was
+uncontested. The Church of this city, which had been dispersed after the
+death of Stephen, was quickly reconstituted. The apostles had never
+quitted the city. The brothers of the Lord continued to reside there and
+to wield a great authority.
+
+Peter undertook frequent apostolical journeys in the environs of
+Jerusalem. He had always a great reputation as a thaumaturgist. At Lydda
+in particular he was reputed to have cured a paralytic named Æneas, a
+miracle which is said to have led to numerous conversions in the plain
+of Saron. From Lydda he repaired to Joppa, a city which appears to have
+been a centre for Christianity. Peter made a long sojourn at Joppa, at
+the house of a tanner named Simon, who dwelt near the sea. The
+organization of works of charity was soon actively entered upon.
+
+The germ of those associations of women, which are one of the glories of
+Christianity, existed in the first churches of Judea. At Jaffa commenced
+those societies of veiled women, clothed in linen, who were destined to
+continue through centuries the tradition of charitable secrets. Tabitha
+was the mother of a family which will have no end as long as there are
+miseries to be relieved and feminine instincts to be gratified.
+
+The Church of Jerusalem was still exclusively composed of Jews and of
+proselytes. The Holy Ghost being shed upon the uncircumcised before
+baptism, appeared an extraordinary fact. It is probable that there
+existed thenceforward a party opposed in principle to the admission of
+Gentiles, and that all did not accept the explanations of Peter. The
+author of the Acts would have us believe that the approbation was
+unanimous. But in a few years we shall see the question revived with
+much greater intensity. This matter of the good centurion was, perhaps,
+like that of the Ethiopian eunuch, accepted as an exceptional case,
+justified by a revelation and an express order from God. Still the
+matter was far from being settled. This was the first controversy which
+had taken place in the bosom of the Church; the paradise of interior
+peace had lasted for six or seven years.
+
+About the year 40 the great question upon which depended all the future
+of Christianity appears thus to have been propounded. Peter and Philip
+took a very just view of what was the true solution, and baptized
+pagans.
+
+The new faith was spread from place to place with marvellous rapidity.
+The members of the Church of Jerusalem, who had been dispersed
+immediately after the death of Stephen, pushing their conquests along
+the coast of Phoenicia, reached Cyprus and Antioch. They were at first
+guided by the sole principle of preaching the Gospel to the Jews only.
+
+Antioch, "the metropolis of the East," the third city of the world, was
+the centre of this Christian movement in Northern Syria. It was a city
+with a population of more than five hundred thousand souls, and the
+residence of the imperial legate of Syria. Suddenly advanced to a high
+degree of splendor by the Seleucidæ, it reaped great benefit from the
+Roman occupation. Antioch, from its foundation, had been wholly a
+Grecian city. The Macedonians of Antigone and Seleucus had brought with
+them into that country of the Lower Orontes their most lively
+recollections, their worship, and the names of their country. The
+Grecian mythology was there adopted as it were in a second home; they
+pretended to show in the country a crowd of "holy places" forming part
+of this mythology. The city was full of the worship of Apollo and of the
+nymphs. The degradation of the people was awful. The peculiarity of
+these centres of moral putrefaction is to reduce all the race of mankind
+to the same level. The depravity of certain Levantine cities, which are
+dominated by the spirit of intrigue and delivered up entirely to low
+cunning, can scarcely give us an idea of the degree of corruption
+reached by the human race at Antioch. It was an inconceivable medley of
+mountebanks, quacks, buffoons, magicians, miracle-mongers, sorcerers,
+false priests; a city of races, games, dances, processions, _fêtes_,
+revels, of unbridled luxury, of all the follies of the East, of the most
+unhealthy superstitions, and of the fanaticism of the orgy. The city
+was very literary, but literary only in the literature of rhetoricians.
+The beauty of works of art and the infinite charm of nature prevented
+this moral degradation from sinking entirely into hideousness and
+vulgarity.
+
+The Church of Antioch owed its foundation to some believers originally
+from Cyprus and Cyrene, who had already been much engaged in preaching.
+Up to this time they had only addressed themselves to the Jews. But in a
+city where pure Jews--Jews who were proselytes, "people fearing God"--or
+half-Jewish pagans and pure pagans, lived together, exclusive preaching
+restricted to a group of houses became impossible. That feeling of
+religious aristocracy on which the Jews of Jerusalem so much prided
+themselves did not exist in those large cities, where civilization was
+altogether of the profane sort, where the scope was greater, and where
+prejudices were less firmly rooted. The Cypriot and Cyrenian
+missionaries were then constrained to depart from their rule. They
+preached to the Jews and to the Greeks indifferently.
+
+The success of the Christian preaching was great. A young, innovating,
+and ardent Church, full of the future, because it was composed of the
+most diverse elements, was quickly founded. All the gifts of the Holy
+Spirit were there poured out, and it was easy to perceive that this new
+Church, emancipated from the strict Mosaism which erected an insuperable
+barrier around Jerusalem, would become the second cradle of
+Christianity. Assuredly, Jerusalem must remain forever the capital of
+the Christian world; nevertheless, the point of departure of the Church
+of the Gentiles, the primordial focus of Christian missions, was, in
+truth, Antioch. It was there that for the first time a Christian church
+was established, freed from the bonds of Judaism; it was there that the
+great propaganda of the apostolic age was established; it was there that
+St. Paul assumed a definite character. Antioch marks the second
+halting-place of the progress of Christianity, and, in respect of
+Christian nobility, neither Rome nor Alexandria nor Constantinople can
+be at all compared with it.
+
+The foundation of Christianity, from this point of view, is the greatest
+work that the men of the people have ever achieved. Very quickly,
+without doubt, men and women of the high Roman nobility joined
+themselves to the Church. At the end of the first century, Flavius
+Clemens and Flavia Domitilla show us Christianity penetrating almost
+into the palace of the Cæsars.
+
+
+ISAAC M. WISE
+
+In the rabbinical literature several successes of the apostles are
+noticed, especially at Capernaum and Capersamia. One of them is most
+remarkable, viz., the conversion of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcan by the
+apostle James. This rabbi, the _Talmud_ narrates, was actually arrested
+by Roman officers, and, in obedience to the edict against Christianity,
+was accused of the crime of being a Christian, which he did not deny,
+although he repented it.
+
+The most important success, however, which the apostles could boast was
+the conversion of Paul. The man whose colossal genius and gigantic
+energies grasped the pillars upon which the superstructure of
+Græco-Roman paganism rested, bent and broke them like rotten staves,
+till with a thundering noise down came the ancient fabric, with its
+gods, altars, temples, priests, and priestesses, depositing _débris_
+that took centuries to remove and remodel; the man whose hands were
+against all, and against whom were all hands; who defied the philosophy
+of the philosophers, the power of the priests, and the religions of the
+world; who was all alone all in all--this man was Paul of Tarsus, the
+great apostle to the Gentiles, with an original gospel of his own. He
+kindled a fire in the very heart of the Roman Empire, under the eyes of
+the authorities of Rome and of Jerusalem, which in a few centuries
+consumed ancient heathenism from the Tigris to the Tiber, and from the
+Tiber to the Thames. With a skilful hand he threw the sparks upon the
+accumulated combustibles of error, corruption, and slavery, and ancient
+society exploded, to make room and furnish the material for a new
+civilization. The conversion of this man was the apostles' great
+success. If it had not been for him the nascent Church, like other
+Jewish sects, would have perished in the catastrophe of Jerusalem,
+because the apostles did not possess that vigor and energy to resist the
+violent shock. In Paul, however, the spirit of John and of Jesus
+resurrected with double vigor, and he became the actual founder of the
+Christianity of history.
+
+Few and far apart are the brilliant stars in the horizon of history.
+Strike out a hundred names and their influence upon the fate of man, and
+you have no history.
+
+Those brilliant stars, however, did not always make history from their
+own wealth, from the original resources of their minds. Ideas which tens
+of thousands have held, without an attempt to carry them into effect,
+and others have unsuccessfully attempted to realize, in the right time
+and under favorable circumstances are seized upon by an executive
+genius, and a new epoch in history is opened. The numerous minor spirits
+which contributed to the sum total of the creative idea disappear in the
+brilliancy of the one star which remains visible in history. The world
+is a machine shop. Each artificer makes the part of a machine. One
+master mind combines the parts, and he is known as the master machinist.
+
+Paul was one of those master machinists, one of those brilliant stars in
+the horizon of history. In him the spirit of Jesus resurrected as
+eminently and vigorously as John had resurrected in Jesus. He was the
+author of Gentile Christianity. He conceived the idea of carrying into
+effect what all the prophets, all pious Israelites of all ages, hoped
+and expected--the denationalization of the Hebrew ideas, and their
+promulgation in the form of universal religion among the Gentiles; to
+conciliate and unite the human family under the great banner inscribed
+with the motto of "One God and one code of morals to all." All Jews of
+all ages hoped and expected that the kingdom of heaven should be
+extended to all nations and tongues; but Paul went forth TO DO it; this
+is his particular greatness.
+
+The circumstances, of course, favored his enterprise. Græco-Roman
+paganism was undermined. The gods stood in disrepute, and the augurs
+smiled. The state religion was an organized hypocrisy. The learned
+believed nothing; the vulgar almost everything, if it was but
+preposterously absurd enough. The progress of Grecian philosophy and the
+inroads of Judaism in the Roman world were so considerable that royal
+families had embraced Judaism, and the emperor Tiberius had found it
+necessary to drive the Jews, together with the Egyptian priests, from
+Rome, because their religion had its admirers in the very palace of the
+Cæsars, as well as among priests, nobles, and plebeians. All the devout
+Gentiles whom Paul met on his journeys were Judaized Greeks or Syrians;
+for the Pharisees traversed land and sea to make one proselyte.
+Therefore, when Paul preached in Asia Minor, Cicero and Cato _had_
+spoken in Rome; Seneca and Epictetus gave utterance to sentiments as
+nearly like those of Paul and other Jews as are the two eyes of the same
+head.
+
+Again, on the other hand, Epicurism in its worst sequences, sensualism
+in its most outrageous form, the despotism and brutality of the Cæsars
+and their favorites, had so undermined the moral sentiments and
+religious feelings of the masses that scepticism, fraught with shocking
+vices and unnatural crimes, coupled with contemptible hypocrisy and
+ridiculous superstition, demoralized the masses and brought truth itself
+into ill-repute. To add to all this there came the steady decline of the
+Jewish state, the growing demonstration of fast-approaching ruin, and,
+in consequence thereof, the growth of superstition among the Hebrews,
+among whom a class of mystics sprang up, who professed to know what God
+and his angels do, speak, and think in the secret cabinet of heaven,
+where the throne of the Almighty stands, splendidly and minutely
+described by those mystics who supposed that they received superior
+knowledge by special impressions from on high, without study or research
+on their part; and expected to see the status of social and political
+affairs suddenly changed by miraculous interpositions of the Deity,
+without human exertion and coöperation. This state of affairs was highly
+favorable to Paul's stupendous enterprise.
+
+But who was Paul himself? Notwithstanding all the attempts of the author
+of the Acts to mystify him into as mythical a character as the Gospels
+made of Jesus, Paul is an open book in history. We have his genuine
+epistles, in which he gives considerable account of himself and his
+exploits. We have one portion of the Acts in which, contrary to the rest
+of that book, the author narrates in the first person plural, "we,"
+which appears to be taken from the notes of one of Paul's
+companions--Luke, Timothy, Silas, or any other. Then we have the
+_Talmud_, with its numerous anecdotes about _Acher_, as the rabbis
+called Paul, which are of inestimable value to the historian. These
+sources enable us to form a conception of the man. A few remarks on his
+life will be found interesting.
+
+Paul is not a proper name. It signifies "the little one." The author of
+the Acts states that his name was Saul. But, it appears, he knew no more
+about it than we do, and changed the P of Paul into an S, to make of it
+the Hebrew name Saul. In his epistles he invariably calls himself Paul,
+and not Saul. So the author of the "we" portion of the Acts always calls
+him Paul. Passing under an assumed name, the rabbis called him _Acher_,
+"another," _i.e._, one who passes under another or assumed name. They
+maintain that his name was Elisha ben Abujah. But this name must be
+fictitious, because it is a direct and express reference to Paul's
+theology. It signifies "the saving deity, son of the father god," and
+Paul was the author of the "Son of God" doctrine. The fact is, he was
+known to the world under his assumed name only.
+
+Nothing is known of his youth, except a few spurious anecdotes recorded
+in the _Talmud_. When quite young he studied the law and some Grecian
+literature at the feet of Gamaliel in Jerusalem, among the thousand
+students who listened to the wisdom of that master. He states that he
+was a very zealous Pharisee, who persecuted the Christians. But all of a
+sudden he embraced the cause of the persecuted, and became one of its
+most zealous apostles. We can easily imagine the nature of that
+persecution, although the Stephen story, like the Damascus story and the
+vision on the way, as narrated in the Acts, is spurious, because Paul
+never alludes to it, and the Jews of Jerusalem had no jurisdiction in
+Damascus over anybody. But what caused his remarkable transition from
+one extreme to the other? First a Pharisee, with law and nothing but
+law, and then the author of the epistles, which reject and abrogate the
+entire law. Transitions of this nature require time, and are wrought by
+violent agencies only.
+
+A number of stories narrated in the _Talmud_, together with those of the
+Acts, point to the fact that the youthful Paul, with his vivid
+imagination, witnessed many an act of barbarous violence and outrageous
+injustice. Occurrences of this nature were not rare under the military
+despotism of Rome in Judea. The soil was saturated with innocent blood.
+The world was governed by the sword, and Rome groaned under the
+unnatural crimes of her Cæsars. There was universal depravity among the
+governing class, and endless misery among the governed. The rabbis give
+us to understand that this state of affairs misled Paul into the belief
+that there was no justice in heaven or earth, no hope for Israel, no
+reward and no punishment, that the balance of justice was destroyed. It
+is quite natural that under such circumstances such a scepticism should
+overpower young and sensitive reasoners.
+
+King Saul, in a state of despair, receiving no reply from the prophets,
+none from the Urim and Thumim, deeply fallen as he was, went in disguise
+to the Witch of Endor. Goethe's Faust, in imitation thereof, receiving
+no answer to his questions addressed to heaven and eternity, no answer
+through his knowledge of nature's laws and nature's forces, no answer
+from the philosophy of his century and the theology of his priests,
+throws himself into the embrace of Mephistopheles. That is human nature.
+Exactly the same thing was done in the days of Paul, and exactly the
+same thing he himself did. There was the indescribable misery of the
+age, and there were the knowledge and theories of that overburdened
+century, and no answer, no reply to the questions addressed to heaven
+and eternity; and they went to the fountains of mysticism and secret
+knowledge to quench the thirst of the soul. There sprung up the
+visionary Gnostics among the Gentiles, and the Cabalistic Mystics among
+the Jews. History notices the same rotation continually--idealism,
+sensualism, scepticism, and finally mysticism.
+
+The mystic art among the Hebrews then was of two different kinds, either
+to attract an evil spirit or to be transported alive into paradise or
+heaven. An evil spirit was attracted by fasting and remaining for days
+and nights alone in burial-grounds, till the brain was maddened and
+infatuated, when the artificial demoniac prophesied and performed sundry
+miracles. The transportation to heaven or paradise was more difficult.
+The candidate for a tour into heaven would retire to some isolated
+spot, fast until the brain was maddened with delirium and the nerves
+excited to second sight by the loss of sleep. Then, in that state of
+trance, he would sit down on the ground, draw up his knees, bend down
+his head between them, and murmur magic spells, until, through the
+reversed circulation of the blood, the maddened brain, and the unstrung
+nerves, he would imagine that he saw the heaven opening to his
+inspection, palace after palace thrown widely open to his gaze, hosts of
+angels passing within view, until finally he imagined himself entirely
+removed from the earth, transported aloft into those diamond palaces on
+high, or, as Paul calls it, "caught up into paradise," where he heard
+"unspeakable words, which it is not possible for a man to utter," and
+the throne of God, with all the seraphim and cherubim, archangels and
+angels, became visible and their conversation intelligible to the
+enraptured and transported mystic, in a fit of hallucination, when the
+bewildered imagination sees objectively its own subjective phantasma,
+and hears from without, in supposed articulate sounds, its own silent
+thoughts. It requires no great stretch of the imagination to form a
+correct idea of the mystic eccentricities to which this awful practice
+must have led those who frequently indulged in it. Rabbinical mystics,
+like modern trance-speakers, gave vivid descriptions of the interior
+splendor and grand sceneries of heaven and of the conversations of
+angels. One of those descriptions is preserved in _Pirke Rabbi Eliezer_,
+and others in various fragments of the _Talmud_.
+
+Among those particularly noticed in the _Talmud_ as having been in
+heaven or paradise there is also Acher, or Paul, who states so himself
+in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians (xii.). That passage gave rise
+to the story of Jesus appearing in person to Paul, just as the
+rabbinical mystics claimed to have had frequent intercourse with the
+prophet Elijah, who had been transported alive to heaven.
+
+So Paul passed the transition from the law school of the Pharisees to
+the new school of mystics. In this state of trance he discovered that
+central figure of the Cabalistic speculation, the _Metathron_, the
+co-regent of the Almighty; or, as he otherwise was called, the
+_Synadelphos_, the _confrère_ of the Deity, or Suriel, the "Prince of
+the Countenance," whom the Cabalists imagined to be the chief marshal
+or chief scribe in heaven; who was once on earth, as Enoch or as Elijah,
+and was advanced to that high position in heaven.
+
+It is the Demiurge, the highest magistrate in heaven, whom the gnostic
+Valentine calls a godlike angel, and of whom the rabbis said, "His name
+is like unto the name of his Master."
+
+This central figure, blended with the messianic speculations of that
+age, with the doctrines of Peter and the nascent Church, combined in
+Paul's mind to one mystic conception of the "Son of God," intelligible
+to pagan ears. So he went forth and proclaimed Jesus of Nazareth the Son
+of God. In substance, the expression is about the same as Metathron and
+Synadelphos, and the office which Paul ascribed to Jesus is precisely of
+the same nature with that which the Cabalists ascribed to the angel who
+was the _Saar Haolom_, the prince or ruler of this world, who stands
+before God, or also sits before him, as Paul's Jesus stands before God
+or sits at his right hand. It is precisely the same in both systems, the
+names only are changed; so that it is difficult to decide whether Paul
+was or the rabbis were the authors of the metathronic speculations,
+especially as these two angels only have Greek names, while all others
+are Hebrew or Chaldæan, and later Cabalists frequently put down Joshua
+or Jesus in the place of Metathron.
+
+Those who believe that Acher's dualism of the Deity was the Persian
+_Ormuzd_ and _Ahriman_, hence a good and an evil principle, and that
+Metathron never was an evil demon, are as decidedly mistaken as those
+who believe that Paul had more than one God. Paul's Son of God and
+Acher's Metathron are the same central figure before the throne of God,
+and the two authors are identical.
+
+In that world of secret thoughts Paul discovered the harmonization of
+discordant speculations and the remedy for all existing evils. "The
+world must be regenerated by a new religion," was his great ideal. The
+ancient religions and the philosophies have produced the corruption
+which rages universally. They must be swept away. Society must be
+reconstructed on a new basis, and this basis is in the theology and
+ethics of Israel, separated and liberated from their climatical and
+national limitations, their peculiar Jewish garb. There was no hope
+left of saving the Jewish nationality and political organization from
+the hands of omnipotent Rome, which swallowed and neutralized kingdoms
+and nations with wonderful ease; nor was there any particular necessity
+for it if society at large was reconstructed on the new basis. The
+object of Jesus was to reconstruct the kingdom of heaven _in Israel_,
+and he was crucified. All Israel had the same object in view, and stood
+at the brink of dissolution. If the basis and principles of the kingdom
+of heaven became the postulate of society at large, Jesus is resurrected
+in the world, and Israel is saved, was Paul's main idea.
+
+The Pharisean rabbis hoped that this would come to pass at some future
+day, when, they maintained, all sacrifices and all laws would be
+abolished, and all the nations of the earth would be one family, with
+one God and one moral law. Paul seized upon the idea, and added to it
+the simple dogma of Peter, "The Messiah has come." That hoped-for future
+is now. God's promise to Abraham, "And there shall be blessed by thee,
+and by thy seed, all the families of the earth," is to be fulfilled at
+once. So he came forth from his mystical paradise an apostle of Jesus
+and a new redeemer of Israel. He argued exactly as the Pharisean doctors
+did who maintained that the Messiah would come when all mankind should
+be guilty or all righteous. In the estimation of Paul, at that
+particular time all mankind was corrupt and demoralized, and so that was
+the time for the Messiah to make his appearance.
+
+He went to work at once. He began to preach his new Christianity at
+Damascus about the year 51, and found out that the world was not
+prepared for his ideas. He had a narrow escape at Damascus, where the
+governor and soldiers pursued him. Like the spies at Jericho, he was let
+down in a basket over the city walls and made his escape. So _he_
+narrates the story. The author of the Acts, true to his hostility to the
+Jews, of course brings them in as the persecutors. But Paul, in general,
+never speaks otherwise than with the highest regard and love of his
+kinsmen and his brothers according to the flesh.
+
+The failure at Damascus did not discourage Paul. It only convinced him
+that he was too young--he could not at that time have been much over
+twenty-one years; that he was not sufficiently prepared for the great
+enterprise; that it was not such an easy task to throw down the
+superannuated heathenism and to reorganize society on a new basis. He
+retired into Arabia and remained there nearly three years, to perfect a
+plan of operation. Nearly three years he spent in silent contemplation,
+to discover the proper means, to take the right hold upon the heathen
+world, and to unfurl a new banner of heaven upon this wicked earth. In
+53 or 54 we meet him again at Antioch, with his new and original
+gospel--the gospel for the Gentiles--prepared for his mission and ready
+to embark in the great enterprise, to wage active war upon all existing
+systems of religion and philosophy, and to replace all of them by Paul's
+gospel. He had been in Jerusalem fifteen days, had conversed with Peter
+and nobody else, but he repeatedly tells us that he had taken advice of
+none, consulted none, was appointed by nobody, and learned nothing of
+anybody. The gospel was his gospel, and he was an apostle by the
+appointment of God Almighty himself, who had revealed his Son to him. In
+Antioch he established the first congregation of Jews and Gentiles, and
+called them Christians. So Paul was the actual author of Christianity
+among the Gentiles.
+
+What was Paul's gospel? Paul, setting out on his journeys with the great
+idea of converting heathens, was obliged to paganize the Gospel. The
+heathens knew nothing of the Jewish Messiah, and he gave him the name
+popularly known among them--he called him the Son of God, which was a
+common name in mythology. The Son of God and Mary was a term as popular
+among heathens as it was foreign to the Jews, among whom Jesus was to
+remain the Messiah, only that he became also the Metathron. This
+explained to Jewish mystics the possibility of the second advent, and
+gave a metaphysical foundation to the resurrection doctrine. The kingdom
+of heaven, or the theocracy, was another unintelligible idea to the
+heathen. Israel's laws and form of government were as odious and decried
+among the pagans as the hostility to that people was fierce and
+implacable. Paul made thereof a theological kingdom of heaven, when all
+the dead shall resurrect in spiritual bodies, and the living shall be
+changed accordingly, together with this earth and all that is thereon;
+and declared all the laws of Israel abrogated, so that only the spirit
+thereof, the precepts and not the laws, should be obligatory in the new
+state of society.
+
+The sins and wickedness of the world are forgiven to all who believe in
+the Son, and whose flesh is crucified with him, to resurrect with him in
+purity; for he died a vicarious atonement for all. He was the last
+sacrifice, to blot out the sins of all who have faith in him.
+
+The Crucified One did not resurrect merely in the spirit, of which the
+heathens could not form a satisfactory conception, because the
+immortality of the soul was by no means a general belief among them, and
+their gods were no spirits; he resurrected in his very body, and was
+caught up to heaven, to sit or stand there at God's right hand, to come
+down again in proper time. "Here, then, is your tangible proof of
+immortality," he said to the heathens. "Like the Crucified One, all of
+you will resurrect from the dead, or be changed on the day of judgment."
+This was plain language to heathens, who knew that but lately Cæsar had
+been caught up to heaven as Romulus was before him, and asked no
+questions as to how a human body can rise in the atmosphere and become
+incorruptible; none as to what means above or below, up or down, as to
+where God is and where he is not, where his right hand, where before and
+where behind him; or as to whether the world is full of his glory. No
+such questions were asked, and there was the ocular demonstration of
+immortality, tangible and intelligible to the grossest intellect.
+
+The Jewish nationality and the Jewish law are at their end, and the
+world is the heir to that covenant and to the blessing of God by Abraham
+and his seed. With the new covenant the old one ceases. It has fulfilled
+its destiny. It was a state of preparation for this period of universal
+salvation to all who have love, hope, and faith. With Adam and the flesh
+came the sin, law, and death; with Jesus the flesh ceases, hence no more
+sin, law, or death.
+
+These are the main features of Paul's gospel: The Son of God, the
+theological kingdom of heaven, the vicarious atonement, the bodily
+resurrection of the Crucified One, the abrogation of the law, and the
+beginning of the new covenant. He was the first man to utter these
+doctrines; with him Christianity begins, and he named it.
+
+But Paul knew well that doctrines alone would be insufficient to rouse
+the heathen world from its demoralized state, its dreary and stupid
+dreams; and he resorted to the most terrible and most shocking of all
+messages. He came to the heathens with the terror-striking proclamation,
+"The end is nigh!" The whole earth, with all the creatures thereon; the
+whole human family, with all its wickedness, all its atrocious crimes,
+will be destroyed in one moment. All of you, men, women, and children,
+with all your vices and crimes, will be suddenly summoned before the
+Eternal and All-just; you have to go, all of you, and appear before the
+omniscient God. The end is nigh, the destruction of the human family is
+certain and right before you. It will come soon. It may come any day, at
+any moment.
+
+Now Paul's gospel came in. Here is your choice. There are death and
+damnation; here are life and happiness everlasting. God has sent his Son
+in advance of the approaching catastrophe to warn you, and he is
+appointed now to conduct the end of all flesh. Cling to him and be
+saved, or believe not and be condemned forever. So he came to the
+heathens. This was his gospel. How did he succeed? We will explain after
+a brief pause.
+
+All passages in the Gospels and the Acts which have reference to the
+above Christology, to the end of things or against it--in which the
+synoptics most fatally contradict one another--are the products of
+writers long after Paul, when the attempts to reconcile Jewish and
+Gentile Christianity were made. For with Paul begins the new form of
+Christianity and the struggle with the representatives of the old form.
+Within ten years he traversed the land from Antioch to Athens, in three
+different journeys, and established his bishopric, the first Christian
+congregations among the Gentiles. He organized them fully, with deacons
+and deaconesses, preachers and prophets; and he was their bishop, their
+oracle, their revelation, and their demi-god. He let his converts
+believe that they could do wonderful things, in healing the sick,
+driving out demons, prophesying and speaking with strange tongues,
+because it served his purposes, although he did none of these things. He
+gave them the Holy Ghost, _i.e._, he regenerated their feelings and
+pacified their stormy passions, suppressed their brutal lusts, and
+elevated their aspirations to higher ideals. He did not feel that
+sovereign contempt for money which the Master did whom he glorified; for
+he, like the other apostles, took his pay, and argued with the
+Corinthians, like a good Pharisean lawyer, that bishops and preachers
+must be paid--an argument well understood by the dignitaries of the
+Church to this day.
+
+Wonderful, indeed, is the progress which Paul made among the Gentiles in
+ten years. Like a pillar of fire, he traversed the deserts of
+heathenism; like a second Elijah, he battled against the priests and
+prophets of Baal, and conjured down the fire from heaven to his
+assistance. Within ten years he laid the foundation of a new
+civilization, of the reorganization of society on the new basis. He did
+not live to see it realized, but he saw the new system take root and
+promise golden fruit. Wonderful, we maintain, was his success; for he
+was not only opposed by the entire heathen world, and by the orthodox
+Jews, although he proclaimed their God and their doctrines, their
+religion and their hopes, but was also most strenuously opposed by the
+apostles and the nascent congregation in Jerusalem, whose Master he
+glorified, and whose cause he made the cause of the world. The
+dissensions between Paul and the apostles were of a very serious
+character, and there was ample cause for them.
+
+In the first place, he took it upon himself to be an apostle, and they
+had their college of Twelve, to which none could be added, especially
+not Paul, who had never seen Jesus of Nazareth. He maintained that God
+had appointed him, God had revealed his Son and his Gospel to him; but
+the apostles did not believe it, and never acknowledged him as an
+apostle. At the end of his journeys, Peter, James, and John, three out
+of Twelve, acknowledged him as an apostle to the Gentiles, but not to
+the Jews. The rest never did, which, of course, was a great trouble and
+drawback to Paul among his own converts.
+
+In the second place, they could never forgive him for the idea of going
+to the Gentiles. Peter, who had become a pious Essene and considered it
+unlawful to go to the house or into the company of a Gentile; James, who
+dreaded the idea of eating of the bread of the Gentile, and made a
+hypocrite in this point of Peter at Antioch--and they were the heads of
+the Church--could not forgive Paul's innovation in going to the
+Gentiles. Paul was sensible enough to silence them by begging money for
+them, and to appoint the Sunday for collections to be made for the
+saints of Jerusalem. But it was too much for them that Paul went to the
+Gentiles.
+
+In the third place, he changed their whole religion into a new sort of
+mythology. He made of Jesus a Son of God, of which they had no
+knowledge. He preached vicarious atonement, bodily resurrection, the end
+of the old covenant and the beginning of a new, the end of all flesh,
+the last judgment--all of which was foreign to them; not one word of all
+that had their Master told them, and they knew only what he did tell
+them. They naturally looked upon him as an unscrupulous innovator. They
+had not experience and forethought enough to understand that Paul's
+success among the heathens depended on that means. They were pious men
+who prayed much, believed seriously, and had no knowledge of the world
+as it was.
+
+In the fourth place, they could not possibly give their consent to
+Paul's abrogation of the whole law, knowing, as they did, how their
+Master respected every tittle, every iota of the law; that he had come
+to fulfil the law, and to reëstablish the theocracy; how could they
+possibly think of the idea of abolishing Sabbath and holidays,
+circumcision and ablutions, all and everything, to be guided by the
+phantom of hope, love, and faith, against which James argues in his
+epistle with all the energy of his soul? Those inexperienced saints did
+not know that the Pharisean doctors held similar theories, and that Paul
+could not possibly hope to meet with any success among the Gentiles if
+he had come to them with the laws of the Jews. They were Roman citizens,
+who contemned the laws of the barbarians. Had Paul come with the word
+Judaism on his lips, he would have surely failed. Had he come to enforce
+a foreign law, he would have been laughed at as a madman. They did not
+know that Paul cared not for an hundred and one laws, as long as the
+essence and substance could be saved and preserved; that he held that
+laws are local, the spirit is universal; that laws are limitations, the
+spirit is free and the property of all men of all ages and climes; that
+he was determined to drop everything which could retard his progress.
+
+In the fifth place, and this was the worst, they could not forgive him
+for preaching the theological kingdom of heaven. A kingdom of Israel--a
+throne of David, a Davidian prince, a Zion and a Jerusalem in heaven,
+and slavery, misery, and oppression on earth--was so new and foreign to
+them, so contrary to what they had heard from their Master, that they
+could not accept it. What should become of Peter's Messiah, of the hopes
+and promises connected with the second advent, if all at once the whole
+scheme is transported from earth to heaven? It was too much
+disappointment, they could not endure it. Those men did not understand
+that Paul had carefully to avoid every conflict with the Roman
+authorities. He was too prudent to be crucified. They could not
+comprehend that his great object was not to remove the evil at once; he
+intended to sow the seed, to bring forth the plant; to give to the
+heathens correct notions of God, duty, responsibility, purity, holiness,
+morality, justice, humanity, and freedom, which in proper time should
+necessarily break the chains, revolutionize the sentiments, and elevate
+the views, hopes, aspirations, and designs of the nations.
+
+They could not comprehend that their Messiah and kingdom of heaven,
+together with his terrible message of the end of all flesh and the last
+judgment day, were means, and nothing but means, to captivate and reform
+the heathen. His Son of God was crucified and resurrected from the dead
+to forewarn all of the approaching end of all flesh; to show that in a
+little while all the dead should resurrect and the living should be
+changed to spiritual beings. He had been given all power by the Almighty
+to conduct the catastrophe of the world, and would be present at the
+last judgment day. But after all that is over, the earth and man changed
+to a new state of spiritual life, then the Son of God returns the
+kingdom to the Father, and God will be again all in all. So the Son of
+God was a general superintendent, the demiurge for the time being, a
+doctrine of which the apostles had no knowledge, and to which they
+could not give their consent. He could not get them to understand that
+these were the means for the conversion of the Gentiles, and that he had
+quite another gospel for the enlightened portion of the community. They
+could not see that among heathens used to apotheosis, man-worship, and
+plastic gods, ideas, to become effective, must put on concrete and
+tangible bodies.
+
+They could not imagine that the sensuality and corruption of the age
+required heroic and terror-striking means to rouse and to move the
+masses; and so the dissensions and troubles between Paul and the nascent
+Church increased with the success of Paul among the Gentiles. His
+epistles, one and all, are polemics, not against heathenism or against
+Judaism, but against his colleagues in Jerusalem, whom, together with
+their doctrines, he treats in a most reckless manner. They could not
+write to counterbalance Paul--in fact, there were no writers of any note
+among them. Therefore, only one side of the polemics, that of Paul, is
+fully represented in the New Testament; and the side of the Jewish
+Christians remained mostly matter of tradition.
+
+Messengers were sent to follow Paul to undo his gospel and preach that
+of the apostles; to introduce the law and circumcision among the Gentile
+Christians. Those messengers in many cases succeeded, notwithstanding
+the thundering epistles of Paul. So his influence was weakened and his
+progress retarded among the Gentiles till finally, after ten years of
+hard work, he concluded upon going to Jerusalem and, if possible,
+effecting a compromise with the apostolic congregation. It was a
+dangerous time for him to go to Jerusalem, for just then the fanatic
+high-priest, Ananias, had convened a court of his willing tools, tried
+James, the brother of Jesus, and, finding him guilty, of what God only
+knows, had him and some of his associates executed--a bloody deed, which
+cost him his office, on account of the loud and emphatic protestations
+of the Jews before Agrippa II and the Roman governor. Therefore, Paul
+was cautioned by prophets and friends not to go to Jerusalem.
+
+But he was not the man to be frightened by dangers; he was the very type
+of boldness and courage. He went to Jerusalem to effect a conciliation
+with the Church. A synod met in the house of James the apostle, who had
+succeeded the former James as head of the Church, and Paul was told to
+do that against which his conscience, his honor, his manhood must have
+revolted: he was required to play the hypocrite in Jerusalem, in order
+to pacify the brethren who were angry at him. The thousands of Jews,
+they said, who were zealous for the law, and were informed how Paul
+taught the people to forsake Moses, to give up circumcision and the
+ancient customs, hearing of his presence in Jerusalem, "the multitude
+must needs come together," which points to the Jewish Christians
+faithful to the law. Therefore they advised him to go through the
+mockery of a purification at the Temple, "to be at charges," as they
+called it, with some who had vowed a vow, and make the prescribed
+sacrifices after the purification.
+
+Poor man! After so much labor, such ardent toils, such numerous perils,
+dangers, anxieties, trials, reverses, and triumphs, after ten long years
+of such work and such dangers, he is not safe in Jerusalem among his own
+kinsmen and among those whose Master he glorified, whose doctrines he
+taught, and whose interests he protected. How small must he have
+appeared to himself when walking up the Temple Mount in the company of
+the four men, whose expenses he paid, to be purified with them: "And all
+may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee,
+are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly and keepest the
+law." The man who had defied a world, to submit to the humbling
+dictation of his colleagues, who were children in comparison with
+him--this is mortifying to the utmost. This is the time of which it is
+said in the _Talmud_ that Paul or Acher narrated, that on passing behind
+the _sanctum sanctorum_ he heard the _Bath-kol_ or Holy Ghost exclaim:
+"Return, all ye forward children; all return, except Paul, who has known
+me and rebelled against me." Paul never forgot, never forgave, this
+humiliation. It estranged his feelings altogether from his colleagues in
+Jerusalem, and he embraced the first best opportunity to rid himself
+entirely of his Jewish associations.
+
+The opportunity soon offered. While near the Temple some Jews from Asia
+Minor recognized him. A disturbance ensued. He was arrested and locked
+up in the castle by the Roman commander. Here the author of the Acts
+brings in a terrible tumult--speeches, trials, a Jewish mob, with a
+noble Roman stepping in in time to wind up dramatically--not one word of
+which is historical. Paul, standing accused as the ringleader of the new
+sect who expected the second advent of the Messiah, could only appear
+dangerous to the zealous and vigilant Roman authorities. Nothing else
+was necessary to put his life in jeopardy. In the night he made up his
+mind to appeal to Cæsar, because he was a Roman citizen. Therefore he
+was sent to Cæsarea, to the governor, under the protection of soldiers.
+Not a sound was heard in his favor among the Jewish Christians. Not an
+angel appeared. Not a solitary miracle was wrought; none dreamed a
+dream; nobody had a vision; the Holy Ghost was as silent as the grave;
+none of all the Christians in Palestine showed his face, when Paul,
+loaded with chains, was transported from Jerusalem to Cæsarea. This
+silence speaks volumes. They did not care much about the innovator.
+Therefore Paul's epistles from his prison in Cæsarea are thunder-bolts
+against the law, circumcision, and his colleagues in Jerusalem. It is
+the offended man, the wounded lion, who retaliates in his anger.
+
+In Cæsarea another mock trial is described by the author of the Acts.
+There can be little doubt that Ananias, the Sadducean high-priest who
+had slain James, thirsted also after the blood of Paul. But it is
+certainly not true that Felix was governor of Judea when Ananias was
+high-priest. Felix and Festus had been removed from their offices before
+Ananias was made high-priest, as the authentic sources of history show.
+If tried at Cæsarea at all--which is doubtful, because Paul had appealed
+to Cæsar--he was tried before Albinus. His speeches recorded in the Acts
+contain sentences of Paul, but many more additions from the author of
+the Acts.
+
+It matters little, however, whether Paul was tried before Albinus or
+Felix, or whether there was a trial at all. He had appealed to Cæsar, in
+order to estrange himself from his colleagues in Jerusalem and to come
+before his converts as an expatriated man, although Agrippa himself had
+said, "This man might have been set at liberty had he not appealed unto
+Cæsar."
+
+Fortunately he was detained in Cæsarea, when Nero in Rome put to death
+the Christians in his own gardens with exquisite cruelty, and added
+mockery and derision to their sufferings. Had he been brought to Rome
+_then_, no angels could have saved his life, and no power could have
+protected him for two years. He came to Rome in the year 65, when the
+cruelty of Nero's proceedings against the Christians filled every breast
+with compassion, and humanity relented in favor of the Christians. Then
+it was possible for Paul to have a hearing in Rome, where he lived in a
+hired house for two years.
+
+Neither Paul nor Peter was ever bishop of Rome, nor was either of them
+beheaded in Rome or anywhere else. All the legends and myths concerning
+them are void of truth. We know that Paul, who was then about
+thirty-five years old, wrote from Rome epistles in defence of his gospel
+and against his colleagues in Jerusalem, in the same spirit as those
+from Cæsarea. We know, furthermore, that he went from Rome to Illyricum,
+where he preached his gospel. We know that he returned to Asia, and
+wrote the quintessence of his gospel in his epistle to the Romans. We
+know that many passages in his epistles were written, after the
+destruction of Jerusalem, when Paul was about forty years old, and his
+principal activity commenced still later, in opposition to Rabbi Akiba
+and his colleagues. We know from the _Talmud_ that he married and left
+daughters. We know also numerous stories of Acher or Paul and his
+disciple, Rabbi Mair.
+
+Long after the death of the apostles the Christianity of Paul and the
+Messiahism of Peter were Platonized by the Alexandrian eclectics in a
+semi-gnostic manner, which gave birth to the fourth gospel, according to
+John, and the two epistles of John the Elder, not the apostle, about
+A.D. 160, of which the Synoptics have no idea. They had only the
+Christianity of Paul and of Peter before them. An original Peter gospel,
+Paul's epistles, and the different traditions of the various
+congregations were their sources, which they attempted to blend into one
+system. All the gospel writers lived in the second century; were not
+acquainted with the particulars of the story; had an imperfect knowledge
+of the Jews, their laws and doctrines; wrote in favor of the Romans,
+whom they wished to convert, and against the Jews, whom they could not
+convert.
+
+The third century inherited four distinct systems of Christianity: that
+of Jesus with the pure theocracy, that of Peter with the Messiah and his
+second advent, that of Paul with the Son of God and the approaching end
+of all flesh, and that of John with the Logos and the self-aggrandizing
+demi-god or man-god on earth. The difficulties and dissensions arising
+from the attempts at uniting all these contradictory systems in one,
+ended with the Council of Nice, in the beginning of the fourth century,
+and the establishment of an orthodox creed, the excommunication of the
+Jewish Christians, and the establishment of the Church as a state
+institution. Then the sword and the pyre established doctrines.
+
+On comparison you will find that Jesus became the Saviour of the
+Gentiles by the exertion of Paul; that the means which Peter and Paul
+adopted for momentary purposes have been turned into main dogmas; that
+the religion which Jesus taught and believed is partly laid aside, and
+the rest is unimportant in Christology, but he himself has been adopted
+in place of his religion; and that the entire New Testament has no
+knowledge of the Trinity and the orthodox creed. On comparison you will
+discover that, if any of our modern congregations are Christian, the
+apostolic congregation of Jerusalem was heretic. If the pope is a
+Christian, Paul was not. If the orthodox creed tells what one must
+believe in order to be a Christian, then Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew. If
+the religion and the theocracy which Jesus preached are to become the
+universal religion, all dogmas must fall, and God alone be all in all.
+Man must become his own priest, prince, and prophet. Justice must govern
+the nations, love must construe the law, virtue and righteousness must
+lead to satisfaction and happiness, and man's consciousness of God,
+immortality, morals, and moral responsibility must be his catechism, his
+guiding star, his protecting angel in life and death. No dogmas; truth,
+in the name of God!
+
+I see it, although it is not now; I behold it, although it is not nigh.
+A star will arise from Jacob in whose soft brilliancy will shine forth
+all the great and redeeming truth. Freedom and humanity, justice and
+love in the name of God, are the right religion; to strive for them is
+divine worship, to love them is holiness.
+
+This was the object of Paul. The means to accomplish that object were
+the necessities of the age to convert that generation. He could not
+dream of the idea that the means would obscure the object, that the
+servant would occupy the master's seat. His was a fearless, powerful,
+and unyielding character, terribly in earnest to break down the ancient
+world and create a new one, and his success, though incomplete, was
+wonderful. Men like Jesus and Paul, whose great aim was to benefit and
+to elevate human nature, however widely we may differ from them, deserve
+the student's laborious research, the philanthropist's most profound
+admiration, the monuments which the human mind rears to their memory.
+Great works are the testimony of their authors, and great minds are the
+diadem and honor, the ornament and pride of human nature. The God Jesus
+and the supernatural Paul appear small in the focus of reason. The
+patriotic and enthusiastic Jesus and the brave, bold, wise, and mighty
+Paul are grand types of humanity among those hundred stars in the
+horizon of history which have made the history of the human family.
+
+
+JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
+
+The _prima-facie_ view of early Christianity, in the eyes of witnesses
+external to it, is presented to us in the brief but vivid descriptions
+given by Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, the only heathen writers who
+distinctly mention it for the first hundred and fifty years.
+
+Tacitus is led to speak of the religion, on occasion of the
+conflagration of Rome, which was popularly imputed to Nero. "To put an
+end to the report," he says, "he laid the guilt on others, and visited
+them with the most exquisite punishment, those, namely, who, held in
+abhorrence for their crimes (_per flagitia invisos_), were popularly
+called Christians. The author of that profession (_nominis_) was Christ,
+who, in the reign of Tiberius, was capitally punished by the procurator,
+Pontius Pilate. The deadly superstition (_exitiabilis superstitio_),
+though checked for a while, broke out afresh; and that, not only
+throughout Judea, the original seat of the evil, but through the city
+also, whither all things atrocious or shocking (_atrocia aut pudenda_)
+flow together from every quarter and thrive. At first, certain were
+seized who avowed it; then, on their report, a vast multitude were
+convicted not so much of firing the city, as of hatred of mankind (_odio
+humani generis_)." After describing their tortures, he continues: "In
+consequence, though they were guilty, and deserved most signal
+punishment, they began to be pitied, as if destroyed not for any public
+object, but from the barbarity of one man."
+
+Suetonius relates the same transactions thus: "Capital punishments were
+inflicted on the Christians, a class of men of a new and magical
+superstition (_superstitionis novæ et maleficæ_)." What gives additional
+character to this statement is its context, for it occurs as one out of
+various police or sanctuary or domestic regulations, which Nero made,
+such as "controlling private expenses, forbidding taverns to serve meat,
+repressing the contests of theatrical parties, and securing the
+integrity of wills."
+
+When Pliny was governor of Pontus, he wrote his celebrated letter to the
+emperor Trajan, to ask advice how he was to deal with the Christians,
+whom he found there in great numbers. One of his points of hesitation
+was whether the very profession of Christianity was not by itself
+sufficient to justify punishment; "whether the name itself should be
+visited, though clear of flagitious acts (_flagitia_), or only when
+connected with them." He says he had ordered for execution such as
+persevered in their profession after repeated warnings, "as not
+doubting, whatever it was they professed, that at any rate contumacy and
+inflexible obstinacy ought to be punished." He required them to invoke
+the gods, to sacrifice wine and frankincense to the images of the
+Emperor, and to blaspheme Christ; "to which," he adds, "it is said no
+real Christian can be compelled." Renegades informed him that "the sum
+total of their offence or fault was meeting before light on an appointed
+day, and saying with one another a form of words (_carmen_) to Christ,
+as if to a god, and binding themselves by oath (not to the commission of
+any wickedness, but) against the commission of theft, robbery, adultery,
+breach of trust, denial of deposits; that, after this they were
+accustomed to separate, and then to meet again for a meal, but eaten all
+together and harmless; however, that they had even left this off after
+his edicts enforcing the imperial prohibition of _hetæriæ_ or
+associations." He proceeded to put two women to the torture, but
+"discovered nothing beyond a bad and excessive superstition"
+(_superstitionem pravam et immodicam_), "the contagion" of which, he
+continues, "had spread through villages and country, till the temples
+were emptied of worshippers."
+
+In these testimonies, which will form a natural and convenient text for
+what is to follow, we have various characteristics brought before us of
+the religion to which they relate. It was a superstition, as all three
+writers agree; a bad and excessive superstition, according to Pliny; a
+magical superstition, according to Suetonius; a deadly superstition,
+according to Tacitus. Next, it was embodied in a society, and, moreover,
+a secret and unlawful society or _hetæria_; and it was a proselytizing
+society; and its very name was connected with "flagitious," "atrocious,"
+and "shocking" acts.
+
+Now these few points, which are not all which might be set down, contain
+in themselves a distinct and significant description of Christianity;
+but they have far greater meaning when illustrated by the history of the
+times, the testimony of later writers, and the acts of the Roman
+government toward its professors. It is impossible to mistake the
+judgment passed on the religion by these three writers, and still more
+clearly by other writers and imperial functionaries. They evidently
+associated Christianity with the oriental superstitions, whether
+propagated by individuals or embodied in a rite, which were in that day
+traversing the empire, and which in the event acted so remarkable a part
+in breaking up the national forms of worship, and so in preparing the
+way for Christianity. This, then, is the broad view which the educated
+heathen took of Christianity; and, if it had been very unlike those
+rites and curious arts in external appearance, they would not have
+confused it with them.
+
+Changes in society are by a providential appointment commonly preceded
+and facilitated by the setting in of a certain current in men's thoughts
+and feelings in that direction toward which a change is to be made.
+And, as lighter substances whirl about before the tempest and presage
+it, so words and deeds, ominous but not effective of the coming
+revolution, are circulated beforehand through the multitude or pass
+across the field of events. This was specially the case with
+Christianity, as became its high dignity; it came heralded and attended
+by a crowd of shadows, shadows of itself, impotent and monstrous as
+shadows are, but not at first sight distinguishable from it by common
+spectators. Before the mission of the apostles a movement, of which
+there had been earlier parallels, had begun in Egypt, Syria, and the
+neighboring countries, tending to the propagation of new and peculiar
+forms of worship throughout the empire. Prophecies were afloat that some
+new order of things was coming in from the East, which increased the
+existing unsettlement of the popular mind; pretenders made attempts to
+satisfy its wants, and old traditions of the truth, embodied for ages in
+local or in national religions, gave to these attempts a doctrinal and
+ritual shape, which became an additional point of resemblance to that
+truth which was soon visibly to appear.
+
+The distinctive character of the rites in question lay in their
+appealing to the gloomy rather than to the cheerful and hopeful
+feelings, and in their influencing the mind through fear. The notions of
+guilt and expiation, of evil and good to come, and of dealings with the
+invisible world, were in some shape or other preëminent in them, and
+formed a striking contrast to the classical polytheism, which was gay
+and graceful, as was natural in a civilized age. The new rites, on the
+other hand, were secret; their doctrine was mysterious; their profession
+was a discipline, beginning in a formal initiation, manifested in an
+association, and exercised in privation and pain. They were from the
+nature of the case proselytizing societies, for they were rising into
+power; nor were they local, but vagrant, restless, intrusive, and
+encroaching. Their pretensions to supernatural knowledge brought them
+into easy connection with magic and astrology, which are as attractive
+to the wealthy and luxurious as the more vulgar superstitions to the
+populace.
+
+The Christian, being at first accounted a kind of Jew, was even on that
+score included in whatever odium, and whatever bad associations,
+attended on the Jewish name. But in a little time his independence of
+the rejected people was clearly understood, as even the persecutions
+show; and he stood upon his own ground. Still his character did not
+change in the eyes of the world; for favor or for reproach, he was still
+associated with the votaries of secret and magical rites. The emperor
+Hadrian, noted as he is for his inquisitive temper, and a partaker in so
+many mysteries, still believed that the Christians of Egypt allowed
+themselves in the worship of Serapis. They are brought into connection
+with the magic of Egypt in the history of what is commonly called the
+Thundering legion, so far as this, that the rain which relieved the
+Emperor's army in the field, and which the Church ascribed to the
+prayers of the Christian soldiers, is by Dio Cassius attributed to an
+Egyptian magician, who obtained it by invoking Mercury and other
+spirits. This war had been the occasion of one of the first recognitions
+which the State had conceded to the oriental rites, though statesmen and
+emperors, as private men, had long taken part in them. The emperor
+Marcus had been urged by his fears of the Marcomanni to resort to these
+foreign introductions, and is said to have employed Magi and Chaldæans
+in averting an unsuccessful issue of the war.
+
+It is observable that, in the growing countenance which was extended to
+these rites in the third century, Christianity came in for a share. The
+chapel of Alexander Severus contained statues of Abraham, Orpheus,
+Apollonius, Pythagoras, and our Lord. Here indeed, as in the case of
+Zenobia's Judaism, an eclectic philosophy aided the comprehension of
+religions. But, immediately before Alexander, Heliogabalus, who was no
+philosopher, while he formally seated his Syrian idol in the Palatine,
+while he observed the mysteries of Cybele and Adonis, and celebrated his
+magic rites with human victims, intended also, according to Lampridius,
+to unite with his horrible superstition "the Jewish and Samaritan
+religions and the Christian rite, that so the priesthood of Heliogabalus
+might comprise the mystery of every worship." Hence, more or less, the
+stories which occur in ecclesiastical history of the conversion or
+good-will of the emperors to the Christian faith, of Hadrian, Mammæa,
+and others, besides Heliogabalus and Alexander. Such stories might often
+mean little more than that they favored it among other forms of oriental
+superstition.
+
+What has been said is sufficient to bring before the mind an historical
+fact, which indeed does not need evidence. Upon the established
+religions of Europe the East had renewed her encroachments, and was
+pouring forth a family of rites which in various ways attracted the
+attention of the luxurious, the political, the ignorant, the restless,
+and the remorseful. Armenian, Chaldee, Egyptian, Jew, Syrian, Phrygian,
+as the case might be, was the designation of the new hierophant; and
+magic, superstition, barbarism, jugglery, were the names given to his
+rite by the world. In this company appeared Christianity. When then
+three well-informed writers call Christianity a superstition and a
+magical superstition, they were not using words at random, or the
+language of abuse, but they were describing it in distinct and
+recognized terms as cognate to those gloomy, secret, odious,
+disreputable religions which were making so much disturbance up and down
+the empire.
+
+The Gnostic family suitably traces its origin to a mixed race, which had
+commenced its national history by associating orientalism with
+revelation. After the captivity of the ten tribes Samaria was colonized
+by "men from Babylon and Cushan, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from
+Sepharvaim," who were instructed at their own instance in "the manner of
+the God of the land," by one of the priests of the Church of Jeroboam.
+The consequence was that "they feared the Lord and served their own
+gods." Of this country was Simon, the reputed patriarch of the Gnostics;
+and he is introduced in the Acts of the Apostles as professing those
+magical powers which were so principal a characteristic of the oriental
+mysteries. His heresy, though broken into a multitude of sects, was
+poured over the world with a catholicity not inferior in its day to that
+of Christianity. St. Peter, who fell in with him originally in Samaria,
+seems to have encountered him again at Rome. At Rome St. Polycarp met
+Marcion of Pontus, whose followers spread through Italy, Egypt, Syria,
+Arabia, and Persia.
+
+"When [the reader of Christian history] comes to the second century,"
+says Dr. Burton, "he finds that Gnosticism, under some form or other,
+was professed in every part of the then civilized world. He finds it
+divided into schools, as numerously and as zealously attended as any
+which Greece or Asia could boast in their happiest days. He meets with
+names totally unknown to him before, which excited as much sensation as
+those of Aristotle or Plato. He hears of volumes having been written in
+support of this new philosophy, not one of which has survived to our own
+day." Many of the founders of these sects had been Christians. Others
+were of Jewish parentage; others were more or less connected in fact
+with the pagan rites to which their own bore so great a resemblance.
+
+Whatever might be the history of these sects, and though it may be a
+question whether they can be properly called "superstitions," and though
+many of them numbered educated men among their teachers and followers,
+they closely resembled--at least in ritual and profession--the vagrant
+pagan mysteries which have been above described. Their very name of
+"Gnostic" implied the possession of a secret, which was to be
+communicated to their disciples. Ceremonial observances were the
+preparation, and symbolical rites the instrument, of initiation. Tatian
+and Montanus, the representatives of very distinct schools, agreed in
+making asceticism a rule of life.
+
+Such were the Gnostics; and to external and prejudiced spectators,
+whether philosophers, as Celsus and Porphyry, or the multitude, they
+wore an appearance sufficiently like the Church to be mistaken for her
+in the latter part of the ante-Nicene period, as she was confused with
+the pagan mysteries in the earlier.
+
+Let us proceed in our contemplation of this reflection, as it may be
+called, of primitive Christianity in the mirror of the world. All three
+writers, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, call it a "superstition"; this
+is no accidental imputation, but is repeated by a variety of subsequent
+writers and speakers. The charge of Thyestean banquets scarcely lasts a
+hundred years; but, while pagan witnesses are to be found, the Church is
+accused of superstition. Now what is meant by the word thus attached by
+a _consensus_ of heathen authorities to Christianity? At least it cannot
+mean a religion in which a man might think what he pleased, and was set
+free from all yokes, whether of ignorance, fear, authority, or
+priestcraft. When heathen writers call the oriental rites superstitions,
+they evidently use the word in its modern sense. It cannot surely be
+doubted that they apply it in the same sense to Christianity. But
+Plutarch explains for us the word at length in his treatise which bears
+the name: "Of all kinds of fear," he says, "superstition is the most
+fatal to action and resource. He does not fear the sea who does not
+sail, nor war who does not serve, nor robbers who keeps at home, nor the
+sycophant who is poor, nor the envious if he is a private man, nor an
+earthquake if he lives in Gaul, nor thunder if he lives in Æthiopia; but
+he who fears the gods fears everything--earth, seas, air, sky, darkness,
+light, noises, silence, sleep. Slaves sleep and forget their masters; of
+the fettered doth sleep lighten the chain; inflamed wounds, ulcers cruel
+and agonizing, are not felt by the sleeping. Superstition alone has come
+to no terms with sleep; but in the very sleep of her victims, as though
+they were in the realms of the impious, she raises horrible spectres and
+monstrous phantoms and various pains, and whirls the miserable soul
+about and persecutes it. They rise, and, instead of making light of what
+is unreal, they fall into the hands of quacks and conjurers, who say,
+'Call the crone to expiate, bathe in the sea, and sit all day on the
+ground.'"
+
+Here we have a vivid picture of Plutarch's idea of the essence of
+superstition; it was the imagination of the existence of an unseen
+ever-present Master; the bondage of a rule of life, of a continual
+responsibility; obligation to attend to little things, the impossibility
+of escaping from duty, the inability to choose or change one's religion,
+an interference with the enjoyment of life, a melancholy view of the
+world, sense of sin, horror at guilt, apprehension of punishment, dread,
+self-abasement, depression, anxiety, and endeavor to be at peace with
+heaven, and error and absurdity in the methods chosen for the purpose.
+Such, too, had been the idea of the Epicurean Velleius, when he shrunk
+with horror from the "_sempiternus dominus_" and "_curiosus Deus_" of
+the Stoics. Such, surely, was the meaning of Tacitus, Suetonius, and
+Pliny. And hence, of course, the frequent reproach cast on Christians as
+credulous, weak-minded, and poor-spirited. The heathen objectors in
+Minucius and Lactantius speak of their "old-woman's tales." Celsus
+accuses them of "assenting at random and without reason," saying, "Do
+not inquire, but believe." "They lay it down," he says elsewhere: "Let
+no educated man approach, no man of wisdom, no man of sense; but if a
+man be unlearned, weak in intellect, an infant, let him come with
+confidence. Confessing that these are worthy of their God, they
+evidently desire, as they are able, to convert none but fools, and
+vulgar, and stupid, and slavish, women and boys." They "take in the
+simple and lead him where they will." They address themselves to
+"youths, house-servants, and the weak in intellect." They "hurry away
+from the educated, as not fit subjects of their imposition, and inveigle
+the rustic." "Thou," says the heathen magistrate to the martyr
+Fructuosus, "who as a teacher dost disseminate a new fable, that fickle
+girls may desert the groves and abandon Jupiter, condemn, if thou art
+wise, the anile creed."
+
+Hence the epithets of itinerant, mountebank, conjurer, cheat, sophist,
+and sorcerer, heaped upon the teachers of Christianity; sometimes to
+account for the report or apparent truth of their miracles, sometimes to
+explain their success. Our Lord was said to have learned his miraculous
+power in Egypt; "wizard, mediciner, cheat, rogue, conjurer," were the
+epithets applied to him by the opponents of Eusebius; they "worship that
+crucified sophist," says Lucian; "Paul, who surpasses all the conjurers
+and impostors who ever lived," is Julian's account of the apostle. "You
+have sent through the whole world," says St. Justin to Trypho, "to
+preach that a certain atheistic and lawless sect has sprung from one
+Jesus, a Galilean cheat." "We know," says Lucian, speaking of Chaldæans
+and magicians, "the Syrian from Palestine, who is the sophist in these
+matters, how many lunatics, with eyes distorted and mouth in foam, he
+raises and sends away restored, ridding them from the evil at a great
+price." "If any conjurer came to them, a man of skill and knowing how to
+manage matters," says the same writer, "he made money in no time, with a
+broad grin at the simple fellows." The officer who had custody of St.
+Perpetua feared her escape from prison "by magical incantations." When
+St. Tiburtius had walked barefoot on hot coals, his judge cried out
+that Christ had taught him magic. St. Anastasia was thrown into prison
+as a mediciner; the populace called out against St. Agnes, "Away with
+the witch," _Tolle magam, tolle maleficam_. When St. Bonosus and St.
+Maximilian bore the burning pitch without shrinking, Jews and Gentiles
+cried out, "_Isti magi et malefici_." "What new delusion," says the
+heathen magistrate concerning St. Romanus, "has brought in these
+sophists to deny the worship of the gods? How doth this chief sorcerer
+mock us, skilled by his Thessalian charm (_carmine_) to laugh at
+punishment!"
+
+It explains the phenomenon, which has created so much surprise to
+certain moderns--that a grave, well-informed historian like Tacitus
+should apply to Christians what sounds like abuse. Yet what is the
+difficulty, supposing that Christians were considered _mathematici_ and
+_magi_, and these were the secret intriguers against established
+government, the allies of desperate politicians, the enemies of the
+established religion, the disseminators of lying rumors, the
+perpetrators of poisonings and other crimes? "Read this," says Paley,
+after quoting some of the most beautiful and subduing passages of St.
+Paul, "read this, and then think of _exitiabilis superstitio_"; and he
+goes on to express a wish "in contending with heathen authorities, to
+produce our books against theirs," as if it were a matter of books.
+
+Public men care very little for books; the finest sentiments, the most
+luminous philosophy, the deepest theology, inspiration itself, moves
+them but little; they look at facts, and care only for facts. The
+question was, What was the worth, what the tendency of the Christian
+body in the State? What Christians said, what they thought, was little
+to the purpose. They might exhort to peaceableness and passive obedience
+as strongly as words could speak; but what did they _do_, what was their
+political position? This is what statesmen thought of then, as they do
+now. What had men of the world to do with abstract proofs or first
+principles? A statesman measures parties and sects and writers by their
+bearing upon _him_; and he has a practised eye in this sort of judgment,
+and is not likely to be mistaken. "'What is Truth?' said jesting
+Pilate." Apologies, however eloquent or true, availed nothing with the
+Roman magistrate against the sure instinct which taught him to dread
+Christianity. It was a dangerous enemy to any power not built upon
+itself; he felt it, and the event justified his apprehension.
+
+We must not forget the well-known character of the Roman State in its
+dealings with its subjects. It had had from the first an extreme
+jealousy of secret societies; it was prepared to grant a large
+toleration and a broad comprehension, but, as is the case with modern
+governments, it wished to have jurisdiction and the ultimate authority
+in every movement of the body politic and social, and its civil
+institutions were based, or essentially depended, on its religion.
+Accordingly, every innovation upon the established paganism, except it
+was allowed by the law, was rigidly repressed. Hence the professors of
+low superstitions, of mysteries, of magic, of astrology, were the
+outlaws of society, and were in a condition analogous, if the comparison
+may be allowed, to smugglers or poachers among ourselves, or perhaps to
+burglars and highwaymen; for the Romans had ever burnt the sorcerer and
+banished his consulters for life. It was an ancient custom. And at
+mysteries they looked with especial suspicion, because, since the
+established religion did not include them in its provisions, they really
+did supply what may be called a demand of the age.
+
+We know what opposition had been made in Rome even to the philosophy of
+Greece; much greater would be the aversion of constitutional statesmen
+and lawyers to the ritual of barbarians. Religion was the Roman point of
+honor. "Spaniards might rival them in numbers," says Cicero, "Gauls in
+bodily strength, Carthaginians in address, Greeks in the arts, Italians
+and Latins in native talent, but the Romans surpassed all nations in
+piety and devotion." It was one of their laws, "Let no one have gods by
+himself, nor worship in private new gods nor adventitious, unless added
+on public authority." Mæcenas in _Dio_ advises Augustus to honor the
+gods according to the national custom, because the contempt of the
+country's deities leads to civil insubordination, reception of foreign
+laws, conspiracies, and secret meetings. "Suffer no one," he adds, "to
+deny the gods or to practise sorcery." The civilian Julius Paulus lays
+it down as one of the leading principles of Roman law, that those who
+introduce new or untried religions should be degraded, and if in the
+lower orders put to death. In like manner, it is enacted in one of
+Constantine's laws that the haruspices should not exercise their art in
+private; and there is a law of Valentinian's against nocturnal
+sacrifices or magic. It is more immediately to our purpose that Trajan
+had been so earnest in his resistance to _hetæriæ_ or secret societies,
+that, when a fire had laid waste Nicomedia, and Pliny proposed to him to
+incorporate a body of a hundred and fifty firemen in consequence, he was
+afraid of the precedent and forbade it.
+
+What has been said will suggest another point of view in which the
+oriental rites were obnoxious to the government--namely, as being
+vagrant and proselytizing religions. If it tolerated foreign
+superstitions, this would be on the ground that districts or countries
+within its jurisdiction held them; to proselytize to a rite hitherto
+unknown, to form a new party, and to propagate it through the empire--a
+religion not local, but catholic--was an offence against both order and
+reason. The State desired peace everywhere, and no change;
+"considering," according to Lactantius, "that they were rightly and
+deservedly punished who execrated the public religion handed down to
+them by their ancestors."
+
+It is impossible, surely, to deny that, in assembling for religious
+purposes, the Christians were breaking a solemn law, a vital principle
+of the Roman constitution; and this is the light in which their conduct
+was regarded by the historians and philosophers of the empire. This was
+a very strong act on the part of the disciples of the great apostle, who
+had enjoined obedience to the powers that be. Time after time they
+resisted the authority of the magistrate; and this is a phenomenon
+inexplicable on the theory of private judgment or of the voluntary
+principle. The justification of such disobedience lies simply in the
+necessity of obeying the higher authority of some divine law; but if
+Christianity were in its essence only private and personal, as so many
+now think, there was no necessity of their meeting together at all. If,
+on the other hand, in assembling for worship and holy communion, they
+were fulfilling an indispensable observance, Christianity has imposed a
+social law on the world, and formally enters the field of politics.
+Gibbon says that, in consequence of Pliny's edict, "the prudence of the
+Christians suspended their _agapæ_; but it was _impossible_ for them to
+omit the exercise of public worship." We can draw no other conclusion.
+
+At the end of three hundred years a more remarkable violation of law
+seems to have been admitted by the Christian body. It shall be given in
+the words of Dr. Burton; he has been speaking of Maximin's edict, which
+provided for the restitution of any of their lands or buildings which
+had been alienated from them. "It is plain," he says, "from the terms of
+this edict, that the Christians had for some time been in possession of
+property. It speaks of houses and lands which did not belong to
+individuals, but to the whole body. Their possession of such property
+could hardly have escaped the notice of the government; but it seems to
+have been held in direct violation of a law of Diocletian, which
+prohibited corporate bodies or associations which were not legally
+recognized, from acquiring property. The Christians were certainly not a
+body recognized by law at the beginning of the reign of Diocletian, and
+it might almost be thought that this enactment was specially directed
+against them. But, like other laws which are founded upon tyranny, and
+are at variance with the first principles of justice, it is probable
+that this law about corporate property was evaded. We must suppose that
+the Christians had purchased lands and houses before the law was passed;
+and their disregard of the prohibition may be taken as another proof
+that their religion had now taken so firm a footing that the executors
+of the laws were obliged to connive at their being broken by so numerous
+a body."
+
+No wonder that the magistrate who presided at the martyrdom of St.
+Romanus calls them in Prudentius "a rebel people"; that Galerius speaks
+of them as "a nefarious conspiracy"; the heathen in Minucius, as "men of
+a desperate faction"; that others make them guilty of sacrilege and
+treason, and call them by those other titles which, more closely
+resembling the language of Tacitus, have been noticed above. Hence the
+violent accusations against them as the destructors of the empire, the
+authors of physical evils, and the cause of the anger of the gods.
+
+"Men cry out," says Tertullian, "that the State is beset, that the
+Christians are in their fields, in their forts, in their islands. They
+mourn as for a loss that every sex, condition, and now even rank is
+going over to this sect. And yet they do not by this very means advance
+their minds to the idea of some good therein hidden; they allow not
+themselves to conjecture more rightly, they choose not to examine more
+closely. The generality run upon a hatred of this name, with eyes so
+closed that in bearing favorable testimony to anyone they mingle with it
+the reproach of the name. 'A good man Caius Seius, only he is a
+Christian.' So another, 'I marvel that that wise man Lucius Titius hath
+suddenly become a Christian.' No one reflecteth whether Caius be not
+therefore good and Lucius wise because a Christian, or therefore a
+Christian because wise and good. They praise that which they know, they
+revile that which they know not. Virtue is not in such account as hatred
+of the Christians. Now, then, if the hatred be of the name, what guilt
+is there in names? What charge against words? Unless it be that any word
+which is a name have either a barbarous or ill-omened, or a scurrilous
+or an immodest sound. If the Tiber cometh up to the walls, if the Nile
+cometh not up to the fields, if the heaven hath stood still, if the
+earth hath been moved, if there be any famine, if any pestilence, 'The
+Christians to the lions' is forthwith the word."
+
+"Men of a desperate, lawless, reckless faction," says the heathen
+Cæcilius, in the passage above referred to, "who collect together out of
+the lowest rabble the thoughtless portion, and credulous women seduced
+by the weakness of their sex, and form a mob of impure conspirators, of
+whom nocturnal assemblies and solemn fastings and unnatural food, no
+sacred rite but pollution, is the bond. A tribe lurking and
+light-hating, dumb for the public, talkative in corners, they despise
+our temples as if graves, spit at our gods, deride our religious forms;
+pitiable themselves, they pity, forsooth, our priests; half-naked
+themselves, they despise our honors and purple; monstrous folly and
+incredible impudence!... Day after day their abandoned morals wind their
+serpentine course; over the whole world are those most hideous rites of
+an impious association growing into shape;... they recognize each other
+by marks and signs, and love each other almost before they recognize;
+promiscuous lust is their religion. Thus does their vain and mad
+superstition glory in crimes.... The writer who tells the story of a
+criminal capitally punished, and of the gibbet (_ligna feralia_) of the
+cross being their observance (_ceremonias_), assigns to them thereby an
+altar in keeping with the abandoned and wicked, that they may worship
+(_colant_) what they merit.... Why their mighty effort to hide and
+shroud whatever it is they worship (_colunt_), since things honest ever
+like the open day, and crimes are secret? Why have they no altars, no
+temples, no images known to us, never speak abroad, never assemble
+freely, were it not that what they worship and suppress is subject
+either of punishment or of shame?
+
+"What monstrous, what portentous notions do they fabricate! that that
+God of theirs, whom they can neither show nor see, should be inquiring
+diligently into the characters, the acts--nay, the words and secret
+thoughts of all men; running to and fro, forsooth, and present
+everywhere, troublesome, restless--nay, impudently curious they would
+have him; that is, if he is close at every deed, interferes in all
+places, while he can neither attend to each as being distracted through
+the whole, nor suffice for the whole as being engaged about each. Think,
+too, of their threatening fire, meditating destruction to the whole
+earth--nay, the world itself with its stars!... Nor content with this
+mad opinion, they add and append their old wives' tales about a new
+birth after death, ashes and cinders, and by some strange confidence
+believe each other's lies.
+
+"Poor creatures! consider what hangs over you after death, while you are
+still alive. Lo, the greater part of you, the better, as you say, are in
+want, cold, toil, hunger, and your God suffers it; but I omit common
+trials. Lo, threats are offered to you, punishments, torments; crosses
+to be undergone now, not worshipped (_adorandæ_); fires, too, which ye
+predict and fear; where is that God who can recover, but cannot preserve
+your life? The answer of Socrates, when he was asked about heavenly
+matters, is well known: 'What is above us does not concern us.' My
+opinion also is, that points which are doubtful, as are the points in
+question, must be left; nor, when so many and such great men are in
+controversy on the subject, must judgment be rashly and audaciously
+given on either side, lest the consequence be either anile superstition
+or the overthrow of all religion."
+
+Such was Christianity in the eyes of those who witnessed its rise and
+propagation--one of a number of wild and barbarous rites which were
+pouring in upon the empire from the ancient realms of superstition, and
+the mother of a progeny of sects which were faithful to the original
+they had derived from Egypt or Syria; a religion unworthy of an educated
+person, as appealing, not to the intellect, but to the fears and
+weaknesses of human nature, and consisting, not in the rational and
+cheerful enjoyment, but in a morose rejection of the gifts of
+Providence; a horrible religion, as inflicting or enjoining cruel
+sufferings, and monstrous and loathsome in its very indulgence of the
+passions; a religion leading by reaction to infidelity; a religion of
+magic, and of the vulgar arts, real and pretended, with which magic was
+accompanied; a secret religion which dared not face the day; an
+itinerant, busy, proselytizing religion, forming an extended confederacy
+against the State, resisting its authority and breaking its laws. There
+may be some exceptions to this general impression, such as Pliny's
+discovery of the innocent and virtuous rule of life adopted by the
+Christians of Pontus; but this only proves that Christianity was not in
+fact the infamous religion which the heathen thought it; it did not
+reverse their general belief to that effect.
+
+Now it must be granted that, in some respects, this view of Christianity
+depended on the times, and would alter with their alteration. When there
+was no persecution, martyrs could not be obstinate; and when the Church
+was raised aloft in high places, it was no longer in caves. Still, I
+believe, it continued substantially the same in the judgment of the
+world external to it while there was an external world to judge of it.
+"They thought it enough," says Julian in the fourth century, of our Lord
+and his apostles, "to deceive women, servants, and slaves, and by their
+means wives and husbands." "A human fabrication," says he elsewhere,
+"put together by wickedness, having nothing divine in it, but making a
+perverted use of the fable-loving, childish, irrational part of the
+soul, and offering a set of wonders to create belief."
+
+"Miserable men," he says elsewhere, "you refuse to worship the ancile,
+yet you worship the wood of the cross, and sign it on your foreheads,
+and fix it on your doors. Shall one for this hate the intelligent among
+you, or pity the less understanding, who in following you have gone to
+such an excess of perdition as to leave the everlasting gods and go over
+to a dead Jew?" He speaks of their adding other dead men to him who died
+so long ago. "You have filled all places with sepulchres and monuments,
+though it is nowhere told you in your religion to haunt the tombs and to
+attend upon them." Elsewhere he speaks of their "leaving the gods for
+corpses and relics." On the other hand, he attributes the growth of
+Christianity to its humanity toward strangers, care in burying the dead,
+and pretended religiousness of life. In another place he speaks of their
+care of the poor.
+
+Libanius, Julian's preceptor in rhetoric, delivers the same testimony,
+as far as it goes. He addressed his _Oration for the Temples_ to a
+Christian emperor, and would in consequence be guarded in his language;
+however it runs in one direction. He speaks of "those black-habited
+men," meaning the monks, "who eat more than elephants, and by the number
+of their potations trouble those who send them drink in their chantings,
+and conceal this by paleness artificially acquired." They "are in good
+condition out of the misfortunes of others, while they pretend to serve
+God by hunger." Those whom they attack "are like bees, they like
+drones." I do not quote this passage to prove that there were monks in
+Libanius' days, which no one doubts, but to show his impression of
+Christianity, as far as his works betray it.
+
+Numantian in the same century describes in verse his voyage from Rome to
+Gaul: one book of the poem is extant; he falls in with Christianity on
+two of the islands which lie in his course. He thus describes them as
+found on one of these: "The island is in a squalid state, being full of
+light-haters. They call themselves monks, because they wish to live
+alone without witness. They dread the gifts, from fearing the reverses,
+of fortune." He meets on the other island a Christian, whom he had
+known, of good family and fortune, and happy in his marriage, who
+"impelled by the Furies had left men and gods, and, credulous exile,
+was living in base concealment. Is not this herd," he continues, "worse
+than Circean poison? then bodies were changed, now minds."
+
+In the _Philopatris_, which is the work of an author of the fourth
+century, Critias is introduced pale and wild. His friend asks him if he
+has seen Cerberus or Hecate; and he answers that he has heard a
+rigmarole from certain "thrice-cursed sophists"; which he thinks would
+drive him mad if he heard it again, and was nearly sending him headlong
+over some cliff as it was. He retires for relief with his inquirer to a
+pleasant place, shadowed by planes, where swallows and nightingales are
+singing, and a quiet brook is purling. Triephon, his friend, expresses a
+fear lest he has heard some incantation, and is led by the course of the
+dialogue, before his friend tells his tale, to give some account of
+Christianity, being himself a Christian. After speaking of the creation,
+as described by Moses, he falls at once upon that doctrine of a
+particular providence which is so distasteful to Plutarch, Velleius in
+Cicero, and Cæcilius, and generally to unbelievers. "He is in heaven,"
+he says, "looking at just and unjust, and causing actions to be entered
+in books; and he will recompense all on a day which he has appointed."
+Critias objects that he cannot make this consistent with the received
+doctrine about the Fates, "even though he has perhaps been carried aloft
+with his master, and initiated in unspeakable mysteries." He also asks
+if the deeds of the Scythians are written in heaven for if so there must
+be many scribes there.
+
+Such was the language of paganism after Christianity had for fifty years
+been exposed to the public gaze; after it had been before the world for
+fifty more, St. Augustine had still to defend it against the charge of
+being the cause of the calamities of the empire. And for the charge of
+magic, when the Arian bishops were in formal disputations with the
+Catholic, before Gungebald, Burgundian king of France, at the end of the
+fifth century, we find still that they charged the Catholics with being
+"_præstigiatores_," and worshipping a number of gods; and when the
+Catholics proposed that the King should repair to the shrine of St.
+Justus, where both parties might ask him concerning their respective
+faiths, the Arians cried out that "they would not seek enchantments
+like Saul, for Scripture was enough for them, which was more powerful
+than all bewitchments." This was said, not against strangers of whom
+they knew nothing, as Ethelbert might be suspicious of St. Augustine and
+his brother missionaries, but against a body of men who lived among
+them.
+
+I do not think it can be doubted then that, had Tacitus, Suetonius, and
+Pliny, Celsus, Porphyry, and the other opponents of Christianity lived
+in the fourth century, their evidence concerning Christianity would be
+very much the same as it has come down to us from the centuries before
+it. In either case, a man of the world and a philosopher would have been
+disgusted at the gloom and sadness of its profession, its
+mysteriousness, its claim of miracles, the want of good sense imputable
+to its rule of life, and the unsettlement and discord it was introducing
+into the social and political world.
+
+On the whole then I conclude as follows: If there is a form of
+Christianity now in the world which is accused of gross superstition, of
+borrowing its rites and customs from the heathen, and of ascribing to
+forms and ceremonies an occult virtue; a religion which is considered to
+burden and enslave the mind by its requisitions, to address itself to
+the weak-minded and ignorant, to be supported by sophistry and
+imposture, and to contradict reason and exalt mere irrational faith; a
+religion which impresses on the serious mind very distressing views of
+the guilt and consequences of sin, sets upon the minute acts of the day,
+one by one, their definite value for praise or blame, and thus casts a
+grave shadow over the future; a religion which holds up to admiration
+the surrender of wealth, and disables serious persons from enjoying it
+if they would; a religion, the doctrines of which, be they good or bad,
+are to the generality of men unknown; which is considered to bear on its
+very surface signs of folly and falsehood so distinct that a glance
+suffices to judge of it, and that careful examination is preposterous;
+which is felt to be so simply bad that it may be calumniated at hazard
+and at pleasure, it being nothing but absurdity to stand upon the
+accurate distribution of its guilt among its particular acts, or
+painfully to determine how far this or that story concerning it is
+literally true, or what has to be allowed in candor, or what is
+improbable, or what cuts two ways, or what is not proved, or what may be
+plausibly defended; a religion such that men look at a convert to it
+with a feeling which no other denomination raises except Judaism,
+socialism, or Mormonism--namely, with curiosity, suspicion, fear,
+disgust, as the case may be, as if something strange had befallen him,
+as if he had had an initiation into a mystery, and had come into
+communion with dreadful influences, as if he were now one of a
+confederacy which claimed him, absorbed him, stripped him of his
+personality, reduced him to a mere organ or instrument of a whole; a
+religion which men hate as proselytizing, anti-social, revolutionary, as
+dividing families, separating chief friends, corrupting the maxims of
+government, making a mock at law, dissolving the empire, the enemy of
+human nature, and a "conspirator against its rights and privileges"; a
+religion which they consider the champion and instrument of darkness,
+and a pollution calling down upon the land the anger of heaven; a
+religion which they associate with intrigue and conspiracy, which they
+speak about in whispers, which they detect by anticipation in whatever
+goes wrong, and to which they impute whatever is unaccountable; a
+religion, the very name of which they cast out as evil, and use simply
+as a bad epithet, and which from the impulse of self-preservation they
+would persecute if they could--if there be such a religion now in the
+world, it is not unlike Christianity as that same world viewed it when
+first it came forth from its divine Author.
+
+
+
+
+BURNING OF ROME UNDER NERO
+
+A.D. 64
+
+SIENKIEWICZ          TACITUS
+
+     Nero when a youth was placed under charge of the philosopher
+     Seneca, who carefully attended to his education. During Nero's
+     nonage he was persevering in his studies and made great progress in
+     Greek. By a subterfuge of his mother's he was proclaimed emperor in
+     the place of Britannicus, the real heir to the throne. In the early
+     part of his reign public affairs were wisely conducted, but the
+     private life of Nero was given up to vice and profligacy. His love
+     for Poppæa led him into the crime of matricide, for she, wishing to
+     share the imperial throne, and knowing it was impossible while his
+     mother, Agrippina, lived, induced him to authorize her
+     assassination. Strange that Seneca and Burrhus should have approved
+     of this, yet Tacitus admits that such was the case. In the eighth
+     year of his reign Nero divorced his wife, Octavia, and married
+     Poppæa.
+
+     Nero was an accomplished musician and sang verses composed by
+     himself. He eagerly sought the plaudits of the multitude by
+     reciting his compositions in public. Historians are divided in
+     opinion as to whether Nero was the cause of the burning of Rome.
+     During the conflagration, to court popularity he ordered temporary
+     shelters to be provided for the houseless; yet the people did not
+     acclaim this deed, as it was reported that Nero, at "the very time
+     Rome was in flames," sang the destruction of Troy in his private
+     theatre, likening the present disaster to that ancient catastrophe.
+     In order to divert the masses from what they believed the true
+     origin of the fire, Nero charged it upon the Christians, many
+     hundreds of whom were sacrificed to his fury. He was the last of
+     the Cæsars, and died by his own hand amid universal execrations, in
+     June, A.D. 68, four years after the destruction of Rome.
+
+
+HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ
+
+The fire began at the Circus Maximus, in that section which touches the
+Palatine and Cælian hill; it rushed on with inconceivable rapidity and
+fastened upon the whole centre of Rome. Since the time of Brennus never
+had the city witnessed such an awful catastrophe.
+
+A freedman of Cæsar's, Phaon by name, ran panting into Nero's presence,
+shrieking: "Rome is in flames! the conflagration is great."
+
+All Cæsar's guests arose from their recumbent attitude. "Ye gods! I
+shall see a burning city; now can I finish the _Troyade_," exclaimed
+Nero, placing his lute aside. "If I go at once, can I view the fire?"
+
+"My lord, the whole city is as a sea of flame; the smoke is
+suffocatingly heavy and is destroying the people. The inhabitants faint
+away or rashly cast themselves into the fire, maddened with terror. All
+Rome perishes." And Nero raised his hands and cried, "Woe, woe to thee,
+thou sacred city of Priam!"
+
+Fires were frequent enough in Rome; during these conflagrations violence
+and robbery were rampant, particularly so in those sections of the city
+inhabited by needy half-barbarian peoples, a folk comprising rabble from
+every part of the world. The fear of servile rebellion was like a
+nightmare, which had stifled Rome for many years. It was believed that
+hundreds of thousands of those people were thinking of the times of
+Spartacus, and merely waiting for a favorable moment to seize arms
+against their oppressors and Rome. Now the moment had come! Perhaps war
+and slaughter were raging in the city together with fire.
+
+It was possible even that the prætorians had hurled themselves on the
+city and were slaughtering at command of Cæsar. And that moment the hair
+rose on Vinicius' head from terror. He recalled all the conversations
+about burning cities which for some time had been repeated at Cæsar's
+court with wonderful persistence; well he recalled Cæsar's complaints
+that he was forced to describe a burning city without having seen an
+actual fire; his contemptuous answer to Tigellinus, who offered to burn
+Antium or an artificial wooden city; finally, his complaints against
+Rome, and the pestilential alleys of the Subura.
+
+Yes; truly Cæsar has commanded the burning of the city! Only he could
+give such a command, as Tigellinus alone could accomplish it. But if
+Rome is burning at command of Cæsar, who can be sure that the population
+will not be slaughtered at his command? The monster is capable of just
+such a deed. Conflagration, a servile revolt, and slaughter! What a
+horrible chaos, what a letting loose of destructive elements and horrid,
+universal frenzy!
+
+The night had paled long since, the dawn had passed into light, and on
+all the nearer summits golden, rosy gleams were shining, which might
+come either from burning Rome or the rising daylight. Vinicius ran to
+the hill, the summit was reached, and then a terrible sight struck his
+eyes.
+
+All the lower region was covered with smoke, forming, as it were, one
+gigantic cloud lying close to the earth. In this cloud towns, aqueducts,
+villas, trees, disappeared; but farther beyond this gray, ghastly plain
+the city was burning on the hills. The conflagration had not the form of
+a pillar of fire, as happens when a single building is burning, even
+when of the greatest size. That was a long belt, rather, shaped like the
+belt of dawn. Above this belt rose a wave of smoke, in places entirely
+black, in places looking rose-colored, in places like blood, in places
+turning in on itself, in some places inflated, in others squeezed and
+squirming, like a serpent which is unwinding and extending.
+
+That monstrous wave seemed at times to cover even the belt of fire,
+which became then as narrow as a ribbon; but later this ribbon
+illuminated the smoke from beneath, changing its lower rolls into waves
+of flame. The two extended from one side of the sky to the other, hiding
+its lower part, as at times a stretch of forest hides the horizon. The
+Sabine hills were not visible in the least.
+
+It seemed at the first glance of the eye that not only the city was
+burning, but the whole world, and that no living being could save itself
+from that ocean of flame and smoke. The wind blew with increasing
+strength from the region of the fire, bringing the smell of burnt things
+and of smoke, which began to hide even nearer objects. Clear daylight
+had come, and the sun lighted up the summits surrounding the Alban Lake.
+
+But the bright golden rays of the morning appeared reddish and sickly
+through the haze. Vinicius, while descending toward Albanum, entered
+smoke which was denser, less and less transparent. The town itself was
+buried in it thoroughly. The alarmed citizens had moved out to the
+street. It was a terror to think of what might be in Rome, when it was
+difficult to breathe in Albanum.
+
+He met increasing numbers of people, who had deserted the city and were
+going to the Alban hills; they had escaped the fire and wished to go
+beyond the line of smoke. Before he had reached Ustrinum he had to
+slacken his pace because of the throng. Besides pedestrians with bundles
+on their backs he met horses with packs, mules and vehicles laden with
+effects, and finally litters in which slaves were bearing the wealthier
+citizens. The town of Ustrinum was so thronged with fugitives from Rome
+that it was difficult to push through the crowd. On the market square,
+under temple porticos, and on the streets were swarms of fugitives.
+
+Here and there people were erecting tents under which whole families
+were to find shelter. Others settled down under the naked sky, shouting,
+calling on the gods, or cursing the Fates. In the general terror it was
+difficult to inquire about anything. New crowds of men, women, and
+children arrived from the direction of Rome every moment; these
+increased the disorder and outcry. Some, gone astray in the throng,
+sought desperately those whom they had lost; others fought for a camping
+place.
+
+Half-crazy shepherds from the Campania crowded to the town to hear news,
+or find profit in plunder made easy by the uproar. Here and there crowds
+of slaves of every nationality and gladiators fell to robbing houses and
+villas in the town, and to fighting with the soldiers who appeared in
+defence of the citizens.
+
+Junius, a friend of Vinicius, said, after a moment's hesitation, in a
+low voice: "I know that thou wilt not betray me, so I will tell thee
+that this is no common fire. People were not permitted to save the
+Circus. When houses began to burn in every direction, I myself heard
+thousands of voices exclaiming, 'Death to those who save!' Certain
+people ran through the city and hurled burning torches into buildings.
+
+"On the other hand, people are revolting and crying that the city is
+burning at command. I can say nothing more. Woe to the city, woe to us
+all and to me! The tongue of man cannot tell what is happening there.
+People are perishing in flames or slaying one another in the throng.
+This is the end of Rome!"
+
+Vinicius, nearing the walls, found it easier to reach Rome than
+penetrate to the middle of the city. It was difficult to push along the
+Appian Way, because of the throng of people. Houses, cemeteries, fields,
+gardens, and temples, lying on both sides of it, were turned into
+camping places. In the temple of Mars, which stood near the Porta Appia,
+the crowd had thrown down the doors, so as to find a refuge within
+during night hours. In the cemeteries the larger monuments were seized,
+and battles fought in defence of them, which were carried to bloodshed.
+Ustrinum with its disorder gave barely a slight foretaste of that which
+was happening beneath the walls of the capital.
+
+All regard for the dignity of law, for family ties, for difference of
+position, had ceased. Gladiators drunk with wine seized in the Emporium,
+gathered in crowds and ran with wild shouts through the neighboring
+squares, trampling, scattering, and robbing the people. A multitude of
+barbarian slaves, exposed for sale in the city, escaped from the booths.
+For them the burning and ruin of Rome were at once the end of slavery
+and the hour of revenge; so that when the permanent inhabitants, who had
+lost all they owned in the fire, stretched their hands to the gods in
+despair, calling for rescue, these slaves with howls of delight
+scattered the crowds, dragged clothing from people's backs, and bore
+away the younger women. They were joined by other slaves serving in the
+city from of old, wretches who had nothing on their bodies save woollen
+girdles around their hips, dreadful figures from the alleys, who were
+hardly ever seen on the streets in the daytime, and whose existence in
+Rome it was difficult to suspect.
+
+Men of this wild and unrestrained crowd--Asiatics, Africans, Greeks,
+Thracians, Germans, Britons--howling in every language of the earth,
+raged, thinking that the hour had come in which they were free to reward
+themselves for years of misery and suffering. In the midst of that
+surging throng of humanity, in the glitter of day and of fire, shone the
+helmets of prætorians, under whose protection the more peaceable
+population had taken refuge, and who in hand-to-hand battle had to meet
+the raging multitude in many places. Vinicius had seen captured cities,
+but never had his eyes beheld a spectacle in which despair, tears, pain,
+groans, wild delight, madness, rage, and license were mingled together
+in such immeasurable chaos. Above this heaving, mad human multitude
+roared the fire, surging up to the hill-tops of the greatest city on
+earth, sending into the whirling throng its fiery breath, and covering
+it with smoke, through which it was impossible to see the blue sky.
+
+The young tribune with supreme effort, and exposing his life every
+moment, forced his way at last to the Appian Gate; but there he saw that
+he could not reach the city through the division of the Porta Capena,
+not merely because of the throng, but also because of the terrible heat
+from which the whole atmosphere was quivering inside the gate. Besides,
+the bridge at the Porta Trigenia, opposite the temple of the Bona Dea,
+did not exist yet, hence those who wished to go beyond the Tiber had to
+pass through to the Pons Sublicius--that is, to pass around the Aventine
+through a part of the city covered now with one sea of flame. That was
+an impossibility. Vinicius understood that he must return toward
+Ustrinum, turn from the Appian Way, cross the river below the city, and
+go to the Via Portuensis, which led straight to the Trans-Tiber.
+
+That was not easy because of the increasing disorder on the Appian Way.
+At the fountain of Mercury, however, he saw a centurion who was known to
+him. This man, at the head of a few tens of soldiers, was defending the
+precinct of the temple; he commanded him to follow. Recognizing a
+tribune and an Augustian, the centurion did not dare to disobey the
+order.
+
+He and his men were followed by curses and a shower of stones; but to
+these he gave no heed, caring only to reach freer spaces at the
+earliest. Still he advanced with the greatest effort. People who had
+encamped would not move, and heaped loud curses on Cæsar and the
+prætorians. The throng assumed in places a threatening aspect. Thousands
+of voices accused Nero of burning the city. He and Poppæa were
+threatened with death. Shouts of "Buffoon, actor, matricide!" were heard
+round about. Some shouted to drag him to the Tiber; others that Rome had
+shown patience enough. It was clear that were a leader found these
+threats could be changed into open rebellion which might break out any
+moment.
+
+Meanwhile the rage and despair of the crowd turned against the
+prætorians, who for another reason could not make their way out of the
+crowd: the road was blocked by piles of goods, borne from the fire
+previously, boxes, barrels of provisions, furniture the most costly,
+vessels, infants' cradles, beds, carts, hand-packs. Here and there they
+fought hand-to-hand; but the prætorians conquered the weaponless
+multitude easily. After they had ridden with difficulty across the Viæ
+Latina, Numitia, Ardea, Lavinia, and Ostia, and passed around villas,
+gardens, cemeteries, and temples, Vinicius reached at last a village
+called Vicus Alexandri, beyond which he crossed the Tiber. There was
+more open space at this spot and less smoke. From fugitives, of whom
+there was no lack even there, he learned that only certain alleys of the
+Trans-Tiber were burning, but that surely nothing could resist the fury
+of the conflagration, since people were spreading the fire purposely,
+and permitted no one to quench it, declaring that they acted at command.
+
+The young tribune had not the least doubt then that Cæsar had given
+command to burn Rome; and the vengeance which people demanded seemed to
+him just and proper. What more could Mithradates or any of Rome's most
+inveterate enemies have done? The measure had been exceeded; his madness
+had grown to be too enormous, and the existence of people too difficult
+because of him. All believed that Nero's hour had struck, that those
+ruins into which the city was falling should and must overwhelm the
+monstrous buffoon together with all those crimes of his. Should a man be
+found of courage sufficient to stand at the head of the despairing
+people, that might happen in a few hours. Here vengeful and daring
+thoughts began to fly through his head. But if he should do that?
+
+The family of Vinicius, which till recent times counted a whole series
+of consuls, was known throughout Rome. The crowds needed only a name.
+Once, when four hundred slaves of the prefect Pedanius Secundus were
+sentenced, Rome reached the verge of rebellion and civil war. What would
+happen to-day in view of a dreadful calamity surpassing almost
+everything which Rome had undergone in the course of eight centuries?
+Whoever calls the _quirites_ to arms, thought Vinicius, will overthrow
+Nero undoubtedly, and clothe himself in purple.
+
+The Trans-Tiber was full of smoke, and crowds of fugitives made it more
+difficult to reach the interior of the place, since people, having more
+time there, had saved greater quantities of goods. The main street
+itself was in many parts filled completely, and around the Naumachia
+Augusta great heaps were piled up. Narrow alleys, in which smoke had
+collected more densely, were simply impassable. The inhabitants were
+fleeing in thousands. On the way Vinicius saw wonderful sights. More
+than once two rivers of people, flowing in opposite directions, met in a
+narrow passage, stopped each other, men fought hand-to-hand, struck and
+trampled one another. Families lost one another in the uproar; mothers
+called on their children despairingly. The young tribune's hair stood on
+end at thought of what must happen nearer the fire.
+
+Amid shouts and howls it was difficult to inquire about anything or
+understand what was said. At times new columns of smoke from beyond the
+river rolled toward them, smoke black and so heavy that it moved near
+the ground, hiding houses, people, and every object, just as night does.
+The fervor of a July day, increased by the heat of the burning parts of
+the city, became unendurable. Smoke pained the eyes; breath failed in
+men's breasts. Even the inhabitants who, hoping that the fire would not
+cross the river, had remained in their houses so far, began to leave
+them, and the throng increased hourly. The prætorians accompanying
+Vinicius were in the rear. In the crush some one wounded his horse with
+a hammer; the beast threw up its bloody head, reared, and refused
+obedience. The crowd recognized in Vinicius an Augustian by his rich
+tunic, and at once cries were raised round about, "Death to Nero and his
+incendiaries!" This was a moment of terrible danger; hundreds of hands
+were stretched toward Vinicius; but his frightened horse bore him away,
+trampling people as he went, and the next moment a new wave of black
+smoke rolled in and filled the street with darkness. Vinicius, seeing
+that he could not ride past, sprang to the earth and rushed forward on
+foot, slipping along walls, and at times waiting till the fleeing
+multitude passed him. He said to himself in spirit that these were vain
+efforts.
+
+At times he stopped and rubbed his eyes. Tearing off the edge of his
+tunic, he covered his nose and mouth with it and ran on. As he
+approached the river the heat increased terribly. Vinicius, knowing that
+the fire had begun at the Circus Maximus, thought at first that that
+heat came from its cinders and from the Forum Boarium and the Velabrum,
+which, situated near by, must be also in flames. But the heat was
+growing unendurable. One old man on crutches and fleeing, the last whom
+Vinicius noticed, cried: "Go not near the bridge of Cestius! The whole
+island is on fire!" It was, indeed, impossible to be deceived any
+longer. At the turn toward the Vicus Judæorum the young tribune saw
+flames amid clouds of smoke. Not only the island was burning, but the
+Trans-Tiber and the other end of the street on which he ran.
+
+The thunder of the flames was more terrible than the roar of wild
+beasts, and the hour had come now in which he must think of his own
+safety, for the river of fire was flowing nearer and nearer from the
+direction of the island, and rolls of smoke covered the alley almost
+completely. The taper which he carried was quenched from the current of
+air. Vinicius rushed to the street, and ran at full speed toward the Via
+Portuensis, whence he had come; the fire seemed to pursue him with
+burning breath, now surrounding him with fresh clouds of smoke, now
+covering him with sparks, which fell on his hair, neck, and clothing.
+The tunic began to smoulder on him in places; he cared not, but ran
+forward lest he might be stifled from smoke. He had the taste of soot
+and burning in his mouth; his throat and lungs were as if on fire. The
+blood rushed to his head, and at moments all things, even the smoke
+itself, seemed red to him.
+
+Then he thought: "This is living fire! Better throw myself upon the
+ground and quickly perish." The running tortured him more and more. His
+head, neck, and shoulders were streaming with sweat, which scalded like
+boiling water.
+
+But he ran on as if drunk, staggering from one side of the street to the
+other. Meanwhile something changed in that monstrous conflagration which
+had embraced the giant city. Everything which till then had only
+glimmered, burst forth visibly into one sea of flame; the wind had
+ceased to bring smoke. That smoke which had collected in the streets
+was borne away by a mad whirl of heated air. That whirl drove with it
+millions of sparks, so that Vinicius was running in a fiery cloud, as it
+were. But he was able to see before him all the better, and in a moment,
+almost when he was ready to fall, he saw the end of the street. That
+sight gave him fresh strength. Passing the corner, he found himself in a
+street which led to the Via Portuensis and the Codetan Field. The sparks
+ceased to drive him. He understood that if he could run to the Via
+Portuensis he was safe, even were he to faint on it.
+
+At the end of the street he saw again a cloud, as it seemed, which
+stopped the exit. "If that is smoke," thought he, "I cannot pass." He
+ran with the remnant of his strength. On the way he threw off his tunic,
+which, on fire from the sparks, was burning him like the shirt of
+Nessus, having only a _capitium_ around his head and before his mouth.
+When he had run farther, he saw that what he had taken for smoke was
+dust, from which rose a multitude of cries and voices.
+
+"The rabble are plundering houses," thought Vinicius. But he ran toward
+the voices. In any case people were there; they might assist him. In
+this hope he shouted for aid with all his might before he reached them.
+But this was his last effort. It grew redder still in his eyes, breath
+failed his lungs, strength failed his bones; he fell.
+
+They heard him, however, or rather saw him. Two men ran with gourds full
+of water. Vinicius, who had fallen from exhaustion, but had not lost
+consciousness, seized a gourd with both hands and emptied one-half of
+it.
+
+"Thanks," said he; "place me on my feet; I can walk on alone."
+
+The other laborer poured water on his head; the two not only placed him
+on his feet, but raised him from the ground and carried him to the
+others, who surrounded him and asked if he had suffered seriously. This
+tenderness astonished Vinicius.
+
+"People, who are ye?" asked he.
+
+"We are breaking down houses, so that the fire may not reach the Via
+Portuensis," answered one of the laborers.
+
+"Ye came to my aid when I had fallen. Thanks to you."
+
+"We are not permitted to refuse aid," answered a number of voices.
+
+Vinicius, who from early morning had seen brutal crowds slaying and
+robbing, looked with more attention on the faces around him and said:
+
+"May Christ reward you."
+
+"Praise to his name!" exclaimed a whole chorus of voices.
+
+It was evening, but one could see as in daylight, for the conflagration
+had increased. It seemed that not single parts of the city were burning,
+but the whole city through the length and the breadth of it. The sky was
+red as far as the eye could see it, and that night in the world was a
+red night.
+
+The light from the burning city filled the sky as far as human eye could
+reach. The moon rose large and full from behind the mountains, and,
+inflamed at once by the glare, took on the color of heated brass. It
+seemed to look with amazement on the world-ruling city which was
+perishing. In the rose-colored abysses of heaven rose-colored stars were
+glittering; but in distinction from usual nights the earth was brighter
+than the heavens. Rome, like a giant pile, illuminated the whole
+Campania.
+
+In the bloody light were seen distant mountains, towns, villas, temples,
+monuments, and the aqueducts stretching toward the city from all the
+adjacent hills; on the aqueducts were swarms of people who had gathered
+there for safety or to gaze at the burning. Meanwhile the dreadful
+element was embracing new divisions of the city. It was impossible to
+doubt that criminal hands were spreading the fire, since new
+conflagrations were breaking out all the time in places remote from the
+principal fire.
+
+From the heights on which Rome was founded the flames flowed like waves
+of the sea into the valleys densely occupied by houses--houses of five
+and six stories, full of shops, booths, movable wooden amphitheatres,
+built to accommodate various spectacles; and finally storehouses of
+wood, olives, grain, nuts, pine cones, the kernels of which nourished
+the more needy population, and clothing, which through Cæsar's favor was
+distributed from time to time among the rabble huddled into narrow
+alleys. In those places the fire, finding abundance of inflammable
+materials, became almost a series of explosions, and took possession of
+whole streets with unheard-of rapidity. People encamping outside the
+city or standing on the aqueducts knew from the color of the flame what
+was burning. The furious power of the wind carried forth from the fiery
+gulf thousands and millions of burning shells of walnuts and almonds,
+which, shooting suddenly into the sky, like countless flocks of bright
+butterflies, burst with a crackling, or, driven by the wind, fell in
+other parts of the city, on aqueducts and fields beyond Rome.
+
+All thought of rescue seemed out of place; confusion increased every
+moment, for on one side the population of the city was fleeing through
+every gate to places outside; on the other the fire had lured in
+thousands of people from the neighborhood, such as dwellers in small
+towns, peasants, and half-wild shepherds of the Campania brought in by
+hope of plunder. The shout, "Rome is perishing!" did not leave the lips
+of the crowd; the ruin of the city seemed at that time to end every rule
+and loosen all bonds which hitherto had joined people in a single
+integrity. The mob, in which slaves were more numerous, cared nothing
+for the lordship of Rome. Destruction of the city could only free them;
+hence here and there they assumed a threatening attitude.
+
+Violence and robbery were extending. It seemed that only the spectacle
+of the perishing city arrested attention, and restrained for the moment
+an outburst of slaughter, which would begin as soon as the city was
+turned into ruins. Hundreds of thousands of slaves, forgetting that
+Rome, besides temples and walls, possessed some tens of legions in all
+parts of the world, appeared merely waiting for a watchword and a
+leader. People began to mention the name of Spartacus; but Spartacus was
+not alive. Meanwhile citizens assembled and armed themselves each with
+what he could. The most monstrous reports were current at all the gates.
+Some declared that Vulcan, commanded by Jupiter, was destroying the city
+with fire from beneath the earth; others that Vesta was taking vengeance
+for Rubria. People with these convictions did not care to save anything,
+but, besieging the temples, implored mercy of the gods. It was repeated
+most generally, however, that Cæsar had given command to burn Rome, so
+as to free himself from odors which rose from the Subura, and build a
+new city under the name of Neronia. Rage seized the populace at thought
+of this; and if, as Vinicius believed, a leader had taken advantage of
+that outburst of hatred, Nero's hour would have struck whole years
+before it did.
+
+It was said also that Cæsar had gone mad, that he would command
+prætorians and gladiators to fall upon the people and make a general
+slaughter. Others swore by the gods that wild beasts had been let out of
+all the _vivaria_ at Bronze-beard's command. Men had seen on the streets
+lions with burning manes, and mad elephants and bisons, trampling down
+people in crowds. There was even some truth in this; for in certain
+places elephants, at sight of the approaching fire, had burst the
+vivaria, and, gaining their freedom, rushed away from the fire in wild
+fright, destroying everything before them like a tempest. Public report
+estimated at tens of thousands the number of persons who had perished in
+the conflagration. In truth a great number had perished. There were
+people who, losing all their property, or those dearest their hearts,
+threw themselves willingly into the flames from despair. Others were
+suffocated by smoke. In the middle of the city, between the Capitol on
+one side, and the Quirinal, the Viminal, and the Esquiline on the other,
+as also between the Palatine and the Cælian hill, where the streets were
+most densely occupied, the fire began in so many places at once that
+whole crowds of people, while fleeing in one direction, struck
+unexpectedly on a new wall of fire in front of them, and died a dreadful
+death in a deluge of flame.
+
+In terror, in distraction and bewilderment, people knew not where to
+flee. The streets were obstructed with goods and in many narrow places
+were simply closed. Those who took refuge in those markets and squares
+of the city where the Flavian Amphitheatre stood afterward, near the
+temple of the Earth, near the Portico of Silvia, and higher up, at the
+temples of Juno and Lucinia, between the Clivus Virbius and the old
+Esquiline gate, perished from heat, surrounded by a sea of fire. In
+places not reached by the flames were found afterward hundreds of
+bodies burned to a crisp, though here and there unfortunates tore up
+flat stones and half buried themselves in defence against the heat.
+Hardly a family inhabiting the centre of the city survived in full;
+hence along the walls, at the gates, on all roads were heard howls of
+despairing women, calling on the dear names of those who had perished in
+the throng or the fire.
+
+And so, while some were imploring the gods, others blasphemed them
+because of this awful catastrophe. Old men were seen coming from the
+temple of Jupiter Liberator, stretching forth their hands and crying,
+"If thou be a liberator, save thy altars and the city!" But despair
+turned mainly against the old Roman gods, who, in the minds of the
+populace, were bound to watch over the city more carefully than others.
+They had proved themselves powerless; hence were insulted. On the other
+hand, it happened on the Via Asinaria that when a company of Egyptian
+priests appeared conducting a statue of Isis, which they had saved from
+the temple near the Porta Cælimontana, a crowd of people rushed among
+the priests, attached themselves to the chariot, which they drew to the
+Appian gate, and seizing the statue placed it in the temple of Mars,
+overwhelming the priests of that deity who dared to resist them.
+
+In other places people invoked Serapis, Baal, or Jehovah, whose
+adherents, swarming out of the alleys in the neighborhood of the Subura
+and the Trans-Tiber, filled with shouts and uproar the fields near the
+walls. In their cries were heard tones as if of triumph; when,
+therefore, some of the citizens joined the chorus and glorified "the
+Lord of the World," others, indignant at this glad shouting, strove to
+repress it by violence. Here and there hymns were heard, sung by men in
+the bloom of life, by old men, by women and children--hymns wonderful
+and solemn, whose meaning they understood not, but in which were
+repeated from moment to moment the words "Behold the Judge cometh in the
+day of wrath and disaster." Thus this deluge of restless and sleepless
+people encircled the burning city, like a tempest-driven sea. But
+neither despair nor blasphemy nor hymn helped in any way.
+
+The destruction seemed as irresistible, perfect, and pitiless as
+Predestination itself. Around Pompey's Amphitheatre stores of hemp
+caught fire, and ropes used in circuses, arenas, and every kind of
+machine at the games, and with them the adjoining buildings containing
+barrels of pitch with which ropes were smeared. In a few hours all that
+part of the city beyond which lay the Campus Martius was so lighted by
+bright yellow flames that for a time it seemed to the spectators, only
+half conscious from terror, that in the general ruin the order of night
+and day had been lost, and that they were looking at sunshine. But later
+a monstrous bloody gleam extinguished all other colors of flame. From
+the sea of fire shot up to the heated sky gigantic fountains, and
+pillars of flame spreading at their summits into fiery branches and
+feathers; then the wind bore them away, turned them into golden threads,
+into hair, into sparks, and swept them on over the Campania toward the
+Alban hills. The night became brighter; the air itself seemed
+penetrated, not only with light, but with flame. The Tiber flowed on as
+living fire. The hapless city was turned into one pandemonium. The
+conflagration seized more and more space, took hills by storm, flooded
+level places, drowned valleys, raged, roared, and thundered.
+
+The city burned on. The Circus Maximus had fallen in ruins. Entire
+streets and alleys in parts which began to burn first were falling in
+turn. After every fall pillars of flame rose for a time to the very sky.
+The wind had changed, and blew now with mighty force from the sea,
+bearing toward the Cælian, the Esquiline, and the Viminal rivers of
+flame, brands, and cinders. Still the authorities provided for rescue.
+At command of Tigellinus, who had hastened from Antium the third day
+before, houses on the Esquiline were torn down so that the fire,
+reaching empty spaces, died of itself. That was, however, undertaken
+solely to save a remnant of the city; to save that which was burning was
+not to be thought of. There was need also to guard against further
+results of the ruin. Incalculable wealth had perished in Rome; all the
+property of its citizens had vanished; hundreds of thousands of people
+were wandering in utter want outside the walls. Hunger had begun to
+pinch this throng the second day, for the immense stores of provisions
+in the city had burned with it. In the universal disorder and in the
+destruction of authority no one had thought of furnishing new supplies.
+Only after the arrival of Tigellinus were proper orders sent to Ostia;
+but meanwhile the people had grown more threatening.
+
+Besides flour, as much baked bread as possible was brought at his
+command, not only from Ostia, but from all towns and neighboring
+villages. When the first instalment came at night to the Emporium, the
+people broke the chief gate toward the Aventine, seized all supplies in
+the twinkle of an eye, and caused terrible disturbance. In the light of
+the conflagration they fought for loaves, and trampled many of them into
+the earth. Flour from torn bags whitened like snow the whole space from
+the granary to the arches of Drusus and Germanicus. The uproar continued
+till soldiers seized the building and dispersed the crowd with arrows
+and missiles.
+
+Never since the invasion by the Gauls under Brennus had Rome beheld such
+disaster. People in despair compared the two conflagrations. But in the
+time of Brennus the Capitol remained. Now the Capitol was encircled by a
+dreadful wreath of flame. The marbles, it is true, were not blazing; but
+at night, when the wind swept the flames aside for a moment, rows of
+columns in the lofty sanctuary of Jove were visible, red as glowing
+coals. In the days of Brennus, moreover, Rome had a disciplined integral
+people, attached to the city and its altars; but now crowds of a
+many-tongued populace roamed nomad-like around the walls of burning
+Rome, people composed for the greater part of slaves and freedmen,
+excited, disorderly, and ready, under the pressure of want, to turn
+against authority and the city.
+
+But the very immensity of the fire which terrified every heart disarmed
+the crowd in a certain measure. After fire might come famine and
+disease; and to complete the misfortune the terrible heat of July had
+appeared. It was impossible to breathe air inflamed both by fire and the
+sun. Night brought no relief; on the contrary, it presented a hell.
+During daylight an awful and ominous spectacle met the eye. In the
+centre a giant city on heights was turned into a roaring volcano; round
+about as far as the Alban hills was one boundless camp, formed of sheds,
+tents, huts, vehicles, bales, packs, stands, fires, and all covered
+with smoke and dust, lighted by sun rays reddened by passing through
+smoke--everything filled with roars, shouts, threats, hatred, and
+terror, a monstrous swarm of men, women, and children. Mingled with
+_quirites_ were Greeks, shaggy men from the North with blue eyes,
+Africans, and Asiatics; among citizens were slaves, freedmen,
+gladiators, merchants, mechanics, servants, and soldiers--a real sea of
+people, flowing around the island of fire.
+
+Various reports moved this sea as wind does a real one. These reports
+were favorable and unfavorable. People told of immense supplies of wheat
+and clothing to be brought to the Emporium and distributed gratis. It
+was said, too, that provinces in Asia and Africa would be stripped of
+their wealth at Cæsar's command, and the treasures thus gained be given
+to the inhabitants of Rome, so that each man might build his own
+dwelling.
+
+But it was noised about also that water in the aqueducts had been
+poisoned; that Nero intended to annihilate the city, destroy the
+inhabitants to the last person, then move to Greece or to Egypt, and
+rule the world from a new place. Each report ran with lightning speed,
+and each found belief among the rabble, causing outbursts of hope,
+anger, terror, or rage. Finally a kind of fever mastered those nomadic
+thousands. The belief of Christians that the end of the world by fire
+was at hand spread even among adherents of the gods and extended daily.
+People fell into torpor or madness. In clouds lighted by the burning,
+gods were seen gazing down on the ruin; hands were stretched toward
+those gods then to implore pity or send them curses.
+
+Meanwhile soldiers, aided by a certain number of inhabitants, continued
+to tear down houses on the Esquiline and the Cælian, as also in the
+Trans-Tiber; these divisions were saved therefore in considerable part.
+But in the city itself were destroyed incalculable treasures accumulated
+through centuries of conquest--priceless works of art, splendid temples,
+the most precious monuments of Rome's past and Rome's glory. They
+foresaw that of all Rome there would remain barely a few parts on the
+edges, and that hundreds of thousands of people would be without a roof.
+Some spread reports that the soldiers were tearing down houses, not to
+stop the fire, but to prevent any part of the city from being saved.
+Tigellinus sent courier after courier to Antium, imploring Cæsar in each
+letter to come and calm the despairing people with his presence. But
+Nero moved only when fire had seized the _domus transitoria_ and he
+hurried so as not to miss the moment in which the conflagration should
+be at its highest.
+
+Meanwhile fire had reached the Via Nomentana, but turned from it at once
+with a change of wind toward the Via Lata and the Tiber. It surrounded
+the Capitol, spread along the Forum Boarium, destroyed everything which
+it had spared before, and approached the Palatine a second time.
+
+Tigellinus, assembling all the prætorian forces, despatched courier
+after courier to Cæsar with an announcement that he would lose nothing
+of the grandeur of the spectacle, for the fire had increased.
+
+But Nero, who was on the road, wished to come at night, so as to sate
+himself all the better with a view of the perishing capital. Therefore
+he halted, in the neighborhood of Aqua Albana, and, summoning to his
+tent the tragedian Aliturus, decided with his aid on posture, look, and
+expression; learned fitting gestures, disputing with the actor
+stubbornly whether at the words, "O sacred city, which seemed more
+enduring than Ida," he was to raise both hands, or, holding in one the
+_forminga_, drop it by his side, and raise only the other. This question
+seemed to him then more important than all others. Starting at last
+about nightfall, he took counsel of Petronius also whether to the lines
+describing the catastrophe he might add a few magnificent blasphemies
+against the gods, and whether, considered from the standpoint of art,
+they would not have rushed spontaneously from the mouth of a man in such
+a position, a man who was losing his birthplace.
+
+At length he approached the walls about midnight with his numerous
+court, composed of whole detachments of nobles, senators, knights,
+freedmen, slaves, women, and children. Sixteen thousand prætorians,
+arranged in line of battle along the road, guarded the peace and safety
+of his entrance, and held the excited populace at a proper distance. The
+people cursed, shouted, and hissed on seeing the retinue, but dared not
+attack it. In many places, however, applause was given by the rabble,
+which, owning nothing, had lost nothing in the fire, and which hoped for
+a more bountiful distribution than usual of wheat, olives, clothing, and
+money. Finally, shouts, hissing, and applause were drowned in the blare
+of horns and trumpets, which Tigellinus had caused to be sounded.
+
+Nero, on arriving at the Ostian gate, halted, and said: "Houseless ruler
+of a houseless people, where shall I lay my unfortunate head for the
+night?"
+
+After he had passed the Clivus Delphini, he ascended the Appian aqueduct
+on steps prepared purposely. After him followed the Augustians and a
+choir of singers, bearing _citharæ_, lutes, and other musical
+instruments.
+
+And all held the breath in their breasts, waiting to learn if he would
+say some great words, which for their own safety they ought to remember.
+But he stood solemn, silent, in a purple mantle and a wreath of golden
+laurels, gazing at the raging might of the flames.
+
+When Terpnos gave him a golden lute, he raised his eyes to the sky,
+filled with the conflagration, as if he were waiting for inspiration.
+The people pointed at him from afar as he stood in the bloody gleam. In
+the distance fiery serpents were hissing. The ancient and most sacred
+edifices were in flames; the temple of Hercules, reared by Evander, was
+burning; the temple of Jupiter Stator was burning, the temple of Luna,
+built by Servius Tullius, the house of Numa Pompilius, the sanctuary of
+Vesta with the _penates_ of the Roman people; through waving flames the
+Capitol appeared at intervals; the past and the spirit of Rome were
+burning. But Cæsar was there with a lute in his hand and a theatrical
+expression on his face, not thinking of his perishing country, but of
+his posture and the prophetic words with which he might describe best
+the greatness of the catastrophe, rouse most admiration, and receive the
+warmest plaudits.
+
+He detested that city, he detested its inhabitants, he loved only his
+own songs and verses; hence he rejoiced in heart that at last he saw a
+tragedy like that which he was writing. The poet was happy, the
+declaimer felt inspired, the seeker for emotions was delighted at the
+awful sight, and thought with rapture that even the destruction of Troy
+was as nothing if compared with the destruction of that giant city. What
+more could he desire? There was world-ruling Rome in flames, and he,
+standing on the arches of the aqueduct with a golden lute, conspicuous,
+purple, admired, magnificent, and poetic. Down below, somewhere in the
+darkness, the people are muttering and storming; let them mutter! Ages
+will elapse, thousands of years will pass, but mankind will remember and
+glorify the poet who that night sang the fall and the burning of Troy.
+What was Homer compared with him? What Apollo himself with his
+hollowed-out lute?
+
+Here he raised his hands, and, striking the strings, with an exaggerated
+theatrical gesture pronounced the words of Priam:
+
+"O nest of my fathers, O dear cradle!" His voice in the open air, with
+the roar of the conflagration, and the distant murmur of crowding
+thousands, seemed marvellously weak, uncertain, and low, and the sound
+of the accompaniment like the buzzing of insects. But senators,
+dignitaries, and Augustians, assembled on the aqueduct, bowed their
+heads and listened in silent rapture. He sang long, and his motive was
+ever sadder. At moments, when he stopped to catch breath, the chorus of
+singers repeated the last verse; then Nero cast the tragic _syrma_ from
+his shoulder with a gesture learned from Aliturus, struck the lute, and
+sang on. When he had finished the lines composed, he improvised, using
+grandiose comparisons in the spectacle unfolded before him. His face
+began to change. He was not moved, it is true, by the destruction of his
+country's capital; but he was delighted and moved with the pathos of his
+own words to such a degree that his eyes filled with tears on a sudden.
+
+At last he dropped the lute to his feet with a clatter, and, wrapping
+himself in the syrma, stood as if petrified, like one of those statues
+of Niobe which ornamented the courtyard of the Palatine. Soon a storm of
+applause broke the silence. But in the distance this was answered by the
+howling of multitudes. No one doubted then that Cæsar had given command
+to burn the city, so as to afford himself a spectacle and sing a song at
+it.
+
+
+TACITUS
+
+There followed a dreadful disaster, whether fortuitously or by the
+wicked contrivance of the prince is not determined, for both are
+asserted by historians; but of all the calamities which ever befell this
+city from the rage of fire, this was the most terrible and severe. It
+broke out in that part of the Circus which is contiguous to mounts
+Palatine and Cælius, where, by reason of shops in which were kept such
+goods as minister aliment to fire, the moment it commenced it acquired
+strength, and, being accelerated by the wind, it spread at once through
+the whole extent of the Circus: for neither were the houses secured by
+enclosures nor the temples environed with walls, nor was there any other
+obstacle to intercept its progress; but the flame, spreading every way
+impetuously, invaded first the lower regions of the city, then mounted
+to the higher; then again ravaging the lower, it baffled every effort to
+extinguish it, by the rapidity of its destructive course, and from the
+liability of the city to conflagration, in consequence of the narrow and
+intricate alleys, and the irregularity of the streets in ancient Rome.
+
+Add to this the wailings of terrified women, the infirm condition of the
+aged, and the helplessness of childhood; such as strove to provide for
+themselves and those who labored to assist others; these dragging the
+feeble, those waiting for them; some hurrying, others lingering;
+altogether created a scene of universal confusion and embarrassment: and
+while they looked back upon the danger in their rear, they often found
+themselves beset before and on their sides; or, if they had escaped into
+the quarters adjoining, these, too, were already seized by the devouring
+flames; even the parts which they believed remote and exempt were found
+to be in the same distress. At last, not knowing what to shun or where
+to seek sanctuary, they crowded the streets and lay along in the open
+fields. Some, from the loss of their whole substance, even the means of
+their daily sustenance, others, from affection for their relations whom
+they had not been able to snatch from the flames, suffered themselves to
+perish in them, though they had opportunity to escape. Neither dared any
+man offer to check the fire, so repeated were the menaces of many who
+forbade to extinguish it; and because others openly threw firebrands,
+with loud declarations "that they had one who authorized them"; whether
+they did it that they might plunder with the less restraint or in
+consequence of orders given.
+
+Nero, who was at that juncture sojourning at Antium, did not return to
+the city till the fire approached that quarter of his house which
+connected the palace with the gardens of Mæcenas; nor could it, however,
+be prevented from devouring the house and palace and everything around.
+But for the relief of the people, thus destitute and driven from their
+dwellings, he opened the field of Mars and the monumental edifices
+erected by Agrippa, and even his own gardens. He likewise reared
+temporary houses for the reception of the forlorn multitude, and from
+Ostia and the neighboring cities were brought, up the river, household
+necessaries, and the price of grain was reduced to three sesterces the
+measure. All which proceedings, though of a popular character, were
+thrown away, because a rumor had become universally current "that at the
+very time when the city was in flames, Nero, going on the stage of his
+private theatre, sang _The Destruction of Troy_, assimilating the
+present disaster to that catastrophe of ancient times."
+
+At length, on the sixth day, the conflagration was stayed at the foot of
+Esquiliæ, by pulling down an immense quantity of buildings, so that an
+open space, and, as it were, void air, might check the raging element by
+breaking the continuity. But ere the consternation had subsided the fire
+broke out afresh, with no little violence, but in regions more spacious,
+and therefore with less destruction of human life; but more extensive
+havoc was made of the temples and the porticoes dedicated to amusement.
+This conflagration, too, was the subject of more censorious remark, as
+it arose in the Æmilian possessions of Tigellinus, and Nero seemed to
+aim at the glory of building a new city and calling it by his own name;
+for, of the fourteen sections into which Rome is divided, four were
+still standing entire, three were levelled with the ground, and in the
+seven others there remained only here and there a few remnants of
+houses, shattered and half consumed.
+
+It were no very easy task to recount the number of tenements and temples
+which were lost; but the following, most venerable for antiquity and
+sanctity, were consumed: that dedicated by Servius Tullius to the Moon;
+the temple and great altar consecrated by Evander the Arcadian to
+Hercules while present; the chapel vowed by Romulus to Jupiter Stator;
+the palace of Numa with the temple of Vesta, and in it the tutelar gods
+of Rome. Moreover, the treasures accumulated by so many victories, the
+beautiful productions of Greek artists, ancient writings of authors
+celebrated for genius, and till then preserved entire, were consumed;
+and though great was the beauty of the city, in its renovated form, the
+older inhabitants remembered many decorations of the ancient which could
+not be replaced in the modern city. There were some who remarked that
+the commencement of this fire showed itself on the fourteenth before the
+calends of July, the day on which the Senones set fire to the captured
+city. Others carried their investigation so far as to determine that an
+equal number of years, months, and days intervened between the two
+fires.
+
+To proceed: Nero appropriated to his own purposes the ruins of his
+country,[27] and founded upon them a palace; in which the old-fashioned,
+and, in those luxurious times, common ornaments of gold and precious
+stones, were not so much the objects of attraction as lands and lakes;
+in one part, woods like vast deserts; in another part, open spaces and
+expansive prospects. The projectors and superintendents of this plan
+were Severus and Celer, men of such ingenuity and daring enterprise as
+to attempt to conquer by art the obstacles of nature and fool away the
+treasures of the prince. They had even undertaken to sink a navigable
+canal from the lake Avernus to the mouth of the Tiber, over an arid
+shore or through opposing mountains; nor indeed does there occur
+anything of a humid nature for supplying water except the Pomptine
+marshes; the rest is either craggy rock or a parched soil; and had it
+even been possible to break through these obstructions, the toil had
+been intolerable and disproportioned to the object. Nero, however, who
+longed to achieve things that exceeded credibility, exerted all his
+might to perforate the mountains adjoining to Avernus, and to this day
+there remain traces of his abortive project.
+
+But the rest of the old site not occupied by his palace was laid out,
+not as after the Gallic fire without discrimination and regularity, but
+with the lines of streets measured out, broad spaces left for transit,
+the height of the buildings limited, open areas left, and porticoes
+added to protect the front of the clustered dwellings: these porticoes
+Nero engaged to rear at his own expense, and then to deliver to each
+proprietor the areas about them cleared. He, moreover, proposed rewards
+proportioned to every man's rank and private substance, and fixed a day
+within which, if their houses, single and clustered, were finished, they
+should receive them. He appointed the marshes of Ostia for a receptacle
+of the rubbish, and that the vessels which had conveyed grain up the
+Tiber should return laden with rubbish; that the buildings themselves
+should be raised a certain portion of their height without beams, and
+arched with stone from the quarries of Gabii or Alba, that stone being
+proof against fire; that over the water springs, which had been
+improperly intercepted by private individuals, overseers should be
+placed, to provide for their flowing in greater abundance, and in a
+greater number of places, for the supply of the public; that every
+housekeeper should have in his yard means for extinguishing fire,
+neither should there be party walls, but every house should be enclosed
+by its own walls.[28]
+
+These regulations, which were favorably received, in consideration of
+their utility, were also a source of beauty to the new city; yet some
+there were who believed that the ancient form was more conducive to
+health, as from the narrowness of the streets and the height of the
+buildings the rays of the sun were more excluded; whereas now, the
+spacious breadth of the streets, without any shade to protect it, was
+more intensely heated in warm weather.
+
+Such were the provisions made by human counsels. The gods were next
+addressed with expiations, and recourse had to the sibyl's books. By
+admonition from them to Vulcan, Ceres, and Proserpina, supplicatory
+sacrifices were made, and Juno propitiated by the matrons, first in the
+Capitol, then upon the nearest shore, where, by water drawn from the
+sea, the temple and image of the goddess were besprinkled; the ceremony
+of placing the goddess in her sacred chair, and her vigil, were
+celebrated by ladies who had husbands. But not all the relief that could
+come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor
+all the atonements which could be presented to the gods availed to
+relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the
+conflagration. Hence, to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the
+guilt and punished with the most exquisite tortures the persons commonly
+called Christians, who were hated for their enormities.
+
+Christus, the founder of that name, was put to death as a criminal by
+Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius; but the
+pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again, not only
+through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of
+Rome also, whither all things horrible and disgraceful flow from all
+quarters as to a common receptacle and where they are encouraged.
+Accordingly first those were seized who confessed they were Christians;
+next on their information a vast multitude were convicted, not so much
+on the charge of burning the city as of hating the human race. And in
+their deaths they were also made the subjects of sport, for they were
+covered with the hides of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs, or
+nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and when day declined, burned to
+serve for nocturnal lights. Nero offered his own gardens for that
+spectacle, and exhibited a Circensian game, indiscriminately mingling
+with the common people in the habit of a charioteer, or else standing in
+his chariot. Whence a feeling of compassion arose toward the sufferers,
+though guilty and deserving to be made examples of by capital
+punishment, because they seemed not to be cut off for the public good,
+but victims to the ferocity of one man.
+
+In the mean time, in order to supply money all Italy was pillaged, the
+provinces ruined, both the people in alliance with us and the states
+which are called free. Even the gods were not exempt from plunder on
+this occasion, their temples in the city being despoiled, and all the
+gold conveyed away which the Roman people, in every age, either in
+gratitude for triumphs or in fulfilment of vows, had consecrated, in
+times of prosperity, or in seasons of dismay. Through Greece and Asia,
+indeed, the gifts and oblations and even the statues of the deities were
+carried off.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[27] According to Suetonius, Nero turned the public calamity to his own
+private advantage. He promised to remove the bodies that lay amid the
+ruins, and to clear the ground at his own expense. By that artifice he
+secured all the remaining property of the unhappy sufferers for his own
+use. To add to his ill-gotten store, he levied contributions in the
+provinces, and by those means collected an immense sum.
+
+[28] By a law of the Twelve Tables, it was provided that a space of
+something more than two feet was to be left between all new-built
+houses.
+
+
+
+
+PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS UNDER NERO
+
+A.D. 64-68
+
+FREDERIC WILLIAM FARRAR
+
+     Down to the reign of Nero Christians in the Roman Empire were
+     regarded by the ruling powers merely as a Jewish sect, harmless and
+     guilty of nothing which could call for the interference of the
+     State with their ways of life or of worship. They were therefore
+     unmolested. But during the reign of the infamous Emperor in whom
+     they saw antichrist and the actual embodiment of the symbolic
+     monstrosities of the Apocalypse, the Christians began to be
+     recognized as a separate people, and from milder persecutions at
+     first, under cover of legal procedure, they were soon subjected to
+     outrages, tortures, and deaths than which history has none more
+     revolting and pitiful to record. In Kaulbach's great painting of
+     Nero's persecution there is enough of portrayal and suggestion to
+     add a terrible vividness to the ordinary historian's word-pictures.
+     The Emperor, surrounded by his boon companions, stands on his
+     garden terrace to receive divine honors, while a group of suffering
+     Christians--among them St. Peter, crucified head down, and St.
+     Paul, passionately protesting against the diabolical work--move to
+     compassion a company of elderly men and a body of German soldiers
+     who look upon the horrible spectacle of martyrdom.
+
+     This, the first persecution of the Christians, reached its
+     culminating point of ferocity in A.D. 64, after Nero had been
+     accused of kindling, or conniving at the work of those who did
+     kindle, the great fire in Rome. In order to divert attention, even
+     if he could not turn suspicion, from himself, having charged the
+     Christians with causing the conflagration, he ordered the
+     atrocities which added a still darker stain to his personal and
+     imperial record of shameless crime and savage inhumanity. First
+     such as confessed themselves to be Christians were dealt with, and
+     from these information was extorted on which vast numbers were
+     convicted, "not so much on the charge of burning the city as of
+     hating the human race."
+
+     Nero's character and acts have been depicted by many writers and in
+     famous works of art, but not even the pencil of Kaulbach can make
+     more keen the realization of those scenes enacted in this
+     persecution than the thrilling narration of Farrar, which for
+     picturesque eloquence, fired with dramatic intensity, has seldom
+     been surpassed in English literature.
+
+
+Nero was so secure in his absolutism, he had hitherto found it so
+impossible to shock the feelings of the people or to exhaust the
+terrified adulation of the senate, that he was usually indifferent to
+the pasquinades which were constantly holding up his name to execration
+and contempt. But now[29] he felt that he had gone too far, and that his
+power would be seriously imperilled if he did not succeed in diverting
+the suspicions of the populace. He was perfectly aware that when the
+people in the streets cursed those who set fire to the city they meant
+to curse _him_. If he did not take some immediate step, he felt that he
+might perish, as Gaius had perished before him, by the dagger of the
+assassin.
+
+It is at this point of his career that Nero becomes a prominent figure
+in the history of the Church. It was this phase of cruelty which seemed
+to throw a blood-red light over his whole character and led men to look
+on him as the very incarnation of the world-power in its most demoniac
+aspect, as worse than the Antiochus Epiphanes of Daniel's Apocalypse, as
+the Man of Sin whom--in language figurative indeed, yet awfully
+true--the Lord should slay with the breath of his mouth and destroy with
+the brightness of his coming, for Nero endeavored to fix the odious
+crime of having destroyed the capital of the world upon the most
+innocent and faithful of his subjects--upon the only subjects who
+offered heartfelt prayers on his behalf--the Roman Christians. They were
+the defenceless victims of this horrible charge, for though they were
+the most harmless, they were also the most hated and the most slandered
+of living men.
+
+Why he should have thought of singling out the Christians has always
+been a curious problem, for at this point St. Luke ends the Acts of the
+Apostles, perhaps purposely dropping the curtain, because it would have
+been perilous and useless to narrate the horrors in which the hitherto
+neutral or friendly Roman government began to play so disgraceful a
+part. Neither Tacitus, nor Suetonius, nor the Apocalypse, helps us to
+solve this particular problem. The Christians had filled no large space
+in the eye of the world. Until the days of Domitian we do not hear of a
+single noble or distinguished person who had joined their ranks. That
+the Pudens and Claudia of Rom. xvi. were the Pudens and Claudia of
+Martial's _Epigrams_ seems to me to be a baseless dream. If the "foreign
+superstition" with which Pomponia Græcina, wife of Aulus Plautius, the
+conqueror of Britain, was charged, and of which she was acquitted, was
+indeed, as has been suspected, the Christian religion, at any rate the
+name of Christianity was not alluded to by the ancient writers who had
+mentioned the circumstance. Even if Rom. xvi. was addressed to Rome, and
+not, as I believe, to Ephesus, "they of the household of Narcissus which
+were in the Lord" were unknown slaves, as also were "they of Cæsar's
+household."
+
+The slaves and artisans, Jewish and Gentile, who formed the Christian
+community at Rome, had never in any way come into collision with the
+Roman government. They must have been the victims rather than the
+exciters of the messianic tumults--for such they are conjectured to have
+been--which led to the expulsion of the Jews from Rome by the futile
+edict of Claudius. Nay, so obedient and docile were they required to be
+by the very principles on which their morality was based, so far were
+they removed from the fierce independence of the Jewish zealots, that,
+in writing to them a few years earlier, the greatest of their leaders
+had urged upon them a payment of tribute and a submission to the higher
+powers, not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake, because the
+earthly ruler, in his office of repressing evil works, is a minister of
+God. That the Christians were entirely innocent of the crime charged
+against them was well known both at the time and afterward. But how was
+it that Nero sought popularity and partly averted the deep rage which
+was rankling in many hearts against himself, by torturing men and women,
+on whose agonies he thought that the populace would gaze not only with a
+stolid indifference, but even with fierce satisfaction?
+
+Gibbon has conjectured that the Christians were confounded with the
+Jews, and that the detestation universally felt for the latter fell with
+double force upon the former. Christians suffered even more than the
+Jews because of the calumnies so assiduously circulated against them,
+and from what appeared to the ancients to be the revolting absurdity of
+their peculiar tenets. "Nero," says Tacitus, "exposed to accusation, and
+tortured with the most exquisite penalties, a set of men detested for
+their enormities, whom the common people called 'Christians.' Christus,
+the founder of this sect, was executed during the reign of Tiberius, by
+the procurator Pontius Pilate, and the deadly superstition, suppressed
+for a time, began to burst out once more, not only throughout Judea,
+where the evil had its root, but even in the city, whither from every
+quarter all things horrible or shameful are drifted, and find their
+votaries."
+
+The lordly disdain which prevented Tacitus from making any inquiry into
+the real views and character of the Christians is shown by the fact that
+he catches up the most baseless allegations against them. He talks of
+their doctrines as savage and shameful when they breathed the very
+spirit of peace and purity. He charges them with being animated by a
+hatred of their kind when their central tenet was a universal charity.
+The masses, he says, called them "Christians"; and while he almost
+apologizes for staining his page with so vulgar an appellation,[30] he
+merely mentions in passing that, though innocent of the charge of being
+turbulent incendiaries, on which they were tortured to death, they were
+yet a set of guilty and infamous sectaries, to be classed with the
+lowest dregs of Roman criminals.
+
+But the haughty historian throws no light on one difficulty--namely, the
+circumstances which led to the _Christians_ being thus singled out. The
+Jews were in no way involved in Nero's persecution. To persecute the
+Jews at Rome would not have been an easy matter. They were sufficiently
+numerous to be formidable, and had overawed Cicero in the zenith of his
+fame. Besides this, the Jewish religion was recognized, tolerated,
+licensed. Throughout the length and breadth of the empire no man,
+however much he and his race might be detested and despised, could have
+been burned or tortured for the mere fact of being a Jew. We hear of no
+Jewish martyrdoms or Jewish persecutions till we come to the times of
+the Jewish War, and then chiefly in Palestine itself. It is clear that a
+shedding of blood--in fact, some form or other of human sacrifice--was
+imperatively demanded by popular feeling as an expiation of the ruinous
+crime which had plunged so many thousands into the depths of misery. In
+vain had the sibylline books been once more consulted, and in vain had
+public prayer been offered, in accordance with their directions to
+Vulcan and the goddesses of Earth and Hades. In vain had the Roman
+matrons walked in procession in dark robes, and with their long hair
+unbound, to propitiate the insulted majesty of Juno, and to sprinkle
+with sea-water her ancient statue. In vain had largesses been lavished
+upon the people, and propitiatory sacrifices offered to the gods. In
+vain had public banquets been celebrated in honor of various deities. A
+crime had been committed, and Romans had perished unavenged. Blood cried
+for blood before the sullen suspicion against Nero could be averted or
+the indignation of heaven appeased.
+
+Nero had always hated, persecuted, and exiled the philosophers, and no
+doubt, so far as he knew anything of the Christians--so far as he saw
+among his own countless slaves any who had embraced this superstition,
+which the _élite_ of Rome described as not only new, but "execrable" and
+"malefic"--he would hate their gravity and purity, and feel for them
+that raging envy which is the tribute that virtue receives from vice.
+Moreover, St. Paul, in all probability, had recently stood before his
+tribunal, and though he had been acquitted on the special charges of
+turbulence and profanation, respecting which he had appealed to Cæsar,
+yet during the judicial inquiry Nero could hardly have failed to hear
+from the emissaries of the Sanhedrim many fierce slanders of a sect
+which was everywhere spoken against. The Jews were by far the deadliest
+enemies of the Christians, and two persons of Jewish proclivities were
+at this time in close proximity to the person of the Emperor. One was
+the pantomimist Aliturus, the other was Poppæa, the harlot-empress.[31]
+The Jews were in communication with these powerful favorites, and had
+even promised Nero that if his enemies ever prevailed at Rome he should
+have the kingdom of Jerusalem.[32]
+
+It is not even impossible that there may have been a third dark and evil
+influence at work to undermine the Christians, for about this very time
+the unscrupulous Pharisee Flavius Josephus had availed himself of the
+intrigues of the palace to secure the liberation of some Jewish priests.
+If, as seems certain, the Jews had it in their power during the reign of
+Nero more or less to shape the whisper of the throne, does not
+historical induction drive us to conclude with some confidence that the
+suggestion of the Christians as scapegoats and victims came from them?
+St. Clement says in his Epistle that the Christians suffered _through
+jealousy_. _Whose_ jealousy? Who can tell what dark secrets lie veiled
+under that suggestive word? Was Acte a Christian, and was Poppæa jealous
+of her? That suggestion seems at once inadequate and improbable,
+especially as Acte was not hurt. But there _was_ a deadly jealousy at
+work against the new religion.
+
+To the pagans, Christianity was but a religious
+extravagance--contemptible, indeed, but otherwise insignificant. To the
+Jews, on the other hand, it was an object of hatred, which never stopped
+short of bloodshed when it possessed or could usurp the power, and
+which, though long suppressed by circumstances, displayed itself in all
+the intensity of its virulence during the brief spasm of the
+dictatorship of Barcochebas. Christianity was hateful to the Jews on
+_every_ ground. It nullified their law. It liberated all Gentiles from
+the heavy yoke of that law, without thereby putting them on a lower
+level. It even tended to render those who were born Jews indifferent to
+the institutions of Mosaism. It was, as it were, a fatal revolt and
+schism from within, more dangerous than any assault from without. And,
+worse than all, it was by the Gentiles confounded with the Judaism which
+was its bitterest antagonist. While it sheltered its existence under the
+mantle of Judaism, as a _religio licita_, it drew down upon the religion
+from whose bosom it sprang all the scorn and hatred which were attached
+by the world to its own special tenets, for however much the Greeks and
+Romans despised the Jews, they despised still more the belief that the
+Lord and Saviour of the world was a crucified malefactor who had risen
+from the dead.
+
+I see in the proselytism of Poppæa, guided by Jewish malice, the only
+adequate explanation of the first Christian persecution. Hers was the
+jealousy which had goaded Nero to matricide; hers not improbably was the
+instigated fanaticism of a proselyte which urged him to imbrue his hands
+in martyr blood. And she had her reward. A woman of whom Tacitus has not
+a word of good to say and who seems to have been repulsive even to a
+Suetonius, is handed down by the renegade Pharisee as "a devout
+woman"--as a worshipper of God!
+
+And, indeed, when once the Christians were pointed out to the popular
+vengeance, many reasons would be adduced to prove their connection with
+the conflagration. Temples had perished--and were they not notorious
+enemies of the temples? Did not popular rumor charge them with nocturnal
+orgies and Thyestæan feasts? Suspicions of incendiarism were sometimes
+brought against Jews; but the Jews were not in the habit of talking, as
+these sectaries were, about a fire which should consume the world, and
+rejoicing in the prospect of that fiery consummation.[33] Nay, more,
+when pagans had bewailed the destruction of the city and the loss of
+the ancient monuments of Rome, had not these pernicious people used
+ambiguous language, as though they joyously recognized in these events
+the signs of a coming end? Even when they tried to suppress all outward
+tokens of exultation, had they not listened to the fears and
+lamentations of their fellow-citizens with some sparkle in the eyes, and
+had they not answered with something of triumph in their tones? There
+was a satanic plausibility which dictated the selection of these
+particular victims. Because they hated the wickedness of the world, with
+its ruthless games and hideous idolatries, they were accused of hatred
+of the whole human race.
+
+The charge of _incivisme_, so fatal in this reign of terror, was
+sufficient to ruin a body of men who scorned the sacrifices of
+heathendom and turned away with abhorrence from its banquets and
+gayeties. The cultivated classes looked down upon the Christians with a
+disdain which would hardly even mention them without an apology. The
+_canaille_ of pagan cities insulted them with obscene inscriptions and
+blasphemous pictures on the very walls of the places where they met.[34]
+Nay, they were popularly known by nicknames, like _Sarmenticii_ and
+_Semaxii_--untranslatable terms of opprobrium derived from the fagots
+with which they were burned and the stakes to which they were chained.
+Even the heroic courage which they displayed was described as being
+sheer obstinacy and stupid fanaticism.
+
+But in the method chosen for the punishment of these saintly innocents
+Nero gave one more proof of the close connection between effeminate
+æstheticism and sanguinary callousness. As in old days, "on that
+opprobrious hill," the temple of Chemosh had stood close by that of
+Moloch, so now we find the _spoliarium_ beside the _fornices_--Lust hard
+by Hate. The _carnificina_ of Tiberius, at Capreæ, adjoined the
+_sellariæ_. History has given many proofs that no man is more
+systematically heartless than a corrupted debauchee. Like people, like
+prince. In the then condition of Rome, Nero well knew that a nation,
+"cruel, by their sports to blood inured," would be most likely to forget
+their miseries and condone their suspicions by mixing games and gayety
+with spectacles of refined and atrocious cruelty, of which, for eighteen
+centuries, the most passing record has sufficed to make men's blood run
+cold.
+
+Tacitus tells us that "those who confessed were first seized, and then
+on their evidence _a huge multitude_[35] were convicted, not so much on
+the charge of incendiarism as for their hatred to mankind." Compressed
+and obscure as the sentence is, Tacitus clearly means to imply by the
+"confession" to which he alludes the confession of Christianity, and
+though he is not sufficiently generous to acquit the Christians
+absolutely of all complicity in the great crime, he distinctly says that
+they were made the scapegoats of a general indignation. The phrase--"a
+huge multitude"--is one of the few existing indications of the number of
+martyrs in the first persecution, and of the number of Christians in the
+Roman Church. When the historian says that they were convicted on the
+charge of "hatred against mankind" he shows how completely he confounds
+them with the Jews, against whom he elsewhere brings the accusation of
+"hostile feelings toward all except themselves."
+
+Then the historian adds one casual but frightful sentence--a sentence
+which flings a dreadful light on the cruelty of Nero and the Roman mob.
+He adds: "And various forms of mockery were added to enhance their dying
+agonies. Covered with the skins of wild beasts, they were doomed to die
+by the mangling of dogs, or by being nailed to crosses, or to be set on
+fire and burned after twilight by way of nightly illumination. Nero
+offered his own garden for this show, and gave a chariot race, mingling
+with the mob in the dress of a charioteer, or actually driving about
+among them. Hence, guilty as the victims were, and deserving of the
+worst punishments, a feeling of compassion toward them began to rise, as
+men felt that they were being immolated not for any advantage to the
+Commonwealth, but to glut the savagery of a single man."
+
+Imagine that awful scene, once witnessed by the silent obelisk in the
+square before St. Peter's at Rome! Imagine it, that we may realize how
+vast is the change which Christianity has wrought in the feelings of
+mankind! There, where the vast dome now rises, were once the gardens of
+Nero. They were thronged with gay crowds, among whom the Emperor moved
+in his frivolous degradation--and on every side were men dying slowly on
+their cross of shame. Along the paths of those gardens on the autumn
+nights were ghastly torches, blackening the ground beneath them with
+streams of sulphurous pitch, and each of those living torches was a
+martyr in his shirt of fire. And in the amphitheatre hard by, in sight
+of twenty thousand spectators, famished dogs were tearing to pieces some
+of the best and purest of men and women, hideously disguised in the
+skins of bears or wolves. Thus did Nero baptize in the blood of martyrs
+the city which was to be for ages the capital of the world!
+
+The specific atrocity of such spectacles--unknown to the earlier ages
+which they called barbarous--was due to the cold-blooded selfishness,
+the hideous realism of a refined, delicate, æsthetic age. To please
+these "lisping hawthorn buds," these debauched and sanguinary dandies,
+art, forsooth, must know nothing of morality; must accept and rejoice in
+a "healthy animalism"; must estimate life by the number of its few
+wildest pulsations; must reckon that life is worthless without the most
+thrilling experiences of horror or delight! Comedy must be actual shame,
+and tragedy genuine bloodshed. When the play of Afranius, called _The
+Conflagration_, was put on the stage, a house must be really burned and
+its furniture really plundered. In the mime called _Laureolus_ an actor
+must really be crucified and mangled by a bear, and really fling himself
+down and deluge the stage with blood. When the heroism of Mucius Scævola
+was represented, a real criminal must thrust his hand without a groan
+into the flame and stand motionless while it is being burned. Prometheus
+must be really chained to his rock, and Dirce in very fact be tossed and
+gored by the wild bull; and Orpheus be torn to pieces by a real bear;
+and Icarus must really fly, even though he fall and be dashed to death;
+and Hercules must ascend the funeral pyre and there be veritably burned
+alive; and slaves and criminals must play their parts heroically in gold
+and purple till the flames envelop them.
+
+It was the ultimate romance of a degraded and brutalized society. The
+Roman people, "victors once, now vile and base," could now only be
+amused by sanguinary melodrama. Fables must be made realities, and the
+criminal must gracefully transform his supreme agonies into amusements
+for the multitude by becoming a gladiator or a tragedian. Such were the
+spectacles at which Nero loved to gaze through his emerald eye-glass.
+And worse things than these--things indescribable, unutterable. Infamous
+mythologies were enacted, in which women must play their part in
+torments of shamefulness more intolerable than death. A St. Peter must
+hang upon the cross in the Pincian gardens, as a real Laureolus upon the
+stage. A Christian boy must be the Icarus, and a Christian man the
+Scævola or the Hercules or the Orpheus of the amphitheatre; and
+Christian women, modest maidens, holy matrons, must be the Danaids or
+the Proserpine or worse, and play their parts as priestesses of Saturn
+and Ceres, and in blood-stained dramas of the dead. No wonder that Nero
+became to Christian imagination the very incarnation of evil; the
+antichrist; the Wild Beast from the abyss; the delegate of the great red
+Dragon, with a diadem and a name of blasphemy upon his brow. No wonder
+that he left a furrow of horror in the hearts of men, and that, ten
+centuries after his death, the church of Sta. Maria del Popolo had to be
+built by Pope Pascal II to exorcise from Christian Rome his restless and
+miserable ghost!
+
+And it struck them with deeper horror to see that the antichrist, so far
+from being abhorred, was generally popular. He was popular because he
+presented to the degraded populace their own image and similitude. The
+frog-like unclean spirits which proceeded, as it were, out of his mouth
+were potent with these dwellers in an atmosphere of pestilence. They had
+lost all love for freedom and nobleness; they cared only for doles and
+excitement. Even when the infamies of a Petronius had been superseded by
+the murderous orgies of Tigellinus, Nero was still everywhere welcomed
+with shouts as a god on earth and saluted on all coins as Apollo, as
+Hercules, as "the savior of the world." The poets still assured him
+that there was no deity in heaven who would not think it an honor to
+concede to him his prerogatives; that if he did not place himself well
+in the centre of Olympus, the equilibrium of the universe would be
+destroyed. Victims were slain along his path, and altars raised for
+him--for this wretch, whom an honest slave could not but despise and
+loathe--as though he was too great for mere human honors. Nay, more, he
+found adorers and imitators of his execrable example--an Otho, a
+Vitellius, a Domitian, a Commodus, a Caracalla, a Heliogabalus--to
+poison the air of the world. The lusts and hungers and furies of the
+world lamented him, and cherished his memory, and longed for his return.
+
+And yet, though all bad men--who were the majority--admired and even
+loved him, he died the death of a dog. Tremendous as was the power of
+imperialism, the Romans often treated their individual emperors as Nero
+himself treated the Syrian goddess, whose image he first worshipped with
+awful veneration and then subjected to the most grotesque indignities,
+for retribution did not linger, and the vengeance fell at once on the
+guilty Emperor and the guilty city.
+
+    "Careless _seems_ the Great Avenger: History's pages but record
+    One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt false systems and the Word;
+    Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne,
+    Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown
+    Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own."[36]
+
+The air was full of prodigies. There were terrible storms; the plague
+wrought fearful ravages. Rumors spread from lip to lip. Men spoke of
+monstrous births; of deaths by lightning under strange circumstances; of
+a brazen statue of Nero melted by the flash; of places struck by the
+brand of heaven in fourteen regions of the city; of sudden darkenings of
+the sun. A hurricane devastated Campania; comets blazed in the heavens;
+earthquakes shook the ground. On all sides were the traces of deep
+uneasiness and superstitious terror. To all these portents, which were
+accepted as true by Christians as well as by pagans, the Christians
+would give a specially terrible significance. They strengthened their
+conviction that the coming of the Lord drew nigh. They convinced the
+better sort of pagans that the hour of their deliverance from a tyranny
+so monstrous and so disgraceful was near at hand.
+
+In spite of the shocking servility with which alike the senate and the
+people had welcomed him back to the city with shouts of triumph, Nero
+felt that the air of Rome was heavy with curses against his name. He
+withdrew to Naples, and was at supper there on March 19, A.D. 68, the
+anniversary of his mother's murder, when he heard that the first note of
+revolt had been sounded by the brave C. Julius Vindex, prefect of
+Farther Gaul. He was so far from being disturbed by the news that he
+showed a secret joy at the thought that he could now order Gaul to be
+plundered. For eight days he took no notice of the matter. He was only
+roused to send an address to the senate because Vindex wounded his
+vanity by calling him _Ahenobarbus_[37] and "a bad singer." But when
+messenger after messenger came from the provinces with tidings of
+menace, he hurried back to Rome. At last, when he heard that Virginius
+Rufus had also rebelled in Germany, and Galba in Spain, he became aware
+of the desperate nature of his position.
+
+On receiving this intelligence he fainted away, and remained for some
+time unconscious. He continued, indeed, his grossness and frivolity, but
+the wildest and fiercest schemes chased each other through his
+melodramatic brain. He would slay all the exiles; he would give up all
+the provinces to plunder; he would order all the Gauls in the city to be
+butchered; he would have all the senators invited to banquets, and would
+then poison them; he would have the city set on fire, and the wild
+beasts of the Amphitheatre let loose among the people; he would depose
+both the consuls and become sole consul himself, since legend said that
+only by a consul could Gauls be conquered; he would go with an army to
+the province, and when he got there would do nothing but weep, and when
+he had thus moved the rebels to compassion would next day sing with them
+at a great festival the ode of victory which he must at once compose.
+Not a single manly resolution lent a moment's dignity to his miserable
+fall.
+
+Sometimes he talked of escaping to Ostia and arming the sailors; at
+others of escaping to Alexandria and earning his bread by his "divine
+voice." Meanwhile he was hourly subjected to the deadliest insults, and
+terrified by dreams and omens so sombre that his faith in the
+astrologers who had promised him the government of the East and the
+kingdom of Jerusalem began to be rudely shaken. When he heard that not a
+single army or general remained faithful to him, he kicked over the
+table at which he was dining, dashed to pieces on the ground two
+favorite goblets embossed with scenes from the Homeric poems, and placed
+in a golden box some poison furnished to him by Locusta.
+
+The last effort which he contemplated was to mount the Rostra, beg
+pardon of the people for his crimes, ask them to try him again, and, at
+the worst, to allow him the prefecture of Egypt. But this design he did
+not dare to carry out, from fear that he would be torn to pieces before
+he reached the Forum. Meanwhile he found that the palace had been
+deserted by his guards, and that his attendants had robbed his chamber
+even of the golden box in which he had stored his poison. Rushing out,
+as though to drown himself in the Tiber, he changed his mind, and begged
+for some quiet hiding-place in which to collect his thoughts. The
+freedman Phaon offered him a lowly villa about four miles from the city.
+Barefooted, and with a faded coat thrown over his tunic, he hid his head
+and face in a kerchief and rode away with only four attendants. On the
+road he heard the tumult of the prætorians cursing his name. Amid evil
+omens and serious perils he reached the back of Phaon's villa, and,
+creeping toward it through a muddy reed-bed, was secretly admitted into
+one of its mean slave-chambers by an aperture through which he had to
+crawl on his hands and feet.
+
+There is no need to dwell on the miserable spectacle of his end, perhaps
+the meanest and most pusillanimous which has ever been recorded. The
+poor wretch who, without a pang, had caused so many brave Romans and so
+many innocent Christians to be murdered could not summon up resolution
+to die. He devised every operatic incident of which he could think. When
+even his most degraded slaves urged him to have sufficient manliness to
+save himself from the fearful infamies which otherwise awaited him, he
+ordered his grave to be dug, and fragments of marble to be collected for
+its adornment, and water and wood for his funeral pyre, perpetually
+whining, "What an artist to perish!"
+
+Meanwhile a courier arrived for Phaon. Nero snatched his despatches out
+of his hand and read that the senate had decided that he should be
+punished in the ancestral fashion as a public enemy. Asking what the
+ancestral fashion was, he was informed that he would be stripped naked
+and scourged to death with rods, with his head thrust into a fork.
+Horrified at this, he seized two daggers, and, after theatrically trying
+their edges, sheathed them again, with the excuse that the fatal moment
+had not yet arrived! Then he bade Sporus begin to sing his funeral song,
+and begged some one to show him how to die. Even his own intense shame
+at his cowardice was an insufficient stimulus, and he whiled away the
+time in vapid epigrams and pompous quotations. The sound of horses'
+hoofs then broke on his ears, and, venting one more Greek quotation, he
+held the dagger to his throat. It was driven home by Epaphroditus, one
+of his literary slaves. At this moment the centurion who came to arrest
+him rushed in. Nero was not yet dead, and under pretence of helping him
+the centurion began to stanch the wound with his cloak. "Too late," he
+said; "is this your fidelity?" So he died; and the bystanders were
+horrified with the way in which his eyes seemed to be starting out of
+his head in a rigid stare. He had begged that his body might be burned
+without posthumous insults, and this was conceded by Icelus, the
+freedman of Galbo.
+
+So died the last of the Cæsars! And as Robespierre was lamented by his
+landlady, so even Nero was tenderly buried by two nurses who had known
+him in the exquisite beauty of his engaging childhood, and by Acte, who
+had inspired his youth with a genuine love.
+
+But his history does not end with his grave. He was to live on in the
+expectation alike of Jews and Christians. The fifth head of the Wild
+Beast of the Revelation was in some sort to reappear as the eighth; the
+head with its diadem and its names of blasphemy had been wounded to
+death, but in the Apocalyptic sense the deadly wound was to be healed.
+The Roman world could not believe that the heir of the deified Julian
+race could be cut off thus suddenly and obscurely and vanish like foam
+upon the water. The Christians felt sure that it required something more
+than an ordinary death stroke to destroy the antichrist, and to end the
+vitality of the Wild Beast from the Abyss, who had been the first to set
+himself in deadly antagonism against the Redeemer and to wage war upon
+the saints of God.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[29] In his behavior at the burning of Rome.
+
+[30] There can be little doubt that the name "Christian"--so curiously
+hybrid, yet so richly expressive--was a nickname due to the wit of the
+Antiochenes, which exercised itself quite fearlessly even on the Roman
+emperors. They were not afraid to affix nicknames to Caracalla, and to
+call Julian Cecrops and Victimarius, with keen satire of his beard. It
+is clear that the sacred writers avoided the name, because it was
+employed by their enemies, and by them mingled with terms of the vilest
+opprobrium. It only became familiar when the virtues of Christians had
+shed lustre upon it, and when alike in its true form, and in the
+ignorant mispronunciation "Chrestians," it readily lent itself to
+valuable allegorical meanings.
+
+[31] According to John of Antioch and the _Chronicon Paschale_, Nero was
+originally favorable to the Christians, and put Pilate to death, for
+which the Jews plotted his murder. Poppæa's Judaism is inferred from her
+refusing to be burned, and requesting to be embalmed; from her adopting
+the custom of wearing a veil in the streets; from the favor which she
+showed to Aliturus and Josephus; and from the fact that Josephus speaks
+of her as a religious woman.
+
+[32] Tiberius Alexander, the nephew of Philo, afterward procurator of
+Judea, was a person of influence at Rome; but he was a renegade, and
+would not be likely to hate the Christians. It is, however, remarkable
+that legend attributed the anger of Nero to the conversion of his
+mistress and a favorite slave.
+
+[33] St. Peter--apparently thinking of the fire at Rome and its
+consequences--calls the persecution from which the Christians were
+suffering when he wrote his First Epistle a "conflagration."
+
+[34] Tertullian mentions one of these coarse caricatures--a figure with
+one foot hoofed, wearing a toga, carrying a book, and with long ass's
+ears, under which was written, "The God of the Christians, Onokoites."
+He says that Christians were actually charged with worshipping the head
+of an ass. The same preposterous calumny, with many others, is alluded
+to by Minucius Felix. The Christians were hence called _Asinarii_.
+Analogous calumnies were aimed at the Jews.
+
+[35] Tertullian says that "Nero was the first who raged with the sword
+of Cæsar against this sect, which was then specially rising at Rome."
+
+[36] James Russell Lowell: _The Present Crisis_.
+
+[37] "Bronze-beard." Ahenobarbus was the name of a plebeian family to
+which Nero belonged.
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT JEWISH REVOLT
+
+SIEGE AND DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
+
+A.D. 70
+
+JOSEPHUS
+
+     From A.D. 66 events of great moment occurred in Palestine. The Jews
+     were in the throes of revolt against the Roman Government. At the
+     same time the chief factions of the revolutionary party were
+     constantly fighting each other. One of these factions was led by
+     the famous John of Gischala, another by Simon bar Gioras, and a
+     third by Eleazar. These factions of a party which--since the
+     reduction of Judea to a Roman province soon after the death of
+     Herod--had resisted the oppression of the procurators, were now
+     stirred to revolt by the exactions of the procurator Gessius
+     Florus. The revolutionary party, called the Zealots, gained power,
+     and there were many outbreaks in Jerusalem. The counsel of the more
+     prudent spirits was disregarded. At last Roman blood was shed. The
+     nobility and priesthood played into the hands of the Zealots by
+     applying to Florus to put down the revolt. Florus marched against
+     Jerusalem and was badly beaten by the Zealots.
+
+     Open war henceforth existed. Josephus, a Jew of the lineage of
+     Aaron, trained according to the best discipline of his race, and
+     who had also been well received at Rome, was placed by his
+     countrymen in command of the province of Galilee. Afterward, as a
+     historian, he described the events of the war.
+
+     Vespasian, who was then Rome's greatest general, soon came at the
+     head of sixty thousand Roman soldiers. He attacked Galilee.
+     Josephus, with such followers as he could gather, took position on
+     an almost inaccessible hill in Jotapata, which the Romans for five
+     days stormed in vain, then besieged its brave defenders, afterward
+     repeatedly assaulted; and finally, during the night following the
+     forty-seventh day of the siege, Titus, serving under his father,
+     Vespasian, gained possession of the place. Josephus, with forty of
+     the principal citizens, hid in a cave, but their refuge was
+     discovered through treachery.
+
+     Vespasian was anxious to take Josephus alive. He sent the tribune
+     Nicanor, who had been his friend, to the Jewish leader to induce
+     him with fair promises to surrender. Josephus was about to give
+     himself up, but was prevented by his companions. "We will care for
+     the honor of our country," they said. At the same time they offered
+     a sword and "a hand that shall use it against thee." Josephus then
+     proposed that they should all die together, but by the hands of
+     one another, instead of suicide. Lots were cast. He who drew the
+     first offered his neck to him who stood next and so forward.
+     Finally, through marvellous fortune, Josephus and one other alone
+     were left, and here the slaughter ended. The two survivors
+     surrendered to the Romans. Loud cries for the death of Josephus
+     arose, but he was spared by the intercession of Titus. The fall of
+     Jotapata led to the subjugation of Galilee.
+
+     When captured, Josephus made to Vespasian the prophecy: "Thou shalt
+     be emperor--thou and thy son after thee," a prediction soon to be
+     fulfilled, for in A.D. 69 Vespasian was proclaimed emperor, and the
+     next year went to Rome, leaving Titus to carry on the war and
+     subdue Jerusalem. Vespasian himself, it is recorded, released
+     Josephus, "cutting off his chains," thus relieving him from all
+     stain of dishonor.
+
+     "The capture of Jerusalem by Titus in this campaign," says Hosmer,
+     "is one of the most memorable events in the history of mankind. It
+     caused the expulsion of an entire race from its home. The Roman
+     valor, skill, and persistence were never more conspicuously
+     displayed. No more desperate resistance was ever opposed to the
+     eagle-emblemed mistress of the ancient world. There is no event of
+     ancient history the details of which are more minutely known. The
+     circumstances in all their appalling features are given to us by
+     the eye-witness, Josephus, so that we know them as vividly as we do
+     the events of the career of Grant."
+
+
+The legions had orders to encamp at the distance of six furlongs from
+Jerusalem, at the mount called the Mount of Olives, which lies over
+against the city on the east side, and is parted from it by a deep
+valley, interposed between them, which is named Cedron.
+
+Now, when hitherto the several parties in the city had been dashing one
+against another perpetually, this foreign war, now suddenly come upon
+them after a violent manner, put the first stop to their contentions one
+against another; and as the seditious now saw with astonishment the
+Romans pitching three several camps, they began to think of an awkward
+sort of concord, and said one to another: "What do we here, and what do
+we mean, when we suffer three fortified walls to be built to coop us in,
+that we shall not be able to breathe freely? while the enemy is securely
+building a kind of city in opposition to us, and while we sit still
+within our own walls and become spectators only of what they are doing,
+with our hands idle, and our armor laid by, as if they were about
+somewhat that was for our good and advantage. We are, it seems (so did
+they cry out), only courageous against ourselves, while the Romans are
+likely to gain the city without bloodshed by our sedition." Thus did
+they encourage one another when they were gotten together and took their
+armor immediately and ran out upon the Tenth legion and fell upon the
+Romans with great eagerness, and with a prodigious shout, as they were
+fortifying their camp. These Romans were caught in different parties,
+and this in order to perform their several works, and on that account
+had in great measure laid aside their arms, for they thought the Jews
+would not have ventured to make a sally upon them; and had they been
+disposed so to do, they supposed their sedition would have distracted
+them. So they were put into disorder unexpectedly; when some of them
+left their works they were about and immediately marched off, while many
+ran to their arms, but were smitten and slain before they could turn
+back upon the enemy. The Jews became still more and more in number, as
+encouraged by the good success of those that first made the attack; and
+while they had such good fortune, they seemed both to themselves and to
+the enemy to be many more than they really were.
+
+The disorderly way of their fighting at first put the Romans also to a
+stand, who had been constantly used to fight skilfully in good order,
+and with keeping their ranks and obeying the orders that were given
+them, for which reason the Romans were caught unexpectedly and were
+obliged to give way to the assaults that were made upon them. Now, when
+these Romans were overtaken and turned back upon the Jews, they put a
+stop to their career; yet when they did not take care enough of
+themselves through the vehemency of their pursuit, they were wounded by
+them; but as still more and more Jews sallied out of the city, the
+Romans were at length brought into confusion, and put to flight, and ran
+away from their camp. Nay, things looked as though the entire legion
+would have been in danger, unless Titus had been informed of the case
+they were in, and had sent them succors immediately. So he reproached
+them for their cowardice and brought those back that were running away,
+and fell himself upon the Jews on their flank, with those select troops
+that were with him, and slew a considerable number, and wounded more of
+them, and put them all to flight, and made them run away hastily down
+the valley. Now as these Jews suffered greatly in the declivity of the
+valley, so when they were gotten over it they turned about and stood
+over against the Romans, having the valley between them, and there
+fought with them. Thus did they continue the fight till noon; but when
+it was already a little after noon, Titus set those that came to the
+assistance of the Romans with him, and those that belonged to the
+cohorts, to prevent the Jews from making any more sallies, and then sent
+the rest of the legion to the upper part of the mountain, to fortify
+their camp.
+
+This march of the Romans seemed to the Jews to be a flight; and as the
+watchman who was placed upon the wall gave a signal by shaking his
+garment, there came out a fresh multitude of Jews, and that with such
+mighty violence that one might compare it to the running of the most
+terrible wild beasts. To say the truth, none of those that opposed them
+could sustain the fury with which they made their attacks; but, as if
+they had been cast out of an engine, they brake the enemies' ranks to
+pieces, who were put to flight, and ran away to the mountain; none but
+Titus himself, and a few others with him, being left in the midst of the
+acclivity. Now these others, who were his friends, despised the danger
+they were in and were ashamed to leave their general, earnestly
+exhorting him to give way to these Jews that are fond of dying, and not
+to run into such dangers before those that ought to stay before him; to
+consider what his fortune was, and not, by supplying the place of a
+common soldier, to venture to turn back upon the enemy so suddenly; and
+this because he was general in the war, and lord of the habitable earth,
+on whose preservation the public affairs do all depend.
+
+These persuasions Titus seemed not so much as to hear, but opposed those
+that ran upon him, and smote them on the face; and when he had forced
+them to go back, he slew them: he also fell upon great numbers as they
+marched down the hill, and thrust them forward; while those men were so
+amazed at his courage and his strength that they could not fly directly
+to the city, but declined from him on both sides, and pressed after
+those that fled up the hill; yet did he still fall upon their flank, and
+put a stop to their fury. In the mean time a disorder and a terror fell
+again upon those that were fortifying their camp at the top of the
+hill, upon their seeing those beneath them running away; insomuch that
+the whole legion was dispersed while they thought that the sallies of
+the Jews upon them were plainly insupportable, and that Titus was
+himself put to flight, because they took it for granted that, if he had
+stayed, the rest would never have fled for it. Thus were they
+encompassed on every side by a kind of panic fear, and some dispersed
+themselves one way, and some another, till certain of them saw their
+general in the very midst of an action, and being under great concern
+for him, they loudly proclaimed the danger he was in to the entire
+legion; and now shame made them turn back, and they reproached one
+another that they did worse than run away, by deserting Cæsar. So they
+used their utmost force against the Jews, and declining from the
+straight declivity, they drove them on heaps into the bottom of the
+valley. Then did the Jews turn about and fight them; but as they were
+themselves retiring, and now, because the Romans had the advantage of
+the ground and were above the Jews, they drove them all into the valley.
+
+As now the war abroad ceased for a while, the sedition within was
+revived; and on the feast of unleavened bread, which was now come, it
+being the fourteenth day of the month Xanthicus [Nisan], when it is
+believed the Jews were first freed from the Egyptians, Eleazar and his
+party opened the gates of this [inmost court of the] Temple, and
+admitted such of the people as were desirous to worship God into it. But
+John made use of this festival as a cloak for his treacherous designs,
+and armed the most inconsiderable of his own party, the greater part of
+whom were not purified, with weapons concealed under their garments, and
+sent them with great zeal into the Temple, in order to seize upon it,
+which armed men, when they were gotten in, threw their garments away,
+and presently appeared in their armor. Upon which there was a very great
+disorder and disturbance about the holy house, while the people, who had
+no concern in the sedition, supposed that this assault was made against
+all without distinction, as the Zealots thought it was made against
+themselves only. So these left off guarding the gates any longer and
+leaped down from their battlements before they came to an engagement,
+and fled away into the subterranean caverns of the Temple, while the
+people that stood trembling at the altar and about the holy house were
+rolled on heaps together and trampled upon, and were beaten both with
+wooden and with iron weapons without mercy. Such also as had differences
+with others slew many persons that were quiet, out of their own private
+enmity and hatred, as if they were opposite to the seditious; and all
+those that had formerly offended any of these plotters were now known,
+and were now led away to the slaughter, and when they had done abundance
+of horrid mischief to the guiltless they granted a truce to the guilty
+and let those go off that came out of the caverns. These followers of
+John also did now seize upon this inner temple, and upon all the warlike
+engines therein, and then ventured to oppose Simon. And thus that
+sedition, which had been divided into three factions, was now reduced to
+two.
+
+But Titus, intending to pitch his camp nearer to the city than Scopus,
+placed as many of his choice horsemen and footmen as he thought
+sufficient opposite to the Jews to prevent their sallying out upon them,
+while he gave orders for the whole army to level the distance as far as
+the wall of the city. So they threw down all the hedges and walls which
+the inhabitants had made about their gardens and groves of trees, and
+cut down all the fruit trees that lay between them and the wall of the
+city, and filled up all the hollow places and the chasms, and demolished
+the rocky precipices with iron instruments; and thereby made all the
+place level from Scopus to Herod's monuments, which adjoined to the pool
+called the Serpent's Pool.
+
+Now at this very time the Jews contrived the following stratagem against
+the Romans. The bolder sort of the seditious went out at the towers,
+called the Women's Towers, as if they had been ejected out of the city
+by those who were for peace, and rambled about as if they were afraid of
+being assaulted by the Romans, and were in fear of one another, while
+those that stood upon the wall and seemed to be of the people's side
+cried out aloud for peace, and entreated they might have security for
+their lives given them, and called for the Romans, promising to open the
+gates to them; and as they cried out after that manner they threw stones
+at their own people, as though they would drive them away from the
+gates. These also pretended that they were excluded by force, and that
+they petitioned those that were within to let them in; and rushing upon
+the Romans perpetually, with violence, they then came back, and seemed
+to be in great disorder. Now the Roman soldiers thought this cunning
+stratagem of theirs was to be believed real, and thinking they had the
+one party under their power, and could punish them as they pleased, and
+hoping that the other party would open their gates to them, set to the
+execution of their designs accordingly.
+
+But for Titus himself, he had this surprising conduct of the Jews in
+suspicion, for whereas he had invited them to come to terms of
+accommodation, by Josephus, but one day before, he could then receive no
+civil answer from them; so he ordered the soldiers to stay where they
+were. However, some of them that were set in the front of the works
+prevented him, and catching up their arms ran to the gates; whereupon
+those that seemed to have been ejected at the first retired; but as soon
+as the soldiers were gotten between the towers on each side of the gate
+the Jews ran out and encompassed them round, and fell upon them behind,
+while that multitude which stood upon the wall threw a heap of stones
+and darts of all kinds at them, insomuch that they slew a considerable
+number, and wounded many more, for it was not easy for the Romans to
+escape, by reason those behind them pressed them forward; besides which,
+the shame they were under for being mistaken, and the fear they were in
+of their commanders, engaged them to persevere in their mistake;
+wherefore they fought with their spears a great while, and received many
+blows from the Jews, though indeed they gave them as many blows again,
+and at last repelled those that had encompassed them about, while the
+Jews pursued them as they retired, and followed them, and threw darts at
+them as far as the monuments of Queen Helena.
+
+Now the warlike men that were in the city, and the multitude of the
+seditious that were with Simon, were ten thousand, besides the Idumeans.
+Those ten thousand had fifty commanders, over whom this Simon was
+supreme. The Idumeans that paid him homage were five thousand, and had
+eight commanders, among whom those of greatest fame were Jacob, the son
+of Sosas, and Simon, the son of Cathlas. John, who had seized upon the
+Temple, had six thousand armed men under twenty commanders; the Zealots
+also that had come over to him and left off their opposition were two
+thousand four hundred, and had the same commander that they had
+formerly, Eleazar, together with Simon, the son of Arinus. Now, while
+these factions fought one against another, the people were their prey on
+both sides, and that part of the people who would not join with them in
+their wicked practices were plundered by both factions.
+
+Simon held the upper city and the great wall as far as Cedron, and as
+much of the old wall as bent from Siloam to the east, and which went
+down to the palace of Monobazus, who was king of the Adiabeni, beyond
+Euphrates; he also held that fountain and the Acra, which was no other
+than the lower city; he also held all that reached to the palace of
+Queen Helena, the mother of Monobazus. But John held the Temple and the
+parts thereto adjoining, for a great way, as also Ophla, and the valley
+called "the Valley of Cedron"; and when the parts that were interposed
+between their possessions were burned by them, they left a space wherein
+they might fight with each other, for this internal sedition did not
+cease even when the Romans were encamped near their very walls. But
+although they had grown wiser at the first onset the Romans made upon
+them, this lasted but awhile, for they returned to their former madness,
+and separated one from another, and fought it out and did everything
+that the besiegers could desire them to do, for they never suffered
+anything that was worse from the Romans than they made each other
+suffer; nor was there any misery endured by the city, after these men's
+actions, that could be esteemed new. But it was most of all unhappy
+before it was overthrown, while those that took it did it a greater
+kindness; for I venture to affirm that the sedition destroyed the city,
+and the Romans destroyed the sedition, which it was a much harder thing
+to do than to destroy the walls; so that we may justly ascribe our
+misfortunes to our own people, and the just vengeance taken on them to
+the Romans; as to which matter let everyone determine by the actions on
+both sides.
+
+Now when affairs within the city were in this posture, Titus went round
+the city on the outside with some chosen horsemen and looked about for
+a proper place where he might make an impression upon the walls; but as
+he was in doubt where he could possibly make an attack on any side--for
+the place was no way accessible where the valleys were, and on the other
+side the first wall appeared too strong to be shaken by the engines--he
+thereupon thought it best to make his assault upon the monument of John,
+the high-priest, for there it was that the first fortification was
+lower, and the second was not joined to it, the builders neglecting to
+build strong where the new city was not much inhabited. Here also was an
+easy passage to the third wall, through which he thought to take the
+upper city and, through the tower of Antonia, the Temple itself. But at
+this time, as he was going round about the city, one of his friends,
+whose name was Nicanor, was wounded with a dart on his left shoulder, as
+he approached, together with Josephus, too near the wall, and attempted
+to discourse to those that were upon the wall about terms of peace, for
+he was a person known by them.
+
+On this account it was that Cæsar, as soon as he knew their vehemence,
+that they would not bear even such as approached them to persuade them
+to what tended to their own preservation, was provoked to press on the
+siege. He also, at the same time, gave his soldiers leave to set the
+suburbs on fire, and ordered that they should bring timber together, and
+raise banks against the city. And when he had parted his army into three
+parts, in order to set about those works, he placed those that shot
+darts, and the archers in the midst of the banks that were then raising,
+before whom he placed those engines that threw javelins and darts and
+stones, that he might prevent the enemy from sallying out upon their
+works and might hinder those that were upon the wall from being able to
+obstruct them. So the trees were now cut down immediately and the
+suburbs left naked. But now while the timber was being carried to raise
+the banks, and the whole army was earnestly engaged in their works, the
+Jews were not, however, quiet. And it happened that the people of
+Jerusalem, who had been hitherto plundered and murdered, were now of
+good courage, and supposed they should have a breathing time, while the
+others were very busy in opposing their enemies without the city, and
+that they should now be avenged on those that had been the authors of
+their miseries, in case the Romans did but get the victory.
+
+However, John stayed behind, out of his fear of Simon, even while his
+own men were earnest in making a sally upon their enemies without. Yet
+did not Simon lie still, for he lay near the place of the siege; he
+brought his engines of war and disposed of them at due distances upon
+the wall, both those which they took from Cestius formerly, and those
+which they got when they seized the garrison that lay in the tower
+Antonia. But though they had these engines in their possession, they had
+so little skill in using them that they were in great measure useless to
+them; but a few there were who had been taught by deserters how to use
+them, which they did use, though after an awkward manner. So they cast
+stones and arrows at those that were making the banks; they also ran out
+upon them by companies and fought with them.
+
+Now those that were at work covered themselves with hurdles spread over
+their banks, and their engines were opposed to them when they made their
+excursions. The engines, that all the legions had ready prepared for
+them, were admirably contrived; but still more extraordinary ones
+belonged to the Tenth legion: those that threw darts and those that
+threw stones were more forcible and larger than the rest, by which they
+not only repelled the excursions of the Jews, but drove those away that
+were upon the walls also. Now the stones that were cast were of the
+weight of a talent, and were carried two furlongs and farther. The blow
+they gave was no way to be sustained, not only by those that stood first
+in the way, but by those that were beyond them for a great space.
+
+As for the Jews, they at first watched the coming of the stone, for it
+was of a white color, and could therefore not only be perceived by the
+great noise it made, but could be seen also before it came, by its
+brightness. Accordingly, the watchmen that sat upon the towers gave them
+notice when the engine was let go, and the stone came from it, and cried
+out aloud, in their own country language, "The son cometh!" so those
+that were in its way stood off, and threw themselves down upon the
+ground; by which means, and by their thus guarding themselves, the stone
+fell down and did them no harm. But the Romans contrived how to prevent
+that, by blacking the stone, who then could aim at them with success
+when the stone was not discerned beforehand as it had been till then;
+and so they destroyed many of them at one blow. Yet did not the Jews,
+under all this distress, permit the Romans to raise their banks in
+quiet, but they shrewdly and boldly exerted themselves, and repelled
+them both by night and by day.
+
+And now, upon the finishing the Roman works, the workmen measured the
+distance there was from the wall, and this by lead and a line which they
+threw to it from their banks, for they could not measure it any other
+wise, because the Jews would shoot at them, if they came to measure it
+themselves. And when they found that the engines could reach the wall
+they brought them thither. Then did Titus set his engines, at proper
+distances, so much nearer to the wall that the Jews might not be able to
+repel them, and gave orders they should go to work; and when, thereupon,
+a prodigious noise echoed round about from three places, and that on a
+sudden there was a great noise made by the citizens that were within the
+city, and no less a terror fell upon the seditious themselves. Whereupon
+both sorts, seeing the common danger they were in, contrived to make a
+like defence. So those of different factions cried out one to another
+that they acted entirely as in concert with their enemies, whereas they
+ought, however, notwithstanding God did not grant them a lasting concord
+in their present circumstances, to lay aside their enmities one against
+another and to unite together against the Romans. Accordingly, Simon
+gave those that came from the Temple leave, by proclamation, to go upon
+the wall; John also himself, though he could not believe Simon was in
+earnest, gave them the same leave.
+
+So on both sides they laid aside their hatred and their peculiar
+quarrels, and formed themselves into one body. They then ran round the
+walls, and having a vast number of torches with them threw them at the
+machines, and shot darts perpetually upon those that impelled those
+engines which battered the wall--nay, the bolder sort leaped out by
+troops upon the hurdles that covered the machines, and pulled them to
+pieces, and fell upon those that belonged to them, and beat them, not so
+much by any skill they had, as principally by the boldness of their
+attacks.
+
+However, Titus himself still sent assistance to those that were the
+hardest beset, and placed both horsemen and archers on the several sides
+of the engines, and thereby beat off those that brought the fire to
+them. He also thereby repelled those that shot stones or darts from the
+towers, and then set the engines to work in good earnest; yet did not
+the wall yield to these blows, excepting where the battering ram of the
+Fifteenth legion moved the corner of a tower, while the wall itself
+continued unhurt, for the wall was not presently in the same danger with
+the tower, which was extant far above it; nor could the fall of that
+part of the tower easily break down any part of the wall itself together
+with it.
+
+And now the Jews intermitted their sallies for a while, but when they
+observed the Romans dispersed all abroad at their works, and in their
+several camps--for they thought the Jews had retired out of weariness
+and fear--they all at once made a sally at the tower Hippicus, through
+an obscure gate, and at the same time brought fire to burn the works,
+and went boldly up to the Romans, and to their very fortifications
+themselves, where, at the cry they made, those that were near them came
+presently to their assistance, and those farther off came running after
+them. And here the boldness of the Jews was too hard for the good order
+of the Romans, and as they beat those whom they first fell upon, so they
+pressed upon those that were now gotten together. So this fight about
+the machines was very hot, while the one side tried hard to set them on
+fire, and the other side to prevent it. On both sides there was a
+confused cry made, and many of those in the forefront of the battle were
+slain.
+
+However, the Jews were now too hard for the Romans by the furious
+assaults they made like madmen, and the fire caught hold of the works,
+and both all those works, and the engines themselves, had been in danger
+of being burned, had not many of those select soldiers that came from
+Alexandria opposed themselves to prevent it, and had they not behaved
+themselves with greater courage than they themselves supposed they could
+have done, for they outdid those in this fight that had greater
+reputation than themselves. This was the state of things till Cæsar took
+the stoutest of his horsemen and attacked the enemy, while he himself
+slew twelve of those that were in the forefront of the Jews, which death
+of these men, when the rest of the multitude saw, they gave way, and he
+pursued them, and drove them all into the city, and saved the works from
+the fire. Now it happened at this fight that a certain Jew was taken
+alive who, by Titus' order, was crucified before the wall, to see
+whether the rest of them would be affrighted and abate of their
+obstinacy. But after the Jews were retired, John,[38] who was commander
+of the Idumeans, and was talking to a certain soldier of his
+acquaintance before the wall, was wounded by a dart shot at him by an
+Arabian, and died immediately, leaving the greatest lamentation to the
+Jews, and sorrow to the seditious, for he was a man of great eminence,
+both for his actions and his conduct also.
+
+Now, on the next night, a surprising disturbance fell upon the Romans;
+for whereas Titus had given orders for the erection of three towers of
+fifty cubits high, that, by setting men upon them at every bank, he
+might from thence drive those away who were upon the wall, it so
+happened that one of these towers fell down about midnight, and as its
+fall made a very great noise, fear fell upon the army, and they,
+supposing that the enemy was coming to attack them, ran all to their
+arms. Whereupon a disturbance and a tumult arose among the legions, and
+as nobody could tell what had happened, they went on after a
+disconsolate manner; and seeing no enemy appear, they were afraid one of
+another, and every one demanded of his neighbor the watchword with great
+earnestness as though the Jews had invaded their camp. And now were they
+like people under a panic fear, until Titus was informed of what had
+happened, and gave orders that all should be acquainted with it; and
+then, though with some difficulty, they got clear of the disturbance
+they had been under.
+
+Now these towers were very troublesome to the Jews, who otherwise
+opposed the Romans very courageously, for they shot at them out of their
+lighter engines from those towers, as they did also by those that threw
+darts, and the archers, and those that flung stones. For neither could
+the Jews reach those that were over them, by reason of their height;
+and it was not practicable to take them, nor to overturn them, they were
+so heavy, nor to set them on fire, because they were covered with plates
+of iron. So they retired out of the reach of the darts, and did no
+longer endeavor to hinder the impression of their rams, which, by
+continually beating upon the wall, did gradually prevail against it; so
+that the wall already gave way to the Nico, for by that name did the
+Jews themselves call the greatest of their engines, because it conquered
+all things. And now they were for a long while grown weary of fighting
+and of keeping guards, and were retired to lodge in the night-time at a
+distance from the wall. It was on other accounts also thought by them to
+be superfluous to guard the wall, there being besides that two other
+fortifications still remaining, and they being slothful, and their
+counsels having been ill-concerted on all occasions; so a great many
+grew lazy and retired. Then the Romans mounted the breach, where Nico
+had made one, and all the Jews left the guarding that wall and retreated
+to the second wall; so those that had gotten over that wall opened the
+gates and received all the army within it. And thus did the Romans get
+possession of this first wall, on the fifteenth day of the siege, which
+was the seventh day of the month Artemisius (Jyar), when they demolished
+a great part of it, as well as they did of the northern parts of the
+city, which had been demolished also by Cestius formerly.
+
+And now Titus pitched his camp within the city, at that place which was
+called "the Camp of the Assyrians," having seized upon all that lay as
+far as Cedron, but took care to be out of the reach of the Jews' darts.
+He then presently began his attacks, upon which the Jews divided
+themselves into several bodies, and courageously defended that wall,
+while John[39] and his faction did it from the tower of Antonia, and
+from the northern cloister of the Temple, and fought the Romans before
+the monuments of King Alexander; and Simon's army also took for their
+share the spot of ground that was near John's monument,[40] and
+fortified it as far as to that gate where water was brought in to the
+tower Hippicus. However, the Jews made violent sallies, and that
+frequently also, and in bodies together out of the gates, and there
+fought the Romans; and when they were pursued all together to the wall,
+they were beaten in those fights, as wanting the skill of the Romans.
+But when they fought them from the walls they were too hard for them;
+the Romans being encouraged by their power, joined to their skill, as
+were the Jews by their boldness, which was nourished by the fear they
+were in, and that hardiness which is natural to our nation under
+calamities; they were also encouraged still by the hope of deliverance,
+as were the Romans by their hopes of subduing them in a little time.
+
+Nor did either side grow weary; but attacks and fightings upon the wall,
+and perpetual sallies out in bodies, were there all the day long; nor
+were there any sort of warlike engagements that were not then put in
+use. And the night itself had much ado to part them, when they began to
+fight in the morning--nay, the night itself was passed without sleep on
+both sides, and was more uneasy than the day to them, while the one was
+afraid lest the wall should be taken, and the other lest the Jews should
+make sallies upon their camps; both sides also lay in their armor during
+the night-time, and thereby were ready at the first appearance of light
+to go to the battle. Now among the Jews the ambition was who should
+undergo the first dangers, and thereby gratify their commanders. Above
+all, they had a great veneration and dread of Simon; and to that degree
+was he regarded by every one of those that were under him, that at his
+command they were very ready to kill themselves with their own hands.
+
+What made the Romans so courageous was their usual custom of conquering
+and disuse of being defeated, their constant wars, and perpetual warlike
+exercises, and the grandeur of their dominion. And what was now their
+chief encouragement--Titus, who was present everywhere with them
+all--for it appeared a terrible thing to grow weary while Cæsar was
+there, and fought bravely as well as they did--was himself at once an
+eye-witness of such as behaved themselves valiantly, and he was to
+reward them also. It was, besides, esteemed an advantage at present to
+have anyone's valor known by Cæsar; on which account many of them
+appeared to have more alacrity than strength to answer it. And now, as
+the Jews were about this time standing in array before the wall, and
+that in a strong body, and while both parties were throwing their darts
+at each other, Longinus, one of the equestrian order, leaped out of the
+army of the Romans, and leaped into the very midst of the army of the
+Jews; and as they dispersed themselves upon this attack, he slew two of
+their men of the greatest courage; one of them he struck in his mouth as
+he was coming to meet him, the other was slain by him by that very dart
+which he drew out of the body of the other, with which he ran this man
+through his side as he was running away from him; and when he had done
+this, he first of all ran out of the midst of his enemies to his own
+side.
+
+So this man signalized himself for his valor, and many there were who
+were ambitious of gaining the like reputation. And now the Jews were
+unconcerned at what they suffered themselves from the Romans, and were
+only solicitous about what mischief they could do them; and death itself
+seemed a small matter to them, if at the same time they could but kill
+any one of their enemies. But Titus took care to secure his own soldiers
+from harm, as well as to have them overcome their enemies. He also said
+that inconsiderate violence was madness, and that this alone was the
+true courage that was joined with good conduct. He therefore commanded
+his men to take care, when they fought their enemies, that they received
+no harm from them at the same time, and thereby show themselves to be
+truly valiant men.
+
+And now Titus brought one of his engines to the middle tower of the
+north part of the wall, in which a certain crafty Jew, whose name was
+Castor, lay in ambush, with ten others like himself, the rest being fled
+away by reason of the archers. These men lay still for a while, as in
+great fear, under their breastplates; but when the tower was shaken,
+they arose, and Castor did then stretch out his hand, as a petitioner,
+and called for Cæsar, and by his voice moved his compassion, and begged
+of him to have mercy upon them; and Titus, in the innocency of his
+heart, believing him to be in earnest, and hoping that the Jews did now
+repent, stopped the working of the battering ram, and forbade them to
+shoot at the petitioners, and bid Castor say what he had a mind to say
+to him. He said that he would come down, if he would give him his right
+hand for his security.
+
+To which Titus replied that he was well pleased with such his agreeable
+conduct, and would be well pleased if all the Jews would be of his mind,
+and that he was ready to give the like security to the city. Now five of
+the ten dissembled with him, and pretended to beg for mercy, while the
+rest cried out aloud that they would never be slaves to the Romans,
+while it was in their power to die in a state of freedom. Now while
+these men were quarrelling for a long while the attack was delayed;
+Castor also sent to Simon, and told him that they might take some time
+for consultation about what was to be done, because he would elude the
+power of the Romans for a considerable time. And at the same time that
+he sent thus to him, he appeared openly to exhort those that were
+obstinate to accept of Titus' hand for their security; but they seemed
+very angry at it, and brandished their naked swords upon the
+breastworks, and struck themselves upon their breast, and fell down as
+if they had been slain. Hereupon Titus, and those with him, were amazed
+at the courage of the men; and as they were not able to see exactly what
+was done, they admired at their great fortitude and pitied their
+calamity.
+
+During this interval a certain person shot a dart at Castor, and wounded
+him in his nose; whereupon he presently pulled out the dart, and showed
+it to Titus, and complained that this was unfair treatment; so Cæsar
+reproved him that shot the dart, and sent Josephus, who then stood by
+him, to give his right hand to Castor. But Josephus said that he would
+not go to him, because these pretended petitioners meant nothing that
+was good; he also restrained those friends of his who were zealous to go
+to him. But still there was one Eneas, a deserter, who said he would go
+to him. Castor also called to them, that somebody should come and
+receive the money which he had with him; this made Eneas the more
+earnestly to run to him with his bosom open. Then did Castor take up a
+great stone and threw it at him, which missed him, because he guarded
+himself against it; but still it wounded another soldier that was coming
+to him. When Cæsar understood that this was a delusion, he perceived
+that mercy in war is a pernicious thing, because such cunning tricks
+have less place under the exercise of greater severity. So he caused the
+engine to work more strongly than before, on account of his anger at the
+deceit put upon him. But Castor and his companions set the tower on fire
+when it began to give way, and leaped through the flame into a hidden
+vault that was under it, which made the Romans further suppose that they
+were men of great courage, as having cast themselves into the fire.
+
+Now Cæsar took this wall there on the fifth day after he had taken the
+first; and when the Jews had fled from him he entered into it with a
+thousand armed men, and those of his choice troops, and this at a place
+where were the merchants of wool, the braziers, and the market for
+cloth, and where the narrow streets led obliquely to the wall.
+Wherefore, if Titus had either demolished a larger part of the wall
+immediately, or had come in, and, according to the law of war, had laid
+waste what was left, his victory would not, I suppose, have been mixed
+with any loss to himself. But now, out of the hope he had that he should
+make the Jews ashamed of their obstinacy by not being willing, when he
+was able, to afflict them more than he needed to do, he did not widen
+the breach of the wall, in order to make a safer retreat upon occasion,
+for he did not think they would lay snares for him that did them such a
+kindness. When therefore, he came in, he did not permit his soldiers to
+kill any of those they caught, nor to set fire to their houses
+neither--nay, he gave leave to the seditious, if they had a mind, to
+fight without any harm to the people, and promised to restore the
+people's effects to them, for he was very desirous to preserve the city
+for his own sake, and the Temple for the sake of the city.
+
+As to the people, he had them of a long time ready to comply with his
+proposals; but as to the fighting men, this humanity of his seemed a
+mark of his weakness, and they imagined that he made these proposals
+because he was not able to take the rest of the city. They also
+threatened death to the people, if they should any one of them say a
+word about a surrender. They, moreover, cut the throats of such as
+talked of a peace, and then attacked those Romans that were come within
+the wall. Some of them they met in the narrow streets, and some they
+fought against from their houses, while they made a sudden sally out at
+the upper gates, and assaulted such Romans as were beyond the wall, till
+those that guarded the wall were so affrighted that they leaped down
+from their towers and retired to their several camps: upon which a great
+noise was made by the Romans that were within, because they were
+encompassed round on every side by their enemies; as also by them that
+were without, because they were in fear for those that were left in the
+city. Thus did the Jews grow more numerous perpetually, and had great
+advantages over the Romans, by their full knowledge of those narrow
+lanes; and they wounded a great many of them, and fell upon them, and
+drove them out of the city.
+
+Now these Romans were at present forced to make the best resistance they
+could, for they were not able, in great numbers, to get out at the
+breach in the wall, it was so narrow. It is also probable that all those
+that were gotten within had been cut to pieces, if Titus had not sent
+them succors, for he ordered the archers to stand at the upper ends of
+these narrow lanes, and he stood himself where was the greatest
+multitude of his enemies, and with his darts he put a stop to them; as
+with him did Domitius Sabinus also, a valiant man, and one that in this
+battle appeared so to be. Thus did Cæsar continue to shoot darts at the
+Jews continually and to hinder them from coming upon his men, and this
+until all his soldiers had retreated out of the city.
+
+And thus were the Romans driven out, after they had possessed themselves
+of the second wall. Whereupon the fighting men that were in the city
+were lifted up in their minds and were elevated upon this their good
+success, and began to think that the Romans would never venture to come
+into the city any more; and that if they kept within it themselves they
+should not be any more conquered, for God had blinded their minds for
+the transgressions they had been guilty of, nor could they see how much
+greater forces the Romans had than those that were now expelled, no more
+than they could discern how a famine was creeping upon them, for
+hitherto they had fed themselves out of the public miseries and drank
+the blood of the city. But now poverty had for a long time seized upon
+the better part, and a great many had died already for want of
+necessaries, although the seditious indeed supposed the destruction of
+the people to be an easement to themselves, for they desired that none
+others might be preserved but such as were against a peace with the
+Romans, and were resolved to live in opposition to them, and they were
+pleased when the multitude of those of a contrary opinion were consumed,
+as being then freed from a heavy burden. And this was their disposition
+of mind with regard to those that were within the city, while they
+covered themselves with their armor, and prevented the Romans, when they
+were trying to get into the city again, and made a wall of their own
+bodies over against that part of the wall that was cast down.
+
+Thus did they valiantly defend themselves for three days; but on the
+fourth day they could not support themselves against the vehement
+assaults of Titus, but were compelled by force to fly whither they had
+fled before; so he quietly possessed himself again of that wall and
+demolished it entirely. And when he had put a garrison into the towers
+that were on the south parts of the city, he contrived how he might
+assault the third wall.
+
+A resolution was now taken by Titus to relax the siege for a little
+while, and to afford the seditious an interval for consideration, and to
+see whether the demolishing of their second wall would not make them a
+little more compliant, or whether they were not somewhat afraid of a
+famine, because the spoils they had gotten by rapine would not be
+sufficient for them long; so he made use of this relaxation in order to
+compass his own designs. Accordingly, as the usual appointed time when
+he must distribute subsistence money to the soldiers was now come, he
+gave orders that the commanders should put the army into battle array,
+in the face of the enemy, and then give every one of the soldiers his
+pay.
+
+The Romans spent four days in bringing this subsistence money to the
+several legions. But on the fifth day, when no signs of peace appeared
+to come from the Jews, Titus divided his legions and began to raise
+banks, both at the tower of Antonia and at John's monument. Now his
+designs were to take the upper city at that monument, and the Temple at
+the tower of Antonia, for if the Temple were not taken, it would be
+dangerous to keep the city itself; so at each of these parts he raised
+him banks, each legion raising one. As for those that wrought at John's
+monument, the Idumeans, and those that were in arms with Simon, made
+sallies upon them, and put some stop to them; while John's party, and
+the multitude of Zealots with them, did the like to those that were
+before the tower of Antonia.
+
+These Jews were now too hard for the Romans, not only in direct
+fighting, because they stood upon the higher ground, but because they
+had now learned to use their own engines, for their continual use of
+them one day after another did by degrees improve their skill about
+them, for of one sort of engines for darts they had three hundred, and
+forty for stones; by the means of which they made it more tedious for
+the Romans to raise their banks. But then Titus, knowing that the city
+would be either saved or destroyed for himself, did not only proceed
+earnestly in the siege, but did not omit to have the Jews exhorted to
+repentance; so he mixed good counsel with his works for the siege. And
+being sensible that exhortations are frequently more effectual than
+arms, he persuaded them to surrender the city, now in a manner already
+taken, and thereby to save themselves, and sent Josephus to speak to
+them in their own language, for he imagined they might yield to the
+persuasion of a countryman of their own.
+
+As Josephus was speaking thus with a loud voice, the seditious would
+neither yield to what he said, nor did they deem it safe for them to
+alter their conduct; but as for the people, they had a great inclination
+to desert to the Romans. Accordingly, some of them sold what they had,
+and even the most precious things that had been laid up as treasures by
+them, for a very small matter, and swallowed down pieces of gold, that
+they might not be found out by the robbers; and when they had escaped to
+the Romans, went to stool, and had wherewithal to provide plentifully
+for themselves, for Titus let a great number of them go away into the
+country, whither they pleased. And the main reasons why they were so
+ready to desert were these: That now they should be freed from those
+miseries which they had endured in that city, and yet should not be in
+slavery to the Romans. However John and Simon, with their factions, did
+more carefully watch these men's going out than they did the coming in
+of the Romans; and if any one did but afford the least shadow of
+suspicion of such an intention, his throat was cut immediately.
+
+But as for the richer sort, it proved all one to them whether they
+stayed in the city or attempted to get out of it, for they were equally
+destroyed in both cases, for every such person was put to death under
+this pretence, that they were going to desert, but in reality that the
+robbers might get what they had. The madness of the seditious did also
+increase together with their famine, and both those miseries were every
+day inflamed more and more, for there was no corn which anywhere
+appeared publicly, but the robbers came running into and searched men's
+private houses; and then, if they found any, they tormented them,
+because they had denied they had any; and if they found none, they
+tormented them worse, because they supposed they had more carefully
+concealed it. The indication they made use of whether they had any or
+not was taken from the bodies of these miserable wretches, which, if
+they were in good case, they supposed they were in no want at all of
+food; but if they were wasted away, they walked off without searching
+any further; nor did they think it proper to kill such as these, because
+they saw they would very soon die of themselves for want of food. Many
+there were indeed who sold what they had for one measure. It was of
+wheat, if they were of the richer sort; but of barley, if they were
+poorer. When these had so done, they shut themselves up in the inmost
+rooms of their houses, and ate the corn they had gotten. Some did it
+without grinding it, by reason of the extremity of the want they were
+in, and others baked bread of it, according as necessity and fear
+dictated to them. A table was nowhere laid for a distinct meal, but they
+snatched the bread out of the fire, half-baked, and ate it very hastily.
+
+It was now a miserable case, and a sight that would justly bring tears
+into our eyes, how men stood as to their food, while the more powerful
+had more than enough, and the weaker were lamenting [for want of it].
+But the famine was too hard for all other passions, and it is
+destructive to nothing so much as to modesty, for what was otherwise
+worthy of reverence was in this case despised; insomuch that children
+pulled the very morsels that their fathers were eating out of their very
+mouths, and what was still more to be pitied, so did the mothers do as
+to their infants; and when those that were most dear were perishing
+under their hands, they were not ashamed to take from them the very last
+drops that might preserve their lives; and while they ate after this
+manner, yet were they not concealed in so doing; but the seditious
+everywhere came upon them immediately and snatched away from them what
+they had gotten from others, for when they saw any house shut up this
+was to them a signal that the people within had gotten some food;
+whereupon they broke open the doors and ran in and took pieces of what
+they were eating almost up out of their very throats, and this by force;
+the old men who held their food fast were beaten; and if the women hid
+what they had within their hands, their hair was torn for so doing; nor
+was there any commiseration shown either to the aged or to the infants,
+but they lifted up children from the ground as they hung upon the
+morsels they had gotten and shook them down upon the floor. But still
+they were more barbarously cruel to those that had prevented their
+coming in, and had actually swallowed down what they were going to seize
+upon, as if they had been unjustly defrauded of their right.
+
+They also invented terrible methods of torments to discover where any
+food was, and they were these: to stop up the passages of the privy
+parts of the miserable wretches, and to drive sharp stakes up their
+fundaments; and a man was forced to bear what it is terrible even to
+hear, in order to make him confess that he had but one loaf of bread, or
+that he might discover a handful of barley meal that was concealed; and
+this was done when these tormentors were not themselves hungry, for the
+thing had been less barbarous had necessity forced them to it; but this
+was done to keep their madness in exercise, and as making preparation of
+provisions for themselves for the following days. These men went also to
+meet those that had crept out of the city by night, as far as the Roman
+guards, to gather some plants and herbs that grew wild; and when those
+people thought they had got clear of the enemy, they snatched from them
+what they had brought with them, even while they had frequently
+entreated them, and that by calling upon the tremendous name of God, to
+give them back some part of what they had brought, though these would
+not give them the least crumb, and they were to be well contented that
+they were only spoiled and not slain at the same time.
+
+It is impossible to go distinctly over every instance of these men's
+iniquity. I shall therefore speak my mind here at once briefly: That
+neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries, nor did any age
+ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, from
+the beginning of the world. Finally, they brought the Hebrew nation into
+contempt, that they might themselves appear comparatively less impious
+with regard to strangers. They confessed what was true, that they were
+the slaves, the scum, and the spurious and abortive offspring of our
+nation, while they overthrew the city themselves, and forced the Romans,
+whether they would or no, to gain a melancholy reputation, by acting
+gloriously against them, and did almost draw that fire upon the Temple
+which they seemed to think came too slowly; and indeed when they saw
+that Temple burning from the upper city, they were neither troubled at
+it nor did they shed any tears on that account, while yet these passions
+were discovered among the Romans themselves.
+
+So now Titus' banks were advanced a great way, notwithstanding his
+soldiers had been very much distressed from the wall. He then sent a
+party of horsemen and ordered they should lay ambushes for those that
+went out into the valleys to gather food. Some of these were indeed
+fighting men, who were not contented with what they got by rapine; but
+the greater part of them were poor people, who were deterred from
+deserting by the concern they were under for their own relations, for
+they could not hope to escape away, together with their wives and
+children, without the knowledge of the seditious; nor could they think
+of leaving these relations to be slain by the robbers on their account;
+nay, the severity of the famine made them bold in thus going out; so
+nothing remained but that, when they were concealed from the robbers,
+they should be taken by the enemy; and when they were going to be taken
+they were forced to defend themselves for fear of being punished; as
+after they had fought they thought it too late to make any supplications
+for mercy; so they were first whipped and then tormented with all sorts
+of tortures before they died, and were then crucified before the wall of
+the city. This miserable procedure made Titus greatly to pity them,
+while they caught every day five hundred Jews; nay, some days they
+caught more; yet it did not appear to be safe for him to let those that
+were taken by force go their way, and to set a guard over so many he saw
+would be to make such as guarded them useless to him. The main reason
+why he did not forbid that cruelty was this: that he hoped the Jews
+might perhaps yield at that sight, out of fear lest they might
+themselves afterward be liable to the same cruel treatment. So the
+soldiers, out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those
+they caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the
+crosses, by way of jest, when their multitude was so great that room was
+wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the bodies.
+
+But so far were the seditious from repenting at this sad sight that, on
+the contrary, they made the rest of the multitude believe otherwise, for
+they brought the relations of those that had deserted upon the wall,
+with such of the populace as were very eager to go over upon the
+security offered them, and showed them what miseries those underwent who
+fled to the Romans; and told them that those who were caught were
+supplicants to them, and not such as were taken prisoners. This sight
+kept many of those within the city who were so eager to desert, till the
+truth was known; yet did some of them run away immediately as unto
+certain punishment, esteeming death from their enemies to be a quiet
+departure, if compared with that by famine. So Titus commanded that the
+hands of many of those that were caught should be cut off, that they
+might not be thought deserters, and might be credited on account of the
+calamity they were under, and sent them in to John and Simon, with this
+exhortation, that they would now at length leave off (their madness),
+and not force him to destroy the city, whereby they would have those
+advantages of repentance, even in their utmost distress, that they would
+preserve their own lives, and so find a city of their own, and that
+Temple which was their peculiar. He then went round about the banks
+that were cast up, and hastened them, in order to show that his words
+should in no long time be followed by his deeds. In answer to which the
+seditious cast reproaches upon Cæsar himself, and upon his father also,
+and cried out, with a loud voice, that they contemned death, and did
+well in preferring it before slavery; that they would do all the
+mischief to the Romans they could while they had breath in them; and
+that for their own city, since they were, as he said, to be destroyed,
+they had no concern about it, and that the world itself was a better
+temple to God than this. That yet this Temple would be preserved by Him
+that inhabited therein, whom they still had for their assistant in this
+war, and did therefore laugh at all his threatenings, which would come
+to nothing, because the conclusion of the whole depended upon God only.
+These words were mixed with reproaches, and with them they made a mighty
+clamor.
+
+In the mean time Antiochus Epiphanes came to the city, having with him a
+considerable number of other armed men, and a band called the Macedonian
+band about him, all of the same age, tall, and just past their
+childhood, armed, and instructed after the Macedonian manner, whence it
+was that they took that name. Antiochus with his Macedonians made a
+sudden assault upon the wall; and, indeed, for his own part, his
+strength and skill were so great that he guarded himself from the Jewish
+darts, and yet shot his darts at them, while yet the young men with him
+were almost all sorely galled, for they had so great a regard to the
+promises that had been made of their courage, that they would needs
+persevere in their fighting, and at length many of them retired, but not
+till they were wounded; and then they perceived that true Macedonians,
+if they were to be conquerors, must have Alexander's good fortune also.
+
+Now as the Romans began to raise their banks on the twelfth day of the
+month Artemisius [Jyar], so had they much ado to finish them by the
+twenty-ninth day of the same month, after they had labored hard for
+seventeen days continually, for there were now four great banks raised,
+one of which was at the tower Antonia. This was raised by the Fifth
+legion, over against the middle of that pool which was called Struthius.
+Another was cast up by the Twelfth legion at the distance of about
+twenty cubits from the other. But the labors of the Tenth legion, which
+lay a great way off these, were on the north quarter, and at the pool
+called Amygdalon; as was that of the Fifteenth legion about thirty
+cubits from it, and at the high-priest's monument. And now, when the
+engines were brought, John had from within undermined the space that was
+over against the tower of Antonia, as far as the banks themselves, and
+had supported the ground over the mine with beams laid across one
+another, whereby the Roman works stood upon an uncertain foundation.
+
+Then did he order such materials to be brought in as were daubed over
+with pitch and bitumen, and set them on fire; and as the cross-beams
+that supported the banks were burning, the ditch yielded on the sudden,
+and the banks were shaken down, and fell into the ditch with a
+prodigious noise. Now at the first, there arose a very thick smoke and
+dust, as the fire was choked with the fall of the bank; but as the
+suffocated materials were now gradually consumed, a plain flame brake
+out; on which sudden appearance of the flame a consternation fell upon
+the Romans, and the shrewdness of the contrivance discouraged them; and
+indeed this accident coming upon them at a time when they thought they
+had already gained their point, cooled their hopes for the time to come.
+They also thought it would be to no purpose to take the pains to
+extinguish the fire, since if it were extinguished the banks were
+swallowed up already [and become useless to them].
+
+Two days after this Simon and his party made an attempt to destroy the
+other banks, for the Romans had brought their engines to bear there, and
+began already to make the wall shake. And here one Tephtheus, of Garsis,
+a city of Galilee, and Megassarus, one who was derived from some of
+Queen Mariamne's servants, and with them one from Adiabene, he was the
+son of Nabateus, and called by the name of Chagiras, from the
+ill-fortune he had, the word signifying "a lame man," snatched some
+torches and ran suddenly upon the engines. Nor were there during this
+war any men that ever sallied out of the city who were their superiors,
+either in their boldness or in the terror they struck into their
+enemies, for they ran out upon the Romans, not as if they were enemies,
+but friends, without fear or delay; nor did they leave their enemies
+till they had rushed violently through the midst of them, and set their
+machines on fire. And though they had darts thrown at them on every side
+and were on every side assaulted with their enemies' swords, yet did
+they not withdraw themselves out of the dangers they were in till the
+fire had caught hold of the instruments; but when the flame went up the
+Romans came running from their camp to save their engines.
+
+Then did the Jews hinder their succors from the wall, and fought with
+those that endeavored to quench the fire, without any regard to the
+danger their bodies were in. So the Romans pulled the engines out of the
+fire, while the hurdles that covered them were on fire; but the Jews
+caught hold of the battering rams through the flame itself and held them
+fast, although the iron upon them was become red hot; and now the fire
+spread itself from the engines to the banks, and prevented those that
+came to defend them; and all this while the Romans were encompassed
+round about with the flame; and, despairing of saving their works from
+it, they retired to their camp. Then did the Jews become still more and
+more in number by the coming of those that were within the city to their
+assistance; and as they were very bold upon the good success they had
+had, their violent assaults were almost irresistible--nay, they
+proceeded as far as the fortifications of the enemies' camp, and fought
+with their guards.
+
+Now there stood a body of soldiers in array before that camp, which
+succeeded one another by turns in their armor; and as to those, the law
+of the Romans was terrible, that he who left his post there, let the
+occasion be whatsoever it might be, he was to die for it; so that body
+of soldiers, preferring rather to die in fighting courageously than as a
+punishment for their cowardice, stood firm; and at the necessity these
+men were in of standing to it, many of the others that had run away, out
+of shame, turned back again; and when they had set the engines against
+the wall they put the multitude from coming more of them out of the city
+(which they could the more easily do) because they had made no provision
+for preserving or guarding their bodies at this time; for the Jews
+fought now hand-to-hand with all that came in their way, and, without
+any caution, fell against the points of their enemies' spears, and
+attacked them bodies against bodies, for they were now too hard for the
+Romans, not so much by their other warlike actions, as by these
+courageous assaults they made upon them; and the Romans gave way more to
+their boldness than they did to the sense of the harm they had received
+from them.
+
+And now Titus was come from the tower of Antonia, whither he was gone to
+look out for a place for raising other banks, and reproached the
+soldiers greatly for permitting their own walls to be in danger, when
+they had taken the walls of their enemies, and sustained the fortune of
+men besieged, while the Jews were allowed to sally out against them,
+though they were already in a sort of prison. He then went round about
+the enemy with some chosen troops and fell upon their flank himself; so
+the Jews, who had been before assaulted in their faces, wheeled about to
+Titus and continued the fight.
+
+The armies also were now mixed one among another, and the dust that was
+raised so far hindered them from seeing one another, and the noise that
+was made so far hindered them from hearing one another, that neither
+side could discern an enemy from a friend. However, the Jews did not
+flinch, though not so much from their real strength as from their
+despair of deliverance. The Romans also would not yield, by reason of
+the regard they had to glory and to their reputation in war, and because
+Cæsar himself went into the danger before them; insomuch that I cannot
+but think the Romans would in the conclusion have now taken even the
+whole multitude of the Jews, so very angry were they at them, had these
+not prevented the upshot of the battle, and retired into the city.
+However, seeing the banks of the Romans were demolished, these Romans
+were very much cast down upon the loss of what had cost them so long
+pains, and this in one hour's time. And many indeed despaired of taking
+the city with their usual engines of war only.
+
+And now did Titus consult with his commanders what was to be done. Those
+that were of the warmest tempers thought he should bring the whole army
+against the city and storm the wall. The opinion of Titus was, that if
+they aimed at quickness joined with security they must build a wall
+round about the whole city, and he gave orders that the army should be
+distributed to their several shares of this work. Titus began the wall
+from the camp of the Assyrians, where his own camp was pitched, and drew
+it down to the lower parts of Cenopolis; thence it went along the valley
+of Cedron to the Mount of Olives; it then bent toward the south, and
+encompassed the mountain as far as the rock called Peristereon, and that
+other hill which lies next it, and is over the valley which reaches to
+Siloam; whence it bended again to the west, and went down to the valley
+of the Fountain, beyond which it went up again at the monument of
+Ananus, the high-priest, and encompassing that mountain where Pompey had
+formerly pitched his camp, it returned back to the north side of the
+city, and was carried on as far as a certain village called "The House
+of the Erebinthi"; after which it encompassed Herod's monument, and
+there, on the east, was joined to Titus' own camp, where it began.
+
+Now the length of this wall was forty furlongs, one only abated. Now at
+this wall without were erected thirteen places to keep garrison in,
+whose circumferences, put together, amounted to ten furlongs; the whole
+was completed in three days; so that what would naturally have required
+some months was done in so short an interval as is incredible. When
+Titus had therefore encompassed the city with this wall and put
+garrisons into proper places, he went round the wall, at the first watch
+of the night, and observed how the guard was kept; the second watch he
+allotted to Alexander; the commanders of legions took the third watch.
+They also cast lots among themselves who should be upon the watch in the
+night-time, and who should go all night long round the spaces that were
+interposed between the garrisons.
+
+So all hope of escaping was now cut off from the Jews, together with
+their liberty of going out of the city. Then did the famine widen its
+progress and devoured the people by whole houses and families; the upper
+rooms were full of women and children that were dying by famine, and the
+lanes of the city were full of the dead bodies of the aged; the children
+also and the young men wandered about the market-places like shadows,
+all swelled with the famine, and fell down dead, wheresoever their
+misery seized them. As for burying them, those that were sick themselves
+were not able to do it; and those that were hearty and well were
+deterred from doing it by the great multitude of those dead bodies, and
+by the uncertainty there was how soon they should die themselves, for
+many died as they were burying others, and many went to their coffins
+before that fatal hour was come. Nor was there any lamentations made
+under these calamities, nor were heard any mournful complaints; but the
+famine confounded all natural passions, for those who were just going to
+die looked upon those that were gone to rest before them with dry eyes
+and open mouths.
+
+A deep silence also, and a kind of deadly night, had seized upon the
+city; while yet the robbers were still more terrible than these miseries
+were themselves, for they brake open those houses which were no other
+than graves of dead bodies, and plundered them of what they had; and
+carrying off the coverings of their bodies went out laughing, and tried
+the points of their swords in their dead bodies; and, in order to prove
+what metal they were made of, they thrust some of those through that
+still lay alive upon the ground; but for those that entreated them to
+lend them their right hand and their sword to despatch them, they were
+too proud to grant their requests, and left them to be consumed by the
+famine. Now every one of these died with their eyes fixed upon the
+Temple, and left the seditious alive behind them. Now the seditious at
+first gave orders that the dead should be buried out of the public
+treasury, as not enduring the stench of their dead bodies. But
+afterward, when they could not do that, they had them cast down from the
+walls into the valleys beneath.
+
+However, when Titus, in going his rounds along those valleys, saw them
+full of dead bodies, and the thick putrefaction running about them, he
+gave a groan; and, spreading out his hands to heaven, called God to
+witness that this was not his doing; and such was the sad case of the
+city itself. But the Romans were very joyful, since none of the
+seditious could now make sallies out of the city, because they were
+themselves disconsolate, and the famine already touched them also. These
+Romans besides had great plenty of corn and other necessaries out of
+Syria and out of the neighboring provinces; many of whom would stand
+near to the wall of the city and show the people what great quantities
+of provisions they had and so make the enemy more sensible of their
+famine, by the great plenty, even to satiety, which they had themselves.
+
+In the mean time Josephus, as he was going round the city, had his head
+wounded by a stone that was thrown at him; upon which he fell down as
+giddy. Josephus soon recovered of his wound and came out and cried out
+aloud, that it would not be long ere they should be punished for this
+wound they had given him. He also made a fresh exhortation to the people
+to come out upon the security that would be given them. This sight of
+Josephus encouraged the people greatly and brought a great consternation
+upon the seditious.
+
+Hereupon some of the deserters, having no other way, leaped down from
+the wall immediately, while others of them went out of the city with
+stones, as if they would fight them; but thereupon they fled away to the
+Romans. But here a worse fate accompanied these than what they had found
+within the city; and they met with a quicker despatch from the too great
+abundance they had among the Romans than they could have done from the
+famine among the Jews, for when they came first to the Romans they were
+puffed up by the famine and swelled like men in a dropsy; after which
+they all on the sudden overfilled those bodies that were before empty,
+and so burst asunder, excepting such only as were skilful enough to
+restrain their appetites, and by degrees took in their food into bodies
+unaccustomed thereto.
+
+Yet did another plague seize upon those that were thus preserved, for
+there was found among the Syrian deserters a certain person who was
+caught gathering pieces of gold out of the excrements of the Jews'
+bellies, for the deserters used to swallow such pieces of gold, as we
+told you before, when they came out, and for these did the seditious
+search them all; for there was a great quantity of gold in the city,
+insomuch that as much was now sold [in the Roman camp] for twelve Attic
+[drachmas] as was sold before for twenty-five. But when this contrivance
+was discovered in one instance, the fame of it filled their several
+camps, that the deserters came to them full of gold. So the multitude
+of the Arabians, with the Syrians, cut up those that came as
+supplicants, and searched their bellies. Nor does it seem to me that any
+misery befell the Jews that was more terrible than this, since in one
+night's time about two thousand of these deserters were thus dissected.
+
+When Titus came to the knowledge of this wicked practice, he threatened
+that he would put such men to death if any of them were discovered to be
+so insolent as to do so again. Moreover, he gave it in charge to the
+legions, that they should make a search after such as were suspected,
+and should bring them to him. But it appeared that the love of money was
+too great for all their dread of punishment, and a vehement desire of
+gain is natural to men, and no passion is so venturesome as
+covetousness. Otherwise such passions have certain bounds and are
+subordinate to fear. But in reality it was God who condemned the whole
+nation and turned every course that was taken for their preservation to
+their destruction. This, therefore, which was forbidden by Cæsar under
+such a threatening, was ventured upon privately against the deserters,
+and these barbarians would go out still and meet those that ran away
+before any saw them, and looking about them to see that no Roman spied
+them, they dissected them and pulled this polluted money out of their
+bowels, which money was still found in a few of them, while yet a great
+many were destroyed by the bare hope there was of thus getting by them,
+which miserable treatment made many that were deserting to return back
+again into the city.
+
+And, indeed, why do I relate these particular calamities? while Manneus,
+the son of Lazarus, came running to Titus at this very time and told him
+that there had been carried out through that one gate, which was
+intrusted to his care, no fewer than a hundred and fifteen thousand
+eight hundred and eighty dead bodies in the interval between the
+fourteenth day of the month Xanthicus (Nisan), when the Romans pitched
+their camp by the city, and the first day of the month Panemus (Tamuz).
+This was itself a prodigious multitude; and though this man was not
+himself set as a governor at that gate, yet was he appointed to pay the
+public stipend for carrying these bodies out, and so was obliged of
+necessity to number them, while the rest were buried by their
+relations, though all their burial was but this, to bring them away and
+cast them out of the city.
+
+After this man there ran away to Titus many of the eminent citizens and
+told him the entire number of the poor that were dead, and that no fewer
+than six hundred thousand were thrown out at the gates, though still the
+number of the rest could not be discovered; and they told him further
+that when they were no longer able to carry out the dead bodies of the
+poor they laid their corpses on heaps in very large houses and shut them
+up therein; as also that a medimno of wheat was sold for a talent; and
+that when, a while afterward, it was not possible to gather herbs, by
+reason the city was all walled about, some persons were driven to that
+terrible distress as to search the common sewers and old dunghills of
+cattle, and to eat the dung which they got there, and what they of old
+could not endure so much as to see they now used for food. When the
+Romans barely heard all this they commiserated their case; while the
+seditious, who saw it also, did not repent, but suffered the same
+distress to come upon themselves, for they were blinded by that fate
+which was already coming upon the city, and upon themselves also.
+
+And now the Romans, although they were greatly distressed in getting
+together their materials, raised their banks in one-and-twenty days,
+after they had cut down all the trees that were in the country that
+adjoined to the city, and that for ninety furlongs round about. And when
+the banks were finished, they afforded a foundation for fear both to the
+Romans and to the Jews, for the Jews expected that the city would be
+taken unless they could burn those banks, as did the Romans expect that,
+if these were once burned down they should never be able to take it, for
+there was a mighty scarcity of materials, and the bodies of the soldiers
+began to fail with such hard labors, as did their souls faint with so
+many instances of ill-success.
+
+The Romans had an advantage, in that their engines for sieges coöperated
+with them in throwing darts and stones as far as the Jews, when they
+were coming out of the city; whereby the man that fell became an
+impediment to him that was next to him, as did the danger of going
+farther make them less zealous in their attempts; and for those that had
+run under the darts some of them were terrified by the good order and
+closeness of the enemies' ranks before they came to a close fight, and
+others were pricked with their spears and turned back again. At length
+they reproached one another for their cowardice, and retired without
+doing anything. This attack was made upon the first day of the month
+Panemus (Tamuz).
+
+So when the Jews were retreated the Romans brought their engines,
+although they had all the while stones thrown at them from the tower of
+Antonia, and were assaulted by fire and sword, and by all sorts of
+darts, which necessity afforded the Jews to make use of, for although
+these had great dependence on their own wall, and a contempt of the
+Roman engines, yet did they endeavor to hinder the Romans from bringing
+them. Now these Romans struggled hard, on the contrary, to bring them,
+as deeming that this zeal of the Jews was in order to avoid any
+impression to be made on the tower of Antonia, because its wall was but
+weak and its foundations rotten. However, that tower did not yield to
+the blows given it from the engines; yet did the Romans bear the
+impressions made by the enemies' darts which were perpetually cast at
+them, and did not give way to any of those dangers that came upon them
+from above, and so they brought their engines to bear. But then, as they
+were beneath the other, and were sadly wounded by the stones thrown down
+upon them, some of them threw their shields over their bodies, and
+partly with their hands and partly with their bodies and partly with
+crows they undermined its foundations, and with great pains they removed
+four of its stones. Then night came upon both sides, and put an end to
+this struggle for the present. However, that night the wall was so
+shaken by the battering rams in that place where John had used his
+stratagem before, and had undermined their banks, that the ground then
+gave way and the wall fell down suddenly.
+
+When this accident had unexpectedly happened, the minds of both parties
+were variously affected, for though one would expect that the Jews would
+be discouraged, because this fall of their wall was unexpected by them,
+and they had made no provision in that case, yet did they pull up their
+courage, because the tower of Antonia itself was still standing; as was
+the unexpected joy of the Romans at this fall of the wall soon quenched
+by the sight they had of another wall, which John and his party had
+built within it.
+
+Upon the fifth day of the month Panemus (Tamuz), twelve of those men
+that were on the forefront and kept watch upon the banks got together
+and called to them the standard-bearer of the Fifth legion, and two
+others of a troop of horsemen, and one trumpeter; these went without
+noise, about the ninth hour of the night, through the ruins, to the
+tower of Antonia; and when they had cut the throats of the first guards
+of the place, as they were asleep, they got possession of the wall and
+ordered the trumpeter to sound his trumpet. Upon which the rest of the
+guard got up on the sudden and ran away before anybody could see how
+many they were that were gotten up, for partly from the fear they were
+in and partly from the sound of the trumpet which they heard they
+imagined a great number of the enemy were gotten up. But as soon as
+Cæsar heard the signal he ordered the army to put on their armor
+immediately, and came thither with his commanders, and first of all
+ascended, as did the chosen men that were with him. And as the Jews were
+flying away to the Temple they fell into that mine which John had dug
+under the Roman banks. Then did the seditious of both the bodies of the
+Jewish army, as well that belonging to John as that belonging to Simon,
+drive them away; and indeed were no way wanting as to the highest degree
+of force and alacrity; for they esteemed themselves entirely ruined if
+once the Romans got into the Temple, as did the Romans look upon the
+same thing as the beginning of their entire conquest.
+
+So a terrible battle was fought at the entrance of the Temple, while the
+Romans were forcing their way, in order to get possession of that
+Temple, and the Jews were driving them back to the tower of Antonia; in
+which battle the darts were on both sides useless, as well as the
+spears, and both sides drew their swords and fought it out hand-to-hand.
+Now during this struggle the positions of the men were undistinguished
+on both sides, and they fought at random, the men being intermixed one
+with another and confounded, by reason of the narrowness of the place;
+while the noise that was made fell on the ear after an indistinct
+manner, because it was so very loud. Great slaughter was now made on
+both sides, and the combatants trod upon the bodies and the armor of
+those that were dead, and dashed them to pieces. Accordingly, to which
+side soever the battle inclined, those that had the advantage exhorted
+one another to go on, as did those that were beaten make great
+lamentation. But still there was no room for flight nor for pursuit, but
+disorderly revolutions and retreats, while the armies were intermixed
+one with another; but those that were in the first ranks were under the
+necessity of killing or being killed, without any way for escaping, for
+those on both sides that came behind forced those before them to go on,
+without leaving any space between the armies.
+
+At length the Jews' violent zeal was too hard for the Romans' skill, and
+the battle already inclined entirely that way; for the fight had lasted
+from the ninth hour of the night till the seventh hour of the day, while
+the Jews came on in crowds, and had the danger the Temple was in for
+their motive; the Romans having no more here than a part of their army,
+for those legions, on which the soldiers on that side depended, were not
+come up to them. So it was at present thought sufficient by the Romans
+to take possession of the tower of Antonia.
+
+In the mean time the rest of the Roman army had, in seven days' time,
+overthrown [some] foundations of the tower of Antonia, and had made a
+ready and broad way to the Temple. Then did the legions come near the
+first court and began to raise their banks. The one bank was over
+against the northwest corner of the inner temple; another was at that
+northern edifice which was between the two gates; and of the other two,
+one was at the western cloister of the outer court of the Temple; the
+other against its northern cloister. However these works were thus far
+advanced by the Romans, not without great pains and difficulty, and
+particularly by being obliged to bring their materials from the distance
+of a hundred furlongs.
+
+They had further difficulties also upon them; sometimes by their
+over-great security they were in that they should overcome the Jewish
+snares laid for them, and by that boldness of the Jews which their
+despair of escaping had inspired them withal.
+
+In the mean time the Jews were so distressed by the fights they had been
+in, as the war advanced higher and higher, and creeping up to the holy
+house itself, that they, as it were, cut off those limbs of their body
+which were infected, in order to prevent the distemper's spreading
+further, for they set the northwest cloister, which was joined to the
+tower of Antonia, on fire, and after that brake off about twenty cubits
+of that cloister, and thereby made a beginning in burning the sanctuary;
+two days after which, or on the twenty-fourth day of the forenamed month
+[Panemus or Tamuz], the Romans set fire to the cloister that joined to
+the other, when the fire went fifteen cubits farther. The Jews, in like
+manner, cut off its roof; nor did they entirely leave off what they were
+about till the tower of Antonia was parted from the Temple, even when it
+was in their power to have stopped the fire--nay, they lay still while
+the Temple was first set on fire, and deemed this spreading of the fire
+to be for their own advantage. However, the armies were still fighting
+one against another about the Temple, and the war was managed by
+continual sallies of particular parties against one another.
+
+Now of those that perished by famine in the city the number was
+prodigious, and the miseries they underwent were unspeakable, for if so
+much as the shadow of any kind of food did anywhere appear a war was
+commenced presently, and the dearest friends fell a-fighting one with
+another about it, snatching from each other the most miserable supports
+of life. Nor would men believe that those who were dying had no food,
+but the robbers would search them when they were expiring, lest anyone
+should have concealed food in his bosom and counterfeited dying; nay,
+these robbers gaped for want, and ran about stumbling and staggering
+along like mad dogs, and reeling against the doors of the houses like
+drunken men; they would also, in the great distress they were in, rush
+into the very same houses two or three times in one and the same day.
+Moreover, their hunger was so intolerable that it obliged them to chew
+everything, while they gathered such things as the most sordid animals
+would not touch, and endured to eat them; nor did they at length
+abstain from girdles and shoes; and the very leather which belonged to
+their shields they pulled off and gnawed; the very wisps of old hay
+became food to some; and some gathered up fibres and sold a very small
+weight of them for four Attic [drachmas].
+
+But why do I describe the shameless impudence that the famine brought on
+men in their eating inanimate things, while I am going to relate a
+matter of fact, the like to which no history relates, either among the
+Greeks or barbarians? It is horrible to speak of it and incredible when
+heard. I had indeed willingly omitted this calamity of ours, that I
+might not seem to deliver what is so portentous to posterity, but that I
+have innumerable witnesses to it in my own age; and besides, my country
+would have had little reason to thank me for suppressing the miseries
+that she underwent at this time.
+
+There was a certain woman that dwelt beyond Jordan, her name was Mary;
+her father was Eleazar, of the village Bethezob, which signifies "the
+House of Hyssop." She was eminent for her family and her wealth, and had
+fled away to Jerusalem with the rest of the multitude, and was with them
+besieged therein at this time. The other effects of this woman had been
+already seized upon, such I mean as she had brought with her out of
+Perea, and removed to the city. What she had treasured up besides, as
+also what food she had contrived to save, had been also carried off by
+the rapacious guards, who came every day running into her house for that
+purpose. This put the poor woman into a very great passion, and by the
+frequent reproaches and imprecations she cast at these rapacious
+villains she had provoked them to anger against her; but none of them,
+either out of the indignation she had raised against herself, or out of
+commiseration of her case, would take away her life; and if she found
+any food, she perceived her labors were for others, and not for herself;
+and it was now become impossible for her any way to find any more food,
+while the famine pierced through her very bowels and marrow, when also
+her passion was fired to a degree beyond the famine itself; nor did she
+consult with anything but with her passion and the necessity she was in.
+She then attempted a most unnatural thing; and snatching up her son, who
+was a child sucking at her breast, she said: "O thou miserable infant!
+for whom shall I preserve thee in this war, this famine, and this
+sedition? As to the war with the Romans, if they preserve our lives we
+must be slaves. This famine also will destroy us even before that
+slavery comes upon us. Yet are these seditious rogues more terrible than
+both the other. Come on: be thou my food, and be thou a fury to these
+seditious varlets, and a by-word to the world, which is all that is now
+wanting to complete the calamities of us Jews."
+
+As soon as she had said this she slew her son, and then roasted him, and
+eat the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed. Upon
+this the seditious came in presently, and smelling the horrid scent of
+this food, they threatened her that they would cut her throat
+immediately if she did not show them what food she had gotten ready. She
+replied that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them, and
+withal uncovered what was left of her son. Hereupon they were seized
+with a horror and amazement of mind, and stood astonished at the sight,
+when she said to them: "This is mine own son, and what hath been done
+was mine own doing! Come, eat of this food, for I have eaten of it
+myself! Do not you pretend to be either more tender than a woman or more
+compassionate than a mother; but if you be so scrupulous and do
+abominate this my sacrifice, as I have eaten the one half, let the rest
+be reserved for me also." After which those men went out trembling,
+being never so much affrighted at anything as they were at this, and
+with some difficulty they left the rest of that meat to the mother. Upon
+which the whole city was full of this horrid action immediately; and
+while everybody laid this miserable case before their own eyes, they
+trembled, as if this unheard-of action had been done by themselves. So
+those that were thus distressed by the famine were very desirous to die,
+and those already dead were esteemed happy, because they had not lived
+long enough either to hear or to see such miseries.
+
+This sad instance was quickly told to the Romans, some of whom could not
+believe it, and others pitied the distress which the Jews were under;
+but there were many of them who were hereby induced to a more bitter
+hatred than ordinary against our nation. But for Cæsar, he excused
+himself before God as to this matter, and said that he had proposed
+peace and liberty to the Jews, as well as an oblivion of all their
+former insolent practices; but that they, instead of concord, had chosen
+sedition; instead of peace, war; and before satiety and abundance, a
+famine. That they had begun with their own hands to burn down that
+Temple which we have preserved hitherto, and that therefore they
+deserved to eat such food as this was. That, however, this horrid action
+of eating an own child ought to be covered with the overthrow of their
+very country itself, and men ought not to leave such a city upon the
+habitable earth to be seen by the sun wherein mothers are thus fed,
+although such food be fitter for the fathers than for the mothers to eat
+of, since it is they that continue still in a state of war against us,
+after they have undergone such miseries as these. And at the same time
+that he said this, he reflected on the desperate condition these men
+must be in; nor could he expect that such men could be recovered to
+sobriety of mind after they had endured those very sufferings, for the
+avoiding whereof it only was probable they might have repented.
+
+And now two of the legions had completed their banks on the eighth day
+of the month Lous [Ab]. Whereupon Titus gave orders that the battering
+rams should be brought and set over against the western edifice of the
+inner temple; for before these were brought, the firmest of all the
+other engines had battered the wall for six days together without
+ceasing, without making any impression upon it; but the vast largeness
+and strong connection of the stones were superior to that engine and to
+the other battering rams also. Other Romans did indeed undermine the
+foundations of the northern gate, and after a world of pains removed the
+outermost stones, yet was the gate still upheld by the inner stones, and
+stood still unhurt; till the workmen, despairing of all such attempts by
+engines and crows, brought their ladders to the cloisters.
+
+Now the Jews did not interrupt them in so doing; but when they were
+gotten up, they fell upon them and fought with them; some of them they
+thrust down and threw them backward headlong; others of them they met
+and slew; they also beat many of those that went down the ladders again,
+and slew them with their swords before they could bring their shields
+to protect them; nay, some of the ladders they threw down from above
+when they were full of armed men. A great slaughter was made of the Jews
+also at the same time, while those that bare the ensigns fought hard for
+them, as deeming it a terrible thing, and what would tend to their great
+shame, if they permitted them to be stolen away. Yet did the Jews at
+length get possession of these engines, and destroyed those that had
+gone up the ladders, while the rest were so intimidated by what those
+suffered who were slain that they retired; although none of the Romans
+died without having done good service before his death. Of the
+seditious, those that had fought bravely in the former battles did the
+like now, as besides them did Eleazar, the brother's son of Simon the
+tyrant. But when Titus perceived that his endeavors to spare a foreign
+temple turned to the damage of his soldiers and made them be killed, he
+gave order to set the gates on fire.
+
+But then, on the next day, Titus commanded part of his army to quench
+the fire and to make a road for the more easy marching up of the
+legions, while he himself gathered the commanders together. Titus
+proposed to these that they should give him their advice what should be
+done about the holy house. Now some of these thought it would be the
+best way to act according to the rules of war [and demolish it], because
+the Jews would never leave off rebelling while that house was standing;
+at which house it was that they used to get all together. Others of them
+were of opinion that in case the Jews would leave it, and none of them
+would lay their arms up in it, he might save it; but that in case they
+got upon it and fought any more, he might burn it; because it must then
+be looked upon not as a holy house, but as a citadel; and that the
+impiety of burning it would then belong to those that forced this to be
+done, and not to them.
+
+But Titus said that "although the Jews should get upon that holy house
+and fight us thence, yet ought we not to revenge ourselves on things
+that are inanimate, instead of the men themselves"? and that he was not
+in any case for burning down so vast a work as that was, because this
+would be a mischief to the Romans themselves, as it would be an
+ornament to their government while it continued. So Fronto and
+Alexander and Cerealis grew bold upon that declaration, and agreed to
+the opinion of Titus. Then was this assembly dissolved, when Titus had
+given orders to the commanders that the rest of their forces should lie
+still; but that they should make use of such as were most courageous in
+this attack. So he commanded that the chosen men that were taken out of
+the cohorts should make their way through the ruins and quench the fire.
+
+Now it is true that on this day the Jews were so weary and under such
+consternation that they refrained from any attacks. But on the next day
+they gathered their whole force together, and ran upon those that
+guarded the outward court of the Temple very boldly, through the east
+gate, and this about the second hour of the day. These guards received
+their attack with great bravery, and by covering themselves with their
+shields before, as if it were with a wall, drew their squadron close
+together; yet was it evident that they could not abide there very long,
+but would be overborne by the multitude of those that sallied out upon
+them, and by the heat of their passion. However, Cæsar seeing, from the
+tower of Antonia, that this squadron was likely to give way, sent some
+chosen horsemen to support them. Hereupon the Jews found themselves not
+able to sustain their onset, and, upon the slaughter of those in the
+forefront, many of the rest were put to flight. But as the Romans were
+going off, the Jews turned upon them and fought them; and as those
+Romans came back upon them, they retreated again, until about the fifth
+hour of the day they were overborne, and shut themselves up in the inner
+[court of the] Temple.
+
+So Titus retired into the tower of Antonia and resolved to storm the
+Temple the next day, early in the morning, with his whole army, and to
+encamp round about the holy house. But as for that house, God had, for
+certain, long ago doomed it to the fire; and now that fatal day was
+come, according to the revolution of ages. It was the tenth day of the
+month Lous [Ab] upon which it was formerly burned by the king of
+Babylon; although these flames took their rise from the Jews themselves,
+and were occasioned by them, for upon Titus' retiring the seditious lay
+still for a little while, and then attacked the Romans again when those
+that guarded the holy house fought with those that quenched the fire
+that was burning the inner [court of the] Temple; but these Romans put
+the Jews to flight and proceeded as far as the holy house itself. At
+which time one of the soldiers, without staying for any orders and
+without any concern or dread upon him at so great an undertaking and
+being hurried on by a certain divine fury, snatched somewhat out of the
+materials that were on fire, and being lifted up by another soldier he
+set fire to a golden window through which there was a passage to the
+rooms that were round about the holy house on the north side of it.
+
+As the flames went upward the Jews made a great clamor such as so mighty
+an affliction required and ran together to prevent it; and now they
+spared not their lives any longer nor suffered anything to restrain
+their force, since that holy house was perishing for whose sake it was
+that they kept such a guard about it.
+
+And now Cæsar was no way able to restrain the enthusiastic fury of the
+soldiers, and the fire proceeded on more and more. He went into the holy
+place of the Temple with his commanders and saw it, with what was in it,
+which he found to be far superior to what the relations of foreigners
+contained, and not inferior to what we ourselves boasted of and believed
+about it. But as the flame had not as yet reached to its inward parts,
+but was still consuming the rooms that were about the holy house, and
+Titus supposing what the fact was, that the house itself might yet be
+saved, came in haste and endeavored to persuade the soldiers to quench
+the fire, and gave order to Liberalius the centurion, and one of those
+spearmen that were about him, to beat the soldiers that were refractory
+with their staves and to restrain them; yet were their passions too hard
+for the regards they had for Cæsar, and the dread they had of him who
+forbade them, as was their hatred of the Jews, and a certain vehement
+inclination to fight them, too hard for them also. Moreover, the hope of
+plunder induced many to go on, as having this opinion, that all the
+places within were full of money, and as seeing that all round about it
+was made of gold. And besides, one of those that went into the place
+prevented Cæsar, when he ran so hastily out to restrain the soldiers,
+and threw the fire upon the hinges of the gate, in the dark; whereby the
+flame burst out from within the holy house itself immediately, when the
+commanders retired, and Cæsar with them, and when nobody any longer
+forbade those that were without to set fire to it. And thus was the holy
+house burned down without Cæsar's approbation.
+
+While the holy house was on fire everything was plundered that came to
+hand, and ten thousand of those that were caught were slain; nor was
+there a commiseration of any age, or any reverence of gravity, but
+children, and old men, and profane persons, and priests were all slain
+in the same manner; so that this war went round all sorts of men, and
+brought them to destruction, and as well those that made supplication
+for their lives as those that defended themselves by fighting. The flame
+was also carried a long way, and made an echo, together with the groans
+of those that were slain; and because this hill was high, and the works
+at the Temple were very great, one would have thought the whole city had
+been on fire. Nor can one imagine anything either greater or more
+terrible than this noise, for there was at once a shout of the Roman
+legions, who were marching all together, and a sad clamor of the
+seditious, who were now surrounded with fire and sword.
+
+The people also that were left above were beaten back upon the enemy,
+and under a great consternation, and made sad moans at the calamity they
+were under; the multitude also that was in the city joined in this
+outcry with those that were upon the hill. And besides, many of those
+that were worn away by the famine and their mouths almost closed, when
+they saw the fire of the holy house they exerted their utmost strength
+and brake out into groans and outcries again. Perea did also return the
+echo, as well as the mountains round about [the city], and augmented the
+force of the entire noise. Yet was the misery itself more terrible than
+this disorder, for one would have thought that the hill itself, on which
+the Temple stood, was seething hot, as full of fire on every part of it,
+that the blood was larger in quantity than the fire, and those that were
+slain more in number than those that slew them, for the ground did
+nowhere appear visible for the dead bodies that lay on it; but the
+soldiers went over heaps of those bodies, as they ran upon such as fled
+from them.
+
+And now it was that the multitude of the robbers were thrust out [of the
+inner court of the Temple] by the Romans, and had much ado to get into
+the outward court, and from thence into the city, while the remainder of
+the populace fled into the cloister of that outer court. As for the
+priests, some of them plucked up from the holy house the spikes that
+were upon it, with their bases, which were made of lead, and shot them
+at the Romans instead of darts. But then as they gained nothing by so
+doing, and as the fire burst out upon them, they retired to the wall
+that was eight cubits broad, and there they tarried.
+
+And now the Romans, judging that it was in vain to spare what was round
+about the holy house, burned all those places, as also the remains of
+the cloisters and the gates, two excepted: the one on the east side and
+the other on the south; both which, however, they burned afterward. They
+also burned down the treasury chambers, in which was an immense quantity
+of money and an immense number of garments and other precious goods
+there reposited; and, to speak all in a few words, there it was that the
+entire riches of the Jews were heaped up together, while the rich people
+had there built themselves chambers (to contain such furniture). The
+soldiers also came to the rest of the cloisters that were in the outer
+(court of the) Temple, whither the women and children, and a great mixed
+multitude of the people, fled, in number about six thousand. But before
+Cæsar had determined anything about these people, or given the
+commanders any orders relating to them, the soldiers were in such a rage
+that they set that cloister on fire; by which means it came to pass that
+some of these were destroyed by throwing themselves down headlong, and
+some were burned in the cloisters themselves. Nor did any one of them
+escape with his life.
+
+And now the Romans, upon the flight of the seditious into the city, and
+upon the burning of the holy house itself and of all the buildings round
+about it, brought their ensigns to the Temple and set them over against
+its eastern gate; and there did they offer sacrifices to them, and there
+did they make Titus imperator with the greatest acclamations of joy.
+And now all the soldiers had such vast quantities of the spoils which
+they had gotten by plunder that in Syria a pound weight of gold was sold
+for half its former value.
+
+But as for the tyrants themselves and those that were with them, when
+they found that they were encompassed on every side, and, as it were,
+walled round, without any method of escaping, they desired to treat with
+Titus by word of mouth. Accordingly, such was the kindness of his nature
+and his desire of preserving the city from destruction, joined to the
+advice of his friends, who now thought the robbers were come to a
+temper, that he placed himself on the western side of the outer (court
+of the) Temple, for there were gates on that side above the Xystus, and
+a bridge that connected the upper city to the Temple. This bridge it was
+that lay between the tyrants and Cæsar, and parted them; while the
+multitude stood on each side; those of the Jewish nation about Simon and
+John, with great hopes of pardon; and the Romans about Cæsar, in great
+expectation how Titus would receive their supplication.
+
+So Titus charged his soldiers to restrain their rage and to let their
+darts alone, and appointed an interpreter between them, which was a sign
+that he was the conqueror, and first began the discourse, and said: "I
+hope you, sirs, are now satiated with the miseries of your country, who
+have not had any just notions either of our great power or of your own
+great weakness, but have, like madmen, after a violent and inconsiderate
+manner, made such attempts as have brought your people, your city, and
+your holy house to destruction. You have been the men that have never
+left off rebelling since Pompey first conquered you, and have since that
+time made open war with the Romans.... And now, vile wretches, do you
+desire to treat with me by word of mouth? To what purpose is it that you
+would save such a holy house as this was which is now destroyed? What
+preservation can you now desire after the destruction of your Temple?
+Yet do you stand still at this very time in your armor; nor can you
+bring yourselves so much as to pretend to be supplicants even in this
+your utmost extremity. O miserable creatures! what is it you depend on?
+Are not your people dead? is not your holy house gone? is not your city
+in my power? and are not your own very lives in my hands? And do you
+still deem it a part of valor to die? However, I will not imitate your
+madness. If you throw down your arms and deliver up your bodies to me, I
+grant you your lives; and I will act like a mild master of a family;
+what cannot be healed shall be punished, and the rest I will preserve
+for my own use."
+
+To that offer of Titus they made this reply: That they could not accept
+of it, because they had sworn never to do so; but they desired they
+might have leave to go through the wall that had been made about them,
+with their wives and children; for that they would go into the desert
+and leave the city to him.
+
+At this Titus had great indignation, that when they were in the case of
+men already taken captives, they should pretend to make their own terms
+with him, as if they had been conquerors. So he ordered this
+proclamation to be made to them: That they should no more come out to
+him as deserters, nor hope for any further security, for that he would
+henceforth spare nobody, but fight them with his whole army; and that
+they must save themselves as well as they could, for that he would from
+henceforth treat them according to the laws of war. So he gave orders to
+the soldiers both to burn and to plunder the city; who did nothing
+indeed that day; but on the next day they set fire to the repository of
+the archives, to Acra, to the council house, and to the place called
+Ophlas; at which time the fire proceeded as far as the palace of Queen
+Helena, which was in the middle of Acra; the lanes also were burned
+down, as were also those houses that were full of the dead bodies of
+such as were destroyed by famine.
+
+On the same day it was that the sons and brethren of Izates the King,
+together with many others of the eminent men of the populace, got
+together there, and besought Cæsar to give them his right hand for their
+security. Upon which, though he was very angry at all that were now
+remaining, yet did he not lay aside his old moderation, but received
+these men. At that time, indeed, he kept them all in custody, but still
+bound the King's sons and kinsmen, and led them with him to Rome, in
+order to make them hostages for their country's fidelity to the Romans.
+
+And now the seditious rushed into the royal palace, into which many had
+put their effects, because it was so strong, and drove the Romans away
+from it. They also slew all the people that had crowded into it, who
+were in number about eight thousand four hundred, and plundered them of
+what they had.
+
+On the next day the Romans drove the robbers out of the lower city and
+set all on fire as far as Siloam. These soldiers were indeed glad to see
+the city destroyed. But they missed the plunder, because the seditious
+had carried off all their effects, and were retired into the upper city,
+for they did not yet at all repent of the mischiefs they had done, but
+were insolent, as if they had done well; for, as they saw the city on
+fire, they appeared cheerful, and put on joyful countenances, in
+expectation, as they said, of death to end their miseries. Accordingly,
+as the people were now slain, the holy house was burned down, and the
+city was on fire, there was nothing further left for the enemy to do.
+Yet did not Josephus grow weary, even in this utmost extremity, to beg
+of them to spare what was left of the city; he spake largely to them
+about their barbarity and impiety, and gave them his advice in order to
+their escape, though he gained nothing thereby more than to be laughed
+at by them; and as they could not think of surrendering themselves up,
+because of the oath they had taken, nor were strong enough to fight with
+the Romans any longer upon the square, as being surrounded on all sides,
+and a kind of prisoners already, yet were they so accustomed to kill
+people that they could not restrain their right hands from acting
+accordingly.
+
+So they dispersed themselves before the city and laid themselves in
+ambush among its ruins, to catch those that attempted to desert to the
+Romans. Accordingly, many such deserters were caught by them and were
+all slain, for these were too weak, by reason of their want of food, to
+fly away from them; so their dead bodies were thrown to the dogs. Now
+every other sort of death was thought more tolerable than the famine,
+insomuch that, though the Jews despaired now of mercy, yet would they
+fly to the Romans, and would themselves, even of their own accord, fall
+among the murderous rebels also. Nor was there any place in the city
+that had no dead bodies in it, but what was entirely covered with those
+that were killed either by the famine or the rebellion; and all was full
+of the dead bodies of such as had perished, either by that sedition or
+by the famine.
+
+So now the last hope which supported the tyrants and that crew of
+robbers who were with them was in the caves and caverns underground;
+whither, if they could once fly, they did not expect to be searched for;
+but endeavored that, after the whole city should be destroyed and the
+Romans gone away, they might come out again and escape from them. This
+was no better than a dream of theirs, for they were not able to lie hid
+either from God or from the Romans. However, they depended on these
+underground subterfuges, and set more places on fire than did the Romans
+themselves; and those that fled out of their houses thus set on fire
+into the ditches they killed without mercy, and pillaged them also; and
+if they discovered food belonging to anyone they seized upon it and
+swallowed it down, together with their blood also--nay, they were now
+come to fight one with another about their plunder; and I cannot but
+think that, had not their destruction prevented it, their barbarity
+would have made them taste of even the dead bodies themselves.
+
+Now when Cæsar perceived that the upper city was so steep that it could
+not possibly be taken without raising banks against it, he distributed
+the several parts of that work among his army, and this on the twentieth
+day of the month Lous [Ab].
+
+It was at this time that the commanders of the Idumeans got together
+privately and took counsel about surrendering up themselves to the
+Romans. Accordingly, they sent five men to Titus and entreated him to
+give them his right hand for their security. So Titus, thinking that the
+tyrants would yield, if the Idumeans, upon whom a great part of the war
+depended, were once withdrawn from them, after some reluctancy and delay
+complied with them, and gave them security for their lives, and sent the
+five men back. But as these Idumeans were preparing to march out, Simon
+perceived it, and immediately slew the five men that had gone to Titus,
+and took their commanders and put them in prison, of whom the most
+eminent was Jacob, the son of Sosas; but as for the multitude of the
+Idumeans, who did not at all know what to do, now their commanders were
+taken from them, he had them watched, and secured the walls by a more
+numerous garrison. Yet could not that garrison resist those that were
+deserting, for although a great number of them were slain, yet were the
+deserters many more in number. These were all received by the Romans,
+because Titus himself grew negligent as to his former orders for killing
+them, and because the very soldiers grew weary of killing them, and
+because they hoped to get some money by sparing them, for they left only
+the populace, and sold the rest of the multitude, with their wives and
+children, and every one of them at a very low price, and that because
+such as were sold were very many, and the buyers were few; and although
+Titus had made proclamation beforehand that no deserter should come
+alone by himself, that so they might bring out their families with them,
+yet did he receive such as these also.
+
+However, he set over them such as were to distinguish some from others,
+in order to see if any of them deserved to be punished. And indeed the
+number of those that were sold was immense; but of the populace above
+forty thousand were saved, whom Cæsar let go whither every one of them
+pleased.
+
+But now at this time it was that one of the priests, the son of
+Thebuthus, whose name was Jesus, upon his having security given him, by
+the oath of Cæsar, that he should be preserved upon condition that he
+should deliver to him certain of the precious things that had been
+deposited in the Temple, came out of it and delivered him from the wall
+of the holy house two candlesticks, like to those that lay in the holy
+house, with tables, and cisterns, and vials, all made of solid gold and
+very heavy. He also delivered to him the veils and the garments, with
+the precious stones, and a great number of other precious vessels that
+belonged to their sacred worship.
+
+The treasurer of the Temple also, whose name was Phineas, was seized on,
+and showed Titus the coats and girdles of the priests, with a great
+quantity of purple and scarlet, which were there deposited for the uses
+of the veil, as also a great deal of cinnamon and cassia, with a large
+quantity of other sweet spices, which used to be mixed together and
+offered as incense to God every day. A great many other treasures were
+also delivered to him, with sacred ornaments of the Temple not a few,
+which things thus delivered to Titus obtained of him for this man the
+same pardon that he had allowed to such as deserted of their own accord.
+
+And now were the banks finished on the seventh day of the month Gorpieus
+(Elul) in eighteen days' time, when the Romans brought their machines
+against the wall. But for the seditious, some of them, as despairing of
+saving the city, retired from the wall to the citadel. Others of them
+went down into the subterranean vaults, though still a great many of
+them defended themselves against those that brought the engines for the
+battery; yet did the Romans overcome them by their number and by their
+strength; and, what was the principal thing of all, by going cheerfully
+about their work, while the Jews were quite dejected and become weak.
+Now as soon as a part of the wall was battered down, and certain of the
+towers yielded to the impression of the battering rams, those that
+opposed themselves fled away, and such a terror fell upon the tyrants as
+was much greater than the occasion required, for before the enemy got
+over the breach they were quite stunned, and were immediately for flying
+away. And now one might see these men, who had hitherto been so insolent
+and arrogant in their wicked practices, to be cast down and to tremble,
+insomuch that it would pity one's heart to observe the change that was
+made in those vile persons.
+
+Accordingly, they ran with great violence upon the Roman wall that
+encompassed them, in order to force away those that guarded it, and to
+break through it and get away. But when they saw that those who had
+formerly been faithful to them had gone away--as indeed they were fled
+whithersoever the great distress they were in persuaded them to flee--as
+also when those that came running before the rest told them that the
+western wall was entirely overthrown, while others said the Romans were
+gotten in, and others that they were near and looking out for them,
+which were only the dictates of their fear, which imposed upon their
+sight, they fell upon their face and greatly lamented their own mad
+conduct; and their nerves were so terribly loosed that they could not
+flee away. And here one may chiefly reflect on the power of God
+exercised upon these wicked wretches, and on the good fortune of the
+Romans, for these tyrants did now wholly deprive themselves of the
+security they had in their own power, and came down from those very
+towers of their own accord, wherein they could have never been taken by
+force, nor indeed by any other way than by famine. And thus did the
+Romans, when they had taken such great pains about weaker walls, get by
+good fortune what they could never have gotten by their engines, for
+three of these towers were too strong for all mechanical engines
+whatsoever.
+
+So they now left these towers of themselves, or rather they were ejected
+out of them by God himself, and fled immediately to that valley which
+was under Siloam, where they again recovered themselves out of the dread
+they were in for a while, and ran violently against that part of the
+Roman wall which lay on that side; but as their courage was too much
+depressed to make their attacks with sufficient force, and their power
+was now broken with fear and affliction, they were repulsed by the
+guards, and dispersing themselves at distances from each other, went
+down into the subterranean caverns.
+
+So the Romans being now become masters of the walls, they both placed
+their ensigns upon the towers and made joyful acclamations for the
+victory they had gained, as having found the end of this war much
+lighter than its beginning, for when they had gotten upon the last wall,
+without any bloodshed, they could hardly believe what they found to be
+true; but seeing nobody to oppose them, they stood in doubt what such an
+unusual solitude could mean. But when they went in numbers into the
+lanes of the city with their swords drawn they slew those whom they
+overtook without mercy, and set fire to the houses whither the Jews were
+fled, and burned every soul in them, and laid waste a great many of the
+rest; and when they were come to the houses to plunder them they found
+in them entire families of dead men; and the upper rooms full of
+corpses, that is, of such as died by the famine. They stood in horror at
+this sight, and went out without touching anything.
+
+Although they had this commiseration for such as were destroyed in that
+manner, yet had they not the same for those that were still alive, but
+they ran every one through whom they met, and obstructed the very lanes
+with their dead bodies, and made the whole city run with blood, to such
+a degree indeed that the fire of many of the houses was quenched with
+these men's blood. And truly so it happened, that though the slayers
+left off at the evening, yet did the fire greatly prevail in the night;
+and as all was burning, came that eighth day of the month Gorpieus
+[Elul] upon Jerusalem, a city that had been liable to so many miseries
+during this siege, that, had it always enjoyed as much happiness from
+its first foundation, it would certainly have been the envy of the
+world. Nor did it on any other account so much deserve these sore
+misfortunes as by producing such a generation of men as were the
+occasion of this its overthrow.
+
+Now when Titus was come into this (upper) city, he admired not only some
+other places of strength in it, but particularly those strong towers
+which the tyrants in their mad conduct had relinquished, for when he saw
+their solid altitude, and the largeness of their several stones, and the
+exactness of their joints, as also how great was their breadth and how
+extensive their length, he expressed himself after the manner following:
+"We have certainly had God for our assistant in this war, and it was no
+other than God who ejected the Jews out of these fortifications, for
+what could the hands of men or any machines do toward overthrowing these
+towers?" At which time he had many such discourses to his friends; he
+also let such go free as had been bound by the tyrants, and were left in
+the prisons. To conclude, when he entirely demolished the rest of the
+city and overthrew its walls, he left these towers as a monument of his
+good fortune, which had proved his auxiliaries, and enabled him to take
+what could not otherwise have been taken by him.
+
+And now, since his soldiers were already quite tired with killing men,
+and yet there appeared to be a vast multitude still remaining alive,
+Cæsar gave orders that they should kill none but those that were in arms
+and opposed them, but should take the rest alive. But, together with
+those whom they had orders to slay, they slew the aged and the infirm;
+but for those that were in their flourishing age and who might be
+useful to them they drove them together into the Temple and shut them up
+within the walls of the court of the women, over which Cæsar set one of
+his freedmen, as also Fronto, one of his own friends, which last was to
+determine everyone's fate, according to his merits.
+
+So this Fronto slew all those that had been seditious and robbers, who
+were impeached one by another; but of the young men he chose out the
+tallest and most beautiful and reserved them for the triumph, and as for
+the rest of the multitude that were above seventeen years old he put
+them into bonds and sent them to the Egyptian mines. Titus also sent a
+great number into the provinces as a present to them, that they might be
+destroyed upon their theatres by the sword and by the wild beasts; but
+those that were under seventeen years of age were sold for slaves. Now
+during the days wherein Fronto was distinguishing these men there
+perished, for want of food, eleven thousand, some of whom did not taste
+any food, through the hatred their guards bore to them, and others would
+not take in any when it was given them. The multitude also was so very
+great that they were in want even of corn for their sustenance.
+
+Now the number of those that were carried captive during this whole war
+was collected to be ninety-seven thousand; as was the number of those
+that perished during the whole siege eleven hundred thousand, the
+greater part of whom was indeed of the same nation [with the citizens of
+Jerusalem], but not belonging to the city itself. They were come up from
+all the country to the feast of unleavened bread and were on a sudden
+shut up by an army, which, at the very first, occasioned so great a
+straitness among them that there came a pestilential destruction upon
+them, and soon afterward such a famine as destroyed them more suddenly.
+
+That this city could contain so many people in it is manifest by that
+number of them which was taken under Cestius, who, being desirous of
+informing Nero of the power of the city, who otherwise was disposed to
+contemn that nation, entreated the high-priests, if the thing were
+possible, to take the number of their whole multitude. So these
+high-priests, upon the coming of that feast which is called the
+Passover, when they slay their sacrifices, from the ninth hour till the
+eleventh, but so that a company not less than ten belong to every
+sacrifice (for it is not lawful for them to feast singly by themselves),
+and many of them were twenty in a company, found the number of
+sacrifices was two hundred and fifty-six thousand five hundred, which,
+upon the allowance of no more than ten that feast together, amounts to
+two millions seven hundred thousand and two hundred persons that were
+pure and holy; for as to those that have the leprosy, or the
+gonorrhoea, or women that have their monthly courses, or such as are
+otherwise polluted, it is not lawful for them to be partakers of this
+sacrifice; nor indeed for any foreigners neither, who come hither to
+worship.
+
+Now this vast multitude is indeed collected out of remote places, but
+the entire nation was now shut up by fate as in prison, and the Roman
+army encompassed the city when it was crowded with inhabitants.
+Accordingly, the multitude of those that therein perished exceeded all
+the destructions that either men or God ever brought upon the world;
+for, to speak only of what was publicly known, the Romans slew some of
+them, some they carried captives, and others they made a search for
+underground, and when they found where they were they broke up the
+ground and slew all they met with. There were also found slain there
+above two thousand persons, partly by their own hands and partly by one
+another, but chiefly destroyed by the famine; but then the ill-savor of
+the dead bodies was most offensive to those that lighted upon them,
+insomuch that some were obliged to get away immediately, while others
+were so greedy of gain that they would go in among the dead bodies that
+lay on heaps and tread upon them, for a great deal of treasure was found
+in these caverns, and the hope of gain made every way of getting it to
+be esteemed lawful.
+
+Many also of those that had been put in prison by the tyrants were now
+brought out, for they did not leave off their barbarous cruelty at the
+very last; yet did God avenge himself upon upon them both in a manner
+agreeable to justice. As for John, he wanted food, together with his
+brethren, in these caverns, and begged that the Romans would now give
+him their right hand for his security, which he had often proudly
+rejected before; but for Simon, he struggled hard with the distress he
+was in, till he was forced to surrender himself. So he was reserved for
+the triumph, and to be then slain, as was John condemned to perpetual
+imprisonment. And now the Romans set fire to the extreme parts of the
+city, and burned them down, and entirely demolished its walls.
+
+And thus was Jerusalem taken, in the second year of the reign of
+Vespasian, on the eighth day of the month Gorpieus (Elul). It had been
+taken five times before, though this was the second time of its
+desolation, for Shishak, the king of Egypt, and after him Antiochus, and
+after him Pompey, and after them Sosius and Herod, took the city, but
+still preserved it; but before all these the king of Babylon conquered
+it and made it desolate, one thousand four hundred and sixty-eight years
+and six months after it was built.
+
+But he who first built it was a potent man among the Canaanites, and is
+in our own tongue called (Melchisedek), the righteous king, for such he
+really was. On which account he was (there) the first priest of God, and
+first built a temple (there), and called the city Jerusalem, which was
+formerly called Salem. However, David, the king of the Jews, ejected the
+Canaanites, and settled his own people therein.
+
+It was demolished entirely by the Babylonians, four hundred and
+seventy-seven years and six months after him. And from King David, who
+was the first of the Jews who reigned therein, to this destruction under
+Titus, were one thousand one hundred and seventy-nine years; but from
+its first building till this last destruction were two thousand one
+hundred and seventy-seven years; yet hath not its great antiquity, nor
+its vast riches, nor the diffusion of its nation over all the habitable
+earth, nor the greatness of the veneration paid to it on a religious
+account, been sufficient to preserve it from being destroyed. And thus
+ended the siege of Jerusalem.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[38] Not to be confounded with John of Gischala, leader of one of the
+three factions.
+
+[39] John of Gischala.
+
+[40] Probably that of John Hyrcanus I, a Maccabæan, prince of Judea,
+B.C. 135-105.
+
+
+
+
+DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII
+
+A.D. 79
+
+PLINY             LYTTON
+
+     Among the historic calamities of the world none has gathered about
+     itself more of human interest, whether in connection with the study
+     of ancient cities and customs or in the calling forth of sympathy
+     through the magical treatment of imaginative literature, than the
+     destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum by the eruption of Mount
+     Vesuvius, which occurred at the beginning of the reign of Titus.
+     The eruption was accompanied by an earthquake, and the combination
+     of natural commotions caused the complete ruin and burial of the
+     two cities.
+
+     One of the most vivid descriptions of the catastrophe is that given
+     in the account of Dion Cassius. Among those who perished in the
+     disaster was the elder Pliny, the celebrated naturalist; and the
+     most famous narrative of the eruption is that here given of Pliny
+     the Younger, nephew of the other, in the two letters which he wrote
+     to Tacitus in order to supply that historian with accurate details.
+
+     Lytton's well-known _Last Days of Pompeii_, although a work of
+     imagination, deals with this subject in a manner which almost
+     simulates the realistic tale of an actual observer; and his
+     account, linking the calamity itself with the revelations of the
+     earlier explorers of the buried city, after so many centuries had
+     passed, well deserves a place in connection with the story of the
+     older and more circumstantial writer.
+
+     One of the earliest important discoveries at Pompeii, made in 1771,
+     was that of the "Villa of Diomedes," named from the tomb of Marcus
+     Arrius Diomedes across the street. Since then every decade has seen
+     some progress in the work of excavation, and among other buildings
+     brought to light are the "House of Pansa," the "House of the Tragic
+     Poet," the "House of Sallustius," the "Castor and Pollux," a double
+     house, and the "House of the Vettii"--the last, a recent discovery,
+     being left with all its furnishings as found. Many interesting
+     objects have been discovered lately, and a complete picture can now
+     be presented of a small Italian city and its life in the first
+     century A.D. Valuable finds are wall paintings, illustrative of
+     decorative art; floor mosaics, etc., which may be seen in the Royal
+     Museum of Naples. Another of the most recent discoveries is that of
+     the temple of Venus Pompeiana in the southern corner of the city;
+     others are the remains of persons who, carrying valuables, perished
+     in a wayside inn where they had sought refuge. At the present time
+     about one-half of the city has been excavated, and the circuit of
+     the walls has been found to be about two miles. The uncovering of
+     the whole city will probably require many years. Excavations now
+     being made in the adjacent country promise results as interesting
+     as those already obtained within the city limits.
+
+
+PLINY
+
+Your request that I would send you an account of my uncle's death, in
+order to transmit a more exact relation of it to posterity, deserves my
+acknowledgments; for, if this accident shall be celebrated by your pen,
+the glory of it, I am well assured, will be rendered forever
+illustrious. And notwithstanding he perished by a misfortune, which as
+it involved at the same time a most beautiful country in ruins, and
+destroyed so many populous cities, seems to promise him an everlasting
+remembrance; notwithstanding he has himself composed many and lasting
+works; yet I am persuaded, the mentioning of him in your immortal
+writings will greatly contribute to render his name immortal.
+
+Happy I esteem those to be to whom by provision of the gods has been
+granted the ability either to do such actions as are worthy of being
+related or to relate them in a manner worthy of being read; but
+peculiarly happy are they who are blessed with both these uncommon
+talents: in the number of which my uncle, as his own writings and your
+history will evidently prove, may justly be ranked. It is with extreme
+willingness, therefore, that I execute your commands; and should indeed
+have claimed the task if you had not enjoined it. He was at that time
+with the fleet under his command at Misenum.
+
+On the 24th of August, about one in the afternoon, my mother desired him
+to observe a cloud which appeared of a very unusual size and shape. He
+had just taken a turn in the sun,[41] and, after bathing himself in cold
+water, and making a light luncheon, gone back to his books: he
+immediately arose and went out upon a rising ground from whence he might
+get a better sight of this very uncommon appearance. A cloud, from which
+mountain was uncertain at this distance (but it was found afterward to
+come from Mount Vesuvius[42]) was ascending, the appearance of which I
+cannot give you a more exact description of than by likening it to that
+of a pine tree, for it shot up to a great height in the form of a very
+tall trunk, which spread itself out at the top into a sort of branches;
+occasioned, I imagine, either by a sudden gust of air that impelled it,
+the force of which decreased as it advanced upward, or the cloud itself,
+being pressed back again by its own weight, expanded in the manner I
+have mentioned; it appeared sometimes bright and sometimes dark and
+spotted, according as it was either more or less impregnated with earth
+and cinders.
+
+This phenomenon seemed to a man of such learning and research as my
+uncle extraordinary and worth further looking into. He ordered a light
+vessel to be got ready, and gave me leave, if I liked, to accompany him.
+I said I had rather go on with my work; and it so happened he had
+himself given me something to write out. As he was coming out of the
+house, he received a note from Rectina, the wife of Bassus, who was in
+the utmost alarm at the imminent danger which threatened her; for her
+villa lying at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, there was no way of escape
+but by sea; she earnestly entreated him therefore to come to her
+assistance.
+
+He accordingly changed his first intention, and what he had begun from a
+philosophical, he now carried out in a noble and generous, spirit. He
+ordered the galleys to put to sea, and went himself on board with an
+intention of assisting not only Rectina, but the several other towns
+which lay thickly strewn along that beautiful coast. Hastening then to
+the place from whence others fled with the utmost terror, he steered his
+course direct to the point of danger, and with so much calmness and
+presence of mind as to be able to make and dictate his observations upon
+the motion and all the phenomena of that dreadful scene. He was now so
+close to the mountain that the cinders, which grew thicker and hotter
+the nearer he approached, fell into the ships, together with
+pumice-stones and black pieces of burning rock: they were in danger too
+not only of being aground by the sudden retreat of the sea, but also
+from the vast fragments which rolled down from the mountain and
+obstructed all the shore. Here he stopped to consider whether he should
+turn back again; to which the pilot advising him, "Fortune," said he,
+"favors the brave; steer to where Pomponianus is." Pomponianus was then
+at Stabiæ, separated by a bay, which the sea, after several insensible
+windings, forms with the shore. He had already sent his baggage on
+board; for though he was not at that time in actual danger, yet being
+within sight of it, and indeed extremely near, if it should in the least
+increase, he was determined to put to sea as soon as the wind, which was
+blowing dead in-shore, should go down. It was favorable, however, for
+carrying my uncle to Pomponianus, whom he found in the greatest
+consternation: he embraced him tenderly, encouraging and urging him to
+keep up his spirits, and, the more effectually to soothe his fears by
+seeming unconcerned himself, ordered a bath to be got ready, and then,
+after having bathed, sat down to supper with great cheerfulness, or at
+least--what is just as heroic--with every appearance of it.
+
+Meanwhile broad flames shone out in several places from Mount Vesuvius,
+which the darkness of the night contributed to render still brighter and
+clearer. But my uncle, in order to soothe the apprehensions of his
+friend, assured him it was only the burning of the villages, which the
+country people had abandoned to the flames. After this he retired to
+rest, and it is most certain he was so little disquieted as to fall into
+a sound sleep, for his breathing, which, on account of his corpulence,
+was rather heavy and sonorous, was heard by the attendants outside.
+
+The court which led to his apartment being now almost filled with stones
+and ashes, if he had continued there any time longer, it would have been
+impossible for him to have made his way out. So he was awoke and got up,
+and went to Pomponianus and the rest of his company, who were feeling
+too anxious to think of going to bed. They consulted together whether it
+would be most prudent to trust to the houses--which now rocked from side
+to side with frequent and violent concussions as though shaken from
+their very foundations--or fly to the open fields, where the calcined
+stones and cinders, though light indeed, yet fell in large showers and
+threatened destruction. In this choice of dangers they resolved for the
+fields: a resolution which, while the rest of the company were hurried
+into by their fears, my uncle embraced upon cool and deliberate
+consideration. They went out then, having pillows tied upon their heads
+with napkins; and this was their whole defence against the storm of
+stones that fell round them.
+
+It was now day everywhere else, but _there_ a deeper darkness prevailed
+than in the thickest night; which, however, was in some degree
+alleviated by torches and other lights of various kinds. They thought
+proper to go farther down upon the shore to see if they might safely put
+out to sea, but found the waves still running extremely high and
+boisterous. There my uncle, laying himself down upon a sail-cloth, which
+was spread for him, called twice for some cold water, which he drank,
+when immediately the flames, preceded by a strong whiff of sulphur,
+dispersed the rest of the party, and obliged him to rise. He raised
+himself up with the assistance of two of his servants, and instantly
+fell down dead; suffocated, as I conjecture, by some gross and noxious
+vapor, having always had a weak throat, which was often inflamed.
+
+As soon as it was light again, which was not till the third day after
+this melancholy accident, his body was found entire, and without any
+marks of violence upon it, in the dress in which he fell, and looking
+more like a man asleep than dead. During all this time my mother and I,
+who were at Misenum--but this has no connection with your history, and
+you did not desire any particulars besides those of my uncle's death, so
+I will end here, only adding that I have faithfully related to you what
+I was either an eye-witness of myself or received immediately after the
+accident happened, and before there was time to vary the truth. You will
+pick out of this narrative whatever is most important: for a letter is
+one thing, a history another; it is one thing writing to a friend,
+another thing writing to the public. Farewell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The letter which, in compliance with your request, I wrote to you
+concerning the death of my uncle has raised, it seems, your curiosity
+to know what terrors and dangers attended me while I continued at
+Misenum; for there, I think, my account broke off:
+
+    "Though my shock'd soul recoils, my tongue shall tell."
+
+My uncle having left us, I spent such time as was left on my studies--it
+was on their account indeed that I had stopped behind--till it was time
+for my bath. After which I went to supper, and then fell into a short
+and uneasy sleep. There had been noticed for many days before, a
+trembling of the earth, which did not alarm us much, as this is quite an
+ordinary occurrence in Campania; but it was so particularly violent that
+night that it not only shook but actually overturned, as it would seem,
+everything about us.
+
+My mother rushed into my chamber, where she found me rising in order to
+awaken her. We sat down in the open court of the house, which occupied a
+small space between the buildings and the sea. As I was at that time but
+eighteen years of age, I know not whether I should call my behavior, in
+this dangerous juncture, courage or folly; but I took up Livy, and
+amused myself with turning over that author, and even making extracts
+from him, as if I had been perfectly at my leisure. Just then, a friend
+of my uncle's, who had lately come to him from Spain, joined us, and
+observing me sitting by my mother with a book in my hand, reproved her
+for her calmness, and me at the same time for my careless security:
+nevertheless I went on with my author.
+
+Though it was now morning, the light was still exceedingly faint and
+doubtful; the buildings all around us tottered, and though we stood upon
+open ground, yet, as the place was narrow and confined, there was no
+remaining without imminent danger: we therefore resolved to quit the
+town. A panic-stricken crowd followed us, and--as to a mind distracted
+with terror every suggestion seems more prudent than its own--pressed on
+us in dense array to drive us forward as we came out. Being at a
+convenient distance from the houses, we stood still, in the midst of a
+most dangerous and dreadful scene.
+
+The chariots, which we had ordered to be drawn out, were so agitated
+backward and forward, though upon the most level ground, that we could
+not keep them steady, even by supporting them with large stones. The sea
+seemed to roll back upon itself, and to be driven from its banks by the
+convulsive motion of the earth; it is certain at least the shore was
+considerably enlarged, and several sea animals were left upon it. On the
+other side, a black and dreadful cloud, broken with rapid, zig-zag
+flashes, revealed behind it variously shaped masses of flame: these last
+were like sheet lightning, but much larger. Upon this our Spanish
+friend, whom I mentioned above, addressing himself to my mother and me
+with great energy and urgency: "If your brother," he said, "if your
+uncle be safe, he certainly wishes you may be so too; but if he
+perished, it was his desire, no doubt, that you might both survive him:
+why therefore do you delay your escape a moment?"
+
+We could never think of our own safety, we said, while we were uncertain
+of his. Upon this our friend left us, and withdrew from the danger with
+the utmost precipitation. Soon afterward, the cloud began to descend and
+cover the sea. It had already surrounded and concealed the island of
+Capreæ[43] and the promontory of Misenum.
+
+My mother now besought, urged, even commanded me to make my escape at
+any rate, which, as I was young, I might easily do; as for herself, she
+said, her age and corpulency rendered all attempts of that sort
+impossible; however, she would willingly meet death if she could have
+the satisfaction of seeing that she was not the occasion of mine. But I
+absolutely refused to leave her, and, taking her by the hand, compelled
+her to go with me. She complied with great reluctance, and not without
+many reproaches to herself for retarding my flight. The ashes now began
+to fall upon us, though in no great quantity. I looked back; a dense,
+dark mist seemed to be following us, spreading itself over the country
+like a cloud. "Let us turn out of the high-road," I said, "while we can
+still see, for fear that, should we fall in the road, we should be
+pressed to death in the dark by the crowds that are following us."
+
+We had scarcely sat down when night came upon us, not such as we have
+when the sky is cloudy, or when there is no moon, but that of a room
+when it is shut up and all the lights put out. You might hear the
+shrieks of women, the screams of children, and the shouts of men; some
+calling for their children, others for their parents, others for their
+husbands, and seeking to recognize each other by the voices that
+replied; one lamenting his own fate, another that of his family; some
+wishing to die, from the very fear of dying; some lifting their hands to
+the gods; but the greater part convinced that there were now no gods at
+all, and that the final endless night of which we have heard had come
+upon the world.[44] Among these there were some who augmented the real
+terrors by others imaginary or wilfully invented. I remember some who
+declared that one part of Misenum had fallen, that another was on fire;
+it was false, but they found people to believe them. It now grew rather
+lighter, which we imagined to be rather the forerunner of an approaching
+burst of flames--as in truth it was--than the return of day: however,
+the fire fell at a distance from us: then again we were immersed in
+thick darkness, and a heavy shower of ashes rained upon us, which we
+were obliged every now and then to stand up to shake off, otherwise we
+should have been crushed and buried in the heap.
+
+I might boast that, during all this scene of horror, not a sigh or
+expression of fear escaped me, had not my support been grounded in that
+miserable, though mighty, consolation, that all mankind were involved in
+the same calamity, and that I was perishing with the world itself. At
+last this dreadful darkness was dissipated by degrees, like a cloud or
+smoke; the real day returned, and even the sun shone out, though with a
+lurid light, like when an eclipse is coming on. Every object that
+presented itself to our eyes--which were extremely weakened--seemed
+changed, being covered deep with ashes as if with snow.
+
+We returned to Misenum, where we refreshed ourselves as well as we
+could, and passed an anxious night between hope and fear; though,
+indeed, with a much larger share of the latter; for the earthquake still
+continued, while many frenzied persons ran up and down, heightening
+their own and their friends' calamities by terrible predictions.
+However, my mother and I, notwithstanding the danger we had passed and
+that which still threatened us, had no thoughts of leaving the place
+till we could receive some news of my uncle.
+
+And now you will read this narrative without any view of inserting it in
+your history, of which it is not in the least worthy; and indeed you
+must put it down to your own request if it should appear not worth even
+the trouble of a letter. Farewell.
+
+
+LORD EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
+
+The Amphitheatre at Pompeii was crowded to the doors. A lion was at
+large in the arena, and the populace surged toward an Egyptian priest,
+Arbaces, demanding that he be thrown down to be devoured. As the mob
+rolled around him, intent on his death, Arbaces noted a strange and
+awful apparition. His craft made him courageous; he stretched forth his
+hand.
+
+"Behold!" he shouted with a voice of thunder, which stilled the roar of
+the crowd; "behold how the gods protect the guiltless! The fires of the
+avenging Orcus burst forth against the false witness of my accusers!"
+
+The eyes of the crowd followed the gesture of the Egyptian, and beheld,
+with ineffable dismay, a vast vapor shooting from the summit of
+Vesuvius, in the form of a gigantic pine tree; the trunk, blackness--the
+branches, fire!--a fire that shifted and wavered in its hues with every
+moment, now fiercely luminous, now of a dull and dying red, that again
+blazed terrifically forth with intolerable glare!
+
+There was a dead, heart-sunken silence--through which there suddenly
+broke the roar of the lion, which was echoed back from within the
+building by the sharper and fiercer yells of its fellow-beast. Dread
+seers were they of the burden of the atmosphere, and wild prophets of
+the wrath to come!
+
+Then there arose on high the universal shrieks of women; the men stared
+at each other, but were dumb. At that moment they felt the earth shake
+beneath their feet; the walls of the theatre trembled, and beyond, in
+the distance, they heard the crash of falling roofs; an instant more and
+the mountain-cloud seemed to roll toward them, dark and rapid, like a
+torrent; at the same time it cast forth from its bosom a shower of ashes
+mixed with vast fragments of burning stone. Over the crushing
+vines--over the desolate streets--over the Amphitheatre itself--far and
+wide--with many a mighty splash in the agitated sea--fell that awful
+shower!
+
+No longer thought the crowd of justice or of Arbaces; safety for
+themselves was their sole thought. Each turned to fly--each dashing,
+pressing, crushing, against the other. Trampling recklessly over the
+fallen--amid groans and oaths and prayers and sudden shrieks, the
+enormous crowd vomited itself forth through the numerous passages.
+Whither should they fly? Some, anticipating a second earthquake,
+hastened to their homes to load themselves with their more costly goods,
+and escape while it was yet time; others, dreading the showers of ashes
+that now fell fast, torrent upon torrent, over the streets, rushed under
+the roofs of the nearest houses or temples or sheds--shelter of any
+kind--for protection from the terrors of the open air. But darker and
+larger and mightier spread the cloud above them. It was a sudden and
+more ghastly Night rushing upon the realm of Noon!
+
+Meanwhile the streets were already thinned; the crowd had hastened to
+disperse itself under shelter; the ashes began to fill up the lower
+parts of the town; but, here and there, you heard the steps of fugitives
+cranching them warily, or saw their pale and haggard faces by the blue
+glare of the lightning or the more unsteady glare of torches, by which
+they endeavored to steer their steps. But ever and anon the boiling
+water, or the straggling ashes, mysterious and gusty winds, rising and
+dying in a breath, extinguished these wandering lights, and with them
+the last living hope of those who bore them.
+
+Amid the other horrors, the mighty mountain now cast up columns of
+boiling water. Blent and kneaded with the half-burning ashes, the
+streams fell like seething mud over the streets in frequent intervals.
+And full, where the priests of Isis had now cowered around the altars,
+on which they had vainly sought to kindle fires and pour incense, one of
+the fiercest of those deadly torrents, mingled with immense fragments
+of scoria, had poured its rage. Over the bended forms of the priests it
+dashed: that cry had been of death--that silence had been of eternity!
+The ashes--the pitchy stream--sprinkled the altars, covered the
+pavement, and half concealed the quivering corpses of the priests!
+
+In proportion as the blackness gathered did the lightnings around
+Vesuvius increase in their vivid and scorching glare. Nor was their
+horrible beauty confined to the usual hues of fire; no rainbow ever
+rivalled their varying and prodigal dyes. Now brightly blue as the most
+azure depth of a southern sky--now of a livid and snakelike green,
+darting restlessly to and fro as the folds of an enormous serpent--now
+of a lurid and intolerable crimson, gushing forth through the columns of
+smoke, far and wide, and lighting up the whole city from arch to
+arch--then suddenly dying into a sickly paleness, like the ghost of
+their own life!
+
+In the pauses of the showers you heard the rumbling of the earth beneath
+and the groaning waves of the tortured sea; or, lower still, and audible
+but to the watch of intensest fear, the grinding and hissing murmur of
+the escaping gases through the chasms of the distant mountain. Sometimes
+the cloud appeared to break from its solid mass, and, by the lightning,
+to assume quaint and vast mimicries of human or of monster shapes,
+striding across the gloom, hurtling one upon the other, and vanishing
+swiftly into the turbulent abyss of shade; so that to the eyes and
+fancies of the affrighted wanderers the unsubstantial vapors were as the
+bodily forms of gigantic foes--the agents of terror and of death.
+
+The ashes in many places were already knee-deep; and the boiling showers
+which came from the steaming breath of the volcano forced their way into
+the houses, bearing with them a strong and suffocating vapor. In some
+places immense fragments of rock, hurled upon the house roofs, bore down
+along the streets masses of confused ruin, which yet more and more, with
+every hour, obstructed the way; and, as the day advanced, the motion of
+the earth was more sensibly felt--the footing seemed to slide and
+creep--nor could chariot or litter be kept steady, even on the most
+level ground.
+
+Sometimes the huger stones, striking against each other as they fell,
+broke into countless fragments, emitting sparks of fire, which caught
+whatever was combustible within their reach; and along the plains beyond
+the city the darkness was now terribly relieved, for several houses, and
+even vineyards, had been set on flames; and at various intervals the
+fires rose sullenly and fiercely against the solid gloom. To add to this
+partial relief of the darkness, the citizens had, here and there, in the
+more public places, as the porticoes of temples and the entrances to the
+forum, endeavored to place rows of torches; but these rarely continued
+long; the showers and the winds extinguished them, and the sudden
+darkness into which their sudden birth was converted had something in it
+doubly terrible and doubly impressing on the impotence of human hopes,
+the lesson of despair.
+
+Frequently, by the momentary light of these torches, parties of
+fugitives encountered each other, some hurrying toward the sea, others
+flying from the sea back to the land; for the ocean had retreated
+rapidly from the shore--an utter darkness lay over it, and upon its
+groaning and tossing waves the storm of cinders and rock fell without
+the protection which the streets and roofs afforded to the land.
+Wild--haggard--ghastly with supernatural fears, these groups encountered
+each other, but without the leisure to speak, to consult, to advise; for
+the showers fell now frequently, though not continuously, extinguishing
+the lights, which showed to each band the death-like faces of the other,
+and hurrying all to seek refuge beneath the nearest shelter.
+
+The whole elements of civilization were broken up. Ever and anon, by the
+flickering lights, you saw the thief hastening by the most solemn
+authorities of the law, laden with and fearfully chuckling over the
+produce of his sudden gains. If, in the darkness, wife was separated
+from husband, or parent from child, vain was the hope of reunion. Each
+hurried blindly and confusedly on. Nothing in all the various and
+complicated machinery of social life was left save the primal law of
+self-preservation!
+
+In parts, where the ashes lay dry and uncommixed with the boiling
+torrents, cast upward from the mountain at capricious intervals, the
+surface of the earth presented a leprous and ghastly white. In other
+places cinder and rock lay matted in heaps, from beneath which emerged
+the half-hid limbs of some crushed and mangled fugitive.
+
+The groans of the dying were broken by wild shrieks of women's
+terror--now near, now distant--which, when heard in the utter darkness,
+were rendered doubly appalling by the crushing sense of helplessness and
+the uncertainty of the perils around; and clear and distinct through all
+were the mighty and various noises from the fatal mountain; its rushing
+winds; its whirling torrents; and, from time to time, the burst and roar
+of some more fiery and fierce explosion. And ever as the winds swept
+howling along the street, they bore sharp streams of burning dust, and
+such sickening and poisonous vapors as took away, for the instant,
+breath and consciousness, followed by a rapid revulsion of the arrested
+blood, and a tingling sensation of agony trembling through every nerve
+and fibre of the frame.
+
+Suddenly all became lighted with an intense and lurid glow. Bright and
+gigantic through the darkness, which closed around it like the walls of
+hell, the mountain shone--a pile of fire! Its summit seemed riven in
+two; or rather, above its surface there seemed to rise two monster
+shapes, each confronting each, as demons contending for a world. These
+were of one deep blood-red hue of fire, which lighted up the whole
+atmosphere far and wide; but _below_, the nether part of the mountain
+was still dark and shrouded, save in three places, adown which flowed,
+serpentine and irregular, rivers of molten lava. Darkly red through the
+profound gloom of their banks they flowed slowly on, as toward the
+devoted city. Over the broadest there seemed to spring a cragged and
+stupendous arch, from which, as from the jaws of hell, gushed the
+sources of the sudden Phlegethon. And through the still air was heard
+the rattling of the fragments of rock, hurtling one upon another as they
+were borne down the fiery cataracts--darkening, for one instant, the
+spot where they fell, and suffused the next, in the burnished hues of
+the flood in which they floated!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nearly seventeen centuries had rolled away when the city of Pompeii was
+disinterred from its silent tomb,[45] all vivid with undimmed hues; its
+walls fresh as if painted yesterday--not a hue faded on the rich mosaic
+of its floors--in its forum the half-finished columns as left by the
+workman's hand--in its gardens the sacrificial tripod--in its halls the
+chest of treasure--in its baths the _strigil_--in its theatres the
+counter of admission--in its saloons the furniture and the lamp--in its
+_triclinia_ the fragments of the last feast--in its _cubicula_ the
+perfumes and the rouge of faded beauty--and everywhere the bones and
+skeletons of those who once moved the springs of that minute yet
+gorgeous machine of luxury and of life!
+
+In the house of Diomed, in the subterranean vaults, twenty skeletons
+(one of a babe) were discovered in one spot by the door, covered by a
+fine ashen dust, that had evidently been wafted slowly through the
+apertures, until it had filled the whole space. There were jewels and
+coins, candelabra for unavailing light, and wine hardened in the
+_amphoræ_ for the prolongation of agonized life. The sand, consolidated
+by damps, had taken the forms of the skeletons as in a cast; and the
+traveller may yet see the impression of a female neck and bosom of young
+and round proportions. It seems to the inquirer as if the air had been
+gradually changed into a sulphurous vapor; the inmates of the vaults had
+rushed to the door, to find it closed and blocked up by the scoria
+without, and, in their attempts to force it, had been suffocated with
+the atmosphere.
+
+In the garden was found a skeleton with a key by its bony hand, and near
+it a bag of coins. This is believed to have been the master of the
+house, who had probably sought to escape by the garden, and been
+destroyed either by the vapors or some fragment of stone. Beside some
+silver vases lay another skeleton, probably that of a slave.
+
+Various theories as to the exact mode by which Pompeii was destroyed
+have been invented by the ingenious; I have adopted that which is the
+most generally received, and which, upon inspecting the strata, appears
+the only one admissible by common sense; namely, a destruction by
+showers of ashes and boiling water, mingled with frequent irruptions of
+large stones, and aided by partial convulsions of the earth.
+Herculaneum, on the contrary, appears to have received not only the
+showers of ashes, but also inundations from molten lava; and the streams
+referred to must be considered as destined for that city rather than for
+Pompeii. Volcanic lightnings were evidently among the engines of ruin at
+Pompeii. Papyrus, and other of the more inflammable materials, are found
+in a burned state. Some substances in metal are partially melted; and a
+bronze statue is completely shivered, as by lightning. Upon the
+whole--excepting only the inevitable poetic license of shortening the
+time which the destruction occupied--I believe my description of that
+awful event is very little assisted by invention, and will be found not
+the less accurate for its appearance in a romance.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[41] The Romans used to lie or walk naked in the sun, after anointing
+their bodies with oil, which was esteemed as greatly contributing to
+health, and therefore daily practised by them. This custom, however, of
+anointing themselves, is inveighed against by the satirists as in the
+number of their luxurious indulgences; but since we find the elder Pliny
+here, and the amiable Spurinna in a former letter, practising this
+method, we cannot suppose the thing itself was esteemed unmanly, but
+only when it was attended with some particular circumstances of an
+over-refined delicacy.
+
+[42] About six miles distant from Naples.
+
+[43] An island near Naples, now called Capri.
+
+[44] The Stoic and Epicurean philosophers held that the world was to be
+destroyed by fire, and all things fall again into original chaos; not
+excepting even the national gods themselves from the destruction of this
+general conflagration.
+
+[45] Destroyed A.D. 79; first discovered A.D. 1750.
+
+
+
+
+THE JEWS' LAST STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM: THEIR FINAL DISPERSION
+
+A.D. 132
+
+CHARLES MERIVALE
+
+     The successful revolt of the Maccabees against the bloody
+     persecutions of the Assyrian king Antiochus Epiphanes, about B.C.
+     164, inaugurated a glorious epoch in Jewish history. From that time
+     the Jews enjoyed their freedom under the dynasty of their
+     priest-kings till, B.C. 63, the Romans under Pompey took possession
+     of Jerusalem. A period of Roman tyranny and oppression followed. In
+     A.D. 66-70 a great revolt of the Jews occurred. The Romans burned
+     Jerusalem to the ground. Josephus says the number killed in this
+     revolt was one million one hundred thousand, and the number of
+     prisoners ninety-seven thousand. Of those who survived, "all above
+     seventeen years old were sent to Egypt to work in the mines, or
+     distributed among the provinces to be exhibited as gladiators in
+     the public theatres and in the combats against wild beasts."
+
+     About fifty years later, A.D., 116, a tremendous uprising occurred
+     among the Jews of the eastern Mediterranean, in which many lives
+     were lost. It was quickly suppressed by the emperor Trajan, and the
+     punishments were similar in cruelty to those which followed the
+     previous insurrection.
+
+     But this dauntless people were not yet conquered. When the emperor
+     Hadrian, A.D., 130, arrived at Jerusalem on his tour of the empire,
+     he resolved that the holy city of the Jews should be rebuilt as a
+     Roman colony, and its name changed to Ælia Capitolina; and the Jews
+     were forbidden to sojourn in the new city. By this and other
+     measures the spark of revolt was once more kindled among the
+     religious and patriotic spirits of the Jewish nation. The Jews in
+     Palestine flew to arms, A.D., 132, encouraged by the prayers, the
+     vows, and the material support of their compatriots in Rome,
+     Byzantium, Alexandria, and Babylon. The Jewish war-cry echoed
+     around the civilized world.
+
+     A fitting leader for the insurrectionists soon appeared in the
+     person of Simon Barcochebas. Julius Severus, who was in Britain
+     ordering the affairs of that distant province, was summoned to the
+     East to quell the disturbance, which had swollen to the dimensions
+     of a revolution and threatened to abolish Roman authority in
+     Palestine. The conflict which ensued lasted from A.D. 132 to 135,
+     and was very bitterly contested on both sides. It was not before
+     the Hebrew leader fell amid thousands of his followers that the
+     Jewish forces were defeated. We are told that in this last
+     revolution the Romans took fifty fortresses, nine hundred and
+     eighty-five villages were occupied, and that the people killed
+     numbered five hundred and eighty thousand. The Jews were dispersed
+     to every quarter of the known world and remain so to this day. The
+     new city of Hadrian continued to exist, but did not prosper; and
+     the Jews were prohibited under penalty of death from ever setting
+     foot in Jerusalem.
+
+
+The thread of imperial life could hardly snap without a jar which would
+be felt throughout the whole extent of the empire. Trajan, like
+Alexander, had been cut off suddenly in the Far East, and, like
+Alexander, he had left no avowed successor. Several of his generals
+abroad might advance nearly equal claims to the sword of Trajan; some of
+the senators at home might deem themselves not unworthy of the purple of
+Nerva.
+
+On every side there was an army or faction ready to devote itself to the
+service of its favorite or its champion.
+
+The provinces lately annexed were at the same time in a state of ominous
+agitation; along one half of the frontiers Britons, Germans, and
+Sarmatians were mustering their forces for invasion; a virulent
+insurrection was still glowing throughout a large portion of the empire.
+Nevertheless, the compact body of the Roman Commonwealth was still held
+firmly together by its inherent self-attraction. There was no tendency
+to split in pieces, as in the ill-cemented masses of the Macedonian
+conquest; and the presence of mind of a clever woman was well employed
+in effecting the peaceful transfer of power and relieving the State from
+the stress of disruption.
+
+Of the accession of Publius Ælius Hadrianus, A.D., 117, to the empire;
+of the means by which it was effected; of the character and reputation
+he brought with him to the throne; of the first measures of his reign,
+by which he renounced the latest conquests of his predecessor, while he
+put forth all his power to retain the realms bequeathed him from an
+earlier period--is matter for another story.
+
+But let us turn to a review of eastern affairs; to the great Jewish
+insurrection, and the important consequences which followed from it.
+Trajan was surely fortunate in the moment of his death. Vexed, as he
+doubtless was, by the frustration of his grand designs for incorporating
+the Parthian monarchy with the Roman, and fulfilling the idea of
+universal empire which had flitted through the mind of Pompius or
+Julius, but had been deliberately rejected by Augustus and Vespasian,
+his proud spirit would have been broken indeed had he lived to witness
+the difficulties in which Rome was plunged at his death, the spread of
+the Jewish revolt in Asia and Palestine, the aggressions of the Moors,
+the Scythians, and the Britons at the most distant points of his
+dominions.
+
+The momentary success of the insurgents of Cyprus and Cyrene had
+prompted a general assurance that the conquering race was no longer
+invincible, and the last great triumphs of its legions were followed by
+a rebound of fortune still more momentous.
+
+The first act of the new reign was the formal relinquishment of the new
+provinces beyond the Euphrates. The Parthian tottered back with feeble
+step to his accustomed frontiers. Arabia was left unmolested; India was
+no longer menaced. Armenia found herself once more suspended between two
+rival empires, of which the one was too weak to seize, the other too
+weak to retain her.
+
+All the forces of Rome in the East were now set free to complete the
+suppression of the Jewish disturbances. The flames of insurrection which
+had broken out in so many remote quarters were concentrated, and burned
+more fiercely than ever in the ancient centre of the Jewish nationality.
+
+Martius Turbo, appointed to command in Palestine, was equally amazed at
+the fanaticism and the numbers of people whose faith had been mocked,
+whose hopes frustrated, whose young men had been decimated, whose old
+men, women, and children had been enslaved and exiled. Under the
+teaching of the doctors of Tiberia faith had been cherished and hope had
+revived. Despised and unmolested for fifty years, a new generation had
+risen from the soil of their ancestors, recruited by the multitudes who
+flocked homeward, year by year, with an unextinguishable love of
+country, and reënforced by the fugitives from many scenes of
+persecution, all animated with a growing conviction that the last
+struggle of their race was at hand, to be contested on the site of their
+old historic triumphs.
+
+It is not perhaps wholly fanciful to imagine that the Jewish leaders,
+after the fall of their city and Temple and the great dispersion of
+their people, deliberately invented new means for maintaining their
+cherished nationality. Their conquerors, as they might observe, were
+scattered like themselves over the face of the globe and abode wherever
+they conquered; but the laws, the manners, and the traditions of Rome
+were preserved almost intact amid alien races by the consciousness that
+there existed a visible centre of their nation, the source, as it were,
+to which they might repair to draw the waters of political life. But the
+dispersions of the Jews seemed the more irremediable as the destruction
+of their central home was complete.
+
+To preserve the existence of their nation one other way presented
+itself. In their sacred books they retained a common bond of law and
+doctrine, such as no other people could boast. In these venerated
+records they possessed, whether on the Tiber or the Euphrates, an elixir
+of unrivalled virtue. With a sudden revulsion of feeling the popular
+orators and captains betook themselves to the study of law, its history
+and antiquities, its actual text and its inner meaning. The schools of
+Tiberias resounded with debate on the rival principles of
+interpretation, the ancient and the modern, the stricter and the laxer,
+known respectively by the names of their teachers, Schammai and Hillel.
+
+The doctors decided in favor of the more accommodating system, by which
+the stern exclusiveness of the original letter was extenuated, and the
+law of the rude tribes of Palestine moulded to the varied taste and
+temper of a cosmopolitan society, while the text itself was embalmed in
+the _Masora_, an elaborate system of punctuation and notation, to every
+particle of which, to insure its uncorrupted preservation, a mystical
+significance was attached. By this curious contrivance the letter of the
+Law, the charter of Judaism, was sanctified forever, while its spirit
+was remodelled to the exigencies of the present or the future, till it
+would have been no longer recognized by its authors, or even by very
+recent disciples. To this new learning of traditions and glosses the
+ardent youth of the nation devoted itself with a fanaticism not less
+vehement than that which had fought and bled half a century before. The
+name of the rabbi Akiba is preserved as a type of the hierophant of
+restored Judaism.
+
+The stories depicting him are best expounded as myths and figures. He
+reached, it was said, the age of a hundred and twenty years, the period
+assigned in the sacred records to his prototype, the law-giver Moses.
+
+Like David, in his youth he kept sheep on the mountains; like Jacob, he
+served a master, a rich citizen of Jerusalem, for Jerusalem in his youth
+was still standing. His master's daughter cast the eyes of affection
+upon him and offered him a secret marriage; but this damsel was no other
+than Jerusalem itself, so often imaged to the mind of the Jewish people
+by the figure of a maiden, a wife, or a widow.
+
+This mystic bride required him to repair to the schools, acquire
+knowledge and wisdom, surround himself with disciples; and such, as we
+have seen, was the actual policy of the new defenders of Judaism.
+
+The damsel was rebuked by her indignant father; but when, after the
+lapse of twelve years, Akiba returned to claim his bride, with twelve
+thousand scholars at his heels, he heard her replying that, long as he
+had been absent, she only wished him to prolong his stay twice over, so
+as to double his knowledge; whereupon he returned patiently to his
+studies, and frequented the schools twelve years longer. Twice twelve
+years thus passed, he returned once more with twice twelve thousand
+disciples, and then his wife received him joyfully, and, covered as she
+was with rags, an outcast and a beggar, he presented her to his
+astonished followers as the being to whom he owed his wisdom, his fame,
+and his fortune.
+
+Such were the legends with which the new learning was consecrated to the
+defence of Jewish nationality.
+
+The concentration of the Roman forces on the soil of Palestine seems to
+have repressed for a season all overt attempts at insurrection.
+
+The Jewish leaders restrained their followers from action as long as it
+was possible to feed their spirit with hopes only. It was not till about
+the fourteenth year of Hadrian's reign that the final revolt broke out.
+
+When the Jews of Palestine launched forth upon the war, the doctor
+Akiba gave place to the warrior Barcochebas. This gallant warrior, the
+last of the national heroes, received or assumed his title, "the Son of
+the Star," given successively to several leaders of the Jewish people,
+in token of the fanatic expectations of divine deliverance by which his
+countrymen did not yet cease to be animated. Many were the legends which
+declared this champion's claims to the leadership of the national cause.
+His size and strength were vaunted as more than human. "It was the arm
+of God, not of man," said Hadrian when he saw at last the corpse
+encircled by a serpent, "that could alone strike down the giant." Flame
+and smoke were seen to issue from his lips in speaking, a portent which
+was rationalized centuries later into a mere conjurer's artifice. The
+concourse of the Jewish nation at his summons was symbolized, with a
+curious reference to the prevalent idea of Israel as a school and the
+Law as a master, by the story that at Bethar, the appointed rendezvous
+and last stronghold of the national defence, were four hundred
+academies, each ruled by four hundred teachers, each teacher boasting a
+class of four hundred pupils.
+
+Akiba, now at the extreme point of his protracted existence, like Samuel
+of old, nominated the new David to the chiefship of the people. He
+girded Barcochebas with the sword of Jehovah, placed the staff of
+command in his hand, and held himself the stirrup by which he vaulted
+into the saddle.
+
+The last revolt of the Jewish people was precipitated apparently by the
+increased severity of the measures which the rebellion under Trajan had
+drawn down. They complained that Hadrian had enrolled himself as a
+proselyte of the Law, and were doubly incensed against him as a
+persecutor and a renegade.
+
+This assertion, indeed, may have no foundation. On the other hand, it is
+not unlikely that this prince, a curious explorer of religions of
+opinions, had sought initiation into some of the mysteries of the Jewish
+faith and ritual.
+
+But however this may be, he gave them mortal offence by perceiving the
+clear distinction between Judaism and Christianity, and by forbidding
+the Jews to sojourn in the town which he was again raising on the ruins
+of Jerusalem, while he allowed free access to their rivals. He is said
+to have even prohibited the rite of circumcision by which they jealously
+maintained their separation from the nations of the West.
+
+At last, when they rose in arms, he sent his best generals against them.
+Tinnius Rufus was long baffled and often defeated; but Julius Severus,
+following the tactics of Vespasian, constantly refused the battle they
+offered him, and reduced their strongholds in succession by superior
+discipline and resources. Barcochebas struggled with the obstinacy of
+despair. Every excess of cruelty was committed on both sides, and it is
+well, perhaps, that the details of this mortal spasm are almost wholly
+lost to us.
+
+The later Christian writers, while they allude with unseemly exultation
+to the overthrow of one inveterate enemy by another who proved himself
+in the end not less inveterate, affirmed that the barbarities of the
+Jewish leader were mainly directed against themselves.
+
+On such interested assertions we shall place little reliance. In the
+counter-narration of the Jews even the name of Christian is
+contemptuously disregarded. It relates, however, how at the storming of
+Bethar, when Barcochebas perished in the field, ten of the most learned
+of the rabbis were taken and put cruelly to death, while Akiba, reserved
+to expire last, and torn in pieces with hot pincers, continued to attest
+the great principle of the Jewish doctrine, still exclaiming in his
+death throes, _Jehovah Erhad_! ("God is one").
+
+The Jews who fell in these their latest combats are counted by hundreds
+of thousands, and we may conclude that the suppression of the revolt was
+followed by sanguinary proscriptions, by wholesale captivity and general
+banishment. The dispersion of the unhappy race, particularly in the
+West, was now complete and final. The sacred soil of Jerusalem was
+occupied by a Roman colony, which received the name of Ælia Capitolina,
+with reference to the Emperor who founded it, and to the supreme God of
+the pagan mythology, installed on the desecrated summits of Zion and
+Moriah.
+
+The fane of Jupiter was erected on the site of the holy Temple, and a
+shrine of Venus planted, we are assured, on the very spot hallowed to
+Christians by our Lord's crucifixion. But Hadrian had no purpose of
+insulting the disciples of Jesus, and this desecration, if the tradition
+be true, was probably accidental. A Jewish legend affirms that the
+figure of a swine was sculptured, in bitter mockery, over a gate of the
+new city. The Jews have retorted with equal scorn that the effigy of the
+unclean animal, which represented to their minds every low and bestial
+appetite, was a fitting emblem of the colony and its founder, of the
+lewd worship of its gods, and the vile propensities of its Emperor.
+
+The fancy of later Christian writers that Hadrian regarded their
+coreligionists with special consideration seems founded on
+misconception. We hear, indeed, of the graciousness with which he
+allowed them, among other sectarians, to defend their usages and expound
+their doctrines in his presence; and doubtless his curiosity, if no
+worthier feeling, was moved by the fact, which he fully appreciated, of
+the interest they excited in certain quarters of the empire. But there
+is no evidence that his favor extended further than to the recognition
+of their independence of the Jews, from whom they now formally separated
+themselves, and the discouragement of the local persecutions to which
+they were occasionally subjected.
+
+So far the bigoted hostility of their enemies was overruled at last in
+their favor.
+
+In another way they learned to profit by the example of their rivals.
+From the recent policy of the Jews they might understand the advantage
+to a scattered community, without a local centre or a political status,
+of erecting in a volume of sacred records their acknowledged standard of
+faith and practice.
+
+The scriptures of the New Testament, like the _Nuschua_ of the Jewish
+rabbis, took the place of the holy of holies as the tabernacle of their
+God and the pledge of their union with him.
+
+The canon of their sacred books, however casual its apparent formation,
+was indeed a providential development. The habitual references of
+bishops and doctors to the words of their Founder, and the writings of
+the first disciples, guided them to the proper sources of their faith
+and taught them justly to discriminate the genuine from the spurious.
+
+Meagre as are the remains of Christian literature of the second century,
+they tend to confirm our assurance that the scriptures of the new
+dispensation were known and recognized as divine at that early period,
+and that the Church of Christ, the future mistress of the world, was
+already become a great social fact, an empire within the empire.
+
+
+
+
+MARTYRDOM OF POLYCARP AND JUSTIN MARTYR
+
+POLYCARP'S EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS
+
+A.D. 155
+
+H. COX           POLYCARP
+
+     The Roman emperor Antoninus Pius, who died A.D. 161, had been
+     tolerant to the new Judaic sect known as Christians. Under his mild
+     _regime_, although he did not encourage them, the faithful had
+     greatly multiplied. The Christians had become a body great enough
+     to be reckoned with in a political sense. The populace were
+     generally hostile to them as "enemies of the gods." More than one
+     of the apostolic fathers had suffered martyrdom, among them
+     Ignatius, a disciple of St. John and bishop of Antioch, who is said
+     to have been thrown to the lions in the Circus about A.D. 107. But
+     the account of the martyrdom of Polycarp is probably the first
+     authentic description we have.
+
+     Polycarp was born about A.D. 60, probably of Christian parents. He
+     bridges the little-known period between the age of his master, the
+     apostle John, and that of his own disciple, Irenæus. During the
+     earlier half of the second century he was bishop of Smyrna. Ephesus
+     had become the new hope of the faith, and in that city Polycarp had
+     received his education and "lived in familiar intercourse with many
+     who had seen Christ." He was also intimate with Papias and
+     Ignatius. The only writing of Polycarp extant is the Epistle to the
+     Philippians, which follows. It is of great value for questions of
+     the canon, the origin of the Church, and the Ignatian epistles. Of
+     the authenticity of Polycarp's epistle Rev. Father W. O'B. Pardow,
+     S.J., says, "There are long and learned controversies about some of
+     these [apocryphal] books." Of that in question he says: "Probably
+     authentic; not inspired." Archbishop Wake was fully convinced of
+     its genuineness, and his translation has been here used.
+
+     Justin, surnamed "the Martyr," was born at Sichen, Samaria, about
+     A.D. 100. After his conversion to Christianity he wandered about
+     arguing for the truth of the new faith. He was of a bold,
+     aggressive nature, and scorned to temporize in things spiritual.
+     His language and mode of address were borrowed from the Stoics, but
+     were the "true utterance of his own manly soul. 'You can kill us;
+     you cannot harm us,'" was his answer when condemned for being a
+     Christian. The words proceeded from a believer ready and destined
+     to give his life for the faith.
+
+     Truly did the blood of the martyrs prove the seed of the Church.
+     Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians, hereto annexed, is taken
+     from a rare work which contains the uncanonical books of the period
+     of Christ's infancy and the early days of the Church, entitled _The
+     Apocryphal Books of the New Testament_. The laity have little
+     knowledge of it, but it is well known by the clergy.
+
+
+HOMERSHAM COX
+
+Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, was undoubtedly a companion of the apostle
+John, and received instruction from other apostles. "About this time,"
+says Eusebius, referring to the commencement of the second century,
+"flourished Polycarp in Asia, an intimate disciple of the apostles, who
+received the episcopate of the Church of Smyrna at the hands of
+eye-witnesses and servants of the Lord."
+
+The lengthened life of the apostle John, who attained to an extreme old
+age, connects the fathers of the second century with the immediate
+followers of Christ. Polycarp must have been a contemporary of St. John
+for about twenty years.
+
+A letter of Irenæus, who was a pupil of Polycarp, has been preserved,
+which gives a graphic and remarkably interesting account of the familiar
+intercourse of Polycarp with the apostle. The letter is addressed by
+Irenæus to a friend named Florinus, with whom he remonstrates for
+holding erroneous doctrines:
+
+"These doctrines, O Florinus, to say the least, are not of a sound
+understanding. These doctrines are inconsistent with the Church, and
+calculated to thrust those that follow them into the greatest impiety;
+these doctrines not even the heretics out of the Church ever attempted
+to assert; these doctrines were never delivered to thee by the
+presbyters before us, those who also were the immediate disciples of the
+apostles.
+
+"For I saw thee when I was yet a boy in Lower Asia with Polycarp moving
+in great splendor at court, and endeavoring by all means to gain his
+esteem. I remember the events of those times much better than those of
+more recent occurrence, as the studies of our youth growing with our
+minds unite with them so firmly that I can tell also the very place
+where the blessed Polycarp was accustomed to sit and discourse, and also
+his entrances, his walks, his manner of life, the form of his body, his
+conversations with the people and familiar intercourse with John, as he
+was accustomed to tell, as also his familiarity with those that had
+seen the Lord; also concerning his miracles, his doctrine; all these
+were told by Polycarp in consistency with the Holy Scriptures, and he
+had received them from the eye-witnesses of the doctrine of salvation.
+
+"These things, by the mercy of God and the opportunity then afforded me,
+I attentively heard, noting them down, not on paper, but in my heart;
+and these same facts I am always in the habit, by the grace of God, of
+recalling faithfully to mind; and I can bear witness in the sight of God
+that, if that blessed and apostolic presbyter had heard any such thing
+as this, he would have exclaimed and stopped his ears, and, according to
+his custom, would have said: 'O good God! unto what things hast thou
+reserved me, that I should tolerate these things?' He would have fled
+from the place in which he had sat or stood hearing doctrines like
+these.
+
+"From his epistles also, which he wrote to the neighboring churches in
+order to confirm them, or to some of the brethren in order to admonish
+or exhort them, the same thing may be clearly shown."
+
+In another place Irenæus states that Polycarp was appointed bishop of
+Smyrna by the apostles themselves:
+
+"Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with
+many who had seen Christ, but was also by apostles in Asia appointed
+bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for
+he lived a very long time; and when a very old man, gloriously and most
+nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught
+those things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the
+Church has handed down, and which alone are true."
+
+Of the numerous letters which Polycarp as bishop of Smyrna wrote to the
+neighboring churches only one is extant. It is addressed by "Polycarp
+and the presbyters with him to the Church of God sojourning at
+Philippi," and probably was written about the middle of the second
+century. In this epistle he praises the Philippians for their firm
+Christian faith, and exhorts them to adhere to the doctrine which St.
+Paul had taught them by word of mouth and by his epistle. After various
+exhortations to presbyters, deacons, and other members of the Church,
+Polycarp refers to the martyrdom of Ignatius, but apparently was
+ignorant of the circumstances attending it, for the epistle concludes
+with a request for information respecting him.
+
+The martyrdom of Polycarp himself is described in an epistle addressed
+by the Church of Smyrna, of which he was bishop, to the Church of
+Philomelium, a city of the neighboring province of Phrygia. There are
+probably some interpolations; but, excepting these, the document can
+hardly be of much later date than the death of the martyr. There are
+several reasons for this conclusion.
+
+In the first place, the general tenor shows that it is intended to give
+information of events which had recently happened; secondly, a
+postscript states that a copy of it belonged to Irenæus, a disciple of
+Polycarp; and thirdly, a large part of it is transcribed by Eusebius,
+who treats it as an authentic document.
+
+The date of the death of Polycarp is well ascertained to be A.D. 167, in
+the reign of Marcus Aurelius. For some time previously there had been a
+cruel persecution of the Christians at Smyrna, in which both the Gentile
+and Jewish inhabitants took part. Against Polycarp especially, as the
+chief minister of the Christian Church, their hostility was directed.
+After several Christians had been tortured and thrown to the lions, the
+multitude clamored for the death of the bishop.
+
+Yielding to the urgent entreaties of those around him Polycarp quitted
+the city; but he was pursued and brought back. The proconsul, who had
+reluctantly allowed him to be arrested, was anxious to save him.
+
+"When he was led forward, a great tumult arose among those that heard he
+was taken. At length, as he advanced, the proconsul asked him whether he
+was Polycarp, and, he answering that he was, he urged him to deny
+Christ, saying, 'Have a regard for your age,' and adding similar
+expressions such as are usual for them to employ.
+
+"'Swear,' he said, 'by the genius of Cæsar. Repent. Say, "Away with
+those that deny the gods."'
+
+"But Polycarp, with a countenance grave and serious, and contemplating
+the whole multitude that were collected in the stadium, beckoned with
+his hand to them, and with a sigh looked up to heaven and said, 'Away
+with the atheists.'
+
+"The governor continued to urge him again, saying: 'Swear, and I will
+dismiss you. Revile Christ.'
+
+"'Revile Christ!' Polycarp replied. 'Eighty-and-six years have I served
+him and he never did me wrong; and how can I now blaspheme my King who
+has saved me?'"
+
+The governor continued to urge him, and in vain threatened him with the
+wild beasts. At length a herald was ordered to proclaim in the midst of
+the stadium that "Polycarp confesses he is a Christian." Thereupon the
+multitude cried out, "This is that teacher of Asia, the father of the
+Christians, the destroyer of our gods," and demanded that he should be
+burned alive; and the governor gave sentence accordingly.
+
+According to the horrid custom of the times the executioners were about
+to fasten his hands to the stake by spikes, when he begged that he might
+be bound merely, saying that He who gave him strength to bear the flames
+would also give him strength to remain unmoved on the pyre.
+
+This last request was granted; and being bound to the stake, he uttered
+this beautiful prayer:
+
+"Father of thy well-beloved and blessed Son, Jesus Christ, through whom
+we have received the knowledge of thee, the God of angels and powers and
+all creation, and of all the family of the righteous that live before
+thee, I bless thee that thou hast thought me worthy of the present day
+and hour, to have a share in the number of the martyrs and in the cross
+of Christ unto the resurrection of eternal life, both of the soul and
+body, in the incorruptible felicity of the Holy Spirit, among whom may I
+be received in thy sight this day as a rich and acceptable sacrifice, as
+thou, the faithful and true God, hast prepared, hast revealed, and
+fulfilled. Wherefore, on this account and for all things, I praise thee,
+I bless thee, I glorify thee through the eternal High Priest, Jesus
+Christ, thy well-beloved Son, through whom glory be to thee with him in
+the Holy Ghost, both now and evermore. Amen."
+
+The flames did not immediately seize upon his body; so one of the
+executioners--in mercy perhaps--plunged a sword into his body, and so
+ended his sufferings. The centurion then placed the body in the midst of
+the fire and burned it, "according to the custom of the Gentiles."
+
+"Thus at last, taking up his bones, valued more than precious stones,
+more tried than gold, we deposited them where they should be. There
+also, as far as we can, the Lord will grant us to celebrate the natal
+day of his martyrdom in joy and gladness, both in commemoration of those
+who finished their contest before, and to prepare those that shall be
+hereafter."
+
+There is something wonderfully touching in this reference to the "natal
+day of his martyrdom." Those who wrote it thought that the day on which
+Polycarp was pierced by the sword was not the day of his death, but the
+birthday of a new and happier life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Justin, who from the manner of his death is often called Justin Martyr,
+was a native of Samaria. He was of Roman parentage, and was born early
+in the second century, and therefore must have been contemporary with
+many persons who had seen some of the apostles.
+
+Justin, who was addicted to philosophical pursuits, has given in one of
+his works a very curious account of his studies and search after
+religious truth. First, he thought to find it in the Stoic philosophy:
+
+"I surrendered myself to a certain Stoic, and, having spent a
+considerable time with him, when I had not acquired any further
+knowledge of God--for he did not know it himself, and said such
+instruction was unnecessary--I left him and betook myself to another,
+who was called a Peripatetic, and, as he fancied, shrewd. And this man,
+after having entertained me for a few days, requested me to settle the
+fee, in order that our intercourse might not be unprofitable. Him, too,
+for this reason I abandoned, believing him to be no philosopher at all."
+
+Disgusted with the mercenary spirit of the Peripatetic, the inquirer
+next determined to make a trial of Pythagorean philosophy. But the
+celebrated Pythagorean teacher whom he consulted wished him to learn
+music, astronomy, and geometry. Those kinds of knowledge, however, were
+not what Justin wanted, and besides he thought that they would take up
+too much time. So he next resolved to make a trial of Platonism; and
+this time he was more successful.
+
+"In my helpless condition it occurred to me to have a meeting with the
+Platonists, for their fame was great. I thereupon spent as much of my
+time as possible with one who had lately settled in our city--a
+sagacious man holding a high position among the Platonists--and I
+progressed and made the greatest improvements daily. And the perception
+of immaterial things quite overpowered me, and the contemplation of
+ideas furnished my mind with wings, so that in a little while I supposed
+that I had become wise; and such was my folly that I expected forthwith
+to look upon God, for this is the end of Plato's philosophy."
+
+Justin then proceeds to give a remarkably interesting and graphic
+account of his conversion to Christianity:
+
+"And while I was thus disposed, when I wished to be filled with great
+quietness and to shun the path of men, I used to go into a certain field
+not far from the sea. And when I was near that spot one day where I
+purposed to be by myself, a certain old man of dignified appearance,
+exhibiting meek and venerable manners, followed me at a little distance.
+And when I turned around on him, having halted, I fixed my eyes rather
+keenly upon him."
+
+Justin gets into conversation with the old man and says that he delights
+in solitary spots, where his attention is not distracted and where his
+converse with himself is uninterrupted, and proceeds to a fervid
+laudation of philosophy.
+
+"'Does philosophy, then, make happiness?' said he, interrupting.
+'Assuredly,' said I, 'and it alone.' 'What, then, is philosophy?' he
+said, 'and what is happiness? Pray tell me, unless something hinders you
+from saying.'
+
+"'Philosophy,' said I, 'is a knowledge of that which really exists and a
+clear perception of truth, and happiness is the reward of such knowledge
+and wisdom.' 'But what do you call God?' said he. 'That which always
+maintains the same nature and is the cause of all other things--that,
+indeed, is God.' So I answered him, and he listened with pleasure."
+
+The conversation, which is too long to be fully transcribed, turns on
+the attributes of the soul. Justin discourses on that topic after the
+manner of the Platonists. The old man, on the other hand, urges him to
+study the prophets of the Old Testament, for they predicted the coming
+of Christ, and their prophecies have been fulfilled. "'They,' said he,
+'both glorified the Creator, the God and Father of all, and proclaimed
+his Son the Christ sent by him. But,' he added, 'pray that, above all
+things, the gates of light may be opened to you, for these things cannot
+be perceived or understood by all, but only by him to whom God and his
+Christ have imparted wisdom.'
+
+"When he had spoken these and many other things which there is no time
+for mentioning at present, he went away, bidding me attend to them, and
+I have not seen him since. But straightway a flame was kindled in my
+soul, and a love of the prophets and of those men who are friends of
+Christ possessed me; and whilst revolving his words in my mind I found
+this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable. Thus and for this
+reason I am a philosopher. Moreover, I would that all, making a
+resolution similar to my own, would regard the words of the Saviour, for
+they possess a terrible power in themselves, and are sufficient to
+inspire those who turn aside from the path of rectitude with awe, while
+the sweetest rest is afforded to those who diligently observe them."
+
+The _Dialogue_ from which these passages are taken is a real or
+imaginary disputation with Trypho, a learned Jew at Ephesus, respecting
+the principles of Christianity, and contains an elaborate demonstration
+that Christ is the Messiah of the Old Testament. The controversy is
+carried on with courtesy on both sides, and each disputant is equally
+earnest in his attempt to convert the other.
+
+Justin was a very copious writer. The two most important of his writings
+now remaining are the two _Apologies_. These are certainly the two
+earliest of the numerous ancient pleas for toleration of Christianity
+now extant. The first _Apologia_ is addressed to the emperor Antoninus
+Pius and the Roman senate and the "whole people of the Romans"; and the
+purport of it may be inferred from the commencement, in which Justin
+says that he presents this "address and petition in behalf of all
+nations who are unjustly hated and wantonly abused, myself being one of
+them."
+
+The second _Apologia_ was addressed to the Roman senate, probably in the
+reign of Antoninus Marcus Aurelius, and successor of Antoninus Pius. In
+this work Justin appeals indignantly to the Roman senate against the
+unjust conduct of one Urbicus, who at Rome had condemned several persons
+to death simply because they professed to be Christians. This Urbicus
+seems to have held the office of prefect of the city--a magistrate from
+whom there was no appeal except to the prince himself, or, as this
+_Apologia_ would suggest, to the senate.
+
+The two _Apologies_ contain the most vehement invectives against the
+whole system of heathen idolatry, and accuse Jupiter and the other gods
+whom the Romans revered of ineffable vices.
+
+Of course the man who could thus tell the Roman senate and people that
+all that they held sacred was unspeakably and hideously wicked could
+expect but one fate. Justin threw down the gauntlet, and the constituted
+authorities very quietly took it up, with a result which, as the human
+power was all with them, it was not difficult to foresee.
+
+Some time in the reign of Aurelius, but in what year is not known,
+Justin and several other Christians were accused before Rusticus,
+prefect of Rome, of disobedience to certain decrees then in force, by
+which Christians who refused to sacrifice to the gods were liable to be
+put to death. It is difficult to reconcile the passing of these decrees
+with the known character of Aurelius, who is universally described as a
+humane, as a benevolent king. The probable explanation is that, like his
+predecessor Trajan, he was actuated by motives of state policy, and
+regarded Christianity as rebellion against the authority of the State.
+
+Eusebius has given an account of the martyrdom of Justin upon the
+authority of Tatian, who was a disciple of the martyr. This account
+substantially agrees with the very ancient _Martyrdom of Justin_, which
+concludes thus:
+
+"The prefect says to Justin: 'Hearken, you who are called learned and
+think that you know true doctrines: if you are scourged and beheaded, do
+you believe that you will ascend into heaven?'
+
+"Justin said, 'I hope that if I endure these things I shall have this
+gift, for I know that to all who have thus lived there abides the divine
+favor until the completion of the world.'
+
+"Rusticus, the prefect, said, 'Do you suppose that you will ascend into
+heaven to receive such a recompense?' Justin said, 'I do not suppose it,
+but I know and am fully persuaded of it.'
+
+"Thus also said the other Christians, 'Do what you will, for we are
+Christians and do not sacrifice to idols.'
+
+"Rusticus, the prefect, pronounced sentence, saying, 'Let those who have
+refused to sacrifice to the gods and to yield to the command of the
+Emperor be scourged and led away to suffer decapitation according to the
+law.'
+
+"The holy martyrs, having glorified God and having gone forth to the
+accustomed place, were beheaded, and perfected their testimony in the
+confession of the Saviour. And some of the faithful, having secretly
+removed their bodies, laid them in a suitable place, the grace of our
+Lord Jesus Christ having wrought along with them, to whom be glory
+forever and ever. Amen."
+
+
+THE EPISTLE OF POLYCARP TO THE PHILIPPIANS
+
+Polycarp, and the presbyters that are with him, to the Church of God
+which is at Philippi: mercy unto you and peace from God Almighty and the
+Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour, be multiplied. I rejoiced greatly with
+you in our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye received the images of a true
+love, and accompanied, as it is behooved you, those who were in bonds,
+becoming saints; which are the crowns of such as are truly chosen by God
+and our Lord: as also that the root of the faith which was preached from
+ancient times remains firm in you to this day; and brings forth fruit to
+our Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered himself to be brought even to the
+death for our sins. Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of
+death; whom, having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him
+not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
+
+Into which many desire to enter; knowing that by grace ye are saved; not
+by works, but by the will of God through Jesus Christ. Wherefore girding
+up the loins of your minds, serve the Lord with fear and in truth;
+laying aside all empty and vain speech, and the error of many; believing
+in him that raised up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and hath
+given him glory and a throne at his right hand. To whom all things are
+made subject, both that are in heaven and that are in earth; whom every
+living creature shall worship; who shall come to be the judge of the
+quick and dead: whose blood God shall require of them that believe in
+him.
+
+But he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also raise up us in
+like manner, if we do his will and walk according to his commandments;
+and love those things which he loved; abstaining from all
+unrighteousness, inordinate affection, and love of money; from evil
+speaking; false witness; not rendering evil for evil, or railing for
+railing, or striking for striking, or cursing for cursing. But
+remembering what the Lord has taught us, saying, Judge not, and ye shall
+not be judged; forgive and ye shall be forgiven; be merciful, and ye
+shall obtain mercy; for with the same measure that ye mete withal, it
+shall be measured to you again. And again, that blessed are the poor and
+they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake; for theirs is the
+kingdom of God.
+
+These things, my brethren, I took not the liberty of myself to write
+unto you concerning righteousness, but you yourselves before encouraged
+me to it. For neither can I, nor any other such as I am, come up to the
+wisdom of the blessed and renowned Paul: who, being himself in person
+with those who then lived, did with all exactness and soundness teach
+the word of truth; and being gone from you wrote an epistle to you. Into
+which, if you look, you will be able to edify yourselves in the faith
+that has been delivered unto you; which is the mother of us all; being
+followed with hope, and led on by a general love, both toward God and
+toward Christ and toward our neighbor.
+
+For if any man has these things he has fulfilled the law of
+righteousness: for he that has charity is far from all sin. But the love
+of money is the root of all evil. Knowing therefore that as we brought
+nothing into this world, so neither may we carry anything out; let us
+arm ourselves with the armor of righteousness. And teach ourselves first
+to walk according to the commandments of the Lord; and then your wives
+to walk likewise according to the faith that is given to them; in
+charity, and in purity; loving their own husbands with all sincerity,
+and all others alike with all temperance; and to bring up their children
+in the instruction and fear of the Lord. The widows likewise teach that
+they be sober as to what concerns the faith of the Lord: praying always
+for all men; being far from all detraction, evil speaking, false
+witness; from covetousness, and from all evil. Knowing that they are the
+altars of God, who sees all blemishes, and from whom nothing is hid; who
+searches out the very reasonings, and thoughts, and secrets of our
+hearts.
+
+Knowing, therefore, that God is not mocked, we ought to walk worthy both
+of his command and of his glory. Also the deacons must be blameless
+before him, as the ministers of God in Christ, and not of men. Not false
+accusers; not double-tongued; not lovers of money; but moderate in all
+things, compassionate, careful; walking according to the truth of the
+Lord, who was the servant of all. Whom if we please in this present
+world we shall also be made partakers of that which is to come,
+according as he has promised to us, that he will raise us from the dead;
+and that if we shall walk worthy of him, we shall also reign together
+with him, if we believe.
+
+In like manner the younger men must be unblamable in all things; above
+all, taking care of their purity, and to restrain themselves from all
+evil. For it is good to be cut off from the lusts that are in the world,
+because every such lust warreth against the Spirit; and neither
+fornicators, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
+shall inherit the kingdom of God; nor they who do such things as are
+foolish and unreasonable. Wherefore ye must needs abstain from all these
+things, being subject to the priests and deacons, as unto God and
+Christ. The virgins admonish to walk in a spotless and pure conscience.
+And let the elders be compassionate and merciful toward all; turning
+them from their errors; seeking out those that are weak; not forgetting
+the widows, the fatherless, and the poor; but always providing what is
+good both in the sight of God and man. Abstaining from all wrath,
+respect of persons, and unrighteous judgment; and especially being free
+from all covetousness. Not easy to believe anything against any; not
+severe in judgment; knowing that we are all debtors in point of sin.
+
+If, therefore, we pray to the Lord that he would forgive us, we ought
+also to forgive others; for we are all in the sight of our Lord and God;
+and must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ; and shall every
+one give an account of himself. Let us, therefore, serve him in fear,
+and with all reverence as both himself hath commanded, and as the
+apostles who have preached the gospel unto us, and the prophets who have
+foretold the coming of our Lord have taught us. Being zealous of what is
+good; abstaining from all offence, and from false brethren; and from
+those who bear the name of Christ in hypocrisy; who deceive vain men.
+
+For whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh,
+he is antichrist; and whoever does not confess his suffering upon the
+cross is from the devil. And whosoever perverts the oracles of the Lord
+to his own lusts, and says that there shall neither be any resurrection,
+nor judgment, he is the first-born of Satan. Wherefore, leaving the
+vanity of many and their false doctrines, let us return to the word that
+was delivered to us from the beginning. Watching unto prayer, and
+persevering in fasting. With supplication beseeching the all-seeing God
+not to lead us into temptation; as the Lord hath said, The spirit is
+truly willing, but the flesh is weak. Let us, therefore, without ceasing
+hold steadfastly to him who is our hope, and the earnest of our
+righteousness, even Jesus Christ; who his own self bare our sins in his
+own body on the tree; who did no sin, neither was guile found in his
+mouth. But suffered all for us that we might live through him. Let us,
+therefore, imitate his patience; and if we suffer for his name, let us
+glorify him; for this example he has given us by himself, and so have we
+believed.
+
+Wherefore I exhort all of you that ye obey the word of righteousness,
+and exercise all patience; which ye have seen set forth before our eyes,
+not only in the blessed Ignatius and Zosimus and Rufus, but in others
+among ourselves; and in Paul himself, and the rest of the apostles.
+Being confident of this, that all these have not run in vain, but in
+faith and righteousness, and are gone to the place that was due to them
+from the Lord, with whom they also suffered; for they loved not this
+present world, but him who died, and was raised again by God for us.
+Stand, therefore, in these things and follow the example of the Lord;
+being firm and immutable in the faith, lovers of the brotherhood, lovers
+of one another, companions together in the truth, being kind and gentle
+toward each other, despising none. When it is in your power to do good,
+defer it not, for charity delivered from death. Be all of you subject
+one to another, having your conversation honest among the Gentiles; that
+by your good works both ye yourselves may receive praise and the Lord
+may not be blasphemed through you. But woe be to him by whom the name of
+the Lord is blasphemed. Therefore teach all men sobriety; in which do ye
+also exercise yourselves.
+
+I am greatly afflicted for Valens, who was once a presbyter among you;
+that he should so little understand the place that was given to him in
+the Church. Wherefore I admonish you that ye abstain from covetousness,
+and that ye be chaste, and true of speech. Keep yourselves from all
+evil; for he that in these things cannot govern himself, how shall he be
+able to prescribe them to another? If a man does not keep himself from
+covetousness he shall be polluted with idolatry and be judged as if he
+were a Gentile. But who of you are ignorant of the judgment of God? Do
+we not know that the saints shall judge the world, as Paul teaches? But
+I have neither perceived nor heard anything of this kind in you, among
+whom the blessed Paul labored, and who are named in the beginning of his
+epistle. For he glories of you in all the churches who then only knew
+God; for we did not then know him. Wherefore, my brethren, I am
+exceedingly sorry both for him and for his wife; to whom God grant a
+true repentance.
+
+And be ye also moderate upon this occasion, and look not upon such as
+enemies, but call them back as suffering and erring members, that ye may
+save your whole body; for by so doing ye shall edify your own selves.
+For I trust that ye are well exercised in the Holy Scriptures, and that
+nothing is hid from you; but at present it is not granted unto me to
+practise that which is written, Be angry and sin not; and again, Let not
+the sun go down upon your wrath. Blessed be he that believeth and
+remembereth these things, which also I trust you do.
+
+Now the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and he himself who is
+our everlasting high-priest, the Son of God, even Jesus Christ, build
+you up in faith and in truth and in all meekness and lenity; in
+patience and long-suffering, in forbearance and chastity. And grant unto
+you a lot and portion among his saints; and us with you, and to all that
+are under the heavens, who shall believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, and
+in his Father who raised him from the dead. Pray for all the saints;
+pray also for kings, and all that are in authority; and for those who
+persecute you, and hate you, and for the enemies of the cross; that your
+fruit may be manifest in all, and that ye may be perfect in Christ. Ye
+wrote to me, both ye and also Ignatius, that if anyone went from hence
+into Syria he should bring your letters with him, which also I will take
+care of, as soon as I shall have a convenient opportunity, either by
+myself or him whom I shall send upon your account. The Epistles of
+Ignatius, which he wrote unto us, together with what others of his have
+come to our hands, we have sent to you, according to your order, which
+are subjoined to this epistle. By which we may be greatly profited; for
+they treat of faith and patience, and of all things that pertain to
+edification in the Lord Jesus. What you know certainly of Ignatius and
+those that are with him signify to us.
+
+These things have I written unto you by Crescens, whom by this present
+epistle I have recommended to you, and do now again commend. For he has
+had his conversation without blame among us, and I suppose also with
+you. Ye will also have regard unto his sister when she shall come unto
+you. Be ye safe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in favor with all yours.
+Amen.
+
+
+
+
+PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS IN GAUL
+
+A.D. 177
+
+FRANÇOIS P. G. GUIZOT
+
+     That the persecutions of Christians under the Roman Empire should
+     have been inaugurated by a Nero is not a subject of wonder in view
+     of that Emperor's character as depicted in history through all ages
+     since his own. But it is difficult to understand how an emperor
+     like Trajan--an enlightened and humane ruler--if he was powerless
+     to prevent, could have brought himself to give countenance to a
+     policy at once so intolerant and cruel, and in the end to prove so
+     short-sighted. A great cause prospers by persecution. The
+     martyr-spirit is strengthened by blows and fagots. History has well
+     proved the truth of that saying of the Church Fathers, tersely
+     given by St. Jerome: _Est sanguis martyrium seminarium Ecclesiarum_
+     ("The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church").
+
+     Still more incomprehensible to modern students is the fact that
+     Marcus Aurelius, the imperial philosopher and benevolent man,
+     should also be stained with the infamy of the persecutions. The
+     charges brought against him as a cruel persecutor of the Christians
+     have given rise to much dispute among historical scholars. Among
+     modern Christian writers of favorable disposition toward Marcus, F.
+     W. Farrar has perhaps as clearly as any set forth the views that
+     explain his conduct and vindicate his reputation for humanity:
+     "That he shared the profound dislike with which Christians were
+     regarded is very probable. That he was a cold-blooded and virulent
+     persecutor is utterly unlike his whole character. The deep
+     calamities in which during his whole reign the empire was involved
+     caused widespread distress, and roused into peculiar fury the
+     feelings of the provincials against men whose atheism (for such
+     they considered it to be) had kindled the anger of the gods.
+     Marcus, when appealed to, simply let the existing law take its
+     course." In like manner the purely official or legal view of human
+     affairs often leads the most kindly and conscientious of men to
+     pursue or acquiesce in policies against which, in different
+     situations, their moral nature would rebel.
+
+     There were many reasons which led the populace to hate Christians,
+     whom, first of all, they regarded as being unpatriotic. While among
+     Romans it was considered the highest honor to possess the
+     privileges of Roman citizenship, the Christians announced that they
+     were citizens of heaven. They shrank from public office and
+     military service.
+
+     Again, the ancient religion of Rome was an adjunct of state dignity
+     and ceremonial. It was hallowed by a thousand traditional and
+     patriotic associations. The Christians regarded its rites and its
+     popular assemblies with contempt and abhorrence. The Romans viewed
+     the secret meetings of the Christians with suspicion, and accused
+     them of abominable excesses and crime. They were known to have
+     representatives in every important city of Gaul, Spain, Italy, and
+     Asia; and the more their communities grew, the more the Roman
+     populace raged against them. Only such considerations appear to
+     mitigate the historical judgments against Aurelius for marring the
+     splendor of his reign by persecutions. The tragedies enacted in the
+     churches of Lyons and Vienne, as described in the following pages,
+     form one of the most melancholy records of history.
+
+
+When Christianity began to penetrate into Gaul, it encountered there two
+religions very different one from the other, and infinitely more
+different from the Christian religion; these were Druidism and
+paganism--hostile one to the other, but with a hostility political only,
+and unconnected with those really religious questions that Christianity
+was coming to raise.
+
+Druidism, considered as a religion, was a mass of confusion, wherein the
+instinctive notions of the human race concerning the origin and destiny
+of the world and of mankind were mingled with the oriental dreams of
+metempsychosis--that pretended transmigration, at successive periods, of
+immortal souls into divers creatures. This confusion was worse
+confounded by traditions borrowed from the mythologies of the East and
+the North, by shadowy remnants of a symbolical worship paid to the
+material forces of nature, and by barbaric practices, such as human
+sacrifices, in honor of the gods or of the dead.
+
+People who are without the scientific development of language and the
+art of writing do not attain to systematic and productive religious
+creeds. There is nothing to show that, from the first appearance of the
+Gauls in history to their struggle with victorious Rome, the religious
+influence of Druidism had caused any notable progress to be made in
+Gallic manners and civilization. A general and strong, but vague and
+incoherent, belief in the immortality of the soul was its noblest
+characteristic. But with the religious elements, at the same time coarse
+and mystical, were united two facts of importance: the Druids formed a
+veritable ecclesiastical corporation, which had, throughout Gallic
+society, fixed attributes, special manners and customs, an existence at
+the same time distinct and national; and in the wars with Rome this
+corporation became the most faithful representatives and the most
+persistent defenders of Gallic independence and nationality.
+
+The Druids were far more a clergy than Druidism was a religion; but it
+was an organized and a patriotic clergy. It was especially on this
+account that they exercised in Gaul an influence which was still
+existent, particularly in Northwestern Gaul, at the time when
+Christianity reached the Gallic provinces of the South and Centre.
+
+The Græco-Roman paganism was, at this time, far more powerful than
+Druidism in Gaul, and yet more lukewarm and destitute of all religious
+vitality. It was the religion of the conquerors and of the State, and
+was invested, in that quality, with real power; but, beyond that, it had
+but the power derived from popular customs and superstitions. As a
+religious creed, the Latin paganism was at bottom empty, indifferent,
+and inclined to tolerate all religions in the State, provided only that
+they, in their turn, were indifferent at any rate toward itself, and
+that they did not come troubling the State, either by disobeying her
+rulers or by attacking her old deities, dead and buried beneath their
+own still standing altars.
+
+Such were the two religions with which in Gaul nascent Christianity had
+to contend. Compared with them it was, to all appearance, very small and
+very weak; but it was provided with the most efficient weapons for
+fighting and beating them, for it had exactly the moral forces which
+they lacked. Christianity, instead of being, like Druidism, a religion
+exclusively national and hostile to all that was foreign, proclaimed a
+universal religion, free from all local and national partiality,
+addressing itself to all men in the name of the same God, and offering
+to all the same salvation. It is one of the strangest and most
+significant facts in history that the religion most universally _human_,
+most dissociated from every consideration but that of the rights and
+well-being of the human race in its entirety--that such a religion, be
+it repeated, should have come forth from the womb of the most exclusive,
+most rigorously and obstinately national religion that ever appeared in
+the world, that is, Judaism. Such, nevertheless, was the birth of
+Christianity; and this wonderful contrast between the essence and the
+earthly origin of Christianity was without doubt one of its most
+powerful attractions and most efficacious means of success.
+
+Against paganism Christianity was armed with moral forces not a whit
+less great. Confronting mythological traditions and poetical or
+philosophical allegories, appeared a religion truly religious, concerned
+solely with the relations of mankind to God and with their eternal
+future. To the pagan indifference of the Roman world the Christians
+opposed the profound conviction of their faith, and not only their
+firmness in defending it against all powers and all dangers, but also
+their ardent passion for propagating it without any motive but the
+yearning to make their fellows share in its benefits and its hopes. They
+confronted, nay, they welcomed martyrdom, at one time to maintain their
+own Christianity, at another to make others Christians around them;
+propagandism was for them a duty almost as imperative as fidelity.
+
+And it was not in memory of old and obsolete mythologies, but in the
+name of recent deeds and persons, in obedience to laws proceeding from
+God, One and Universal, in fulfilment and continuation of a contemporary
+and superhuman history--that of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of
+Man--that the Christians of the first two centuries labored to convert
+to their faith the whole Roman world. Marcus Aurelius was contemptuously
+astonished at what he called the obstinacy of the Christians; he knew
+not from what source these nameless heroes drew a strength superior to
+his own, though he was at the same time emperor and sage. It is
+impossible to assign with exactness the date of the first footprints and
+first labors of Christianity in Gaul. It was not, however, from Italy,
+nor in the Latin tongue and through Latin writers, but from the East and
+through the Greeks, that it first came and began to spread. Marseilles
+and the different Greek colonies, originally from Asia Minor and settled
+upon the shores of the Mediterranean or along the Rhone, mark the route
+and were the places whither the first Christian missionaries carried
+their teaching: on this point the letters of the apostles and the
+writings of the first two generations of their disciples are clear and
+abiding proof.
+
+In the West of the empire, especially in Italy, the Christians at their
+first appearance were confounded with the Jews, and comprehended under
+the same name. "The emperor Claudius," says Suetonius, "drove from Rome
+(A.D. 52) the Jews who, at the instigation of Christus, were in
+continual commotion." After the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus (A.D.
+70), the Jews, Christian or not, dispersed throughout the empire; but
+the Christians were not slow to signalize themselves by their religious
+fervor, and to come forward everywhere under their own true name.
+
+Lyons became the chief centre of Christian preaching and association in
+Gaul. As early as the first half of the second century there existed
+there a Christian congregation, regularly organized as a church, and
+already sufficiently important to be in intimate and frequent
+communication with the Christian churches of the East and West. There is
+a tradition, generally admitted, that St. Pothinus, the first bishop of
+Lyons, was sent thither from the East by the bishop of Smyrna, St.
+Polycarp, himself a disciple of St. John. One thing is certain, that the
+Christian Church of Lyons produced Gaul's first martyrs, among whom was
+the bishop, St. Pothinus.
+
+It was under Marcus Aurelius, the most philosophical and most
+conscientious of the emperors, that there was enacted for the first time
+in Gaul, against nascent Christianity, that scene of tyranny and
+barbarity which was to be renewed so often and during so many centuries
+in the midst of Christendom itself. In the eastern provinces of the
+empire and in Italy the Christians had already been several times
+persecuted, now with cold-blooded cruelty, now with some slight
+hesitation and irresolution. Nero had caused them to be burned in the
+streets of Rome, accusing them of the conflagration himself had kindled,
+and, a few months before his fall, St. Peter and St. Paul had undergone
+martyrdom at Rome. Domitian had persecuted and put to death Christians
+even in his own family, and though invested with the honors of the
+consulate.
+
+Righteous Trajan, when consulted by Pliny the Younger on the conduct he
+should adopt in Bithynia toward the Christians, had answered: "It is
+impossible, in this sort of matter, to establish any certain general
+rule; there must be no quest set on foot against them, and no unsigned
+indictment must be accepted; but if they be accused and convicted, they
+must be punished." To be punished, it sufficed that they were convicted
+of being Christians; and it was Trajan himself who condemned St.
+Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, to be brought to Rome and thrown to the
+beasts, for the simple reason that he was highly Christian. Marcus
+Aurelius, not only by virtue of his philosophical conscientiousness, but
+by reason of an incident in his history, seemed bound to be further than
+any other from persecuting the Christians.
+
+During one of his campaigns on the Danube, A.D. 174, his army was
+suffering cruelly from fatigue and thirst; and at the very moment when
+they were on the point of engaging in a great battle against the
+barbarians, the rain fell in abundance, refreshed the Roman soldiers,
+and conduced to their victory. There was in the Roman army a legion, the
+Twelfth, called the _Melitine_ or the _Thundering_, which bore on its
+roll many Christian soldiers. They gave thanks for the rain and the
+victory to the one omnipotent God who had heard their prayers, while the
+pagans rendered like honor to Jupiter, the Rain-giver and the Thunderer.
+The report about these Christians got spread abroad and gained credit in
+the empire, so much so that there was attributed to Marcus Aurelius a
+letter, in which by reason, no doubt, of this incident, he forbade
+persecution of the Christians.
+
+Tertullian, a contemporary witness, speaks of this letter in perfect
+confidence; and the Christian writers of the following century did not
+hesitate to regard it as authentic. Nowadays, a strict examination of
+its existing text does not allow such a character to be attributed to
+it. At any rate the persecutions of the Christians were not forbidden,
+for in the year 177, that is, only three years after the victory of
+Marcus Aurelius over the Germans, there took place, undoubtedly by his
+orders, the persecution which caused at Lyons the first Gallic
+martyrdom. This was the fourth, or, according to others, the fifth great
+imperial persecution of the Christians.
+
+Most tales of the martyrs were written long after the event, and came to
+be nothing more than legends laden with details often utterly puerile or
+devoid of proof. The martyrs of Lyons in the second century wrote, so
+to speak, their own history; for it was their comrades, eye-witnesses of
+their sufferings and their virtue, who gave an account of them in a long
+letter addressed to their friends in Asia Minor, and written with
+passionate sympathy and pious prolixity, but bearing all the
+characteristics of truth. It seems desirable to submit for perusal that
+document, which has been preserved almost entire in the _Ecclesiastical
+History_ of Eusebius, bishop of Cæsarea in the third century, and which
+will exhibit, better than any modern representations, the state of facts
+and of souls in the midst of the imperial persecutions, and the mighty
+faith, devotion, and courage with which the early Christians faced the
+most cruel trials:
+
+"The servants of Christ, dwelling at Vienne and Lyons in Gaul, to the
+brethren settled in Asia and Phrygia, who have the same faith and hope
+of redemption that we have, peace, grace, and glory from God the Father
+and Jesus Christ our Lord!
+
+"None can tell to you in speech or fully set forth to you in writing the
+weight of our misery, the madness and rage of the Gentiles against the
+saints, and all that hath been suffered by the blessed martyrs. Our
+enemy doth rush upon us with all the fury of his powers, and already
+giveth us a foretaste and the first-fruits of all the license with which
+he doth intend to set upon us. He hath omitted nothing for the training
+of his agents against us, and he doth exercise them in a sort of
+preparatory work against the servants of the Lord. Not only are we
+driven from the public buildings, from the baths, and from the Forum,
+but it is forbidden to all our people to appear publicly in any place
+whatsoever.
+
+"The grace of God hath striven for us against the devil: at the same
+time that it hath sustained the weak, it hath opposed to the Evil One,
+as it were, pillars of strength--men strong and valiant, ready to draw
+on themselves all his attacks. They have had to bear all manner of
+insult; they have deemed but a small matter that which others find hard
+and terrible; and they have thought only of going to Christ, proving by
+their example that the sufferings of this world are not worthy to be put
+in the balance with the glory which is to be manifested in us. They
+have endured, in the first place, all the outrages that could be heaped
+upon them by the multitude, outcries, blows, thefts, spoliation,
+stoning, imprisonment, all that the fury of the people could devise
+against hated enemies. Then, dragged to the Forum by the military
+tribune and the magistrates of the city, they have been questioned
+before the people and cast into prison until the coming of the governor.
+He, from the moment our people appeared before him, committed all manner
+of violence against them.
+
+"Then stood forth one of our brethren, Vettius Epagathus, full of love
+toward God and his neighbor, living a life so pure and strict that,
+young as he was, men held him to be the equal of the aged Zacharias. He
+could not bear that judgment so unjust should go forth against us, and,
+moved with indignation, he asked leave to defend his brethren, and to
+prove that there was in them no kind of irreligion or impiety. Those
+present at the tribunal, among whom he was known and celebrated, cried
+out against him, and the governor himself, enraged at so just a demand,
+asked him no more than this question, 'Art thou a Christian?'
+Straightway with a loud voice he declared himself a Christian, and was
+placed among the number of the martyrs.
+
+"Afterward, the rest began to be examined and classed. The first, firm
+and well prepared, made hearty and solemn confession of their faith.
+Others, ill prepared and with little firmness, showed that they lacked
+strength for such a fight. About ten of them fell away, which caused us
+incredible pain and mourning. Their example broke down the courage of
+others, who, not being yet in bonds, though they had already had much to
+suffer, kept close to the martyrs, and withdrew not out of their sight.
+Then were we all stricken with dread for the issue of the trial: not
+that we had great fear of the torments inflicted, but because,
+prophesying the result according to the degree of courage of the
+accused, we feared much falling away. They took, day by day, those of
+our brethren who were worthy to replace the weak; so that all the best
+of the two churches, those whose care and zeal had founded them, were
+taken and confined.
+
+"They took, likewise, some of our slaves, for the governor had ordered
+that they should be all summoned to attend in public; and they, fearing
+the torments they saw the saints undergo, and instigated by the
+soldiers, accused us falsely of odious deeds, such as the banquet of
+Thyestes, the incest of Oedipus, and other crimes which must not be
+named or even thought of, and which we cannot bring ourselves to believe
+that men were ever guilty of. These reports having once spread among the
+people, even those persons who had hitherto by reason, perhaps, of
+relationship, shown moderation toward us, burst forth into bitter
+indignation against our people. Thus was fulfilled that which had been
+prophesied by the Lord: 'The time cometh when whosoever shall kill you
+shall think that he doeth God service.' Since that day the holy martyrs
+have suffered tortures that no words can express.
+
+"The fury of the multitude, of the governor, and of the soldiers fell
+chiefly upon Sanctus, a deacon of Vienne; upon Maturus, a neophyte
+still, but already a valiant champion of Christ; upon Attalus also, born
+at Pergamus, but who hath ever been one of the pillars of our Church;
+upon Blandina, lastly, in whom Christ hath made it appear that persons
+who seem vile and despised of men are just those whom God holds in the
+highest honor by reason of the excellent love they bear him, which is
+manifested in their firm virtue and not in vain show. All of us, and
+even Blandina's mistress here below, who fought valiantly with the other
+martyrs, feared that this poor slave, so weak of body, would not be in a
+condition to freely confess her faith; but she was sustained by such
+vigor of soul that the executioners, who from morn till eve put her to
+all manner of torture, failed in their efforts, and declared themselves
+beaten, not knowing what further punishment to inflict, and marvelling
+that she still lived, with her body pierced through and through, and
+torn piecemeal by so many tortures, of which a single one should have
+sufficed to kill her. But that blessed saint, like a valiant athlete,
+took fresh courage and strength from the confession of her faith; all
+feeling of pain vanished, and ease returned to her at the mere utterance
+of the words, 'I am a Christian, and no evil is wrought among us.'
+
+"As for Sanctus, the executioners hoped that in the midst of the
+tortures inflicted upon him--the most atrocious which man could
+devise--they would hear him say something unseemly or unlawful; but so
+firmly did he resist them, that, without even saying his name, or that
+of his nation or city, or whether he was bond or free, he only replied
+in the Roman tongue, to all questions, 'I am a Christian.' Therein was,
+for him, his name, his country, his condition, his whole being; and
+never could the Gentiles wrest from him another word. The fury of the
+governor and the executioners was redoubled against him; and, not
+knowing how to torment him further, they applied to his most tender
+members bars of red-hot iron. His members burned; but he, upright and
+immovable, persisted in his profession of faith, as if living waters
+from the bosom of Christ flowed over him and refreshed him. Some days
+after, these infidels began again to torture him, believing that if they
+inflicted upon his blistering wounds the same agonies, they would
+triumph over him, who seemed unable to bear the mere touch of their
+hands; and they hoped, also, that the sight of his torturing alive would
+terrify his comrades. But, contrary to general expectation, the body of
+Sanctus, rising suddenly up, stood erect and firm amid these repeated
+torments, and recovered its old appearance and the use of its members,
+as if, by divine grace, this second laceration of his flesh had caused
+healing rather than suffering.
+
+"When the tyrants had thus expended and exhausted their tortures against
+the firmness of the martyrs sustained by Christ, the devil devised other
+contrivances. They were cast into the darkest and most unendurable place
+in their prison; their feet were dragged out and compressed to the
+utmost tension of the muscles; the jailers, as if instigated by a demon,
+tried every sort of torture, insomuch that several of them, for whom God
+willed such an end, died of suffocation in prison. Others, who had been
+tortured in such a manner that it was thought impossible they should
+long survive, deprived as they were of every remedy and aid from men,
+but supported nevertheless by the grace of God, remained sound and
+strong in body as in soul, and comforted and reanimated their brethren.
+
+"The blessed Pothinus, who held at that time the bishopric of Lyons,
+being upward of ninety, and so weak in body that he could hardly
+breathe, was himself brought before the tribunal, so worn with old age
+and sickness that he seemed nigh to extinction; but he still possessed
+his soul, wherewith to subserve the triumph of Christ. Being brought by
+the soldiers before the tribunal, whither he was accompanied by all the
+magistrates of the city and the whole populace, that pursued him with
+hootings, he offered, as if he had been the very Christ, the most
+glorious testimony. At a question from the governor, who asked what the
+God of the Christians was, he answered, 'If thou be worthy, thou shalt
+know.' He was immediately raised up, without any respect or humanity,
+and blows were showered upon him; those who happened to be nearest to
+him assaulted him grievously with foot and fist, without the slightest
+regard for his age; those who were farther off cast at him whatever was
+to their hand; they would all have thought themselves guilty of the
+greatest default if they had not done their best, each on his own score,
+to insult him brutally. They believed they were avenging the wrongs of
+their gods. Pothinus, still breathing, was cast again into prison, and
+two days after yielded up his spirit.
+
+"Then were manifested a singular dispensation of God and the
+immeasurable compassion of Jesus Christ: an example rare among brethren,
+but in accord with the intentions and the justice of the Lord. All those
+who, at their first arrest, had denied their faith, were themselves cast
+into prison and given over to the same sufferings as the other martyrs,
+for their denial did not serve them at all. Those who had made
+profession of being what they really were--that is, Christians--were
+imprisoned without being accused of other crimes. The former, on the
+contrary, were confined as homicides and wretches, thus suffering double
+punishment. The one sort found repose in the honorable joys of
+martyrdom, in the hope of promised blessedness, in the love of Christ,
+and in the spirit of God the Father; the other were a prey to the
+reproaches of conscience. It was easy to distinguish the one from the
+other by their looks. The one walked joyously, bearing on their faces a
+majesty mingled with sweetness, and their very bonds seemed unto them an
+ornament, even as the broidery that decks a bride; the other, with
+downcast eyes and humble and dejected air, were an object of contempt to
+the Gentiles themselves, who regarded them as cowards who had forfeited
+the glorious and saving name of Christians. And so they who were present
+at this double spectacle were thereby signally strengthened, and whoever
+among them chanced to be arrested confessed the faith without doubt or
+hesitation.
+
+"Things having come to this pass, different kinds of death were
+inflicted on the martyrs, and they offered to God a crown of divers
+flowers. It was but right that the most valiant champions, those who had
+sustained a double assault and gained a signal victory, should receive a
+splendid crown of immortality. The neophyte Maturus and the deacon
+Sanctus, Blandina and Attalus, then, were led into the amphitheatre, and
+thrown to the beasts, as a sight to please the inhumanity of the
+Gentiles. Maturus and Sanctus there underwent all kinds of tortures, as
+if they had hitherto suffered nothing; or, rather, like athletes who had
+already been several times victorious, and were contending for the crown
+of crowns, they braved the stripes with which they were beaten, the
+bites of the beasts that dragged them to and fro, and all that was
+demanded by the outcries of an insensate mob, so much the more furious
+because it could by no means overcome the firmness of the martyrs or
+extort from Sanctus any other speech than that which, on the first day,
+he had uttered--'I am a Christian.' After this fearful contest, as life
+was not extinct, their throats were at last cut, when they alone had
+thus been offered as a spectacle to the public instead of the variety
+displayed in the combat of gladiators.
+
+"Blandina, in her turn, tied to a stake, was given to the beasts; she
+was seen hanging, as it were, on a sort of cross, calling upon God with
+trustful fervor, and the brethren present were reminded, in the person
+of a sister, of Him who had been crucified for their salvation. As none
+of the beasts would touch the body of Blandina, she was released from
+the stake, taken back to prison, and reserved for another occasion.
+
+"Attalus, whose execution, seeing that he was a man of mark, was
+furiously demanded by the people, came forward ready to brave
+everything, as a man deriving confidence from the memory of his life,
+for he had courageously trained himself to discipline, and had always
+among us borne witness for the truth. He was led all round the
+Amphitheatre, preceded by a board bearing this inscription in Latin:
+'This is Attalus the Christian.' The people pursued him with the most
+furious hootings; but the governor, having learned that he was a Roman
+citizen, had him taken back to prison with the rest. Having subsequently
+written to Cæsar, he waited for his decision as to those who were thus
+detained.
+
+"This delay was neither useless nor unprofitable, for then shone forth
+the boundless compassion of Christ. Those of the brethren who had been
+but dead members of the Church were recalled to life by the pains and
+help of the living; the martyrs obtained grace for those who had fallen
+away; and great was the joy in the Church, at the same time virgin and
+mother, for she once more found living those whom she had given up for
+dead. Thus revived and strengthened by the goodness of God, who willeth
+not the death of the sinner, but rather inviteth him to repentance, they
+presented themselves before the tribunal, to be questioned afresh by the
+governor. Cæsar had replied that they who confessed themselves to be
+Christians should be put to the sword, and they who denied sent away
+safe and sound. When the time for the great market had fully come, there
+assembled a numerous multitude from every nation and every province. The
+governor had the blessed martyrs brought up before his judgment-seat,
+showing them before the people with all the pomp of a theatre. He
+questioned them afresh; and those who were discovered to be Roman
+citizens were beheaded, the rest were thrown to the beasts.
+
+"Great glory was gained for Christ by means of those who had at first
+denied their faith, and who now confessed it contrary to the expectation
+of the Gentiles. Those who, having been privately questioned, declared
+themselves Christians were added to the number of the martyrs. Those in
+whom appeared no vestige of faith and no fear of God, remained without
+the pale of the Church. When they were dealing with those who had been
+reunited to it, one Alexander, a Phrygian by nation, a physician by
+profession, who had for many years been dwelling in Gaul, a man well
+known to all for his love of God and open preaching of the faith, took
+his place in the hall of judgment, exhorting by signs all who filled it
+to confess their faith, even as if he had been called in to deliver
+them of it. The multitude, enraged to see that those who had at first
+denied turned round and proclaimed their faith, cried out against
+Alexander, whom they accused of the conversion.
+
+"The governor forthwith asked him what he was, and at the answer, 'I am
+a Christian,' condemned him to the beasts. On the morrow Alexander was
+again brought up, together with Attalus, whom the governor, to please
+the people, had once more condemned to the beasts. After they had both
+suffered in the Amphitheatre all the torments that could be devised,
+they were put to the sword. Alexander uttered not a complaint, not a
+word; he had the air of one who was talking inwardly with God. Attalus,
+seated on an iron seat, and waiting for the fire to consume his body,
+said, in Latin, to the people: 'See what ye are doing; it is in truth
+devouring men; as for us, we devour not men, and we do no evil at all.'
+He was asked what was the name of God: 'God,' said he, 'is not like us
+mortals; he hath no name.'
+
+"After all these martyrs, on the last day of the shows, Blandina was
+again brought up, together with a young lad, named Ponticus, about
+fifteen years old. They had been brought up every day before that they
+might see the tortures of their brethren. When they were called upon to
+swear by the altars of the Gentiles, they remained firm in their faith,
+making no account of those pretended gods, and so great was the fury of
+the multitude against them that no pity was shown for the age of the
+child or the sex of the woman. Tortures were heaped upon them; they were
+made to pass through every kind of torment, but the desired end was not
+gained.
+
+"Supported by the exhortations of his sister, who was seen and heard by
+the Gentiles, Ponticus, after having endured all magnanimously, gave up
+the ghost. Blandina, last of all--like a noble mother that hath roused
+the courage of her sons for the fight, and sent them forth to conquer
+for their king--passed once more through all the tortures they had
+suffered, anxious to go and rejoin them, and rejoicing at each step
+toward death. At length, after she had undergone fire, the talons of
+beasts, and agonizing aspersion, she was wrapped in a network and thrown
+to a bull that tossed her in the air; she was already unconscious of
+all that befell her, and seemed altogether taken up with watching for
+the blessings that Christ had in store for her. Even the Gentiles
+allowed that never a woman had suffered so much or so long.
+
+"Still their fury and their cruelty toward the saints were not appeased.
+They devised another way of raging against them; they cast to the dogs
+the bodies of those who had died of suffocation in prison, and watched
+night and day that none of our brethren might come and bury them. As for
+what remained of the martyrs' half-mangled or devoured corpses, they
+left them exposed under a guard of soldiers, coming to look on them with
+insulting eyes, and saying: 'Where is now their God? Of what use to them
+was this religion for which they laid down their lives?' We were
+overcome with grief that we were not able to bury these poor corpses;
+nor the darkness of night, nor gold, nor prayers could help us to
+succeed therein. After being thus exposed for six days in the open air,
+given over to all manner of outrage, the corpses of the martyrs were at
+last burned, reduced to ashes, and cast hither and thither by the
+infidels upon the waters of the Rhone, that there might be left no trace
+of them on earth. They acted as if they had been more mighty than God,
+and could rob our brethren of their resurrection: ''Tis in that hope,'
+said they, 'that these folk bring among us a new and strange religion,
+that they set at naught the most painful torments, and that they go
+joyfully to face death: let us see if they will rise again, if their God
+will come to their aid and will be able to tear them from our hands.'"
+
+It is not without a painful effort that, even after so many centuries,
+we can resign ourselves to be witnesses, in imagination only, of such a
+spectacle. We can scarce believe that among men of the same period and
+the same city so much ferocity could be displayed in opposition to so
+much courage, the passion for barbarity against the passion for virtue.
+Nevertheless, such is history; and it should be represented as it really
+was: first of all, for truth's sake; then for the due appreciation of
+virtue and all it costs of effort and sacrifice; and, lastly, for the
+purpose of showing what obstacles have to be surmounted, what struggles
+endured, and what sufferings borne, when the question is the
+accomplishment of great moral and social reforms. Marcus Aurelius was,
+without any doubt, a virtuous ruler, and one who had it in his heart to
+be just and humane; but he was an absolute ruler, that is to say, one
+fed entirely on his own ideas, very ill-informed about the facts on
+which he had to decide, and without a free public to warn him of the
+errors of his ideas or the practical results of his decrees. He ordered
+the persecution of the Christians without knowing what the Christians
+were or what the persecution would be, and this conscientious
+philosopher let loose at Lyons, against the most conscientious of
+subjects, the zealous servility of his agents, and the atrocious
+passions of the mob.
+
+The persecution of the Christians did not stop at Lyons or with Marcus
+Aurelius; it became, during the third century, the common practice of
+the emperors in all parts of the empire: from A.D. 202 to 312, under the
+reigns of Septimius Severus, Maximinus the First, Decius, Valerian,
+Aurelian, Diocletian, Maximian, and Galerius, there are reckoned six
+great general persecutions, without counting others more circumscribed
+or less severe. The emperors Alexander Severus, Philip the Arabian, and
+Constantius Chlorus were almost the only exceptions to this cruel
+system; and nearly always, wherever it was in force, the pagan mob, in
+its brutality or fanatical superstition, added to imperial rigor its own
+atrocious and cynical excesses.
+
+But Christian zeal was superior in perseverance and efficacy to pagan
+persecution. St. Pothinus the Martyr was succeeded as bishop at Lyons by
+St. Irenæus, the most learned, most judicious, and most illustrious of
+the early heads of the Church in Gaul. Originally from Asia Minor,
+probably from Smyrna, he had migrated to Gaul, at what particular date
+is not known, and had settled as a simple priest in the diocese of
+Lyons, where it was not long before he exercised vast influence, as well
+on the spot as also during certain missions intrusted to him, and among
+them one, they say, to the pope, St. Eleutherius, at Rome.
+
+While bishop of Lyons, from A.D. 177 to 202, he employed the
+five-and-twenty years in propagating the Christian faith in Gaul, and in
+defending, by his writings, the Christian doctrines against the discord
+to which they had already been subjected in the East, and which was
+beginning to penetrate the West.
+
+In 202, during the persecution instituted by Septimius Severus, St.
+Irenæus crowned by martyrdom his active and influential life. It was in
+his episcopate that there began what may be called the swarm of
+Christian missionaries who, toward the end of the second and during the
+third century, spread over the whole of Gaul, preaching the faith and
+forming churches. Some went from Lyons at the instigation of St.
+Irenæus; others from Rome, especially under the pontificate of Pope St.
+Fabian, himself martyred in 249; St. Felix and St. Fortunatus to
+Valence, St. Ferréol to Besançon, St. Marcellus to Châlons-sur-Saône,
+St. Benignus to Dijon, St. Trophimus to Arles, St. Paul to Narbonne, St.
+Saturninus to Toulouse, St. Martial to Limoges, St. Andéol and St.
+Privatus to the Cévennes, St. Austremoine to Clermont-Ferrand, St.
+Galian to Tours, St. Denis to Paris, and so many others that their names
+are scarcely known beyond the pages of erudite historians, or the very
+spots where they preached, struggled, and conquered, often at the price
+of their lives.
+
+Such were the founders of the faith and of the Christian Church in
+France. At the commencement of the fourth century their work was, if not
+accomplished, at any rate triumphant; and when, A.D. 312, Constantine
+declared himself a Christian, he confirmed the fact of the conquest of
+the Roman world, and of Gaul in particular, by Christianity. No doubt
+the majority of the inhabitants were not as yet Christians; but it was
+clear that the Christians were in the ascendant and had command of the
+future.
+
+Of the two grand elements which were to meet together on the ruins of
+Roman society, for the formation of modern society, the moral element,
+the Christian religion, had already taken possession of souls; the
+devastated territory awaited the coming of new peoples, known to history
+under the general name of Germans, whom the Romans called the
+Barbarians.
+
+
+
+
+BEGINNING OF ROME'S DECLINE: COMMODUS
+
+A.D. 180
+
+EDWARD GIBBON
+
+     That a ruler of such noble character as the Roman philosopher
+     Marcus Aurelius should have had for his son and successor a man
+     like Commodus is one of the strange contrasts of history. The
+     succession of Commodus, marking as it does the beginning of the
+     decline of the great empire, may be regarded as one of the most
+     critical moments in the existence of Rome. How folly and cruelty,
+     shameless vice and unbridled ferocity, may be associated in the
+     same character has often been illustrated in the careers of the
+     world's rulers, and nowhere more conspicuously than in some of the
+     Roman emperors; and in the case of Commodus the combination of
+     these qualities led to acts which involved not only the Emperor
+     himself, but also the empire over which he ruled, in fatal
+     consequences.
+
+     This vast empire, composed of many different peoples, was under the
+     rule and subject to the caprice of one man. The form of the
+     government imposed practically no checks on his power. With such
+     able emperors as Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and Marcus Aurelius the
+     State was safe; but the wise men of Rome had foreseen that a tyrant
+     or weak and inexperienced ruler, under this system, might plunge
+     the empire into confusion and ruin. Yet they had made no provision
+     against such a contingency. In the death of such a ruler and the
+     accession of an abler and juster one lay their only hope of
+     amelioration.
+
+     The course of events during the bloody reign of the degenerate
+     Commodus was such as surely to forecast the decline of Roman power
+     and supremacy. In the next hundred years there were twenty-three
+     emperors, thirteen of whom were murdered by their own soldiers or
+     servants--a tragic period of cruelty, licentiousness, and decay.
+
+
+If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world
+during which the condition of the human race was most happy and
+prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from
+the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of
+the Roman Empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of
+virtue and wisdom. The armies were restrained by the firm but gentle
+hand of four successive emperors, whose characters and authority
+commanded involuntary respect. The forms of the civil administration
+were carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines,
+who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with considering
+themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws. Such princes
+deserved the honor of restoring the republic, had the Romans of their
+days been capable of enjoying a rational freedom.
+
+The labors of these monarchs were overpaid by the immense reward that
+inseparably waited on their success, by the honest pride of virtue, and
+by the exquisite delight of beholding the general happiness of which
+they were the authors. A just but melancholy reflection imbittered,
+however, the noblest of human enjoyments. They must often have
+recollected the instability of a happiness which depended on the
+character of a single man. The fatal moment was perhaps approaching when
+some licentious youth or some jealous tyrant would abuse, to the
+destruction, that absolute power which they had exerted for the benefit
+of their people. The ideal restraints of the senate and the laws might
+serve to display the virtues, but could never correct the vices, of the
+emperor. The military force was a blind and irresistible instrument of
+oppression, and the corruption of Roman manners would always supply
+flatterers eager to applaud, and ministers prepared to serve, the fear
+or the avarice, the lust or the cruelty, of their masters.
+
+These gloomy apprehensions had been already justified by the experience
+of the Romans. The annals of the emperors exhibit a strong and various
+picture of human nature, which we should vainly seek among the mixed and
+doubtful characters of modern history. In the conduct of those monarchs
+we may trace the utmost lines of vice and virtue; the most exalted
+perfection, and the meanest degeneracy of our own species.
+
+The mildness of Marcus Aurelius, which the rigid discipline of the
+Stoics was unable to eradicate, formed, at the same time, the most
+amiable, and the only defective, part of his character. His excellent
+understanding was often deceived by the unsuspecting goodness of his
+heart. Artful men, who study the passions of princes, and conceal their
+own, approached his person in the disguise of philosophic sanctity, and
+acquired riches and honors by affecting to despise them. His excessive
+indulgence to his brother,[46] his wife, and his son exceeded the bounds
+of private virtue, and became a public injury, by the example and
+consequences of their vices.
+
+Faustina, the daughter of Pius and the wife of Marcus, has been as much
+celebrated for her gallantries as for her beauty. The grave simplicity
+of the philosopher was ill-calculated to engage her wanton levity, or to
+fix that unbounded passion for variety which often discovered personal
+merit in the meanest of mankind. The Cupid of the ancients was, in
+general, a very sensual deity; and the amours of an empress, as they
+exact on her side the plainest advances, are seldom susceptible of much
+sentimental delicacy. Marcus was the only man in the empire who seemed
+ignorant or insensible of the irregularities of Faustina, which,
+according to the prejudices of every age, reflected some disgrace on the
+injured husband. He promoted several of her lovers to posts of honor and
+profit, and, during a connection of thirty years, invariably gave her
+proofs of the most tender confidence and of a respect which ended not
+with her life. In his _Meditations_ he thanks the gods, who had bestowed
+on him a wife so faithful, so gentle, and of such a wonderful simplicity
+of manners. The obsequious senate, at his earnest request, declared her
+a goddess. She was represented in her temples with the attributes of
+Juno, Venus, and Ceres; and it was decreed that, on the day of their
+nuptials, the youth of either sex should pay their vows before the altar
+of their chaste patroness.
+
+The monstrous vices of the son have cast a shade on the purity of the
+father's virtues. It has been objected to Marcus that he sacrificed the
+happiness of millions to a fond partiality for a worthless boy; and that
+he chose a successor in his own family rather than in the empire.
+Nothing, however, was neglected by the anxious father, and by the men of
+virtue and learning whom he summoned to his assistance, to expand the
+narrow mind of young Commodus, to correct his growing vices, and to
+render him worthy of the throne for which he was designed. But the power
+of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy
+dispositions where it is almost superfluous. The distasteful lesson of
+a grave philosopher was, in a moment, obliterated by the whisper of a
+profligate favorite; and Marcus himself blasted the fruits of this
+labored education by admitting his son, at the age of fourteen or
+fifteen, to a full participation of the imperial power. He lived but
+four years afterward; but he lived long enough to repent a rash measure
+which raised the impetuous youth above the restraint of reason and
+authority.
+
+Most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of society are
+produced by the restraints which the necessary but unequal laws of
+property have imposed on the appetites of mankind by confining to a few
+the possession of those objects that are coveted by many. Of all our
+passions and appetites the love of power is of the most imperious and
+unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of
+the multitude. In the tumult of civil discord, the laws of society lose
+their force, and their place is seldom supplied by those of humanity.
+The ardor of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of success,
+the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future dangers all
+contribute to inflame the mind and to silence the voice of pity. From
+such motives almost every page of history has been stained with civil
+blood; but these motives will not account for the unprovoked cruelties
+of Commodus, who had nothing to wish and everything to enjoy.
+
+The beloved son of Marcus succeeded to his father, amid the acclamations
+of the senate and armies; and when he ascended the throne the happy
+youth saw round him neither competitor to remove nor enemies to punish.
+In this calm, elevated station it was surely natural that he should
+prefer the love of mankind to their detestation, the mild glories of his
+five predecessors to the ignominious fate of Nero and Domitian.
+
+Yet Commodus was not, as he has been represented, a tiger born with an
+insatiate thirst of human blood, and capable, from his infancy, of the
+most inhuman actions. Nature had formed him of a weak rather than a
+wicked disposition. His simplicity and timidity rendered him the slave
+of his attendants, who gradually corrupted his mind. His cruelty, which
+at first obeyed the dictates of others, degenerated into habit, and at
+length became the ruling passion of his soul.
+
+Upon the death of his father, Commodus found himself embarrassed with
+the command of a great army, and the conduct of a difficult war against
+the Quadi and Marcomanni. The servile and profligate youths whom Marcus
+had banished soon regained their station and influence about the new
+Emperor. They exaggerated the hardships and dangers of a campaign in the
+wild countries beyond the Danube; and they assured the indolent prince
+that the terror of his name and the arms of his lieutenants would be
+sufficient to complete the conquest of the dismayed barbarians, or to
+impose such conditions as were more advantageous than any conquest. By a
+dexterous application to his sensual appetites they compared the
+tranquillity, the splendor, the refined pleasures of Rome with the
+tumult of a Pannonian camp, which afforded neither leisure nor materials
+for luxury. Commodus listened to the pleasing advice, but while he
+hesitated between his own inclination and the awe which he still
+retained for his father's counsellors, the summer insensibly elapsed,
+and his triumphal entry into the capital was deferred till the autumn.
+His graceful person, popular address, and imagined virtues attracted the
+public favor; the honorable peace which he had recently granted to the
+barbarians diffused a universal joy; his impatience to revisit Rome was
+fondly ascribed to the love of his country; and his dissolute course of
+amusements was faintly condemned in a prince of nineteen years of age.
+
+During the three first years of his reign the forms, and even the
+spirit, of the old administration were maintained by those faithful
+counsellors to whom Marcus had recommended his son, and for whose wisdom
+and integrity Commodus still entertained a reluctant esteem. The young
+prince and his profligate favorites revelled in all the license of
+sovereign power; but his hands were yet unstained with blood; and he had
+even displayed a generosity of sentiment which might perhaps have
+ripened into solid virtue.[47] A fatal incident decided his fluctuating
+character.
+
+One evening, as the Emperor was returning to the palace through a dark
+and narrow portico in the Amphitheatre, an assassin, who waited his
+passage, rushed upon him with a drawn sword, loudly exclaiming, "_The
+senate sends you this_." The menace prevented the deed; the assassin was
+seized by the guards, and immediately revealed the authors of the
+conspiracy. It had been formed, not in the state, but within the walls
+of the palace. Lucilla, the Emperor's sister, and widow of Lucius Verus,
+impatient of the second rank, and jealous of the reigning empress, had
+armed the murderer against her brother's life. She had not ventured to
+communicate the black design to her second husband, Claudius Pompeianus,
+a senator of distinguished merit and unshaken loyalty; but among the
+crowd of her lovers--for she imitated the manners of Faustina--she found
+men of desperate fortunes and wild ambition, who were prepared to serve
+her more violent as well as her tender passions. The conspirators
+experienced the rigor of justice, and the abandoned princess was
+punished, first with exile, and afterward with death.
+
+But the words of the assassin sunk deep into the mind of Commodus, and
+left an indelible impression of fear and hatred against the whole body
+of the senate. Those whom he had dreaded as importunate ministers he now
+suspected as secret enemies. The delators, a race of men discouraged and
+almost extinguished under the former reigns, again became formidable, as
+soon as they discovered that the Emperor was desirous of finding
+disaffection and treason in the senate. That assembly, whom Marcus had
+ever considered as the great council of the nation, was composed of the
+most distinguished of the Romans; and distinction of every kind soon
+became criminal. The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of
+the informers; rigid virtue implied a tacit censure of the
+irregularities of Commodus; important services implied a dangerous
+superiority of merit; and the friendship of the father always insured
+the aversion of the son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof; trial to
+condemnation. The execution of a considerable senator was attended with
+the death of all who might lament or revenge his fate, and when Commodus
+had once tasted human blood he became incapable of pity or remorse.
+
+Of these innocent victims of tyranny none died more lamented than the
+two brothers of the Quintilian family, Maximus and Condianus, whose
+fraternal love has saved their names from oblivion and endeared their
+memory to posterity. Their studies and their occupations, their pursuits
+and their pleasures, were still the same. In the enjoyment of a great
+estate they never admitted the idea of a separate interest: some
+fragments are now extant of a treatise which they composed in common;
+and in every action of life it was observed that their two bodies were
+animated by one soul. The Antonines, who valued their virtues and
+delighted in their union, raised them, in the same year, to the
+consulship; and Marcus afterward intrusted to their joint care the civil
+administration of Greece, and a great military command, in which they
+obtained a signal victory over the Germans. The kind cruelty of Commodus
+united them in death.
+
+The tyrant's rage, after having shed the noblest blood of the senate, at
+length recoiled on the principal instrument of his cruelty. While
+Commodus was immersed in blood and luxury, he devolved the detail of the
+public business on Perennis, a servile and ambitious minister, who had
+obtained his post by the murder of his predecessor, but who possessed a
+considerable share of vigor and ability. By acts of extortion and the
+forfeited estates of the nobles sacrificed to his avarice he had
+accumulated an immense treasure. The prætorian guards were under his
+immediate command; and his son, who already discovered a military
+genius, was at the head of the Illyrian legions. Perennis aspired to the
+empire; or what, in the eyes of Commodus, amounted to the same crime, he
+was capable of aspiring to it, had he not been prevented, surprised, and
+put to death.
+
+The fall of a minister is a very trifling incident in the general
+history of the empire; but it was hastened by an extraordinary
+circumstance, which proved how much the nerves of discipline were
+already relaxed. The legions of Britain, discontented with the
+administration of Perennis, formed a deputation of fifteen hundred
+select men, with instructions to march to Rome and lay their complaints
+before the Emperor. These military petitioners, by their own determined
+behavior, by inflaming the divisions of the guards, by exaggerating the
+strength of the British army, and by alarming the fears of Commodus,
+exacted and obtained the minister's death, as the only redress of their
+grievances. This presumption of a distant army, and their discovery of
+the weakness of government, were a sure presage of the most dreadful
+convulsions.
+
+The negligence of the public administration was betrayed, soon
+afterward, by a new disorder, which arose from the smallest beginnings.
+A spirit of desertion began to prevail among the troops; and the
+deserters, instead of seeking their safety in flight or concealment,
+infested the highways. Maternus, a private soldier, of a daring boldness
+above his station, collected those bands of robbers into a little army,
+set open the prisons, invited the slaves to assert their freedom, and
+plundered with impunity the rich and defenceless cities of Gaul and
+Spain. The governors of the provinces, who had long been the spectators,
+and perhaps the partners, of his depredations, were at length roused
+from their supine indolence by the threatening commands of the Emperor.
+Maternus found that he was encompassed, and foresaw that he must be
+overpowered. A great effort of despair was his last resource. He ordered
+his followers to disperse, to pass the Alps in small parties and various
+disguises, and to assemble at Rome, during the licentious tumult of the
+festival of Cybele. To murder Commodus, and to ascend the vacant throne,
+were the ambition of no vulgar robber. His measures were so ably
+concerted that his concealed troops already filled the streets of Rome.
+The envy of an accomplice discovered and ruined this singular enterprise
+in the moment when it was ripe for execution.
+
+Suspicious princes often promote the last of mankind from a vain
+persuasion that those who have no dependence, except on their favor,
+will have no attachment, except to the person of their benefactor.
+Cleander, the successor of Perennis, was a Phrygian by birth; of a
+nation over whose stubborn but servile temper blows only could prevail.
+He had been sent from his native country to Rome, in the capacity of a
+slave. As a slave he entered the imperial palace, rendered himself
+useful to his master's passions, and rapidly ascended to the most
+exalted station which a subject could enjoy. His influence over the
+mind of Commodus was much greater than that of his predecessor; for
+Cleander was devoid of any ability or virtue which could inspire the
+Emperor with envy or distrust.
+
+Avarice was the reigning passion of his soul and the great principle of
+his administration. The rank of consul, of patrician, of senator, was
+exposed to public sale; and it would have been considered as
+disaffection if anyone had refused to purchase these empty and
+disgraceful honors, with the greatest part of his fortune. In the
+lucrative provincial employments the minister shared with the governor
+the spoils of the people. The execution of the laws was venal and
+arbitrary. A wealthy criminal might obtain not only the reversal of the
+sentence by which he was justly condemned, but might likewise inflict
+whatever punishment he pleased on the accuser, the witnesses, and the
+judge.
+
+By these means Cleander, in the space of three years, had accumulated
+more wealth than had ever yet been possessed by any freedman. Commodus
+was perfectly satisfied with the magnificent presents which the artful
+courtier laid at his feet in the most seasonable moments. To divert the
+public envy, Cleander, under the Emperor's name, erected baths,
+porticoes, and places of exercise for the use of the people. He
+flattered himself that the Romans, dazzled and amused by this apparent
+liberality, would be less affected by the bloody scenes which were daily
+exhibited; that they would forget the death of Byrrhus, a senator to
+whose superior merit the late Emperor had granted one of his daughters;
+and that they would forgive the execution of Arrius Antoninus, the last
+representative of the name and virtues of the Antonines. The former,
+with more integrity than prudence, had attempted to disclose, to his
+brother-in-law, the true character of Cleander. An equitable sentence
+pronounced by the latter, when proconsul of Asia, against a worthless
+creature of the favorite proved fatal to him. After the fall of
+Perennis, the terrors of Commodus had for a short time assumed the
+appearance of a return to virtue. He repealed the most odious of his
+acts, loaded his memory with the public execration, and ascribed to the
+pernicious counsels of that wicked minister all the errors of his
+inexperienced youth. But his repentance lasted only thirty days; and,
+under Cleander's tyranny, the administration of Perennis was often
+regretted.
+
+Pestilence and famine contributed to fill up the measure of the
+calamities of Rome. The first could be only imputed to the just
+indignation of the gods; but a monopoly of corn, supported by the riches
+and power of the minister, was considered as the immediate cause of the
+second. The popular discontent, after it had long circulated in
+whispers, broke out in the assembled Circus. The people quitted their
+favorite amusements for the more delicious pleasure of revenge, rushed
+in crowds toward a palace in the suburbs, one of the Emperor's
+retirements, and demanded, with angry clamors, the head of the public
+enemy. Cleander, who commanded the prætorian guards, ordered a body of
+cavalry to sally forth and disperse the seditious multitude. The
+multitude fled with precipitation toward the city; several were slain,
+and many more were trampled to death; but when the cavalry entered the
+streets their pursuit was checked by a shower of stones and darts from
+the roofs and windows of the houses.
+
+The foot-guards, who had been long jealous of the prerogatives and
+insolence of the prætorian cavalry, embraced the party of the people.
+The tumult became a regular engagement, and threatened a general
+massacre. The prætorians at length gave way, oppressed with numbers; and
+the tide of popular fury returned with redoubled violence against the
+gates of the palace, where Commodus lay, dissolved in luxury, and alone
+unconscious of the civil war. It was death to approach his person with
+the unwelcome news. He would have perished in this supine security had
+not two women, his eldest sister Fadilla, and Marcia, the most favored
+of his concubines, ventured to break into his presence. Bathed in tears,
+and with dishevelled hair, they threw themselves at his feet, and, with
+all the pressing eloquence of fear, discovered to the affrighted Emperor
+the crimes of the minister, the rage of the people, and the impending
+ruin which, in a few minutes, would burst over his palace and person.
+Commodus started from his dream of pleasure and commanded that the head
+of Cleander should be thrown out to the people. The desired spectacle
+instantly appeased the tumult; and the son of Marcus might even yet have
+regained the affection and confidence of his subjects.
+
+But every sentiment of virtue and humanity was extinct in the mind of
+Commodus. While he thus abandoned the reins of empire to these unworthy
+favorites, he valued nothing in sovereign power except the unbounded
+license of indulging his sensual appetites. The influence of a polite
+age and the labor of an attentive education had never been able to
+infuse into his rude and brutish mind the least tincture of learning;
+and he was the first of the Roman emperors totally devoid of taste for
+the pleasures of the understanding. Nero himself excelled, or affected
+to excel, in the elegant arts of music and poetry; nor should we despise
+his pursuits, had he not converted the pleasing relaxation of a leisure
+hour into the serious business and ambition of his life. But Commodus,
+from his earliest infancy, discovered an aversion to whatever was
+rational or liberal, and a fond attachment to the amusements of the
+populace; the sports of the Circus and Amphitheatre, the combats of
+gladiators, and the hunting of wild beasts. The masters in every branch
+of learning, whom Marcus provided for his son, were heard with
+inattention and disgust, while the Moors and Parthians, who taught him
+to dart the javelin and to shoot with the bow, found a disciple who
+delighted in his application, and soon equalled the most skilful of his
+instructors in the steadiness of the eye and the dexterity of the hand.
+
+The servile crowd, whose fortune depended on their master's vices,
+applauded these ignoble pursuits. The perfidious voice of flattery
+reminded him that by exploits of the same nature, by the defeat of the
+Nemæan lion, and the slaughter of the wild boar of Erymanthus, the
+Grecian Hercules had acquired a place among the gods and an immortal
+memory among men. They only forgot to observe that in the first ages of
+society, when the fiercer animals often dispute with man the possession
+of an unsettled country, a successful war against those savages is one
+of the most innocent and beneficial labors of heroism. In the civilized
+state of the Roman Empire the wild beasts had long since retired from
+the face of man and the neighborhood of populous cities. To surprise
+them in their solitary haunts and to transport them to Rome that they
+might be slain in pomp by the hand of an emperor was an enterprise
+equally ridiculous for the prince and oppressive for the people.
+
+Ignorant of these distinctions, Commodus eagerly embraced the glorious
+resemblance and styled himself (as we still read on his medals) the
+Roman Hercules. The club and the lion's hide were placed by the side of
+the throne, among the ensigns of sovereignty, and statues were erected
+in which Commodus was represented in the character and with the
+attributes of the god whose valor and dexterity he endeavored to emulate
+in the daily course of his ferocious amusements.
+
+Elated with these praises, which gradually extinguished the innate sense
+of shame, Commodus resolved to exhibit before the eyes of the Roman
+people those exercises which till then he had decently confined within
+the walls of his palace and to the presence of a few favorites. On the
+appointed day the various motives of flattery, fear, and curiosity
+attracted to the Amphitheatre an innumerable multitude of spectators;
+and some degree of applause was deservedly bestowed on the uncommon
+skill of the imperial performer. Whether he aimed at the head or heart
+of the animal, the wound was alike certain and mortal. With arrows whose
+point was shaped into the form of a crescent Commodus often intercepted
+the rapid career and cut asunder the long, bony neck of the ostrich.
+
+A panther was let loose, and the archer waited till he had leaped upon a
+trembling malefactor. In the same instant the shaft flew, the beast
+dropped dead, and the man remained unhurt. The dens of the Amphitheatre
+disgorged at once a hundred lions: a hundred darts from the unerring
+hand of Commodus laid them dead as they ran raging round the arena.
+Neither the huge bulk of the elephant nor the scaly hide of the
+rhinoceros could defend them from his stroke. Æthiopia and India yielded
+their most extraordinary productions; and several animals were slain in
+the Amphitheatre which had been seen only in the representations of art
+or perhaps of fancy. In all these exhibitions the securest precautions
+were used to protect the person of the Roman Hercules from the desperate
+spring of any savage, who might possibly disregard the dignity of the
+Emperor and the sanctity of the god.
+
+But the meanest of the populace were affected with shame and indignation
+when they beheld their sovereign enter the lists as a gladiator, and
+glory in a profession which the laws and manners of the Romans had
+branded with the justest note of infamy.[48] He chose the habit and arms
+of the _secutor_, whose combat with the _retiarius_ formed one of the
+most lively scenes in the bloody sports of the Amphitheatre. The secutor
+was armed with a helmet, sword, and buckler; his naked antagonist had
+only a large net and a trident; with the one he endeavored to entangle,
+with the other to despatch his enemy. If he missed the first throw, he
+was obliged to fly from the pursuit of the secutor till he had prepared
+his net for a second cast.
+
+The Emperor fought in this character seven hundred and thirty-five
+several times. These glorious achievements were carefully recorded in
+the public acts of the empire; and that he might omit no circumstance of
+infamy, he received from the common fund of gladiators a stipend so
+exorbitant that it became a new and most ignominious tax upon the Roman
+people. It may be easily supposed that in these engagements the master
+of the world was always successful; in the Amphitheatre his victories
+were not often sanguinary; but when he exercised his skill in the school
+of gladiators or his own palace, his wretched antagonists were
+frequently honored with a mortal wound from the hand of Commodus, and
+obliged to seal their flattery with their blood.
+
+He now disdained the appellation of Hercules. The name of Paulus, a
+celebrated secutor, was the only one which delighted his ear. It was
+inscribed on his colossal statues and repeated in the redoubled
+acclamations of the mournful and applauding senate. Claudius Pompeianus,
+the virtuous husband of Lucilla, was the only senator who asserted the
+honor of his rank. As a father, he permitted his sons to consult their
+safety by attending the Amphitheatre. As a Roman he declared that his
+own life was in the Emperor's hands, but that he would never behold the
+son of Marcus prostituting his person and dignity. Notwithstanding his
+manly resolution, Pompeianus escaped the resentment of the tyrant, and,
+with his honor, had the good fortune to preserve his life.
+
+Commodus had now attained the summit of vice and infamy. Amid the
+acclamations of a flattering court he was unable to disguise from
+himself that he had deserved the contempt and hatred of every man of
+sense and virtue in his empire. His ferocious spirit was irritated by
+the consciousness of that hatred, by the envy of every kind of merit, by
+the just apprehension of danger, and by the habit of slaughter which he
+contracted in his daily amusements. History has preserved a long list of
+consular senators sacrificed to his wanton suspicion, which sought out,
+with peculiar anxiety, those unfortunate persons connected, however
+remotely, with the family of the Antonines, without sparing even the
+ministers of his crimes or pleasures.
+
+His cruelty proved at last fatal to himself. He had shed with impunity
+the noblest blood of Rome: he perished as soon as he was dreaded by his
+own domestics. Marcia, his favorite concubine, Eclectus, his
+chamberlain, and Lætus, his prætorian prefect, alarmed by the fate of
+their companions and predecessors, resolved to prevent the destruction
+which every hour hung over their heads, either from the mad caprice of
+the tyrant or the sudden indignation of the people. Marcia seized the
+occasion of presenting a draught of wine to her lover, after he had
+fatigued himself with hunting some wild beasts. Commodus retired to
+sleep; but while he was laboring with the effects of poison and
+drunkenness, a robust youth, by profession a wrestler, entered his
+chamber and strangled him without resistance. The body was secretly
+conveyed out of the palace, before the least suspicion was entertained
+in the city, or even in the court, of the Emperor's death. Such was the
+fate of the son of Marcus, and so easy was it to destroy a hated tyrant,
+who, by the artificial powers of government, had oppressed, during
+thirteen years, so many millions of subjects, each of whom was equal to
+their master in personal strength and personal abilities.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[46] His brother by adoption, and his colleague, L. Verus. Marcus
+Aurelius had no other brother.
+
+[47] Manilius, the confidential secretary of Avidius Cassius, was
+discovered after he had lain concealed several years. The Emperor nobly
+relieved the public anxiety by refusing to see him, and burning his
+papers without opening them.
+
+[48] The virtuous and even the wise princes forbade the senators and
+knights to embrace this scandalous profession, under pain of infamy, or,
+what was more dreaded by those profligate wretches, of exile. The
+tyrants allured them to dishonor by threats and rewards. Nero once
+produced in the arena forty senators and sixty knights.
+
+
+
+
+EVENTFUL REIGN OF SAPOR I, KING OF PERSIA
+
+A.D. 240
+
+GEORGE RAWLINSON
+
+     Under Mithradates I the Parthian empire rose to great power, and
+     that monarch, about B.C. 163, began to make conquests toward the
+     west. By B.C. 150 he had added to his possessions Media Magna,
+     Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria proper, and Persia. The Persians appear
+     to have yielded without resistance to his rule, and he governed
+     them with a fair degree of moderation, allowing them, as was the
+     Parthian policy toward subject peoples, a large measure of
+     self-government under their hereditary native kings, the "King of
+     Kings" exacting little from them besides regular tribute and the
+     required number of men for his armies.
+
+     The Parthian empire was in turn overthrown by Ardashir or
+     Artaxerxes, who about B.C. 226 defeated and killed Ardavan, the
+     last Parthian king, and became the chief founder of the Sassanian
+     dynasty, which ruled Persia until the Mahometan invasion.
+
+     The victories of Artaxerxes had fatal results for the Roman power
+     in the East, for the new head of the Persian monarchy was no sooner
+     established on his throne than he sent an embassy to the Roman
+     Emperor, Alexander Severus, to demand from him the surrender of all
+     Asia and the withdrawal of Roman arms and authority to the western
+     shores of the Ægean Sea and of the Propontis, as the Sea of Marmora
+     was anciently called. From this began a series of wars which
+     continued at intervals for four centuries, and which ended only
+     with the Mahometan conquests that overwhelmed Roman and Persian
+     power alike. The first campaigns of the Romans against Artaxerxes
+     were indecisive, but the renewal of the war in the reign of his
+     son, Sapor I, was followed by disasters to the Roman arms which
+     Rawlinson describes in his most lucid and vigorous manner, together
+     with the other feats of this remarkable man.
+
+
+Artaxerxes appears to have died in A.D. 240. He was succeeded by his son
+Shahpuhri, or Sapor, the first Sassanian prince of that name. According
+to the Persian historians, the mother of Sapor was a daughter of the
+last Parthian king, Artabanus, whom Artaxerxes had taken to wife after
+his conquest of her father. But the facts known of Sapor throw doubt on
+this story, which has too many parallels in oriental romance to claim
+implicit credence. Nothing authentic has come down to us respecting
+Sapor during his father's lifetime, but from the moment that he mounted
+the throne we find him engaged in a series of wars, which show him to
+have been of a most active and energetic character.
+
+Armenia, which Artaxerxes had subjected, attempted, it would seem, to
+regain its independence at the commencement of the reign; but Sapor
+easily crushed the nascent insurrection, and the Armenians made no
+further effort to free themselves till several years after his death.
+Contemporaneously with this revolt in the mountain region of the North a
+danger showed itself in the plains country of the South, where Manizen,
+king of Hatra, or El Hadhr, not only declared himself independent, but
+assumed dominion over the entire tract between the Euphrates and the
+Tigris, the Jezireh of the Arabian geographers.
+
+The strength of Hatra was great, as had been proved by Trajan and
+Severus; its thick walls and valiant inhabitants would probably have
+defied every attempt of the Persian prince to make himself master of it
+by force. He, therefore, resorted to stratagem. Manizen had a daughter
+who cherished ambitious views. On obtaining a promise from Sapor that if
+she gave Hatra into his power he would make her his queen, this
+unnatural child turned against her father, betrayed him into Sapor's
+hands, and thus brought the war to an end. Sapor recovered his lost
+territory; but he did not fulfil his bargain. Instead of marrying the
+traitoress, he handed her over to an executioner, to receive the death
+that she had deserved, though scarcely at his hands.
+
+Encouraged by his success in these two lesser contests, Sapor resolved
+(apparently in A.D. 241) to resume the bold projects of his father, and
+engage in a great war with Rome. The confusion and troubles which
+afflicted the Roman Empire at this time were such as might well give him
+hopes of obtaining a decided advantage. Alexander, his father's
+adversary, had been murdered in A.D. 235 by Maximin, who from the
+condition of a Thracian peasant had risen into the higher ranks of the
+army. The upstart had ruled like the savage that he was, and after three
+years of misery the whole Roman world had risen against him. Two
+emperors had been proclaimed in Africa. On their fall two others had
+been elected by the senate; a third, a mere boy, had been added at the
+demand of the Roman populace. All the pretenders except the last had met
+with violent deaths; and after the shocks of a year, unparalleled since
+A.D. 69, the administration of the greatest kingdom in the world was in
+the hands of a youth of fifteen. Sapor, no doubt, thought he saw in this
+condition of things an opportunity that he ought not to miss, and
+rapidly matured his plans lest the favorable moment should pass away.
+
+Crossing the middle Tigris into Mesopotamia, the bands of Sapor first
+attacked the important city of Nisibis. Nisibis, at the time a Roman
+colony, was strongly situated on the outskirts of the mountain range
+which traverses Northern Mesopotamia between the thirty-seventh and
+thirty-eighth parallels. The place was well fortified and well defended;
+it offered a prolonged resistance; but the walls were breached and it
+was forced to yield itself. The advance was then made along the southern
+flank of the mountains by Carrhæ (Harran) and Edessa to the Euphrates,
+which was probably reached in the neighborhood of Birehjik. The hordes
+then poured into Syria, and, spreading themselves over that fertile
+region, surprised and took the metropolis of the Roman East, the rich
+and luxurious city of Antioch. But meantime the Romans had shown a
+spirit which had not been expected from them.
+
+Gordian, young as he was, had quitted Rome and marched through Moesia
+and Thrace into Asia, accompanied by a formidable army and by at least
+one good general. Timesitheus, whose daughter Gordian had recently
+married, though his life had hitherto been that of a civilian, exhibited
+on his elevation to the dignity of prætorian prefect considerable
+military ability. The army, nominally commanded by Gordian, really acted
+under his orders. With it Timesitheus attacked and beat the bands of
+Sapor in a number of engagements, recovered Antioch, crossed the
+Euphrates, retook Carrhæ, defeated the Persian monarch in a pitched
+battle near Resaina (Ras-el-Ain), recovered Nisibis, and once more
+planted the Roman standards on the banks of the Tigris. Sapor hastily
+evacuated most of his conquests, and retired first across the Euphrates,
+and then across the more eastern river, while the Romans advanced as he
+retreated, placed garrisons in the various Mesopotamian towns, and even
+threatened the great city of Ctesiphon.
+
+Gordian was confident that his general would gain further triumphs, and
+wrote to the senate to that effect; but either disease or the arts of a
+rival cut short the career of the victor, and from the time of his death
+the Romans ceased to be successful. The legions had, it would seem,
+invaded Southern Mesopotamia when the prætorian prefect who had
+succeeded Timesitheus brought them intentionally into difficulties by
+his mismanagement of the commissariat, and at last retreat was
+determined on.
+
+The young Emperor had almost reached his own frontier, when the
+discontent of the army, fomented by the prefect, Philip, came to a head.
+Gordian was murdered at a place called Zaitha, about twenty miles south
+of Circesium, and was buried where he fell, the soldiers raising a
+tumulus in his honor. His successor, Philip, was glad to make peace on
+any tolerable terms with the Persians; he felt himself insecure upon his
+throne, and was anxious to obtain the senate's sanction of his
+usurpation. He therefore quitted the East in A.D. 244, having concluded
+a treaty with Sapor by which Armenia seems to have been left to the
+Persians, while Mesopotamia returned to its old condition of a Roman
+province.
+
+The peace made between Philip and Sapor was followed by an interval of
+fourteen years, during which scarcely anything is known of the condition
+of Persia. We may suspect that troubles in the northeast of his empire
+occupied Sapor during this period, for at the end of it we find Bactria,
+which was certainly subject to Persia during the earlier years of the
+monarchy, occupying an independent position, and even assuming an
+attitude of hostility toward the Persian monarch. Bactria had, from a
+remote antiquity, claims to preëminence among the Aryan nations. She was
+more than once inclined to revolt from the Achæmenidæ, and during the
+later Parthian period she had enjoyed a sort of semi-independence. It
+would seem that she now succeeded in detaching herself altogether from
+her southern neighbor and becoming a distinct and separate power. To
+strengthen her position she entered into relations with Rome, which
+gladly welcomed any adhesions to her cause in this remote region.
+
+Sapor's second war with Rome was, like his first, provoked by himself.
+After concluding his peace with Philip he had seen the Roman world
+governed successively by six weak emperors, of whom four had died
+violent deaths, while at the same time there had been a continued series
+of attacks upon the northern frontiers of the empire by Alamanni, Goths,
+and Franks, who had ravaged at will a number of the finest provinces,
+and threatened the absolute destruction of the great monarchy of the
+West. It was natural that the chief kingdom of Western Asia should note
+these events, and should seek to promote its own interests by taking
+advantage of the circumstances of the time. Sapor, in A.D. 258,
+determined on a fresh invasion of the Roman provinces, and once more
+entering Mesopotamia carried all before him, became master of Nisibis,
+Carrhæ, and Edessa, and, crossing the Euphrates, surprised Antioch,
+which was wrapped in the enjoyment of theatrical and other
+representations, and only knew its fate on the exclamation of a couple
+of actors that "the Persians were in possession of the town!" The aged
+Emperor, Valerian, hastened to the protection of his more eastern
+territories, and at first gained some successes, retaking Antioch, and
+making that city his head-quarters during his stay in the East.
+
+But after this the tide turned. Valerian intrusted the whole conduct of
+the war to Macrianus, his prætorian prefect, whose talents he admired,
+and of whose fidelity he did not entertain a suspicion. Macrianus,
+however, aspired to the empire, and intentionally brought Valerian into
+difficulties in the hope of disgracing or removing him. His tactics were
+successful. The Roman army in Mesopotamia was betrayed into a situation
+whence escape was impossible and where its capitulation was only a
+question of time. A bold attempt made to force a way through the enemy's
+lines failed utterly, after which famine and pestilence began to do
+their work. In vain did the aged Emperor send envoys to propose a peace
+and offer to purchase escape by the payment of an immense sum in gold.
+Sapor, confident of victory, refused the overture, and, waiting
+patiently till his adversary was at the last gasp, invited him to a
+conference, and then treacherously seized his person. The army
+surrendered or dispersed. Macrianus, the prætorian prefect, shortly
+assumed the title of emperor and marched against Gallienus, the son and
+colleague of Valerian, who had been left to direct affairs in the West.
+But another rival started up in the East. Sapor conceived the idea of
+complicating the Roman affairs by himself putting forward a pretender;
+and an obscure citizen of Antioch, a certain Miriades, or Cyriades, a
+refugee in his camp, was invested with the purple and assumed the title
+of Cæsar.
+
+The blow struck at Edessa laid the whole of Roman Asia open to attack,
+and the Persian monarch was not slow to seize the occasion. His troops
+crossed the Euphrates in force, and, marching on Antioch, once more
+captured that unfortunate town, from which the more prudent citizens had
+withdrawn, but where the bulk of the people, not displeased at the turn
+of affairs, remained and welcomed the conqueror. Miriades was installed
+in power, while Sapor himself, at the head of his irresistible
+squadrons, pressed forward, bursting "like a mountain torrent" into
+Cilicia, and thence into Cappadocia. Tarsus, the birthplace of St. Paul,
+at once a famous seat of learning and a great emporium of commerce,
+fell; Cilicia Campestris was overrun, and the passes of Taurus, deserted
+or weakly defended by the Romans, came into Sapor's hand.
+
+Penetrating through them and entering the campaign country beyond, his
+bands soon began the siege of Cæsarea Mazaca, the greatest city of these
+parts, estimated at this time to have contained a population of four
+hundred thousand souls. Demosthenes, the governor of Cæsarea, defended
+it bravely, and, had force only been used against him, might have
+prevailed; but Sapor found friends within the walls, and by their help
+made himself master of the place, while its bold defender was obliged to
+content himself with escaping by cutting his way through the victorious
+host. All Asia Minor now seemed open to the conqueror; and it is
+difficult to understand why he did not at any rate attempt a permanent
+occupation of the territory which he had so easily overrun. But it seems
+certain that he entertained no such idea.
+
+Devastation and plunder, revenge and gain, not permanent conquest, were
+his objects; and hence his course was everywhere marked by ruin and
+carnage, by smoking towns, ravaged fields, and heaps of slain. His
+cruelties have no doubt been exaggerated; but when we hear that he
+filled the ravines and valleys of Cappadocia with dead bodies, and so
+led his cavalry across them; that he depopulated Antioch, killing or
+carrying off into slavery almost the whole population; that he suffered
+his prisoners in many cases to perish of hunger, and that he drove them
+to water once a day like beasts, we may be sure that the guise in which
+he showed himself to the Romans was that of a merciless scourge--an
+avenger bent on spreading the terror of his name, not of one who really
+sought to enlarge the limits of his empire. During the whole course of
+this plundering expedition, until the retreat began, we hear but of one
+check that the bands of Sapor received. It had been determined to attack
+Emesa, one of the most important of the Syrian towns, where the temple
+of Venus was known to contain a vast treasure. The invaders approached,
+scarcely expecting to be resisted; but the high-priest of the temple,
+having collected a large body of peasants, appeared in his sacerdotal
+robes at the head of a fanatic multitude armed with slings, and
+succeeded in beating off the assailants. Emesa, its temple, and its
+treasure escaped the rapacity of the Persians; and an example of
+resistance was set, which was not perhaps without important
+consequences.
+
+For it seems certain that the return of Sapor across the Euphrates was
+not effected without considerable loss and difficulty. On his advance
+into Syria he had received an embassy from a certain Odenathus, a
+Syrian, or Arab chief, who occupied a position of semi-independence at
+Palmyra, which through the advantages of its situation, had lately
+become a flourishing commercial town. Odenathus sent a long train of
+camels laden with gifts, consisting in part of rare and precious
+merchandise, to the Persian monarch, begging him to accept them, and
+claiming his favorable regard on the ground that he had hitherto
+refrained from all acts of hostility against the Persians. It appears
+that Sapor took offence at the tone of the communication, which was not
+sufficiently humble to please him. Tearing the letter to fragments and
+trampling it beneath his feet he exclaimed: "Who is this Odenathus, and
+of what country, that he ventures thus to address his lord? Let him now,
+if he would lighten his punishment, come here and fall prostrate before
+me with his hands tied behind his back. Should he refuse, let him be
+well assured that I will destroy himself, his race, and his land." At
+the same time he ordered his servants to cast the costly presents of the
+Palmyrene prince into the Euphrates.
+
+This arrogant and offensive behavior naturally turned the willing friend
+into an enemy. Odenathus, finding himself forced into a hostile
+position, took arms and watched his opportunity. So long as Sapor
+continued to advance he kept aloof. As soon, however, as the retreat
+commenced, and the Persian army, encumbered with its spoil and captives,
+proceeded to make its way back slowly and painfully to the Euphrates,
+Odenathus, who had collected a large force--in part from the Syrian
+villages, in part from the wild tribes of Arabia--made his appearance in
+the field. His light and agile horsemen hovered about the Persian host,
+cut off their stragglers, made prize of much of their spoil, and even
+captured a portion of the seraglio of the great king.
+
+The harassed troops were glad when they had placed the Euphrates between
+themselves and their pursuer, and congratulated each other on their
+escape. So much had they suffered and so little did they feel equal to
+further conflicts that on their march through Mesopotamia they consented
+to purchase the neutrality of the people of Edessa by making over to
+them all the coined money that they had carried off in their Syrian
+raid. After this it would seem that the retreat was unmolested, and
+Sapor succeeded in conveying the greater part of his army, together with
+his illustrious prisoner, to his own country.
+
+With regard to the treatment that Valerian received at the hands of his
+conqueror it is difficult to form a decided opinion. The writers nearest
+to the time speak vaguely and moderately, merely telling us that he grew
+old in his captivity and was kept in the condition of a slave. It is
+reserved for authors of the next generation to inform us that he was
+exposed to the constant gaze of the multitude, fettered, but clad in the
+imperial purple; and that Sapor, whenever he mounted on horseback,
+placed his foot upon his prisoner's neck. Some add that when the
+unhappy captive died, about the year A.D. 265 or 266, his body was
+flayed and the skin inflated and hung up to view in one of the most
+frequented temples of Persia, where it was seen by Roman envoys on their
+visits to the great king's court.
+
+It is impossible to deny that oriental barbarism may conceivably have
+gone to these lengths; and it is in favor of the truth of the details
+that Roman vanity would naturally have been opposed to their invention.
+But, on the other hand, we have to remember that in the East the person
+of a king is generally regarded as sacred, and that self-interest
+restrains the conquering monarch from dishonoring one of his own class.
+We have also to give due weight to the fact that the earlier authorities
+are silent with respect to any such atrocities, and that they are first
+related half a century after the time when they are said to have
+occurred.
+
+Under these circumstances the scepticism of Gibbon with respect to them
+is perhaps worthy of commendation.
+
+It may be added that oriental monarchs, when they are cruel, do not show
+themselves ashamed of their cruelties, but usually relate them openly in
+their inscriptions or represent them in their bas-reliefs. The remains
+ascribed on good grounds to Sapor do not, however, contain anything
+confirmatory of the stories which we are considering. Valerian is
+represented on them in a humble attitude, but not fettered, and never in
+the posture of extreme degradation commonly associated with his name. He
+bends his knee, as no doubt he would be required to do, on being brought
+into the great king's presence; but otherwise he does not appear to be
+subjected to any indignity. It seems thus to be on the whole most
+probable that the Roman Emperor was not more severely treated than the
+generality of captive princes, and that Sapor has been unjustly taxed
+with abusing the rights of conquest.
+
+The hostile feeling of Odenathus against Sapor did not cease with the
+retreat of the latter across the Euphrates. The Palmyrene prince was
+bent on taking advantage of the general confusion of the times to carve
+out for himself a considerable kingdom, of which Palmyra should be the
+capital. Syria and Palestine, on the one hand, Mesopotamia, on the
+other, were the provinces that lay most conveniently near to him and
+that he especially coveted. But Mesopotamia had remained in the
+possession of the Persians as the prize of their victory over Valerian,
+and could only be obtained by wresting it from the hands into which it
+had fallen. Odenathus did not shrink from this contest. It has been,
+with some reason, conjectured that Sapor must have been at this time
+occupied with troubles which had broken out on the eastern side of his
+empire. At any rate, it appears that Odenathus, after a short contest
+with Macrianus and his son, Quietus, turned his arms once more, about
+A.D. 263, against the Persians, crossed the Euphrates into Mesopotamia,
+took Carrhæ and Nisibis, defeated Sapor and some of his sons in a
+battle, and drove the entire Persian host in confusion to the gates of
+Ctesiphon. He even returned to lay siege to that city; but it was not
+long before effectual relief arrived; from all the provinces flocked in
+contingents for the defence of the western capital; several engagements
+were fought, in some of which Odenathus was defeated; and at last he
+found himself involved in difficulties through his ignorance of the
+localities, and so thought it best to retire. Apparently his retreat was
+undisturbed; he succeeded in carrying off his booty and his prisoners,
+among whom were several satraps, and he retained possession of
+Mesopotamia, which continued to form a part of the Palmyrene kingdom
+until the capture of Zenobia by Aurelian, A.D. 273.
+
+The successes of Odenathus, in A.D. 263, were followed by a period of
+comparative tranquillity. That ambitious prince seems to have been
+content with ruling from the Tigris to the Mediterranean, and with the
+title of "Augustus," which he received from the Roman emperor Gallienus,
+and "King of Kings," which he assumed upon his coins. He did not press
+further upon Sapor, nor did the Roman Emperor make any serious attempt
+to recover his father's person or revenge his defeat upon the Persians.
+An expedition which he sent out to the East, professedly with this
+object, in the year A.D. 267, failed utterly, its commander,
+Heraclianus, being signally defeated by Zenobia, the widow and successor
+of Odenathus. Odenathus himself was murdered by a kinsman three or four
+years after his great successes, and though Zenobia ruled his kingdom
+almost with a man's vigor, the removal of his powerful adversary must
+have been felt as a relief by the Persian monarch. It is evident, too,
+that from the time of the accession of Zenobia the relations between
+Rome and Palmyra had become unfriendly; the old empire grew jealous of
+the new kingdom which had sprung up upon its borders; and the effect of
+this jealousy, while it lasted, was to secure Persia from any attack on
+the part of either.
+
+It appears that Sapor, relieved from any further necessity of defending
+his empire in arms, employed the remaining years of his life in the
+construction of great works, and especially in the erection and
+ornamentation of a new capital. The ruins of Shapur, which still exist
+near Kazerun, in the province of Fars, commemorate the name and afford
+some indication of the grandeur of the second Persian monarch. Besides
+remains of buildings, they comprise a number of bas-reliefs and rock
+inscriptions, some of which were, beyond a doubt, set up by Sapor I. In
+one of the most remarkable, the Persian monarch is represented on
+horseback, wearing the crown usual upon his coins, and holding by the
+hand a tunicked figure, probably Miriades, whom he is presenting to the
+captured Romans as their sovereign. Foremost to do him homage is the
+kneeling figure of a chieftain, probably Valerian, behind whom are
+arranged in a double line seventeen persons, representing probably the
+different corps of the Roman army. All these persons are on foot, while
+in contrast with them are arranged behind Sapor ten guards on horseback,
+who represent his irresistible cavalry. Another bas-relief at the same
+place gives us a general view of Sapor on his return to Persia with his
+illustrious prisoners. Here fifty-seven guards are ranged behind him,
+while in front are thirty-three tribute bearers having with them an
+elephant and a chariot. In the centre is a group of seven figures,
+comprising: Sapor, who is on horseback in his usual costume; Valerian,
+who is under the horse's feet; Miriades, who stands by Sapor's side;
+three principal tribute bearers in front of the main figure; and a
+_Victory_, which floats in the sky.
+
+Another important work, assigned by tradition to Sapor I, is the great
+dike at Shuster. This is a dam across the river Karun, formed of cut
+stones, cemented by lime and fastened together by cramps of iron; it is
+twenty feet broad and no less than twelve hundred feet in length. The
+whole is a solid mass except in the centre, where two small arches have
+been constructed for the purpose of allowing a part of the stream to
+flow in its natural bed. The greater portion of the water is directed
+eastward into a canal cut for it; and the town of Shuster is thus
+defended on both sides by a water barrier, whereby the position becomes
+one of great strength. Tradition says that Sapor used his power over
+Valerian to obtain Roman engineers for this work; and the great dam is
+still known as the "Dam of Cæsar" to the inhabitants of the neighboring
+country.
+
+Sapor died, having reigned thirty-one years, from A.D. 240 to A.D. 271.
+He was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable princes of the Sassanian
+series. In military talent, indeed, he may not have equalled his father,
+for though he defeated Valerian he had to confess himself inferior to
+Odenathus. But in general governmental ability he is among the foremost
+of the Neo-Persian monarchs, and may compare favorably with almost any
+prince of the series. He baffled Odenathus, when he was not able to
+defeat him, by placing himself behind walls, and by bringing into play
+those advantages which naturally belonged to the position of a monarch
+attacked in his own country. He maintained, if he did not permanently
+advance, the power of Persia in the West, while in the East it is
+probable that he considerably extended the bounds of his dominion.
+
+To the internal administration of his empire he united works of
+usefulness with the construction of memorials which had only a
+sentimental and æsthetic value. He was a liberal patron of art and is
+thought not to have confined his patronage to the encouragement of
+native talent. On the subject of religion he did not suffer himself to
+be permanently led away by the enthusiasm of a young and bold
+freethinker. He decided to maintain the religious system that had
+descended to him from his ancestors, and turned a deaf ear to
+persuasions that would have led him to revolutionize the religious
+opinion of the East without placing it upon a satisfactory footing. The
+orientals add to these commendable features of character that he was a
+man of remarkable beauty, of great personal courage, and of a noble and
+princely liberality. According to them, "he only desired wealth that he
+might use it for good and great purposes."
+
+
+
+
+CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE
+
+DECLINE OF PAGANISM
+
+A.D. 300-337
+
+JOHANN LORENZ VON MOSHEIM
+
+     A new epoch in the history of the Roman Empire began with the
+     accession of Diocletian to the throne in A.D. 284. From that time
+     the old names of consul, tribune, etc., belonging to the republic
+     lost their significance, and even the senate was practically
+     abolished. Thenceforth the empire became an oriental sovereignty.
+     In the year 292, having previously associated with himself one
+     colleague, Maximianus Herculius, Diocletian created two Cæsars: the
+     one, Galerius Maximianus, to act as his subordinate in the East;
+     the other, Constantius Chlorus, to divide the government of the
+     western provinces with Maximianus Herculius. Each of these emperors
+     ruled with vigor in his own territory, defending the frontiers of
+     the empire and also suppressing such revolts as broke out within
+     its borders.
+
+     But these transformations in the empire were preparing the way for
+     events of unprecedented nature and importance, and for the rise of
+     an emperor destined to play a part in the history of the world
+     quite different from that performed by any of his predecessors.
+     This was Constantine, in whose character, throughout his life,
+     opposing elements seemed to contend for mastery, as was shown in
+     his treatment of the perplexing questions that arose during his
+     reign concerning Christianity, which was persecuted under
+     Diocletian and the old Roman religion. Of his statesmanship and his
+     further transformation of the empire, in ways which Diocletian
+     could not have foreseen, history has made an impressive record.
+
+     But the great events of his reign, which caused it to be regarded
+     as the inauguration of a new era, were his conversion to
+     Christianity and the acts whereby he secured its toleration and
+     then its supremacy in the empire. In the account which follows it
+     is clearly shown by what steps these results were attained, and how
+     the work of Constantine the Great became the chief agency by which
+     Christianity mounted the throne of the Cæsars.
+
+
+In the beginning of the fourth century the Roman Empire had four
+sovereigns, of whom two were superior to the others and bore the title
+of Augustus, namely, Diocletian and Maximianus Herculius; the two
+inferior sovereigns, who bore the title of Cæsars, were Constantius
+Chlorus and Galerius Maximianus. Under these four emperors the state of
+the Church was peaceful and happy. Diocletian, though superstitious,
+indulged no hatred toward the Christians. Constantius Chlorus, following
+only the dictates of reason in matters of religion, was averse to the
+popular idolatry, and friendly to the Christians. The pagan priests,
+therefore, from well-grounded fears lest Christianity, to their great
+and lasting injury, should spread far and wide its triumphs, endeavored
+to excite Diocletian, whom they knew to be both timid and credulous, by
+means of feigned oracles and other impositions, to engage in persecuting
+the Christians.
+
+These artifices not succeeding very well, they made use of the other
+emperor, Galerius Maximianus, who was son-in-law to Diocletian, in order
+to effect their purpose. This Emperor, who was of a ferocious character
+and ill-informed in everything except the military art, continued to
+work upon his father-in-law, being urged on partly by his own
+inclination, partly by the instigation of his mother, a most
+superstitious woman, and partly by that of the pagan priests, till at
+last, when Diocletian was at Nicomedia, in the year 303, he obtained
+from him an edict by which the temples of the Christians were to be
+demolished, their sacred books committed to the flames, and themselves
+deprived of all their civil rights and honors. This first edict spared
+the lives of the Christians; for Diocletian was averse from slaughter
+and bloodshed. Yet it caused many Christians to be put to death,
+particularly those who refused to deliver up their sacred books to the
+magistrates. Seeing this operation of the law, many Christians, and
+several even of the bishops and clergy, in order to save their lives,
+voluntarily surrendered the sacred books in their possession. But they
+were regarded by their more resolute brethren as guilty of sacrilege.
+
+Not long after the publication of this first edict, there were two
+conflagrations in the palace of Nicomedia; and the enemies of the
+Christians persuaded Diocletian to believe that Christian hands had
+kindled them. He therefore ordered many Christians of Nicomedia to be
+put to the torture and to undergo the penalties due to incendiaries.
+Nearly at the same time there were insurrections in Armenia and in
+Syria; and as their enemies charged the blame of these also upon the
+Christians, the Emperor by a new edict ordered all bishops and ministers
+of Christ to be thrown into prison; and by a third edict, soon after, he
+ordered that all these prisoners should be compelled by tortures and
+punishments to offer sacrifice to the gods; for he hoped, if the bishops
+and teachers were once brought to submission, the Christian churches
+would follow their example. A great multitude, therefore, of excellent
+men, in every part of the Roman Empire, Gaul only excepted, which was
+subject to Constantius Chlorus, were either punished capitally or
+condemned to the mines.
+
+In the second year of the persecution, A.D. 304, Diocletian published a
+fourth edict, at the instigation of his son-in-law and other enemies of
+the Christians. By this edict the magistrates were directed to compel
+all Christians to offer sacrifices to the gods, and to use tortures for
+that purpose. And as the governors yielded strict obedience to these
+orders, the Christian Church was reduced to the last extremity. Galerius
+Maximianus therefore no longer hesitated to disclose the secret designs
+he had long entertained. He required his father-in-law, Diocletian,
+together with his colleague, Maximianus Herculius, to divest themselves
+of their power, and constituted himself emperor of the East; leaving the
+West to Constantius Chlorus, whose health he knew to be very infirm. He
+also associated with him in the government two assistants of his own
+choosing, namely, Caius Galerius Maximinus, his sister's son, and
+Flavius Severus; excluding altogether Constantine, the son of
+Constantius Chlorus. This revolution in the Roman Government restored
+peace to Christians in the Western provinces, which were under
+Constantius; but in the Eastern provinces the persecution raged with
+greater severity than before.
+
+But divine Providence frustrated the whole plan of Galerius Maximianus.
+For, Constantius Chlorus dying in Britain, in the year 306, the soldiery
+by acclamation made his son Constantine, who afterward by his
+achievements obtained the title of "the Great," Augustus or Emperor; and
+the tyrant Galerius was obliged to submit, and even to approve this
+adverse event. Soon after a civil war broke out. For Maxentius, the
+son-in-law of Galerius Maximianus, being indignant that Galerius should
+prefer Severus before him, and invest him with imperial power, himself
+assumed the purple, and took his father, Maximianus Herculius, for his
+colleague in the empire. In the midst of these commotions Constantine,
+beyond all expectation, made his way to the imperial throne. The western
+Christians, those of Italy and Africa excepted, enjoyed a good degree of
+tranquillity and liberty during these civil wars. But the oriental
+churches experienced various fortune, adverse or tolerable, according to
+the political changes from year to year. At length Galerius Maximianus,
+who had been the author of the heaviest calamities, being brought low by
+a terrific and protracted disease, and finding himself ready to die, in
+the year 311, issued a decree which restored peace to them, after they
+had endured almost unbounded sufferings.
+
+After the death of Galerius Maximianus, Caius Galerius Maximianus and
+Caius Valerius Licinius divided between themselves the provinces which
+had been governed by Galerius. At the same time Maxentius, who held
+Africa and Italy, determined to make war upon Constantine, who governed
+in Spain and Gaul, in order to bring all the West under his authority.
+Constantine anticipated his designs, marched his army into Italy in the
+year 312, and in a battle fought at the Milvian bridge, near Rome,
+routed the army of Maxentius. In the flight the bridge broke down, and
+Maxentius fell into the Tiber and was drowned. After this victory
+Constantine, with his colleague Licinius, immediately gave full liberty
+to the Christians of living according to their own institutions and
+laws; and this liberty was more clearly defined the following year, A.D.
+313, in a new edict drawn up at Milan. Caius Galerius Maximinus, indeed,
+who reigned in the East, was projecting new calamities for the
+Christians, and menacing the emperors of the West with war; but being
+vanquished by Licinius, he put an end to his own life, in the year 313,
+by swallowing poison, at Tarsus.
+
+About this time Constantine the Great, who was previously a man of no
+religion, is said to have embraced Christianity, being induced thereto
+principally by the miracle of a cross appearing to him in the heavens.
+But this story is liable to much doubt. His first edict in favor of the
+Christians, and many other things, sufficiently evince that he was
+indeed at that time well disposed toward the Christians and their
+worship, but that he by no means regarded Christianity as the only true
+and saving religion; on the contrary, it appears that he regarded other
+religions, and among them the old Roman religion, as likewise true and
+useful to mankind; and he therefore wished all religions to be freely
+practised throughout the Roman Empire. But as he advanced in life,
+Constantine made progress in religious knowledge, and gradually came to
+regard Christianity as the only true and saving religion, and to
+consider all others as false and impious. Having learned this, he now
+began to exhort his subjects to embrace Christianity; and at length he
+proclaimed war against the ancient superstitions. At what time this
+change in the views of the Emperor took place, and he began to look upon
+all religions but the Christian as false, cannot be determined. This,
+however, is certain, that the change in his views was first made
+manifest by his laws and edicts in the year 324, after the death of
+Licinius, when Constantine became sole emperor. His purpose, however, of
+abolishing the ancient religion of the Romans, and of tolerating only
+the Christian religion, he did not disclose till a little before his
+death, when he published his edicts for pulling down the pagan temples
+and abolishing the sacrifices.
+
+That the Emperor was sincere, and not a dissembler, in regard to his
+conversion to Christianity, no person can doubt who believes that men's
+actions are an index of their real feelings. It is indeed true that
+Constantine's life was not such as the precepts of Christianity
+required; and it is also true that he remained a catechumen all his
+life, and was received to full membership in the Church, by baptism,
+only a few days before his death, at Nicomedia. But neither of these is
+adequate proof that the Emperor had not a general conviction of the
+truth of the Christian religion, or that he only feigned himself a
+Christian. For in that age many persons deferred baptism till near the
+close of life, that they might pass into the other world altogether pure
+and undefiled with sin; and it is but too notorious that many persons
+who look upon the Christian religion as indubitably true and of divine
+origin, yet do not conform their lives to all its holy precepts. It is
+another question whether worldly motives might not have contributed in
+some degree to induce Constantine to prefer the Christian religion to
+the ancient Roman, and to all other religions, and to recommend the
+observance of it to his subjects. Indeed, it is no improbable conjecture
+that the Emperor had discernment to see that Christianity possessed
+great efficacy, and idolatry none at all, to strengthen public
+authority, and to bind citizens to their duty.
+
+The sign of the cross, which Constantine most solemnly affirmed he saw
+in the heavens, near midday, is a subject involved in the greatest
+obscurities and difficulties. It is, however, an easy thing to refute
+those who regard this prodigy as a cunning fiction of the Emperor, or
+who rank it among fables; and also those who refer the phenomenon to
+natural causes, ingeniously conjecturing that the form of a cross
+appeared in a solar halo, or in the moon; and likewise those who ascribe
+the transaction to the power of God, who intended by a miracle to
+confirm the wavering faith of the Emperor. Now these suppositions being
+rejected, the only conclusion that remains is that Constantine saw, in a
+dream while asleep, the appearance of a cross, with the inscription, _In
+hoc signo vinces_ ("By this sign thou shalt conquer"). Nor is this
+opinion unsupported by competent authorities of good credit.
+
+The happiness anticipated by the Christians from the edicts of
+Constantine and Licinius was a little afterward interrupted by Licinius,
+who waged war against his kinsman Constantine. Being vanquished in the
+year 314, he was quiet for about nine years. But in the year 324 this
+restless man again attacked Constantine, being urged on both by his own
+inclination and by the instigation of the pagan priests. That he might
+secure himself a victory, he attached the pagans to his cause by
+severely oppressing the Christians, and putting not a few of their
+bishops to death. But all his plans failed; for, after several
+unsuccessful battles, he was obliged to throw himself upon the mercy of
+the victor, who, nevertheless, ordered him to be strangled, in the year
+325. After his victory over Licinius, Constantine reigned sole emperor
+till his death; and by his plans, his enactments, his regulations, and
+his munificence he endeavored as much as possible to obliterate
+gradually the ancient superstitions and to establish Christian worship
+throughout the Roman Empire. He had undoubtedly learned from the wars
+and the machinations of Licinius that neither himself nor the Roman
+Empire could remain secure while the ancient superstition continued
+prevalent; and therefore, from this time onward, he openly opposed the
+pagan deities and their worship, as being prejudicial to the interests
+of the State.
+
+After the death of Constantine, which happened in the year 337, his
+three surviving sons, Constantine II, Constantius, and Constans, assumed
+the empire, and were all proclaimed emperors by the Roman senate. There
+were still living two brothers of Constantine the Great, namely,
+Constantius Dalmatius and Julius Constans, and they had several sons.
+But nearly all of these were slain by the soldiers at the command of
+Constantine's sons, who feared lest their thirst for power might lead
+them to make insurrections and disturb the Commonwealth. Only Gallus and
+Julian, sons of Julius Constans, escaped the massacre; and the latter of
+these afterward became emperor. Constantine II held Britain, Gaul, and
+Spain, but lost his life, A.D. 340, in a war with his brother Constans,
+who at first governed only Illyricum, Italy, and Africa; but after the
+fall of his brother, Constantine II, he annexed his provinces to his
+empire, and thus became emperor of all the West, until he lost his life,
+A.D. 350, in the war with Maxentius, a usurper. After the death of
+Constans, Maxentius being subdued, the third brother, Constantius, who
+had before governed Asia, Syria, and Egypt, in the year 353 became sole
+emperor, and governed the whole empire till the year 361, when he died.
+Neither of these brothers possessed the disposition or the discernment
+of their father; yet they all pursued their father's purpose of
+abolishing the ancient superstitions of the Romans and other pagans, and
+of propagating the Christian religion throughout the Roman Empire. The
+thing itself was commendable and excellent; but in the means employed
+there was much that was censurable.
+
+Rhetoricians and philosophers, whose schools were supposed to be so
+profitable to the community, exhausted all their ingenuity, both before
+the days of Constantine the Great and afterward, to arrest the progress
+of Christianity. In the beginning of this century Hierocles, the great
+ornament of the Platonic school, composed two books against the
+Christians, in which he had the audacity to compare our Saviour with
+Apollonius Tyanæus, and for which he was chastised by Eusebius in a
+tract written expressly against him. Lactantius speaks of another
+philosopher who endeavored to convince the Christians they were in
+error; but his name is not mentioned. After the reign of Constantine the
+Great, Julian wrote a large volume against the Christians, and Himerius
+and Libanius in their public declamations, and Eunapius in his lives of
+the philosophers, zealously decried the Christian religion. Yet no one
+of these persons was punished at all for the licentiousness of his
+tongue or of his pen.
+
+How much harm these sophists or philosophers, who were full of the pride
+of imaginary knowledge and of hatred to the Christian name, did to the
+cause of Christianity in this century appears from many examples, and
+especially from the apostasy of Julian, who was seduced by men of this
+stamp. Among those who wished to appear wise, and to take moderate
+ground, many were induced by the arguments and explanations of these men
+to devise a kind of reconciling religion, intermediate between the old
+superstition and Christianity, and to imagine that Christ had enjoined
+the very same thing which had long been represented by the pagan priests
+under the envelope of their ceremonies and fables. Of these views were
+Ammianus Marcellinus, a very prudent and discreet man; Chalcidius, a
+philosopher; Themistius, a very celebrated orator, and others, who
+conceived that both religions were in unison, as to all the more
+important points, if they were rightly understood, and therefore held
+that Christ was neither to be contemned nor to be honored to the
+exclusion of the pagan deities.
+
+As Constantine the Great and his sons and successors took much pains to
+enlarge the Christian Church, it is not strange that many nations,
+before barbarous and uncivilized, became subject to Christ. Many
+circumstances make it probable that the light of Christianity cast some
+of its rays into both Armenias, the Greater and the Less, soon after the
+establishment of the Christian Church. But the Armenian Church first
+received due organization and firm establishment in this century; in
+the beginning of which Gregory, the son of Anax, commonly called "the
+Illuminator," because he dispelled the mists of superstition which
+beclouded the minds of the Athenians, first persuaded some private
+individuals, and afterward Tiridates, the king of the Armenians, as well
+as his nobles, to embrace and observe the Christian religion. He was
+therefore ordained the first bishop of Armenia, by Leontius, bishop of
+Cappadocia, and gradually diffused the principles of Christianity
+throughout that country.
+
+In the European provinces of the Roman Empire there still remained a
+vast number of idolaters; and though the Christian bishops endeavored to
+convert them to Christ, the business went on but slowly. In Gaul, the
+great Martin, bishop of Tours, was not unsuccessful in this work; but
+travelling through the provinces of Gaul, he everywhere persuaded many
+to renounce their idols and embrace Christ, and he destroyed their
+temples and threw down their statues. He therefore merited the title
+"Apostle of the Gauls."
+
+It is very evident that the victories of Constantine the Great, and both
+the fear of punishment and the desire of pleasing the Roman emperors,
+were cogent reasons, in the view of whole nations as well as of
+individuals, for embracing the Christian religion. Yet no person well
+informed in the history of this period will ascribe the extension of
+Christianity wholly to these causes. For it is manifest that the
+untiring zeal of the bishops and other holy men, the pure and devout
+lives which many of the Christians exhibited, the translations of the
+sacred volume, and the excellence of the Christian religion were as
+efficient motives with many persons as the arguments from worldly
+advantage and disadvantage were with some others.
+
+Although the Christian Church within the Roman Empire was involved in no
+severe calamities from the times of Constantine the Great onward, except
+during the commotion of Licinius and the short reign of Julian, yet
+slight tempests sometimes beat upon them in certain places. Athanaric,
+for instance, a king of the Goths, fiercely assailed for a time that
+portion of the Gothic nation which had embraced Christianity. In the
+more remote provinces, also, the adherents to idolatry often defended
+their hereditary superstitions with the sword, and murdered the
+Christians, who in propagating their religion were not always as gentle
+or as prudent as they ought to have been. Beyond the limits of the Roman
+Empire, Sapor II, the king of Persia, waged three bloody wars against
+the Christians in his dominions. The first was in the eighteenth year of
+his reign; the second was in the thirtieth year; and the third, which
+was the most cruel and destroyed an immense number of Christians,
+commenced in his thirty-first year, A.D. 330, and lasted forty years, or
+till A.D. 370. Yet religion was not the ostensible cause of this
+dreadful persecution, but a suspicion of treasonable practices among the
+Christians; for the Magi and the Jews persuaded the King to believe that
+all Christians were in the interests of the Roman Empire.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST NICENE COUNCIL
+
+RISE AND DECLINE OF ARIANISM
+
+A.D. 325
+
+J. L. VON MOSHEIM     A. P. STANLEY
+
+     Controversies in the Christian Church concerning the mystery of the
+     Trinity began in the second century, prior to which the word
+     trinity--a term not found in the Scriptures--had scarcely been used
+     in Christian writings. It was prominently introduced by theologians
+     of the second century, who employed new metaphysical methods in
+     their attempts to explain the divine nature. The dispute turned
+     upon the questions whether Christ was God or man or an intermediate
+     being, whether or not he was created, and like inquiries. Arius, a
+     deacon of Alexandria, early in the fourth century, held that Christ
+     was a created being, though superior to all other created beings.
+     The Son, he maintained, is of a nature similar to--not the same
+     as--that of the Father, to whom the Son is subordinate. This heresy
+     obtained such currency in the Church that, in 321, a provincial
+     synod at Alexandria excommunicated Arius, who in his learned
+     writings had set them forth since 318. Once started among the
+     people, the controversy begun in the schools became very bitter,
+     and in many of the churches partisans of the heretical view
+     equalled in number those of the orthodox. Meanwhile Arius continued
+     to publish his doctrines.
+
+     The emperor Constantine, having become the patron of Christianity,
+     conceived that the controversy might be settled by an assembly of
+     the whole Church, and in the year 325 he convoked the first council
+     of Nicæa, which was also the first ecumenical or general council.
+     At this council, before which Arius defended his views, over three
+     hundred bishops were in attendance, and pronounced in favor of the
+     orthodox doctrine--that of the equality of the Son with the
+     Father--and condemned the Arians to exile and their books to be
+     burned. This council also promulgated the Nicene Creed in its early
+     form. The chief opponent of the Arians was Athanasius, the "Father
+     of Orthodoxy," whose name was given to a modified creed later
+     adopted into the Greek, Roman, and English services. The Arian
+     heresy, however, continued to spread in the East, and had the
+     strong support of Constantine and his son Constantius. The
+     controversy was renewed again and again, and for a long time
+     Arianism was an important factor in theological and political
+     affairs. Some phases of its peculiar doctrine have reappeared in
+     various teachings and sects of modern times. But the orthodox
+     doctrine affirmed at Nicæa has prevailed in the great branches of
+     the Christian Church, and the acceptance of its fundamental
+     principle--that of the Incarnation--in the post-apostolic age was
+     destined to have an incalculable influence upon the development of
+     individual and national life, civil as well as religious,
+     throughout the world.
+
+
+JOHANN LORENZ VON MOSHEIM
+
+In the year 317 a storm arose in Egypt which spread its ravages over the
+whole Christian world. The ground of this controversy was the doctrine
+of three persons in the Godhead, which during the three preceding
+centuries had not been in all respects defined. The doctors explained
+this subject in different ways, and gave various representations of the
+difference between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, without offence
+being taken.
+
+Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria--it is uncertain on what
+occasion--expressed himself very freely on this subject in a meeting of
+his presbyters, and maintained, among other things, that the Son
+possesses not only the same dignity as the Father, but also the same
+essence. But Arius, one of the presbyters, a man of an acute mind and
+fluent, at first denied the truth of Alexander's positions, on the
+ground that they were allied to the Sabellian errors, which were
+condemned by the Church; and then, going to the opposite extreme, he
+maintained that the Son is totally and essentially distinct from the
+Father; that he was only the first and noblest of those created beings
+whom God the Father formed out of nothing, and the instrument which the
+Father used in creating the material universe, and therefore that he was
+inferior to the Father both in nature and in dignity. No one of the
+ancients has left us a connected and systematic account of the religion
+professed by Arius and his associates.
+
+The opinions of Arius were no sooner divulged than they found very many
+abettors, and among them men of distinguished talents and rank, both in
+Egypt and the neighboring provinces. Alexander, on the other hand,
+accused Arius of blasphemy before two councils assembled at Alexandria,
+and cast him out of the Church. He was not discouraged by this disgrace;
+but retiring to Palestine he wrote various letters to men of
+distinction, in which he labored to demonstrate the truth of his
+doctrines, and with so much success that he drew over immense numbers to
+his side, and in particular Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, who was a man
+of vast influence. The emperor Constantine, who considered the
+discussion as relating to a matter of little importance and remote from
+the fundamentals of religion, at first addressed the disputants by
+letter, admonishing them to desist from contention. But when he found
+that nothing was effected by this measure, and that greater commotion
+was daily rising throughout the empire, he in the year 325 summoned that
+famous council of the whole Church which met at Nice in Bithynia, to put
+an end to this controversy. In this council, after various altercations
+and conflicts of the bishops, the doctrine of Arius was condemned,
+Christ was pronounced to be of the same essence with the Father, Arius
+was sent into exile in Illyricum, and his followers were compelled to
+assent to a creed or confession of faith composed by the council.
+
+No part of church history, perhaps, has acquired more celebrity than
+this assembly of bishops at Nice to settle the affairs of the Church;
+and yet it is very singular that scarcely any part of ecclesiastical
+history has been investigated and explained more negligently. The
+ancient writers are not agreed as to the time and year, nor the place,
+nor the number of the judges, nor the president of this council, nor as
+to many other particulars. No written journal of the proceedings of this
+venerable tribunal was kept--at least none has reached us. How many and
+what canons or ecclesiastical laws were enacted is not agreed on by the
+Eastern and Western Christians. The latter tell us they were only twenty
+in number, but the orientals make them far more numerous. From the
+canons universally received, and from the other monuments of the
+council, it appears not only that Arius was condemned, but that other
+things were decreed, with a view to settle the affairs of the Church. In
+particular, the controversy respecting the time of celebrating Easter,
+which had long perplexed Christians, was terminated; the jurisdiction of
+the greater bishops was defined, and several other matters of a like
+nature were determined.
+
+But the passions of men were more efficient than either the decrees of
+the Nicene Council or the authority of the Emperor; for there were those
+who, though they did not fall in with the doctrine of Arius, yet were
+dissatisfied with some things in the decrees and the creed of the
+council, and the Arians left no means untried to free themselves from
+the evils inflicted on them by those decrees. And the issue was
+favorable to their wishes; for in a few years after the Nicene Council
+an Arian presbyter whom Constantia, the Emperor's sister, at her death
+had recommended to the care of her brother, succeeded in persuading
+Constantine the Great that Arius had been wrongfully condemned from
+personal enmity. Accordingly, in the year 330, the Emperor recalled
+Arius from exile, rescinded the decrees passed against his associates
+and friends, and permitted Eusebius of Nicomedia, the principal
+supporter of Arius, and his powerful faction, now thirsting for revenge,
+to persecute the defenders of the Nicene Council. They assailed no one
+more fiercely than Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria. When he could
+in no way be brought to restore Arius to his former honors and
+ecclesiastical standing, Athanasius was first deprived of his office, in
+a council held at Tyre, A.D. 335, and then banished to Gaul, while in
+the same year, by a numerous council held at Jerusalem, Arius and his
+friends were solemnly admitted to the communion of the Church. But by
+none of these proceedings could the Alexandrians be induced to receive
+Arius among their presbyters. Accordingly the Emperor called him to
+Constantinople, in the year 336, and ordered Alexander, the bishop of
+that city, to open the doors of his church to him. But before that could
+take place Arius died at Constantinople in a tragical manner;[49] and
+the Emperor himself closed life shortly after.
+
+After the death of Constantine the Great, one of his sons, Constantius,
+the Emperor of the East, with his wife and his court, was very partial
+to the Arian cause, but Constantine and Constans supported in the
+western parts, where they governed, the decisions of the Nicene Council.
+Hence the broils, the commotions, the plots, the injuries had neither
+measure nor bounds, and on both sides councils were assembled to oppose
+councils. Constans died in the year 350, and two years afterward a great
+part of the West, particularly Italy and Rome, came under the dominion
+of his brother Constantius. This revolution was most disastrous to the
+friends of the Nicene Council; for this Emperor, being devoted to the
+Arians, involved the others in numerous evils and calamities, and by
+threats and punishments compelled many of them to apostatize to that
+sect to which he was himself attached. The Nicene party made no
+hesitation to return the same treatment as soon as time, place, and
+opportunity were afforded them, and the history of Christianity under
+Constantius presents the picture of a most stormy period, and of a war
+among brethren which was carried on without religion or justice or
+humanity.
+
+On the death of Constantius, in the year 362, the prosperous days of the
+Arians were at an end. Julian had no partiality for either, and
+therefore patronized neither the Arians nor the orthodox. Jovian
+espoused the orthodox sentiments, and therefore all the West, with no
+small part of the East, rejecting Arian views, reverted to the doctrines
+of the Nicene Council. But the scene was changed under the two brothers
+Valentinian and Valens, who were advanced to the government of the
+Empire in the year 364. Valentinian adhered to the decisions at Nice,
+and therefore in the West the Arian sect, a few churches excepted, was
+wholly extirpated. Valens, on the contrary, took sides with the Arians,
+and hence in the eastern provinces many calamities befell the orthodox.
+But when this Emperor had fallen in a war with the Goths, A.D. 378,
+Gratian--who succeeded Valentinian in the West, in the year 376, and
+became master of the whole empire in 378--restored peace to the
+orthodox. After him Theodosius the Great, by depriving the Arians of all
+their churches and enacting severe laws against them, caused the
+decisions of the Nicene Council to triumph everywhere, and none could
+any longer publicly profess Arian doctrines except among the barbarous
+nations, the Goths, the Vandals, and the Burgundians. That there were
+great faults on both sides in this long and violent contest no candid
+person can deny, but which party was guilty of the greatest wrong it is
+difficult to say.
+
+The Arians would have done much more harm to the Church if they had not
+become divided among themselves, after the Nicene Council, and split
+into sects which could not endure each other. Unhappily the Arian
+contests produced, as was very natural, some new sects. Some persons,
+while eager to avoid and to confute the opinions of Arius, fell into
+opinions equally dangerous. Others, after treading in the footsteps of
+Arius, ventured on far beyond him and became still greater errorists.
+The human mind, weak and subject to the control of the senses and the
+imagination, seldom exerts all its energies to comprehend divine
+subjects in such a manner as to be duly guarded against extremes. In the
+former class I would reckon Apollinaris the Younger, bishop of Laodicea,
+though otherwise a man of great merit, and one who in various ways
+rendered important service to the Church. He manfully asserted the
+divinity of Christ against the Arians, but by philosophizing too freely
+and too eagerly he almost set aside the human nature of the Saviour.
+This great man was led astray, not merely by the ardor of debate, but
+likewise by his immoderate attachment to the Platonic doctrine
+concerning a twofold soul, from which if the divines of the age had been
+free they would have formed more wise and more correct judgments on many
+points. The doctrine of Apollinaris met the approbation of many in
+nearly all the eastern provinces, and, being explained in different
+ways, it became a source of new sects. But as it was assailed by the
+laws of the emperors, the decrees of councils, and the writings of
+learned men, it gradually sunk under these united assaults.
+
+At the head of those whom the contests with Arius led into still greater
+errors may undoubtedly be placed Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, who in the
+year 343 advanced opinions concerning God equally remote from those of
+the orthodox and those of the Arians. The temerity of the man was
+chastened not only by the orthodox, in their councils of Antioch in 345,
+of Milan in 347, and of Sirmium, but also by the Arians in a council
+held at Sirmium in 351. He was deprived of his office, and died in
+exile in the year 372. After him Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople, a
+distinguished semi-Arian teacher, being deprived of his office by the
+Council of Constantinople, in the year 360, in his exile founded the
+sect of the Pneumatomachi. He openly professed that the Holy Spirit is a
+divine energy diffused throughout the universe, and not a person
+distinct from the Father and the Son. This doctrine was embraced by many
+in the Asiatic provinces; but the Council of Constantinople, assembled
+by Theodosius the Great, in the year 381, and which is commonly
+considered as the second ecumenical council, early dissipated by its
+authority this young and immature sect. One hundred and fifty bishops
+present in this council defined fully and perfectly the doctrine of
+three persons and one God, as it is still professed by the great body of
+Christians, which the Nicene Council had only in part performed. They
+also anathematized all the heresies then known.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the fifth century the Arians, oppressed and persecuted by the
+imperial edicts, took refuge among those barbarous nations who gradually
+overturned the Roman Empire in the West; and found among the Goths,
+Heruli, Suevi, Vandals, and Burgundians a fixed residence and a quiet
+retreat. Being now safe, they treated the orthodox with the same
+violence which the orthodox had employed against them and other
+heretics, and had no hesitation about persecuting the adherents to the
+Nicene doctrines in a variety of ways. The Vandals, who had established
+their kingdom in Africa, surpassed all the rest in cruelty and
+injustice. At first Genseric, their king, and then Huneric, his son,
+demolished the temples of such Christians as maintained the divinity of
+the Saviour, sent their bishops into exile, mutilated many of the more
+firm and decided, and tortured them in various ways; and they expressly
+stated that they were authorized to do so by the example of the
+emperors, who had enacted similar laws against the Donatists in Africa,
+the Arians, and others who dissented from them in religion.
+
+At the beginning of the sixth century the Arians were triumphant in some
+parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe. Not a few of the Asiatic bishops
+favored them. The Vandals in Africa, the Goths in Italy, many of the
+Gauls, the Suevi, the Burgundians, and the Spaniards openly espoused
+their interests. The Greeks indeed, who approved of the Nicene Council,
+oppressed and also punished them wherever they were able; but the Arians
+returned the like treatment, especially in Africa and Italy. Yet this
+prosperity of the Arians wholly terminated when, under the auspices of
+Justinian, the Vandals were driven from Africa and the Goths from Italy.
+For the other Arian kings, Sigismund, king of the Burgundians,
+Theodimir, king of the Suevi in Lusitania, and Receared, king of Spain,
+without violence and war, suffered themselves to be led to a
+renunciation of the Arian doctrine, and to efforts for its extirpation
+among their subjects by means of legal enactments and councils. Whether
+reason and arguments or hope and fear had the greater influence in the
+conversion of these kings, it is difficult to say; but it is certain
+that the Arian sect was from this time dispersed and could never after
+recover any strength.
+
+
+ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY
+
+The delegates to the council assembled in the first instance in one of
+the chief buildings of Nicæa, apparently for the purpose of a
+thanksgiving and a religious reunion. Whether it was an actual church
+may be questioned. Christians, no doubt, there had been in Bithynia for
+some generations. Already in the second century Pliny had found them in
+such numbers that the temples were deserted and the sacrifices
+neglected. But it would seem that on this occasion a secular building
+was fitted up as a temporary house of prayer. At least the traditional
+account of the place where their concluding prayers were held exactly
+agrees with Strabo's account of the ancient gymnasium of Nicæa.
+
+It was a large building, shaped like a basilica, with an apsis at one
+end, planted in the centre of the town, and thus commanding down each of
+the four streets a view of the four gates, and therefore called
+_Mesomphalos_, the "Navel" of the city. Whether, however, this edifice
+actually was a church or not, its use as such on this occasion served as
+a precedent for most of the later councils. From the time of the Council
+of Chalcedon, they have usually been held within the walls of churches.
+But for this the first council, the church, so far as it was a church,
+was only used as the beginning and the end. After these thanksgivings
+were over, the members of the assembly must have been collected
+according to the divisions which shall now be described.
+
+The group which, above the rest, attracts our attention, is the
+deputation from the Church of Egypt. Shrill above all other voices,
+vehement above all other disputants, "brandishing their arguments," as
+it was described by one who knew them well, "like spears, against those
+who sate under the same roof and ate off the same table as themselves,"
+were the combatants from Alexandria, who had brought to its present pass
+the question which the council was called to decide. Foremost in the
+group in dignity, though not in importance or in energy, was the aged
+Alexander, whose imprudent sermon had provoked the quarrel, and whose
+subsequent vacillation had encouraged it. He was the bishop, not indeed
+of the first, but of the most learned, see of Christendom. He was known
+by a title which he alone officially bore in that assembly. He was "the
+Pope." "The Pope of Rome" was a phrase which had not yet emerged in
+history. But "Pope of Alexandria" was a well-known dignity. _Papa_, that
+strange and universal mixture of familiar endearment and of reverential
+awe, extended in a general sense to all Greek presbyters and all Latin
+bishops, was the special address which, long before the name of
+patriarch or of archbishop, was given to the head of the Alexandrian
+Church.
+
+In the Patriarchal Treasury at Moscow is a very ancient scarf or
+_omophorion_, said to have been given by the bishop of Nicæa in the
+seventeenth century to the czar Alexis, and to have been left to the
+Church of Nicæa by Alexander of Alexandria. It is white, and is rudely
+worked with a representation of the Ascension; possibly an allusion to
+the first Sunday of their meeting. This relic, true or false, is the
+nearest approach we can now make to the bodily presence of the old
+theologian. The shadow of death is already upon him; in a few months he
+will be beyond the reach of controversy.
+
+But close beside the pope Alexander is a small insignificant young man,
+of hardly twenty-five years of age, of lively manners and speech, and of
+bright, serene countenance. Though he is but the deacon, the chief
+deacon, or archdeacon, of Alexander, he has closely riveted the
+attention of the assembly by the vehemence of his arguments. He is
+already taking the words out of the bishop's mouth, and briefly acting
+in reality the part he had before, as a child, acted in name, and that
+in a few months he will be called to act both in name and in reality. In
+some of the conventional pictures of the council his humble rank as a
+deacon does not allow of his appearance. But his activity and prominence
+behind the scenes made enemies for him there, who will never leave him
+through life. Anyone who had read his passionate invectives afterward
+may form some notion of what he was when in the thick of his youthful
+battles. That small, insignificant deacon is the great Athanasius.
+
+Next after the pope and deacon of Alexandria we must turn to one of its
+most important presbyters--the parish priest of its principal church,
+which bore the name of Baucalis, and marked the first beginnings of what
+we should call a parochial system. In appearance he is the very opposite
+of Athanasius. He is sixty years of age, very tall and thin, and
+apparently unable to support his stature; he has an odd way of
+contorting and twisting himself, which his enemies compare to the
+wrigglings of a snake. He would be handsome but for the emaciation and
+deadly pallor of his face, and a downcast look, imparted by a weakness
+of eyesight. At times his veins throb and swell and his limbs tremble,
+as if suffering from some violent internal complaint--the same, perhaps,
+that will terminate one day in his sudden and frightful death. There is
+a wild look about him, which at first sight is startling. His dress and
+demeanor are those of a rigid ascetic. He wears a long coat with short
+sleeves, and a scarf of only half size, such as was the mark of an
+austere life; and his hair hangs in a tangled mass over his head. He is
+usually silent, but at times breaks out into fierce excitement, such as
+will give the impression of madness. Yet with all this there are a
+sweetness in his voice and a winning, earnest manner which fascinates
+those who come across him. Among the religious ladies of Alexandria he
+is said to have had from the first a following of not less than seven
+hundred. This strange, captivating, moon-struck giant is the heretic
+Arius, or, as his adversaries called him, the madman of Ares or Mars.
+Close beside him was a group of his countrymen, of whom we know little,
+except their fidelity to him through good report and evil: Saras, like
+himself a presbyter, from the Libyan province; Euzoius, a deacon of
+Egypt; Achillas, a reader; Theonas, bishop of Marmarica in the
+Cyrenaica; and Secundus, bishop of Ptolemais in the Delta.
+
+These were the most remarkable deputies from the Church of Alexandria.
+But from the interior of Egypt came characters of quite another stamp;
+not Greeks, nor Grecized Egyptians, but genuine Copts, speaking the
+Greek language not at all, or with great difficulty; living half or the
+whole of their lives in the desert; their very names taken from the
+heathen gods of the times of the ancient Pharaohs. One was Potammon,
+bishop of Heracleopolis, far up the Nile; the other, Paphnutius, bishop
+of the Upper Thebaid. Both are famous for the austerity of their lives.
+Potammon--that is, "dedicated to Ammon"--had himself visited the hermit
+Antony; Paphnutius--that is, "dedicated to his God"--had been brought up
+in a hermitage. Both, too, had suffered in the persecutions. Each
+presented the frightful spectacle of the right eye dug out with iron.
+Paphnutius, besides, came limping on one leg, his left having been
+hamstrung.
+
+Next in importance must be reckoned the bishop of Syria and of the
+interior of Asia; or, as they are sometimes called in the later
+councils, the _Eastern_ bishops, as distinguished from the Church of
+Egypt. Then, as afterward, there was a rivalry between those branches of
+oriental Christendom; each, from long neighborhood, knowing each, yet
+each tending in an opposite direction till, after the Council of
+Chalcedon, a community of heresy drew them together again. Here, as in
+Egypt, we find two classes of representatives--scholars from the more
+civilized cities of Syria; wild ascetics from the remoter East. The
+first in dignity was the orthodox Eustathius, who either was, or was on
+the point of being made, bishop of the capital of Syria, the metropolis
+of the Eastern Church, Antioch, then called "the city of God." He had
+suffered in heathen persecutions, and was destined to suffer in
+Christian persecutions also. But he was chiefly known for his learning
+and eloquence, which was distinguished by an antique simplicity of
+style. One work alone has come down to us on the "Witch of Endor."
+
+Next in rank and far more illustrious was his chief suffragan, the
+metropolitan of Palestine, the bishop of Cæsarea, Eusebius. We honor him
+as the father of ecclesiastical history, as the chief depositary of the
+traditions which connect the fourth with the first century. But in the
+bishops of Nicæa his presence awakened feelings of a very different
+kind. He alone of the eastern prelates could tell what was in the mind
+of the Emperor; he was the clerk of the imperial closet; he was the
+interpreter, the chaplain, the confessor of Constantine. And yet he was
+on the wrong side. Two especially, we may be sure, of the Egyptian
+Church, were on the watch for any slip that he might make.
+Athanasius--whatever may have been the opinions of later times
+respecting the doctrines of Eusebius--was convinced that he was at heart
+an Arian. Potammon of the one eye had known him formerly in the days of
+persecution, and was ready with that most fatal taunt, which, on a later
+occasion, he threw out against him, that, while he had thus suffered for
+the cause of Christ, Eusebius had escaped by sacrificing to an idol.
+
+If Eusebius was suspected of Arianism, he was supported by most of his
+suffragan bishops in Palestine, of whom Paulinus of Tyre, and
+Patrophilus of Bethshan (Scythopolis) were the most remarkable. One,
+however, a champion of orthodoxy, was distinguished, not in himself, but
+for the see which he occupied--once the highest in Christendom, in a few
+years about to claim something of its former grandeur, but at the time
+of the council known only as a second-rate Syro-Roman city--Macarius,
+bishop of Ælia Capitolina, that is, "Jerusalem."
+
+From Neocæsarea, a border fortress on the Euphrates, came its confessor
+bishop, Paul, who, like Paphnutius and Potammon, had suffered in the
+persecutions, but more recently under Licinius. His hands were paralyzed
+by the scorching of the muscles of all the fingers with red-hot iron.
+Along with him were the orthodox representatives of four famous
+churches, who, according to the Armenian tradition, travelled in
+company. Their leader was the marvel, "the Moses" as he was termed, of
+Mesopotamia, James, or Jacob, bishop of Nisibis. He had lived for years
+as a hermit on the mountains--in the forests during the summer, in
+caverns during the winter--browsing on roots and leaves like a wild
+beast, and like a wild beast clothed in a rough goat-hair cloak. This
+dress and manner of life, even after he became bishop, he never laid
+aside; and the mysterious awe which his presence inspired was increased
+by the stories of miraculous powers which, we are told, he exercised in
+a manner as humane and playful as it was grotesque; as when he turned
+the washerwoman's hair white, detected the impostor who pretended to be
+dead, and raised an army of gnats against the Persians. His fame as a
+theologian rests on disputed writings.
+
+The second was Ait-allaha--"the brought of God," like the Greek
+"Theophorus"--who had just occupied the see of Edessa, and finished the
+building of the cemetery of his cathedral.
+
+The third was Aristaces, said to be the cousin of Jacob of Bisibis and
+son of Gregory the Illuminator, founder of the Armenian Church. He
+represented both his father and the bishop and Tiridates, the king of
+Armenia; the bishop and King having received a special invitation from
+Constantine, and sent their written professions of faith by the hands of
+Aristaces.
+
+The fourth came from beyond the frontier, the sole representative
+of the more distant East, "John the Persian," who added to his
+name the more sounding title--here appearing for the first time,
+but revived in our own days as the designation of our own bishops
+of Calcutta--"Metropolitan of India."
+
+A curious tradition related that this band, including eleven other names
+from the remote East, were the only members of the Nicene Council who
+had not sustained some bodily mutilation or injury.
+
+As this little band advanced westward, they encountered a remarkable
+personage, who stands at the head of the next group which we meet--the
+prelates of Asia Minor and Greece. This was Leontius of Cæsarea in
+Cappadocia. From his hands, it was said, Gregory of Armenia had
+received ordination, and from his successors in the see of Cæsarea had
+desired that every succeeding bishop of Armenia should receive
+ordination likewise. For this reason, it may be, Aristaces and his
+company sought them out. They found Leontius already on his journey, and
+they overtook him at a critical moment. He was on the point of baptizing
+another Gregory, father of a much more celebrated Gregory, the future
+bishop of Nazianzen. A light, it was believed, shone from the water,
+which was only discerned by the sacred travellers.
+
+Leontius was claimed by the Arians, but still more decidedly by the
+orthodox. Others, of the same side, are usually named as from the same
+region, among them Hypatius of Gangra, whose end we shall witness at the
+close of these events, and Hermogenes the deacon, afterward bishop of
+Cæsarea, who acted as secretary of the council.
+
+Eusebius of Nicomedia, afterward of Constantinople, Theognis of Nicæa,
+Maris of Chalcedon, and Menophantus of Ephesus, were among the most
+resolute defenders of Arius. It is curious to reflect that they
+represent the four sees of the four orthodox councils of the Church. The
+three last named soon vanish away from history. But Eusebius of
+Nicomedia, friend, namesake, perhaps even brother of the bishop of
+Cæsarea, was a personage of high importance both then and afterward. As
+Athanasius was called "the Great" by the orthodox, so was Eusebius by
+the Arians. Even miracles were ascribed to him. Originally bishop of
+Beyruth (Berytus), he had been translated to the see of Nicomedia, then
+the capital of the Eastern Empire. He had been a favorite of the
+Emperor's rival Licinius, and had thus become intimate with Constantia,
+the Emperor's sister, the wife, now the widow of Licinius. Through her
+and through his own distant relationship with the imperial family he
+kept a hold on the court which he never lost, even to the moment when he
+stood by the dying bed of the Emperor, years afterward, and received him
+into the Church. We must not be too hard on the Christianity of
+Eusebius, if we wish to vindicate the baptism of Constantine.
+
+Not far from the great prelate of the capital of the East would be the
+representative of what was now a small Greek town, but in five years
+from that time would supersede altogether the glories of Nicomedia.
+Metrophanes, bishop of Byzantium, was detained by old age and sickness,
+but Alexander, his presbyter, himself seventy years of age, was there
+with a little secretary of the name of Paul, not more than twelve years
+old, one of the readers and collectors of the Byzantine Church.
+Alexander had already corresponded with his namesake on the Arian
+controversy, and was apparently attached firmly to the orthodox side.
+
+Besides their more regular champions the orthodox party of Greece and
+Asia Minor had a few very eccentric allies. One was Acesius, the
+Novatian, "the Puritan," summoned by Constantine from Byzantium with
+Alexander, from the deep respect entertained by the Emperor for his
+ascetic character. He was attended by a boy, Auxanon, who lived to a
+great age afterward as a presbyter in the same sect. This child was then
+living with a hermit, Eutychianus, on the heights of the neighboring
+mountain of the Bithynian Olympus, and he descended from these solitudes
+to attend upon Acesius. From him we have obtained some of the most
+curious details of the council.
+
+Marcellus, Bishop of Ancyra, was among the bishops, the fiercest
+opponent of Arius, and, when the active deacon of Alexandria was not
+present, seems to have borne the brunt of the arguments. Yet, if we may
+judge from his subsequent history, Athanasius could never have been
+quite at ease in leaving the cause in his hands. He was one of those
+awkward theologians who never could attack Arianism without falling into
+Sabellianism; and in later life he was twice deposed from his see for
+heresy, once excommunicated by Athanasius himself; and in the present
+form of the Nicene Creed one clause--that which asserts that "the
+kingdom of Christ shall have no end"--is said to have been expressly
+aimed at his exaggerated language.
+
+And now come two, who in the common pictures of the council always
+appear together, of whom the one probably left the deepest impression on
+his contemporaries; and the other, if he were present at all, on the
+subsequent traditions of the council. From the island of Cyprus there
+arrived the simple shepherd Spyridion, a shepherd both before and after
+his elevation to the episcopate. Strange stories were told by his
+fellow-islanders to the historian Socrates of the thieves who were
+miraculously caught in attempting to steal his sheep, and of Spyridion's
+good-humored reply when he found them in the morning, and gave them a
+ram, that they might not have sat up all night for nothing.
+
+Another tale, exactly similar to the fantastic Mussulman legends which
+hand about stories of Jerusalem, told how he had gained an answer from
+his dead daughter Irene to tell where a certain deposit was hidden. Two
+less marvellous, but more instructive, stories bring out the simplicity
+of his character. He rebuked a celebrated preacher at Cyprus for
+altering, in a quotation from the gospels, the homely word for "bed"
+into "couch." "What! are you better than He who said 'bed,' that you are
+ashamed to use his words?" On occasion of a way-worn traveller coming to
+him in Lent, finding no other food in the house, he presented him with
+salted pork; and when the stranger declined, saying that he could not as
+a Christian break his fast: "So much the less reason," he said, "have
+you for scruple; to the pure all things are pure."
+
+A characteristic legend attaches to the account of his journey to the
+council. It was his usual practice to travel on foot. But on this
+occasion the length of the journey, as well as the dignity of his
+office, induced him to ride, in company with his deacon, on two mules, a
+white and a chestnut. One night at his arrival at a caravansary where a
+cavalcade of orthodox bishops were already assembled, the mules were
+turned out to pasture, while he retired to his devotions. The bishops
+had conceived an alarm lest the cause of orthodoxy should suffer in the
+council by the ignorance or awkwardness of the Shepherd of Cyprus when
+opposed to the subtleties of the Alexandrian heretic. Accordingly,
+taking advantage of his encounter, they determined to throw a decisive
+impediment in his way. They cut off the heads of his two mules, and
+then, as is the custom in oriental travelling, started on their journey
+before sunrise. Spyridion also rose, but was met by his terrified deacon
+announcing the unexpected disaster. On arriving at the spot the saint
+bade the deacon attach the heads to the dead bodies. He did so, and at a
+sign from the bishop the two mules with their restored heads shook
+themselves as if from a deep sleep, and started to their feet. Spyridion
+and the deacon mounted and soon overtook the travellers. As the day
+broke the prelates and the deacon were alike astonished at seeing that
+he, performing the annexation in the dark and in haste, had fixed the
+heads on the wrong shoulders, so that the white mule had now a chestnut
+head, and the chestnut mule had the head of its white companion. Thus
+the miracle was doubly attested, the bishops doubly discomfited, and the
+simplicity of Spyridion doubly exemplified.
+
+Many more stories might be told of him, but, to use the words of an
+ancient writer who has related some of them, "from the claws you can
+make out the lion." Of all the Nicene fathers, it may yet be said that
+in a certain curious sense he is the only one who has survived the decay
+of time. After resting for many years in his native Cyprus his body was
+transferred to Constantinople, where it remained till a short time
+before the fall of the empire. It was thence conveyed to Corfu, where it
+is still preserved. Hence by a strange resuscitation of fame he has
+become the patron saint, one might almost say the divinity, of the
+Ionian Islands. Twice a year in solemn procession he is carried round
+the streets of Corfu. Hundreds of Corfutes bear his name, now abridged
+into the familiar diminutive of "Spiro." The superstitious veneration
+entertained for the old saint is a constant source of quarrel between
+the English residents and the native Ionians. But the historian may be
+pardoned for gazing with a momentary interest on the dead hands, now
+black and withered, that subscribed the Creed of Nicæa.
+
+Still more famous--and still more apocryphal, at least in his attendance
+at Nicæa--is Nicolas, bishop of Myra. Not mentioned by a single ancient
+historian, he yet figures in the traditional pictures of the council as
+the foremost figure of all. Type as he is of universal benevolence to
+sailors, to thieves, to the victims of thieves, to children--known by
+his broad red face and flowing white hair--the traditions of the East
+always represent him as standing in the midst of the assembly, and
+suddenly roused by righteous indignation to assail the heretic Arius
+with a tremendous box on the ear.
+
+One more group of deputies closes the arrivals. The Nicene Council was a
+council of the Eastern Church, and Eastern seemingly were at least three
+hundred and ten of the three hundred and eighteen bishops. But the West
+was not entirely unrepresented. Nicasius from France, Marcus from
+Calabria, Capito from Sicily, Eustorgius from Milan--where a venerable
+church is still dedicated to his memory--Domnus of Stridon in Pannonia
+were the less conspicuous deputies of the western provinces.
+
+But there were five men whose presence must have been full of interest
+to their Eastern brethren. Corresponding to John the Persian from the
+Extreme East was Theophilus the Goth from the extreme North. His light
+complexion doubtless made a marked contrast with the tawny hue and dark
+hair of almost all the rest. They rejoiced to think that they had a
+genuine Scythian among them. From all future generations of his Teutonic
+countrymen he may claim attention as the predecessor and teacher of
+Ulphilas, the great missionary of the Gothic nation.
+
+Out of the province of Northern Africa, the earliest cradle of the Latin
+Church, came Cæcilian, bishop of Carthage. A few years ago he had
+himself been convened before the two Western councils of the Lateran and
+of Arles, and had there been acquitted of the charges brought against
+him by the Donatists.
+
+If any of the distant orientals had hoped to catch a sight of the bishop
+of the "Imperial City," they were doomed to disappointment. Doubtless
+had he been there his position as prelate of the capital would have
+been, if not first, at least among the first. But Sylvester was now far
+advanced in years; and in his place came the two presbyters, who,
+according to the arrangement laid down by the Emperor, would have
+accompanied him had he been able to make the journey. In this simple
+deputation later writers have seen--and perhaps by a gradual process the
+connection might be traced--the first germ of _legati a latere_. But it
+must have been a very far-seeing eye which in Victor and Vincentius, the
+two unknown elders, representing their sick old bishop, could have
+detected the predecessors of Pandulf or of Wolsey. With them, however,
+was a man who, though now long forgotten, was then an object of deeper
+interest to Christendom than any bishop of Rome could at that time have
+been. It was the world-renowned Spaniard, as he is called by Eusebius;
+the magician from Spain, as he is called by Zosimus; Hosius, bishop of
+Cordova. He was the representative of the westernmost of European
+churches; but, as Eusebius of Cæsarea was the chief counsellor of the
+Emperor in the Greek Church, so was Hosius in the Latin, as shown in the
+darkest and most mysterious crisis of Constantine's life.
+
+It was probably by degrees that these different arrivals took place, and
+the lapse of two or three weeks must be supposed for the preparatory
+arrangements before the council was formally opened. This interval was
+occupied by eager discussions on the questions likely to be debated. The
+first assemblage had been, as we have seen, within the walls of a public
+building. But the other preliminary meetings were held, as was natural,
+in the streets or colonnades in the open air. The novelty of the
+occasion had collected many strangers to the spot. Laymen, philosophers,
+heathen as well as Christians, might be seen joining in the arguments on
+either side, orthodox as well as heretical. There were also discussions
+among the orthodox themselves as to the principle on which the debates
+should be conducted. The enumeration of the characters just given shows
+that there were two very different elements in the assembly, such indeed
+as will always constitute the main difficulty in making any general
+statements of theology which shall be satisfactory at once to the few
+and to the many. A large number, perhaps the majority, consisted of
+rough, simple, almost illiterate men, like Spyridion the shepherd,
+Potammon the hermit, Acesius the puritan, who held their faith earnestly
+and sincerely, but without conscious knowledge of the grounds on which
+they maintained it, incapable of arguing themselves, or of entering into
+the arguments of their opponents. These men, when suddenly brought into
+collision with the acutest and most learned disputants of the age,
+naturally took up the position that the safest course was to hold by
+what had been handed down, without any further inquiry or explanation.
+
+A story somewhat variously told is related of an encounter of one of
+these simple characters with the more philosophical combatants, which,
+in whatever way it be taken, well illustrates the mixed character of the
+council, and the choice of the courses open before it. As Socrates
+describes the incident, the disputes were running so high, from the mere
+pleasure of argument, that there seemed likely to be no end to the
+controversy, when suddenly a simple-minded layman, who by his sightless
+eye or limping leg bore witness of his zeal for the Christian faith,
+stepped among them and abruptly said, "Christ and the apostles left us
+not a system of logic nor a vain deceit, but a naked truth to be guided
+by faith and good works." "There has," says Bishop Kaye in recording the
+story, "been hardly any age of the Church in which its members have not
+required to be reminded of this lesson." On the present occasion the
+bystanders, at least for the moment, were struck by its happy
+application. The disputants, after hearing this plain word of truth,
+took their differences more good-humoredly and the hubbub of controversy
+subsided.
+
+The tradition grew in later times into the form which it bears in all
+the pictures of the council, and which is commemorated in the services
+of the Greek Church. Aware of his incapacity of argument he took a brick
+and said: "You deny that three can be one. Look at this: it is one, and
+yet it is composed of the three elements of fire, earth, and water." As
+he spoke the brick resolved itself into its component parts; the fire
+flew upward, the clay remained in his hand, and the water fell to the
+ground. The philosopher, or, according to some accounts, Arius himself
+was so confounded as to declare himself converted on the spot.
+
+These tales represent probably the feeling of a large portion of the
+council--the sound, unprofessional, untheological, lay element which lay
+at the basis of all their weakness and their strength. The historian
+Socrates is very anxious to prove that the assembly was not entirely
+composed of men of this kind, and he points triumphantly to the presence
+of such men as Eusebius of Cæsarea. No proof was necessary. The
+subsequent history of the council itself is a sufficient indication
+that, however small a minority might be the dialecticians and
+theologians, yet they constitute the life and movement of the whole.
+Socrates dwells with evident pleasure on the circumstance that the
+ultimate decisions were only made after long inquiry, and that
+everything was stirred to the bottom.
+
+We may wish with Bishop Jeremy Taylor and Bishop Kaye that it had been
+otherwise. But there is a point of view in which we may fully sympathize
+with the course that was taken. All the elements which go to make up the
+interest of theology were involved: love of free inquiry, desire of
+precision in philosophical statements, research into Christian
+antiquity, comparison of the texts of Scripture one with another.
+Traditional and episcopal authority was regarded as insufficient for the
+establishment of the faith. The well-known clause of the Twenty-first
+Article does but express the principle of the Nicene Fathers themselves:
+"Things ordained by them as necessary for salvation have neither
+strength nor authority unless it may be declared that they are taken out
+of Holy Scripture." The battle was fought and won by quotations, not
+from tradition, but from the Old and New Testaments. The overruling
+sentiment was that even ancient opinions were not to be received without
+sifting and inquiry. The chief combatant and champion of the faith was
+not the bishop of Antioch or of Rome, nor the pope of Alexandria, but
+the deacon Athanasius. The eager discussions of Nicæa present the first
+grand precedent for the duty of private judgment, and the free,
+unrestrained exercise of biblical and historical criticism.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[49] Some of the old writers declared that Arius died by the falling out
+of his bowels, as if by a miracle. The matter became a subject of much
+controversy. Mosheim thinks it most probable that Arius was poisoned by
+his enemies. Most recorders of the present day are content to say simply
+that "he died suddenly."
+
+
+
+
+FOUNDATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE
+
+A.D. 330
+
+EDWARD GIBBON
+
+     On the eastern part of the site of Constantinople stood the ancient
+     Greek city of Byzantium, said to have been founded in the seventh
+     century B.C. From its situation on the Bosporus it enjoyed great
+     advantages as a trading centre, and was especially noted for its
+     control of the corn supply. There also were fisheries from which
+     vast wealth was derived. After the battle of Platæa (B.C. 479),
+     which put an end to the Persian invasion of Greece, Byzantium was
+     recolonized. In the later Grecian wars it was many times taken,
+     being besieged in the year B.C. 339 by Philip of Macedon and
+     relieved by Phocion. Soon after this it formed an alliance with
+     Alexander the Great; but the city was thenceforth continually
+     harassed by enemies, and never regained its former prosperity.
+     About the year B.C. 277 it was menaced by the Gauls, to whom the
+     Byzantines were forced to pay tribute. When those invaders had been
+     driven back by the Thracian tribes, these in turn exacted from
+     Byzantium like payments, and to increase its revenues the city
+     taxed all vessels entering the Euxine. This led, B.C. 220, to a war
+     with Rhodes, instigated by aggrieved merchants in different parts
+     of the world, the result of which was that the Byzantines levied no
+     more tribute on ships.
+
+     By treaty, B.C. 148, Byzantium entered into relations with Rome,
+     then engaged in eastern wars, and from that time the Byzantines
+     sought Roman favor, and long maintained an alliance with the
+     empire. After this, little is told of Byzantium until the war of
+     the emperor Septimius Severus with his great rival, Niger, governor
+     of Syria. Byzantium adhered to the cause of Niger. Confident in
+     their future if he should be victorious, the Byzantines indulged
+     dreams of becoming the head of an eastern empire. Their city was
+     strongly fortified, they had a powerful fleet, and for three years
+     they held out against the Roman besiegers, then, after untold
+     sufferings and slaughter, yielded under the distress of famine. "At
+     last they were reduced to chewing leather hides soaked in water,
+     and finally to the horrible extremity in which the weak become
+     literally the prey of the strong." The Romans destroyed the
+     magnificent city walls and deprived Byzantium of municipal and
+     political liberties.
+
+     The fall of Byzantium was accomplished in A.D. 194-196, and when
+     next its site became the scene of historic events a wholly new
+     order of things had been inaugurated in the world. After his
+     successful war with his colleague Licinius, sole ruler of the
+     East, Constantine had him put to death in A.D. 325. Constantine
+     then became sole augustus, and in 330 he transferred the capital of
+     the empire from Rome to Byzantium, which was henceforth called
+     Constantinople.
+
+
+The unfortunate Licinius was the last rival who opposed the greatness,
+and the last captive who adorned the triumph, of Constantine. After a
+tranquil and prosperous reign, the conqueror bequeathed to his family
+the inheritance of the Roman Empire; a new capital, a new policy, and a
+new religion; and the innovations which he established have been
+embraced and consecrated by succeeding generations.
+
+After the defeat and abdication of Licinius, his victorious rival
+proceeded to lay the foundations of a city destined to reign in future
+times, the mistress of the East, and to survive the empire and religion
+of Constantine. The motives, whether of pride or of policy, which first
+induced Diocletian to withdraw himself from the ancient seat of
+government, had acquired additional weight by the example of his
+successors and the habits of forty years. Rome was insensibly confounded
+with the dependent kingdoms which had once acknowledged her supremacy;
+and the country of the Cæsars was viewed with cold indifference by a
+martial prince, born in the neighborhood of the Danube, educated in the
+courts and armies of Asia, and invested with the purple by the legions
+of Britain. The Italians, who had received Constantine as their
+deliverer, submissively obeyed the edicts which he sometimes
+condescended to address to the senate and people of Rome; but they were
+seldom honored with the presence of their new sovereign.
+
+During the vigor of his age, Constantine, according to the various
+exigencies of peace and war, moved with slow dignity, or with active
+diligence, along the frontiers of his extensive dominions, and was
+always prepared to take the field either against a foreign or a domestic
+enemy. But as he gradually reached the summit of prosperity and the
+decline of life, he began to meditate the design of fixing in a more
+permanent station the strength as well as majesty of the throne. In the
+choice of an advantageous situation, he preferred the confines of Europe
+and Asia; to curb with a powerful arm the barbarians who dwelt between
+the Danube and the Tanais; to watch with an eye of jealousy the conduct
+of the Persian monarch, who indignantly supported the yoke of an
+ignominious treaty. With these views, Diocletian had selected and
+embellished the residence of Nicomedia: but the memory of Diocletian was
+justly abhorred by the protector of the Church; and Constantine was not
+insensible to the ambition of founding a city which might perpetuate the
+glory of his own name. During the late operations of the war against
+Licinius, he had sufficient opportunity to contemplate, both as a
+soldier and as a statesman, the incomparable position of Byzantium, and
+to observe how strongly it was guarded by nature against a hostile
+attack, while it was accessible on every side to the benefits of
+commercial intercourse.
+
+Many ages before Constantine, one of the most judicious historians of
+antiquity had described the advantages of a situation, from whence a
+feeble colony of Greeks derived the command of the sea and the honors of
+a flourishing and independent republic.[50]
+
+The harbor of Constantinople, which may be considered as an arm of the
+Bosporus, obtained, in a very remote period, the denomination of the
+"Golden Horn." The curve which it describes might be compared to the
+horn of a stag, or as it should seem, with more propriety, to that of an
+ox. The epithet of _golden_ was expressive of the riches which every
+wind wafted from the most distant countries into the secure and
+capacious port of Constantinople. The river Lycus, formed by the conflux
+of two little streams, pours into the harbor a perpetual supply of fresh
+water, which serves to cleanse the bottom and to invite the periodical
+shoals of fish to seek their retreat in that convenient recess. As the
+vicissitudes of tides are scarcely felt in those seas, the constant
+depth of the harbor allows goods to be landed on the quays without the
+assistance of boats; and it has been observed that in many places the
+largest vessels may rest their prows against the houses, while their
+sterns are floating in the water. From the mouth of the Lycus to that
+of the harbor, this arm of the Bosporus is more than seven miles in
+length. The entrance is about five hundred yards broad, and a strong
+chain could be occasionally thrown across it, to guard the port and city
+from the attack of a hostile navy.
+
+The geographers who, with the most skilful accuracy, have surveyed the
+form and extent of the Hellespont, assign about sixty miles for the
+winding course, and about three miles for the ordinary breadth, of those
+celebrated straits. But the narrowest part of the channel is found to
+the northward of the old Turkish castles between the cities of Sestus
+and Abydus. It was here that the adventurous Leander braved the passage
+of the flood for the possession of his mistress.[51] It was here
+likewise, in a place where the distance between the opposite banks
+cannot exceed five hundred paces, that Xerxes imposed a stupendous
+bridge of boats, for the purpose of transporting into Europe a hundred
+and seventy myriads of barbarians. A sea contracted within such narrow
+limits may seem but ill to deserve the singular epithet of _broad_,
+which Homer, as well as Orpheus, has frequently bestowed on the
+Hellespont. But our ideas of greatness are of a relative nature: the
+traveller, and especially the poet, who sailed along the Hellespont, who
+pursued the windings of the stream, and contemplated the rural scenery,
+which appeared on every side to terminate the prospect, insensibly lost
+the remembrance of the sea: and his fancy painted those celebrated
+straits, with all the attributes of a mighty river flowing with a swift
+current, in the midst of a woody and inland country, and at length,
+through a wide mouth, discharging itself into the Ægean or Archipelago.
+
+Ancient Troy, seated on an eminence at the foot of Mount Ida, overlooked
+the mouth of the Hellespont, which scarcely received an accession of
+waters from the tribute of those immortal rivulets, the Simois and
+Scamander. The Grecian camp had stretched twelve miles along the shore
+from the Sigæan to the Rhætean promontory; and the flanks of the army
+were guarded by the bravest chiefs who fought under the banners of
+Agamemnon.
+
+The first of those promontories was occupied by Achilles with his
+invincible myrmidons, and the dauntless Ajax pitched his tents on the
+other. After Ajax had fallen a sacrifice to his disappointed pride and
+to the ingratitude of the Greeks, his sepulchre was erected on the
+ground where he had defended the navy against the rage of Jove and of
+Hector; and the citizens of the rising town of Rhæteum celebrated his
+memory with divine honors. Before Constantine gave a just preference to
+the situation of Byzantium, he had conceived the design of erecting the
+seat of empire on this celebrated spot, from whence the Romans derived
+their fabulous origin. The extensive plain which lies below ancient
+Troy, toward the Rhætean promontory and the tomb of Ajax, was first
+chosen for his new capital; and though the undertaking was soon
+relinquished, the stately remains of unfinished walls and towers
+attracted the notice of all who sailed through the straits of the
+Hellespont.
+
+We are at present qualified to view the advantageous position of
+Constantinople; which appears to have been formed by nature for the
+centre and capital of a great monarchy. Situated in the forty-first
+degree of latitude, the imperial city commanded, from her seven hills,
+the opposite shores of Europe and Asia; the climate was healthy and
+temperate, the soil fertile, the harbor secure and capacious; and the
+approach on the side of the Continent was of small extent and easy
+defence. The Bosporus and the Hellespont may be considered as the two
+gates of Constantinople; and the prince who possessed these important
+passages could always shut them against a naval enemy and open them to
+the fleets of commerce. The preservation of the eastern provinces may,
+in some degree, be ascribed to the policy of Constantine, as the
+barbarians of the Euxine, who in the preceding age had poured their
+armaments into the heart of the Mediterranean, soon desisted from the
+exercise of piracy and despaired of forcing this insurmountable barrier.
+
+When the gates of the Hellespont and Bosporus were shut, the capital
+still enjoyed within their spacious enclosure every production which
+could supply the wants or gratify the luxury of its numerous
+inhabitants. The sea-coasts of Thrace and Bithynia, which languish under
+the weight of Turkish oppression, still exhibit a rich prospect of
+vineyards, of gardens, and of plentiful harvests; and the Propontis has
+ever been renowned for an inexhaustible store of the most exquisite
+fish, that are taken in their stated seasons, without skill and almost
+without labor. But when the passages of the straits were thrown open for
+trade, they alternately admitted the natural and artificial riches of
+the north and south, of the Euxine, and of the Mediterranean. Whatever
+rude commodities were collected in the forests of Germany and Scythia,
+as far as the sources of the Tanais and the Borysthenes; whatsoever was
+manufactured by the skill of Europe or Asia; the corn of Egypt, and the
+gems and spices of the farthest India, were brought by the varying winds
+into the port of Constantinople, which for many ages attracted the
+commerce of the ancient world.
+
+The prospect of beauty, of safety, and of wealth, united in a single
+spot, was sufficient to justify the choice of Constantine. But as some
+decent mixture of prodigy and fable has, in every age, been supposed to
+reflect a becoming majesty on the origin of great cities, the Emperor
+was desirous of ascribing his resolution, not so much to the uncertain
+counsels of human policy as to the infallible and eternal decrees of
+divine wisdom. In one of his laws he has been careful to instruct
+posterity that, in obedience to the commands of God, he laid the
+everlasting foundations of Constantinople: and though he has not
+condescended to relate in what manner the celestial inspiration was
+communicated to his mind, the defect of his modest silence has been
+liberally supplied by the ingenuity of succeeding writers, who describe
+the nocturnal vision which appeared to the fancy of Constantine, as he
+slept within the walls of Byzantium. The tutelar genius of the city, a
+venerable matron sinking under the weight of years and infirmities, was
+suddenly transformed into a blooming maid, whom his own hands adorned
+with all the symbols of imperial greatness. The monarch awoke,
+interpreted the auspicious omen, and obeyed, without hesitation, the
+will of heaven.
+
+The day which gave birth to a city or colony was celebrated by the
+Romans with such ceremonies as had been ordained by a generous
+superstition; and though Constantine might omit some rites which savored
+too strongly of their pagan origin, yet he was anxious to leave a deep
+impression of hope and respect on the minds of the spectators. On foot,
+with a lance in his hand, the Emperor himself led the solemn procession,
+and directed the line which was traced as the boundary of the destined
+capital: till the growing circumference was observed with astonishment
+by the assistants, who, at length, ventured to observe that he had
+already exceeded the most ample measure of a great city. "I shall still
+advance," replied Constantine, "till He, the invisible guide who marches
+before me, thinks proper to stop." Without presuming to investigate the
+nature or motives of this extraordinary conductor, we shall content
+ourselves with the more humble task of describing the extent and limits
+of Constantinople.
+
+In the actual state of the city, the palace and gardens of the seraglio
+occupy the eastern promontory, the first of the seven hills, and cover
+about one hundred and fifty acres of our own measure. The seat of
+Turkish jealousy and despotism is erected on the foundations of a
+Grecian republic; but it may be supposed that the Byzantines were
+tempted by the conveniency of the harbor to extend their habitations on
+that side beyond the modern limits of the seraglio. The new walls of
+Constantine stretched from the port to the Propontis across the enlarged
+breadth of the triangle, at a distance of fifteen stadia from the
+ancient fortification; and with the city of Byzantium they enclosed five
+of the seven hills, which, to the eyes of those who approach
+Constantinople, appear to rise above each other in beautiful order.
+About a century after the death of the founder the new buildings,
+extending on one side up the harbor, and on the other along the
+Propontis, already covered the narrow ridge of the sixth and the broad
+summit of the seventh hill.
+
+The necessity of protecting those suburbs from the incessant inroads of
+the barbarians engaged the younger Theodosius to surround his capital
+with an adequate and permanent enclosure of walls. From the eastern
+promontory to the Golden Gate, the extreme length of Constantinople was
+about three Roman miles; the circumference measured between ten and
+eleven; and the surface might be computed as equal to about two thousand
+acres. It is impossible to justify the vain and credulous exaggerations
+of modern travellers, who have sometimes stretched the limits of
+Constantinople over the adjacent villages of the European and even of
+the Asiatic coast.[52] But the suburbs of Pera and Galata, though
+situate beyond the harbor, may deserve to be considered as a part of the
+city; and this addition may perhaps authorize the measure of a Byzantine
+historian, who assigns sixteen Greek, about fourteen Roman, miles for
+the circumference of his native city. Such an extent may seem not
+unworthy of an imperial residence. Yet Constantinople must yield to
+Babylon and Thebes, to ancient Rome, to London, and even to Paris.
+
+The master of the Roman world, who aspired to erect an eternal monument
+of the glories of his reign, could employ in the prosecution of that
+great work the wealth, the labor, and all that yet remained of the
+genius of obedient millions. Some estimate may be formed of the expense
+bestowed with imperial liberality on the foundation of Constantinople,
+by the allowance of about two million five hundred thousand pounds for
+the construction of the walls, the porticos, and the aqueducts. The
+forests that overshadowed the shores of the Euxine, and the celebrated
+quarries of white marble in the little island of Proconnesus, supplied
+an inexhaustible stock of materials, ready to be conveyed, by the
+convenience of a short water-carriage, to the harbor of Byzantium. A
+multitude of laborers and artificers urged the conclusion of the work
+with incessant toil; but the impatience of Constantine soon discovered
+that, in the decline of the arts, the skill as well as numbers of his
+architects bore a very unequal proportion to the greatness of his
+designs. The magistrates of the most distant provinces were therefore
+directed to institute schools, to appoint professors, and by the hopes
+of rewards and privileges to engage in the study and practice of
+architecture a sufficient number of ingenious youths who had received a
+liberal education. The buildings of the new city were executed by such
+artificers as the reign of Constantine could afford; but they were
+decorated by the hands of the most celebrated masters of the age of
+Pericles and Alexander. To revive the genius of Phidias and Lysippus
+surpassed indeed the power of a Roman emperor; but the immortal
+productions which they had bequeathed to posterity were exposed without
+defence to the rapacious vanity of a despot.
+
+By his commands the cities of Greece and Asia were despoiled of their
+most valuable ornaments. The trophies of memorable wars, the objects of
+religious veneration, the most finished statues of the gods and heroes,
+of the sages and poets, of ancient times, contributed to the splendid
+triumph of Constantinople, and gave occasion to the remark of the
+historian Cedrenus, who observes, with some enthusiasm, that nothing
+seemed wanting except the souls of the illustrious men whom those
+admirable monuments were intended to represent. But it is not in the
+city of Constantine, nor in the declining period of an empire, when the
+human mind was depressed by civil and religious slavery, that we should
+seek for the souls of Homer and of Demosthenes.
+
+During the siege of Byzantium the conqueror had pitched his tent on the
+commanding eminence of the second hill. To perpetuate the memory of his
+success, he chose the same advantageous position for the principal
+forum, which appears to have been of a circular or rather elliptical
+form. The two opposite entrances formed triumphal arches; the porticos,
+which enclosed it on every side, were filled with statues; and the
+centre of the forum was occupied by a lofty column, of which a mutilated
+fragment is now degraded by the appellation of the "burnt pillar." This
+column was erected on a pedestal of white marble twenty feet high, and
+was composed of ten pieces of porphyry, each of which measured about ten
+feet in height and about thirty-three in circumference. On the summit of
+the pillar, above one hundred and twenty feet from the ground, stood the
+colossal statue of Apollo. It was of bronze, had been transported either
+from Athens or from a town of Phrygia, and was supposed to be the work
+of Phidias. The artist had represented the god of day, or, as it was
+afterward interpreted, the emperor Constantine himself, with a sceptre
+in his right hand, the globe of the world in his left, and a crown of
+rays glittering on his head.[53]
+
+The Circus, or Hippodrome, was a stately building about four hundred
+paces in length and one hundred in breadth. The space between the two
+_metæ_ or goals was filled with statues and obelisks; and we may still
+remark a very singular fragment of antiquity, the bodies of three
+serpents, twisted into one pillar of brass. Their triple heads had once
+supported the golden tripod which, after the defeat of Xerxes, was
+consecrated in the temple of Delphi by the victorious Greeks. The beauty
+of the hippodrome has been long since defaced by the rude hands of the
+Turkish conquerors; but, under the similar appellation of Atmeidan, it
+still serves as a place of exercise for their horses. From the throne,
+whence the emperor viewed the Circensian games, a winding staircase
+descended to the palace; a magnificent edifice, which scarcely yielded
+to the residence of Rome itself, and which, together with the dependent
+courts, gardens, and porticos, covered a considerable extent of ground
+upon the banks of the Propontis between the Hippodrome and the Church of
+St. Sophia. We might likewise celebrate the baths, which still retained
+the name of Zeuxippus,[54] after they had been enriched, by the
+munificence of Constantine, with lofty columns, various marbles, and
+above threescore statues of bronze. But we should deviate from the
+design of this history if we attempted minutely to describe the
+different buildings or quarters of the city. It may be sufficient to
+observe that whatever could adorn the dignity of a great capital, or
+contribute to the benefit or pleasure of its numerous inhabitants, was
+contained within the walls of Constantinople. A particular description,
+composed about a century after its foundation, enumerates a capitol or
+school of learning, a circus, two theatres, eight public and one hundred
+and fifty-three private baths, fifty-two porticos, five granaries, eight
+aqueducts or reservoirs of water, four spacious halls for the meetings
+of the senate or courts of justice, fourteen churches, fourteen palaces,
+and four thousand three hundred and eighty-eight houses, which, for
+their size or beauty, deserved to be distinguished from the multitude of
+plebeian habitations.
+
+The populousness of his favored city was the next and most serious
+object of the attention of its founder. In the dark ages which succeeded
+the translation of the empire, the remote and the immediate consequences
+of that memorable event were strangely confounded by the vanity of the
+Greeks and the credulity of the Latins. It was asserted, and believed,
+that all the noble families of Rome, the senate, and the equestrian
+order, with their innumerable attendants, had followed their Emperor to
+the banks of the Propontis; that a spurious race of strangers and
+plebeians was left to possess the solitude of the ancient capital; and
+that the lands of Italy, long since converted into gardens, were at once
+deprived of cultivation and inhabitants. Since the growth of
+Constantinople cannot be ascribed to the general increase of mankind and
+of industry, it must be admitted that this artificial colony was raised
+at the expense of the ancient cities of the empire.
+
+Many opulent senators of Rome, and of the eastern provinces, were
+probably invited by Constantine to adopt for their country the fortunate
+spot which he had chosen for his own residence. The invitations of a
+master are scarcely to be distinguished from commands; and the
+liberality of the Emperor obtained a ready and cheerful obedience. He
+bestowed on his favorites the palaces which he had built in the several
+quarters of the city, assigned them lands and pensions for the support
+of their dignity, and alienated the demesnes of Pontus and Asia to grant
+hereditary estates by the easy tenure of maintaining a house in the
+capital. But these encouragements and obligations soon became
+superfluous and were gradually abolished. Wherever the seat of
+government is fixed, a considerable part of the public revenue will be
+expended by the prince himself, by his ministers, by the officers of
+justice, and by the domestics of the palace. The most wealthy of the
+provincials will be attracted by the powerful motives of interest and
+duty, of amusement and curiosity. A third and more numerous class of
+inhabitants will insensibly be formed, of servants, of artificers, and
+of merchants, who derive their subsistence from their own labor and from
+the wants or luxury of the superior ranks. In less than a century
+Constantinople disputed with Rome itself the preëminence of riches and
+numbers. New piles of buildings, crowded together with too little regard
+to health or convenience, scarcely allowed the intervals of narrow
+streets for the perpetual throng of men, of horses, and of carriages.
+The allotted space of ground was insufficient to contain the increasing
+people; and the additional foundations, which, on either side, were
+advanced into the sea, might alone have composed a very considerable
+city.
+
+The frequent and regular distributions of wine and oil, of corn or
+bread, of money or provisions, had almost exempted the poorer citizens
+of Rome from the necessity of labor. The magnificence of the first
+Cæsars was in some measure imitated by the founder of Constantinople;
+but his liberality, however it might excite the applause of the people,
+has incurred the censure of posterity. A nation of legislators and
+conquerors might assert their claim to the harvests of Africa, which had
+been purchased with their blood; and it was artfully contrived by
+Augustus that, in the enjoyment of plenty, the Romans should lose the
+memory of freedom. But the prodigality of Constantine could not be
+excused by any consideration either of public or private interest; and
+the annual tribute of corn imposed upon Egypt for the benefit of his new
+capital was applied to feed a lazy and insolent populace at the expense
+of the husbandmen of an industrious province. Some other regulations of
+this Emperor are less liable to blame, but they are less deserving of
+notice. He divided Constantinople into fourteen regions or quarters,
+dignified the public council with the appellation of senate,
+communicated to the citizens the privileges of Italy, and bestowed on
+the rising city the title of colony, the first and most favored daughter
+of ancient Rome. The venerable parent still maintained the legal and
+acknowledged supremacy which was due to her age, to her dignity, and to
+the remembrance of her former greatness.
+
+As Constantine urged the progress of the work with the impatience of a
+lover, the walls, the porticos, and the principal edifices were
+completed in a few years, or, according to another account, in a few
+months; but this extraordinary diligence should excite the less
+admiration, since many of the buildings were finished in so hasty and
+imperfect a manner that, under the succeeding reign, they were preserved
+with difficulty from impending ruin. But while they displayed the vigor
+and freshness of youth, the founder prepared to celebrate the dedication
+of his city. The games and largesses which crowned the pomp of this
+memorable festival may easily be supposed; but there is one circumstance
+of a more singular and permanent nature, which ought not entirely to be
+overlooked. As often as the birthday of the city returned, the statue of
+Constantine, framed by his order, of gilt wood, and bearing in its right
+hand a small image of the genius of the place, was erected on a
+triumphal car. The guards, carrying white tapers, and clothed in their
+richest apparel, accompanied the solemn procession as it moved through
+the Hippodrome. When it was opposite to the throne of the reigning
+Emperor, he rose from his seat, and with grateful reverence adored the
+memory of his predecessor. At the festival of the dedication, an edict,
+engraved on a column of marble, bestowed the title of "Second or New
+Rome" on the city of Constantine. But the name of Constantinople has
+prevailed over that honorable epithet; and after the revolution of
+fourteen centuries, still perpetuates the fame of its author.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[50] The navigator Byzas, who was styled the Son of Neptune, founded the
+city 656 years before the Christian era. His followers were drawn from
+Argos and Megara. Byzantium was afterward rebuilt and fortified by the
+Spartan general Pausanias.
+
+[51] The practical illustration of the possibility of Leander's feat by
+Lord Byron is too well known to need particular reference.
+
+[52] The accurate Thevenot walked in one hour and three-quarters round
+two of the sides of the triangle, from the Kiosk of the Seraglio to the
+seven towers. D'Anville examines with care, and receives with
+confidence, this decisive testimony, which gives a circumference of ten
+or twelve miles. The extravagant computation of Tournefort of
+thirty-four or thirty miles, without including Scutari, is a strange
+departure from his usual character.
+
+[53] On this column Constantine, with singular shamelessness, placed his
+own statue with the attributes of Apollo and Christ. He substituted the
+nails of the Passion for the rays of the sun. Constantine was replaced
+by the "great and religious" Julian; Julian, by Theodosius. A.D. 1412
+the keystone was loosened by an earthquake. The statue fell in the reign
+of Alexius Comnenus, and was replaced by the cross. The palladium was
+said to be buried under the pillar.
+
+[54] Zeuxippus was an epithet of Jupiter, and the baths were a part of
+old Byzantium.
+
+
+
+
+JULIAN THE APOSTATE BECOMES EMPEROR OF ROME
+
+A.D. 360
+
+EDWARD GIBBON
+
+     The great reign of Constantine was ended. The new capital,
+     Constantinople, which after fifteen centuries still perpetuates the
+     name of its imperial founder, had outrivalled Rome. The heirs of
+     Constantine, the sons of Fausta, had all been called Cæsar, and
+     were appointed to succeed to imperial power. Constantine,
+     Constantius, and Constans they were named. They held court in
+     different parts of the realm during their father's life, although
+     he reserved for himself the title of Augustus.
+
+     The last years of his reign of thirty years had been peaceful,
+     disturbed only by the insurrection in Cyprus and the wars of the
+     Goths and Sarmatians. And so he died, and the purple and diadem
+     were but empty symbols, as he lay in state upon his golden bed.
+
+     The great Emperor was no sooner dead than the sons made haste to
+     rid themselves of all possible rivals in a family that seemed too
+     numerous for peace. Two uncles and seven cousins were quickly put
+     out of the way under one pretence and another.
+
+     The provinces were divided between the three brothers, and they
+     reigned peacefully for three years, until Constantine demanded the
+     surrender to him of a part of the dominions of Constans. In the war
+     which ensued Constantine was killed, and Constans took possession
+     of his brother's provinces, refusing any share of them to
+     Constantius.
+
+     He reigned ten years longer, when he was destroyed, A.D. 350, by a
+     conspiracy in Gaul headed by one Magnentius. This soldier, of
+     barbarian extraction, was soon defeated by Constantius, who now
+     became sole Emperor.
+
+     He soon found his burden of power too great, and decided to share
+     it with the two young nephews who had been permitted to live when
+     the massacre of the house of Constantine occurred.
+
+     To Gallus, the elder, he gave the title of cæsar, and invested him
+     with the government of the East. Gallus conducted himself like a
+     Nero and was disgraced and executed about three years later.
+
+     The younger nephew, Julian, had been brought up in the Christian
+     faith, and received an excellent education, which was finished in
+     the philosophical schools of Athens. He was created cæsar by
+     Constantius, whose sister Helena he married, and was invested with
+     the government of Gaul, Spain, and Britain.
+
+     Julian's wise civil administration was very acceptable to the
+     people, and his brilliant military exploits established his fame
+     throughout the empire and won the affection of his soldiers. He
+     repulsed the Alemanns and the Franks, sending captives to the court
+     of Constantius. His expeditions beyond the Rhine were crowned with
+     success. He restored the cities of Gaul and stemmed the tide of
+     barbarian invasion.
+
+     All these triumphs had awakened the jealousy of the emperor
+     Constantius, who was practically ruled by the eunuchs and bishops
+     at his court. The rising fortunes of Julian had caused envy among
+     many, who set about to poison the mind of Constantius with
+     innuendoes and false suggestions. They resolved to disarm Julian
+     and to separate him from his army. The Emperor ordered Julian to
+     send his best troops to the war in Persia. But they forgot that the
+     troops adored Julian. They overlooked the fact that the soldiers
+     would see through such a scheme to humiliate their commander. The
+     Gauls also feared the departure of Julian's men, for they dreaded
+     the attacks of the Germans. This then was the situation. Julian
+     attempted to follow the orders of the Emperor. But fate ordained
+     otherwise. The army proclaimed him emperor. He refused the honor at
+     first, but was forced to assume the dangerous title. The war which
+     immediately followed was cut short by the sudden death of
+     Constantius, and Julian became sole ruler of the Roman Empire. He
+     renounced Christianity and is known in history as Julian the
+     Apostate.
+
+
+While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of eunuchs and
+bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with transport in every
+part of the empire, except in the palace of Constantius. The barbarians
+of Germany had felt and still dreaded the arms of the young cæsar; his
+soldiers were the companions of his victory; the grateful provincials
+enjoyed the blessings of his reign; but the favorites, who had opposed
+his elevation, were offended by his virtues; and they justly considered
+the friend of the people as the enemy of the court. As long as the fame
+of Julian was doubtful the buffoons of the palace, who were skilled in
+the language of satire, tried the efficacy of those arts which they had
+so often practised with success. They easily discovered that his
+simplicity was not exempt from affectation; the ridiculous epithets of a
+hairy savage, of an ape invested with the purple, were applied to the
+dress and person of the philosophic warrior; and his modest despatches
+were stigmatized as the vain and elaborate fictions of a loquacious
+Greek, a speculative soldier, who had studied the art of war amid the
+groves of the academy.
+
+The voice of malicious folly was at length silenced by the shouts of
+victory; the conqueror of the Franks and Alemanni could no longer be
+painted as an object of contempt; and the monarch himself was meanly
+ambitious of stealing from his lieutenant the honorable reward of his
+labors. In the letters crowned with laurel, which, according to ancient
+custom, were addressed to the provinces, the name of Julian was omitted.
+"Constantius had made his dispositions in person; _he_ had signalized
+his valor in the foremost ranks; _his_ military conduct had secured the
+victory; and the captive king of the barbarians was presented to _him_
+on the field of battle," from which he was at that time distant about
+forty days' journey. So extravagant a fable was incapable, however, of
+deceiving the public credulity, or even of satisfying the pride of the
+Emperor himself. Secretly conscious that the applause and favor of the
+Romans accompanied the rising fortunes of Julian, his discontented mind
+was prepared to receive the subtle poison of those artful sycophants,
+who colored their mischievous designs with the fairest appearances of
+truth and candor. Instead of depreciating the merits of Julian, they
+acknowledged, and even exaggerated, his popular fame, superior talents,
+and important services. But they darkly insinuated that the virtues of
+the cæsar might instantly be converted into the most dangerous crimes if
+the inconstant multitude should prefer their inclinations to their duty;
+or if the general of a victorious army should be tempted from his
+allegiance by the hopes of revenge and independent greatness. The
+personal fears of Constantius were interpreted by his council as a
+laudable anxiety for the public safety; while in private, and perhaps in
+his own breast, he disguised, under the less odious appellation of fear,
+the sentiments of hatred and envy, which he had secretly conceived for
+the inimitable virtues of Julian.
+
+The apparent tranquillity of Gaul, and the imminent danger of the
+eastern provinces, offered a specious pretence for the design which was
+artfully concerted by the imperial ministers. They resolved to disarm
+the cæsar; to recall those faithful troops who guarded his person and
+dignity; and to employ, in a distant war against the Persian monarch,
+the hardy veterans who had vanquished, on the banks of the Rhine, the
+fiercest nations of Germany. While Julian used the laborious hours of
+his winter quarters at Paris in the administration of power, which, in
+his hands, was the exercise of virtue, he was surprised by the hasty
+arrival of a tribune and a notary, with positive orders from the
+Emperor, which _they_ were directed to execute and _he_ was commanded
+not to oppose.
+
+Constantius signified his pleasure that four entire legions, the Celtæ,
+and Petulants, the Heruli, and the Batavians, should be separated from
+the standard of Julian, under which they had acquired their fame and
+discipline; that in each of the remaining bands three hundred of the
+bravest youths should be selected; and that this numerous detachment,
+the strength of the Gallic army, should instantly begin their march, and
+exert their utmost diligence to arrive, before the opening of the
+campaign, on the frontiers of Persia. The cæsar foresaw and lamented the
+consequences of this fatal mandate. Most of the auxiliaries, who engaged
+their voluntary service, had stipulated that they should never be
+obliged to pass the Alps. The public faith of Rome, and the personal
+honor of Julian, had been pledged for the observance of this condition.
+Such an act of treachery and oppression would destroy the confidence and
+excite the resentment of the independent warriors of Germany, who
+considered truth as the noblest of their virtues, and freedom as the
+most valuable of their possessions.
+
+The legionaries who enjoyed the title and privileges of Romans were
+enlisted for the general defence of the republic; but those mercenary
+troops heard with cold indifference the antiquated names of the republic
+and of Rome. Attached, either from birth or long habit, to the climate
+and manners of Gaul, they loved and admired Julian; they despised, and
+perhaps hated, the Emperor; they dreaded the laborious march, the
+Persian arrows, and the burning deserts of Asia. They claimed as their
+own the country which they had saved, and excused their want of spirit,
+by pleading the sacred and more immediate duty of protecting their
+families and friends. The apprehensions of the Gauls were derived from
+the knowledge of the impending and inevitable danger. As soon as the
+provinces were exhausted of their military strength the Germans would
+violate a treaty which had been imposed on their fears; and
+notwithstanding the abilities and valor of Julian, the general of a
+nominal army, to whom the public calamities would be imputed, must find
+himself, after a vain resistance, either a prisoner in the camp of the
+barbarians or a criminal in the palace of Constantius.
+
+If Julian complied with the orders which he had received, he subscribed
+his own destruction and that of a people who deserved his affection. But
+a positive refusal was an act of rebellion and a declaration of war. The
+inexorable jealousy of the Emperor, the peremptory and perhaps insidious
+nature of his commands, left not any room for a fair apology or candid
+interpretation; and the dependent station of the cæsar scarcely allowed
+him to pause or to deliberate. Solitude increased the perplexity of
+Julian; he could no longer apply to the faithful counsels of Sallust,
+who had been removed from his office by the judicious malice of the
+eunuchs; he could not even enforce his representations by the
+concurrence of the ministers, who would have been afraid or ashamed to
+approve the ruin of Gaul. The moment had been chosen when Lupicinus, the
+general of the cavalry, was despatched into Britain to repulse the
+inroads of the Scots and Picts; and Florentius was occupied at Vienne by
+the assessment of the tribute. The latter, a crafty and corrupt
+statesman, declining to assume a responsible part on this dangerous
+occasion, eluded the pressing and repeated invitations of Julian, who
+represented to him that in every important measure the presence of the
+prefect was indispensable in the council of the prince.
+
+In the mean while the cæsar was oppressed by the rude and importunate
+solicitations of the imperial messengers, who presumed to suggest that
+if he expected the return of his ministers, he would charge himself with
+the guilt of the delay, and reserve for them the merit of the execution.
+Unable to resist, unwilling to comply, Julian expressed, in the most
+serious terms, his wish, and even his intention, of resigning the
+purple, which he could not preserve with honor, but which he could not
+abdicate with safety.
+
+After a painful conflict, Julian was compelled to acknowledge that
+obedience was the virtue of the most eminent subject, and that the
+sovereign alone was entitled to judge of the public welfare. He issued
+the necessary orders for carrying into execution the commands of
+Constantius; a part of the troops began their march for the Alps; and
+the detachments from the several garrisons moved toward their respective
+places of assembly. They advanced with difficulty through the trembling
+and affrighted crowds of provincials, who attempted to excite their pity
+by silent despair or loud lamentations; while the wives of the soldiers,
+holding their infants in their arms, accused the desertion of their
+husbands, in the mixed language of grief, of tenderness, and of
+indignation. This scene of general distress afflicted the humanity of
+the cæsar; he granted a sufficient number of post-wagons to transport
+the wives and families of the soldiers, endeavored to alleviate the
+hardships which he was constrained to inflict, and increased, by the
+most laudable arts, his own popularity and the discontent of the exiled
+troops.
+
+The grief of an armed multitude is soon converted into rage; their
+licentious murmurs, which every hour were communicated from tent to tent
+with more boldness and effect, prepared their minds for the most daring
+acts of sedition; and by the connivance of their tribunes, a seasonable
+libel was secretly dispersed, which painted in lively colors the
+disgrace of the cæsar, the oppression of the Gallic army, and the feeble
+vices of the tyrant of Asia. The servants of Constantius were astonished
+and alarmed by the progress of this dangerous spirit. They pressed the
+cæsar to hasten the departure of the troops; but they imprudently
+rejected the honest and judicious advice of Julian, who proposed that
+they should not march through Paris, and suggested the danger and
+temptation of a last interview.
+
+As soon as the approach of the troops was announced the cæsar went out
+to meet them, and ascended his tribunal, which had been erected in a
+plain before the gates of the city. After distinguishing the officers
+and soldiers who by their rank or merit deserved a peculiar attention,
+Julian addressed himself in a studied oration to the surrounding
+multitude: he celebrated their exploits with grateful applause;
+encouraged them to accept, with alacrity, the honor of serving under the
+eyes of a powerful and liberal monarch; and admonished them that the
+commands of Augustus required an instant and cheerful obedience.
+
+The soldiers, who were apprehensive of offending their general by an
+indecent clamor, or of belying their sentiments by false and venal
+acclamations, maintained an obstinate silence, and after a short pause
+were dismissed to their quarters. The principal officers were
+entertained by the cæsar, who professed, in the warmest language of
+friendship, his desire and his inability to reward, according to their
+deserts, the brave companions of his victories. They retired from the
+feast, full of grief and perplexity, and lamented the hardship of their
+fate, which tore them from their beloved general and their native
+country. The only expedient which could prevent their separation was
+boldly agitated and approved; the popular resentment was insensibly
+moulded into a regular conspiracy; their just reasons of complaint were
+heightened by passion, and their passions were inflamed by wine, as, on
+the eve of their departure, the troops were indulged in licentious
+festivity. At the hour of midnight, the impetuous multitude, with swords
+and bows and torches in their hands, rushed into the suburbs,
+encompassed the palace, and, careless of future dangers, pronounced the
+fatal and irrevocable words "JULIAN AUGUSTUS!"
+
+The prince, whose anxious suspense was interrupted by their disorderly
+acclamations, secured the doors against their intrusion, and, as long as
+it was in his power, secluded his person and dignity from the accidents
+of a nocturnal tumult. At the dawn of day the soldiers, whose zeal was
+irritated by opposition, forcibly entered the palace, seized, with
+respectful violence, the object of their choice, guarded Julian with
+drawn swords through the streets of Paris, placed him on the tribunal,
+and with repeated shouts saluted him as their emperor. Prudence, as well
+as loyalty, inculcated the propriety of resisting their treasonable
+designs, and of preparing, for his oppressed virtue, the excuse of
+violence. Addressing himself by turns to the multitude and to
+individuals, he sometimes implored their mercy, and sometimes expressed
+his indignation; conjured them not to sully the fame of their immortal
+victories; and ventured to promise, that if they would immediately
+return to their allegiance, he would undertake to obtain from the
+Emperor not only a free and gracious pardon, but even the revocation of
+the orders which had excited their resentment.
+
+But the soldiers, who were conscious of their guilt, chose rather to
+depend on the gratitude of Julian than on the clemency of the Emperor.
+Their zeal was insensibly turned into impatience, and their impatience
+into rage. The inflexible cæsar sustained, till the third hour of the
+day, their prayers, their reproaches, and their menaces; nor did he
+yield till he had been repeatedly assured that if he wished to live he
+must consent to reign. He was exalted on a shield in the presence and
+amid the unanimous acclamations of the troops; a rich military collar,
+which was offered by chance, supplied the want of a diadem; the ceremony
+was concluded by the promise of a moderate donative; and the new
+Emperor, overwhelmed with real or affected grief, retired into the most
+secret recesses of his apartment.
+
+The grief of Julian could proceed only from his innocence, but his
+innocence must appear extremely doubtful in the eyes of those who have
+learned to suspect the motives and the professions of princes. His
+lively and active mind was susceptible of the various impressions of
+hope and fear, of gratitude and revenge, of duty and of ambition, of the
+love of fame, and of the fear of reproach. But it is impossible for us
+to calculate the respective weight and operation of these sentiments; or
+to ascertain the principles of action which might escape the
+observation, while they guided, or rather impelled, the steps of Julian
+himself.
+
+The discontent of the troops was produced by the malice of his enemies;
+their tumult was the natural effect of interest and of passion; and if
+Julian had tried to conceal a deep design under the appearances of
+chance, he must have employed the most consummate artifice without
+necessity, and probably without success. He solemnly declares, in the
+presence of Jupiter, of the Sun, of Mars, of Minerva, and of all the
+other deities, that till the close of the evening which preceded his
+elevation he was utterly ignorant of the designs of the soldiers; and it
+may seem ungenerous to distrust the honor of a hero and the truth of a
+philosopher. Yet the superstitious confidence that Constantius was the
+enemy, and that he himself was the favorite, of the gods, might prompt
+him to desire, to solicit, and even to hasten the auspicious moment of
+his reign, which was predestined to restore the ancient religion of
+mankind. When Julian had received the intelligence of the conspiracy he
+resigned himself to a short slumber, and afterward related to his
+friends that he had seen the Genius of the Empire waiting with some
+impatience at his door, pressing for admittance, and reproaching his
+want of spirit and ambition. Astonished and perplexed, he addressed his
+prayers to the great Jupiter, who immediately signified, by a clear and
+manifest omen, that he should submit to the will of heaven and of the
+army.
+
+The conduct which disclaims the ordinary maxims of reason excites our
+suspicion and eludes our inquiry. Whenever the spirit of fanaticism, at
+once so credulous and so crafty, has insinuated itself into a noble
+mind, it insensibly corrodes the vital principles of virtue and
+veracity.
+
+To moderate the zeal of his party, to protect the persons of his
+enemies, to defeat and to despise the secret enterprises which were
+formed against his life and dignity, were the cares which employed the
+first days of the reign of the new emperor. Although he was firmly
+resolved to maintain the station which he had assumed, he was still
+desirous of saving his country from the calamities of civil war, of
+declining a contest with the superior forces of Constantius, and of
+preserving his own character from the reproach of perfidy and
+ingratitude. Adorned with the ensigns of military and imperial pomp,
+Julian showed himself in the field of Mars to the soldiers, who glowed
+with ardent enthusiasm in the cause of their pupil, their leader, and
+their friend. He recapitulated their victories, lamented their
+sufferings, applauded their resolution, animated their hopes, and
+checked their impetuosity; nor did he dismiss the assembly till he had
+obtained a solemn promise from the troops, that if the emperor of the
+East would subscribe an equitable treaty, they would renounce any views
+of conquest and satisfy themselves with the tranquil possession of the
+Gallic provinces.
+
+On this foundation he composed, in his own name, and in that of the
+army, a specious and moderate epistle, which was delivered to Pentadius,
+his master of the offices, and to his chamberlain Eutherius, two
+ambassadors whom he appointed to receive the answer and observe the
+dispositions of Constantius. This epistle is inscribed with the modest
+appellation of cæsar; but Julian solicits, in a peremptory, though
+respectful, manner, the confirmation of the title of augustus. He
+acknowledges the irregularity of his own election, while he justifies,
+in some measure, the resentment and violence of the troops which had
+extorted his reluctant consent. He allows the supremacy of his brother
+Constantius, and engages to send him an annual present of Spanish
+horses, to recruit his army with a select number of barbarian youths,
+and to accept from his choice a prætorian prefect of approved discretion
+and fidelity. But he reserves for himself the nomination of his other
+civil and military officers, with the troops, the revenue, and the
+sovereignty of the provinces beyond the Alps. He admonishes the Emperor
+to consult the dictates of justice; to distrust the arts of those venal
+flatterers, who subsist only by the discord of princes, and to embrace
+the offer of a fair and honorable treaty, equally advantageous to the
+republic and to the house of Constantine.
+
+In this negotiation Julian claimed no more than he already possessed.
+The delegated authority which he had long exercised over the provinces
+of Gaul, Spain, and Britain was still obeyed under a name more
+independent and august. The soldiers and the people rejoiced in a
+revolution which was not stained even with the blood of the guilty.
+Florentius was a fugitive; Lupicinus a prisoner. The persons who were
+disaffected to the new government were disarmed and secured; and the
+vacant offices were distributed, according to the recommendation of
+merit, by a prince who despised the intrigues of the palace and the
+clamors of the soldiers.
+
+The negotiations of peace were accompanied and supported by the most
+vigorous preparations for war. The army, which Julian held in readiness
+for immediate action, was recruited and augmented by the disorders of
+the times. The cruel persecution of the faction of Magnentius had filled
+Gaul with numerous bands of outlaws and robbers. They cheerfully
+accepted the offer of a general pardon from a prince whom they could
+trust, submitted to the restraints of military discipline, and retained
+only their implacable hatred to the person and government of
+Constantius.
+
+As soon as the season of the year permitted Julian to take the field, he
+appeared at the head of his legions; threw a bridge over the Rhine in
+the neighborhood of Cleves; and prepared to chastise the perfidy of the
+Attuarii, a tribe of Franks, who presumed that they might ravage, with
+impunity, the frontiers of a divided empire. The difficulty, as well as
+glory, of this enterprise consisted in a laborious march; and Julian had
+conquered, as soon as he could penetrate into a country which former
+princes had considered as inaccessible. After he had given peace to the
+barbarians, the emperor carefully visited the fortifications along the
+Rhine from Cleves to Basel; surveyed, with peculiar attention, the
+territories which he had recovered from the hands of the Alemanni,
+passed through Besançon, which had severely suffered from their fury,
+and fixed his head-quarters at Vienne for the ensuing winter.
+
+The barrier of Gaul was improved and strengthened with additional
+fortifications; and Julian entertained some hopes that the Germans, whom
+he had so often vanquished, might, in his absence, be restrained by the
+terror of his name. Vadomair was the only prince of the Alemanni whom he
+esteemed or feared; and while the subtle barbarian affected to observe
+the faith of treaties, the progress of his arms threatened the State
+with an unseasonable and dangerous war. The policy of Julian
+condescended to surprise the prince of the Alemanni by his own arts: and
+Vadomair, who, in the character of a friend, had incautiously accepted
+an invitation from the Roman governors, was seized in the midst of the
+entertainment, and sent away prisoner into the heart of Spain. Before
+the barbarians were recovered from their amazement the Emperor appeared
+in arms on the banks of the Rhine, and, once more crossing the river,
+renewed the deep impressions of terror and respect which had been
+already made by four preceding expeditions.
+
+The ambassadors of Julian had been instructed to execute, with the
+utmost diligence, their important commission. But, in their passage
+through Italy and Illyricum, they were detained by the tedious and
+affected delays of the provincial governors; they were conducted by slow
+journeys from Constantinople to Cæsarea in Cappadocia; and when at
+length they were admitted to the presence of Constantius, they found
+that he had already conceived, from the despatches of his own officers,
+the most unfavorable opinion of the conduct of Julian and of the Gallic
+army. The letters were heard with impatience; the trembling messengers
+were dismissed with indignation and contempt; and the looks, the
+gestures, the furious language of the monarch expressed the disorder of
+his soul. The domestic connection, which might have reconciled the
+brother and the husband of Helena, was recently dissolved by the death
+of that princess, whose pregnancy had been several times fruitless, and
+was at last fatal to herself. The empress Eusebia had preserved, to the
+last moment of her life, the warm, and even jealous, affection which she
+had conceived for Julian; and her mild influence might have moderated
+the resentment of a prince, who, since her death, was abandoned to his
+own passions, and to the arts of his eunuchs.
+
+But the terror of a foreign invasion obliged him to suspend the
+punishment of a private enemy; he continued his march toward the
+confines of Persia, and thought it sufficient to signify the conditions
+which might entitle Julian and his guilty followers to the clemency of
+their offended sovereign. He required that the presumptuous cæsar should
+expressly renounce the appellation and rank of augustus, which he had
+accepted from the rebels; that he should descend to his former station
+of a limited and dependent minister; that he should vest the powers of
+the State and army in the hands of those officers who were appointed by
+the imperial court; and that he should trust his safety to the
+assurances of pardon, which were announced by Epictetus, a Gallic
+bishop, and one of the Arian favorites of Constantius. Several months
+were ineffectually consumed in a treaty which was negotiated at the
+distance of three thousand miles between Paris and Antioch; and, as soon
+as Julian perceived that his modest and respectful behavior served only
+to irritate the pride of an implacable adversary, he boldly resolved to
+commit his life and fortune to the chance of a civil war.
+
+He gave a public and military audience to the quæstor Leonas; the
+haughty epistle of Constantius was read to the attentive multitude; and
+Julian protested, with the most flattering deference, that he was ready
+to resign the title of augustus, if he could obtain the consent of those
+whom he acknowledged as the authors of his elevation. The faint proposal
+was impetuously silenced; and the acclamations of "Julian Augustus,
+continue to reign, by the authority of the army, of the people, of the
+republic which you have saved," thundered at once from every part of the
+field, and terrified the pale ambassador of Constantius. A part of the
+letter was afterward read, in which the Emperor arraigned the
+ingratitude of Julian, whom he had invested with the honors of the
+purple; whom he had educated with so much care and tenderness; whom he
+had preserved in his infancy, when he was left a helpless orphan.
+
+"An orphan!" interrupted Julian, who justified his cause by indulging
+his passions: "does the assassin of my family reproach me that I was
+left an orphan? He urges me to revenge those injuries which I have long
+studied to forget." The assembly was dismissed; and Leonas, who, with
+some difficulty, had been protected from the popular fury, was sent back
+to his master with an epistle, in which Julian expressed, in a strain of
+the most vehement eloquence, the sentiments of contempt, of hatred, and
+of resentment, which had been suppressed and imbittered by the
+dissimulation of twenty years. After this message, which might be
+considered as a signal of irreconcilable war, Julian, who, some weeks
+before, had celebrated the Christian festival of the Epiphany, made a
+public declaration that he committed the care of his safety to the
+IMMORTAL GODS, and thus publicly renounced the religion as well as the
+friendship of Constantius.
+
+The situation of Julian required a vigorous and immediate resolution. He
+had discovered, from intercepted letters, that his adversary,
+sacrificing the interest of the State to that of the monarch, had again
+excited the barbarians to invade the provinces of the West. The position
+of two magazines, one of them collected on the banks of the Lake of
+Constance, the other formed at the foot of the Cottian Alps, seemed to
+indicate the march of two armies; and the size of those magazines, each
+of which consisted of six hundred thousand quarters of wheat, or rather
+flour, was a threatening evidence of the strength and numbers of the
+enemy who prepared to surround him. But the imperial legions were still
+in their distant quarters of Asia; the Danube was feebly guarded; and if
+Julian could occupy, by a sudden incursion, the important provinces of
+Illyricum, he might expect that a people of soldiers would resort to his
+standard, and that the rich mines of gold and silver would contribute
+to the expenses of the civil war.
+
+He proposed this bold enterprise to the assembly of the soldiers;
+inspired them with a just confidence in their general and in themselves;
+and exhorted them to maintain their reputation of being terrible to the
+enemy, moderate to their fellow-citizens, and obedient to their
+officers. His spirited discourse was received with the loudest
+acclamations, and the same troops which had taken up arms against
+Constantius, when he summoned them to leave Gaul, now declared with
+alacrity that they would follow Julian to the farthest extremities of
+Europe or Asia. The oath of fidelity was administered; and the soldiers,
+clashing their shields, and pointing their drawn swords to their
+throats, devoted themselves, with horrid imprecations, to the service of
+a leader whom they celebrated as the deliverer of Gaul and the conqueror
+of the Germans. This solemn engagement, which seemed to be dictated by
+affection rather than by duty, was singly opposed by Nebridius, who had
+been admitted to the office of prætorian prefect.
+
+That faithful minister, alone and unassisted, asserted the rights of
+Constantius in the midst of an armed and angry multitude, to whose fury
+he had almost fallen an honorable but useless sacrifice. After losing
+one of his hands by the stroke of a sword, he embraced the knees of the
+prince whom he had offended. Julian covered the prefect with his
+imperial mantle, and, protecting him from the zeal of his followers,
+dismissed him to his own house, with less respect than was perhaps due
+to the virtue of an enemy. The high office of Nebridius was bestowed on
+Sallust; and the provinces of Gaul, which were now delivered from the
+intolerable oppression of taxes, enjoyed the mild and equitable
+administration of the friend of Julian, who was permitted to practise
+those virtues which he had instilled into the mind of his pupil.
+
+The hopes of Julian depended much less on the number of his troops than
+on the celerity of his motions. In the execution of a daring enterprise,
+he availed himself of every precaution, as far as prudence could
+suggest; and where prudence could no longer accompany his steps, he
+trusted the event to valor and to fortune. In the neighborhood of Basel
+he assembled and divided his army. One body, which consisted of ten
+thousand men, was directed under the command of Nevitta, general of the
+cavalry, to advance through the midland parts of Rhætia and Noricum. A
+similar division of troops, under the orders of Jovius and Jovinus,
+prepared to follow the oblique course of the highways, through the Alps
+and the northern confines of Italy. The instructions to the generals
+were conceived with energy and precision: to hasten their march in close
+and compact columns, which, according to the disposition of the ground,
+might readily be changed into any order of battle; to secure themselves
+against the surprises of the night by strong posts and vigilant guards;
+to prevent resistance by their unexpected arrival; to elude examination
+by their sudden departure; to spread the opinion of their strength and
+the terror of his name; and to join their sovereign under the walls of
+Sirmium.
+
+For himself Julian had reserved a more difficult and extraordinary part.
+He selected three thousand brave and active volunteers, resolved, like
+their leader, to cast behind them every hope of a retreat: at the head
+of this faithful band he fearlessly plunged into the recesses of the
+Marcian, or Black Forest, which conceals the sources of the Danube; and,
+for many days, the fate of Julian was unknown to the world. The secrecy
+of his march, his diligence and vigor, surmounted every obstacle; he
+forced his way over mountains and morasses, occupied the bridges or swam
+the rivers, pursued his direct course, without reflecting whether he
+traversed the territory of the Romans or of the barbarians, and at
+length emerged, between Ratisbon and Vienna, at the place where he
+designed to embark his troops on the Danube. By a well-concerted
+stratagem, he seized a fleet of light brigantines as it lay at anchor;
+secured a supply of coarse provisions sufficient to satisfy the
+indelicate but voracious appetite of a Gallic army; and boldly committed
+himself to the stream of the Danube.
+
+The labors of his mariners, who plied their oars with incessant
+diligence, and the steady continuance of a favorable wind, carried his
+fleet above seven hundred miles in eleven days; and he had already
+disembarked his troops at Bononia, only nineteen miles from Sirmium,
+before his enemies could receive any certain intelligence that he had
+left the banks of the Rhine. In the course of this long and rapid
+navigation, the mind of Julian was fixed on the object of his
+enterprise; and though he accepted the deputations of some cities, which
+hastened to claim the merit of an early submission, he passed before the
+hostile stations, which were placed along the river, without indulging
+the temptation of signalizing a useless and ill-timed valor. The banks
+of the Danube were crowded on either side with spectators, who gazed on
+the military pomp, anticipated the importance of the event, and diffused
+through the adjacent country the fame of a young hero, who advanced with
+more than mortal speed at the head of the innumerable forces of the
+West. Lucilian, who, with the rank of general of the cavalry, commanded
+the military powers of Illyricum, was alarmed and perplexed by the
+doubtful reports, which he could neither reject nor believe.
+
+He had taken some slow and irresolute measures for the purpose of
+collecting his troops, when he was surprised by Dagalaiphus, an active
+officer, whom Julian, as soon as he landed at Bononia, had pushed
+forward with some light infantry. The captive general, uncertain of his
+life or death, was hastily thrown upon a horse, and conducted to the
+presence of Julian; who kindly raised him from the ground, and dispelled
+the terror and amazement which seemed to stupefy his faculties. But
+Lucilian had no sooner recovered his spirits than he betrayed his want
+of discretion, by presuming to admonish his conqueror that he had rashly
+ventured, with a handful of men, to expose his person in the midst of
+his enemies. "Reserve for your master Constantius these timid
+remonstrances," replied Julian, with a smile of contempt: "when I gave
+you my purple to kiss, I received you not as a counsellor, but as a
+suppliant." Conscious that success alone could justify his attempt, and
+that boldness only could command success, he instantly advanced, at the
+head of three thousand soldiers, to attack the strongest and most
+populous city of the Illyrian provinces.
+
+As he entered the long suburb of Sirmium, he was received by the joyful
+acclamations of the army and people, who, crowned with flowers, and
+holding lighted tapers in their hands, conducted their acknowledged
+sovereign to his imperial residence. Two days were devoted to the
+public joy, which was celebrated by the games of the Circus; but, early
+on the morning of the third day, Julian marched to occupy the narrow
+pass of Succi, in the defiles of Mount Hæmus; which, almost in the
+midway between Sirmium and Constantinople, separates the provinces of
+Thrace and Dacia, by an abrupt descent toward the former, and a gentle
+declivity on the side of the latter. The defence of this important post
+was intrusted to the brave Nevitta; who, as well as the generals of the
+Italian division, successfully executed the plan of the march and
+junction which their master had so ably conceived.
+
+The homage which Julian obtained, from the fears or the inclination of
+the people, extended far beyond the immediate effect of his arms. The
+prefectures of Italy and Illyricum were administered by Taurus and
+Florentius, who united that important office with the vain honors of the
+consulship; and, as those magistrates had retired with precipitation to
+the court of Asia, Julian, who could not always restrain the levity of
+his temper, stigmatized their flight by adding, in all the Acts of the
+Year, the epithet of _fugitive_ to the names of the two consuls.
+
+The provinces which had been deserted by their first magistrates
+acknowledged the authority of an emperor who, conciliating the qualities
+of a soldier with those of a philosopher, was equally admired in the
+camps of the Danube and in the cities of Greece. From his palace, or,
+more properly, from his head-quarters of Sirmium and Naissus, he
+distributed, to the principal cities of the empire, a labored apology
+for his own conduct; published the secret despatches of Constantius, and
+solicited the judgment of mankind between two competitors, the one of
+whom had expelled, and the other had invited, the barbarians. Julian,
+whose mind was deeply wounded by the reproach of ingratitude, aspired to
+maintain, by argument as well as by arms, the superior merits of his
+cause; and to excel, not only in the arts of war, but in those of
+composition. His epistle to the senate and people of Athens seems to
+have been dictated by an elegant enthusiasm; which prompted him to
+submit his actions and his motives to the degenerate Athenians of his
+own times, with the same humble deference as if he had been pleading,
+in the days of Aristides, before the tribunal of the Areopagus. His
+application to the senate of Rome, which was still permitted to bestow
+the titles of imperial power, was agreeable to the forms of the expiring
+republic. An assembly was summoned by Tertullus, prefect of the city;
+the epistle of Julian was read; and, as he appeared to be master of
+Italy, his claims were admitted without a dissenting voice.
+
+His oblique censure of the innovations of Constantine, and his
+passionate invective against the vices of Constantius, were heard with
+less satisfaction; and the senate, as if Julian had been present,
+unanimously exclaimed, "Respect, we beseech you, the author of your own
+fortune"--an artful expression, which, according to the chance of war,
+might be differently explained; as a manly reproof of the ingratitude of
+the usurper, or as a flattering confession that a single act of such
+benefit to the State ought to atone for all the failings of Constantius.
+
+The intelligence of the march and rapid progress of Julian was speedily
+transmitted to his rival, who, by the retreat of Sapor, had obtained
+some respite from the Persian war. Disguising the anguish of his soul
+under the semblance of contempt, Constantius professed his intention of
+returning into Europe, and of giving chase to Julian; for he never spoke
+of his military expedition in any other light than that of a hunting
+party. In the camp of Hierapolis, in Syria, he communicated this design
+to his army; slightly mentioned the guilt and rashness of the cæsar, and
+ventured to assure them that if the mutineers of Gaul presumed to meet
+them in the field they would be unable to sustain the fire of their eyes
+and the irresistible weight of their shout of onset.
+
+The speech of the Emperor was received with military applause, and
+Theodotus, the president of the council of Hierapolis, requested, with
+tears of adulation, that _his_ city might be adorned with the head of
+the vanquished rebel. A chosen detachment was despatched away in
+post-wagons, to secure, if it were yet possible, the pass of Succi; the
+recruits, the horses, the arms, and the magazines, which had been
+prepared against Sapor, were appropriated to the service of the civil
+war; and the domestic victories of Constantius inspired his partisans
+with the most sanguine assurances of success. The notary Gaudentius had
+occupied in his name the provinces of Africa; the subsistence of Rome
+was intercepted; and the distress of Julian was increased by an
+unexpected event, which might have been productive of fatal
+consequences. Julian had received the submission of two legions and a
+cohort of archers, who were stationed at Sirmium; but he suspected with
+reason the fidelity of those troops which had been distinguished by the
+Emperor; and it was thought expedient, under the pretence of the exposed
+state of the Gallic frontier, to dismiss them from the most important
+scene of action.
+
+They advanced, with reluctance, as far as the confines of Italy; but as
+they dreaded the length of the way and the savage fierceness of the
+Germans, they resolved, by the instigation of one of their tribunes, to
+halt at Aquileia, and to erect the banners of Constantius on the walls
+of that impregnable city. The vigilance of Julian perceived at once the
+extent of the mischief, and the necessity of applying an immediate
+remedy. By his order, Jovinus led back a part of the army into Italy;
+and the siege of Aquileia was formed with diligence and prosecuted with
+vigor. But the legionaries, who seemed to have rejected the yoke of
+discipline, conducted the defence of the place with skill and
+perseverance; invited the rest of Italy to imitate the example of their
+courage and loyalty; and threatened the retreat of Julian, if he should
+be forced to yield to the superior numbers of the armies of the East.
+
+But the humanity of Julian was preserved from the cruel alternative
+which he pathetically laments, of destroying or of being himself
+destroyed; and the seasonable death of Constantius delivered the Roman
+Empire from the calamities of civil war. The approach of winter could
+not detain the monarch at Antioch; and his favorites durst not oppose
+his impatient desire of revenge. A slight fever, which was perhaps
+occasioned by the agitation of his spirits, was increased by the
+fatigues of the journey; and Constantius was obliged to halt at the
+little town of Mopsucrene, twelve miles beyond Tarsus, where he expired,
+after a short illness, in the forty-fifth year of his age and the
+twenty-fourth of his reign. Julian thus became master of the Roman
+world.
+
+
+
+
+THE HUNS AND THEIR WESTERN MIGRATION
+
+A.D. 374-376
+
+MARCELLINUS
+
+     The Huns, whose incursions into Europe constituted the first
+     "yellow peril," were a nomadic Mongolian race. In the fourth
+     century before Christ they successfully invaded China. From that
+     country, about A.D. 90, they were driven by Hiong-nu, and the Huns
+     then proceeded, joined by hordes of their fellows from the steppes
+     of Tartary, to make their way to the Caspian Sea.
+
+     Previous to the incursion of the Huns another Tartar tribe, the
+     Alani--the first of that race known to the Romans--had ravaged
+     Media and Armenia, A.D. 75, carrying off a vast number of prisoners
+     and an enormous booty. They later settled themselves in the country
+     between the Volga and the Tanais, at an equal distance from the
+     Black Sea and the Caspian. The Huns, having crossed the Volga,
+     drove the Alani before them to the Danube. Valens, the then Emperor
+     of the East, was a weak, incapable ruler; he failed to recognize
+     the peril by which his empire would ere long be threatened, and
+     permitted the Alani to find a refuge in his dominions. These were
+     in turn followed and absorbed by the Huns, and the whole Roman
+     Empire was finally faced by Mongol foes.
+
+     The historian Ammianus Marcellinus wrote racily of these events at
+     the time of their occurrence.
+
+
+The swift wheel of fortune, which continually alternates adversity with
+prosperity, was giving Bellona the Furies for her allies, and arming her
+for war; and now transferred our disasters to the east, as many presages
+and portents foreshowed by undoubted signs.
+
+For after many true prophecies uttered by diviners and augurs, dogs were
+seen to recoil from howling wolves, and the birds of night constantly
+uttered querulous and mournful cries; and lurid sunrises made the
+mornings dark. Also, at Antioch, among the tumults and squabbles of the
+populace, it had come to be a custom for anyone who fancied himself
+ill-treated to cry out, in a licentious manner: "May Valens be burned
+alive." And the voices of the criers were constantly heard ordering
+wood to be carried to warm the baths of Valens, which had been built
+under the superintendence of the Emperor himself.
+
+All which circumstances all but pointed out in express words that the
+end of the Emperor's life was at hand. Besides all these things, the
+ghost of the King of Armenia, and the miserable shades of those who had
+lately been put to death in the affair of Theodorus, agitated numbers of
+people with terrible alarms, appearing to them in their sleep, and
+shrieking out verses of horrible import.
+
+Last of all, when the ancient walls of Chalcedon were thrown down in
+order to build a bath at Constantinople, and the stones were torn
+asunder, on one squared stone which was hidden in the very centre of the
+walls these Greek verses were found engraved, which gave a full
+revelation of what was to happen:
+
+    "But when young wives and damsels blithe, in dances that delight,
+    Shall glide along the city streets, with garlands gayly bright;
+    And when these walls, with sad regrets, shall fall to raise a bath,
+    Then shall the Huns in multitude break forth with might and wrath,
+    By force of arms the barrier-stream of Ister they shall cross,
+    O'er Scythic ground and Moesian lands spreading dismay and loss;
+    They shall Pannonian horsemen brave, and Gallic soldiers slay,
+    And nought but loss of life and breath their course shall ever stay."
+
+The following circumstances were the original cause of all the
+destruction and various calamities which the fury of Mars roused up,
+throwing everything into confusion by his usual ruinous violence: the
+people called Huns, slightly mentioned in the ancient records, live
+beyond the Sea of Azov, on the border of the Frozen Ocean, and are a
+race savage beyond all parallel.
+
+At the very moment of their birth the cheeks of their infant children
+are deeply marked by an iron, in order that the usual vigor of their
+hair, instead of growing at the proper season, may be withered by the
+wrinkled scars; and accordingly they grow up without beards, and
+consequently without any beauty, like eunuchs, though they all have
+closely knit and strong limbs and plump necks; they are of great size,
+and bow-legged, so that you might fancy them two-legged beasts, or the
+stout figures which are hewn out in a rude manner with an axe on the
+posts at the end of bridges.
+
+They are certainly in the shape of men, however uncouth, but are so
+hardy that they neither require fire nor well-flavored food, but live on
+the roots of such herbs as they get in the fields, or on the half-raw
+flesh of any animal, which they merely warm rapidly by placing it
+between their own thighs and the back of their horses.
+
+They never shelter themselves under roofed houses, but avoid them, as
+people ordinarily avoid sepulchres as things not fitted for common use.
+Nor is there even to be found among them a cabin thatched with reed; but
+they wander about, roaming over the mountains and the woods, and
+accustom themselves to bear frost and hunger and thirst from their very
+cradles. And even when abroad they never enter a house unless under the
+compulsion of some extreme necessity; nor, indeed, do they think people
+under roofs as safe as others.
+
+They wear linen clothes, or else garments made of the skins of
+field-mice; nor do they wear a different dress out of doors from that
+which they wear at home; but after a tunic is once put round their
+necks, however much it becomes worn, it is never taken off or changed
+till, from long decay, it becomes actually so ragged as to fall to
+pieces.
+
+They cover their heads with round caps, and their shaggy legs with the
+skins of kids; their shoes are not made on any lasts, but are so
+unshapely as to hinder them from walking with a free gait. And for this
+reason they are not well suited to infantry battles, but are nearly
+always on horseback, their horses being ill-shaped, but hardy; and
+sometimes they even sit upon them like women if they want to do anything
+more conveniently. There is not a person in the whole nation who cannot
+remain on his horse day and night. On horseback they buy and sell, they
+take their meat and drink, and there they recline on the narrow neck of
+their steed, and yield to sleep so deep as to indulge in every variety
+of dream.
+
+And when any deliberation is to take place on any weighty matter, they
+all hold their common council on horseback. They are not under the
+authority of a king, but are contented with the irregular government of
+their nobles, and under their lead they force their way through all
+obstacles.
+
+Sometimes, when provoked, they fight; and when they go into battle, they
+form in a solid body, and utter all kinds of terrific yells. They are
+very quick in their operations, of exceeding speed, and fond of
+surprising their enemies. With a view to this, they suddenly disperse,
+then reunite, and again, after having inflicted vast loss upon the
+enemy, scatter themselves over the whole plain in irregular formations:
+always avoiding the fort or an intrenchment.
+
+And in one respect you may pronounce them the most formidable of all
+warriors, for when at a distance they use missiles of various kinds,
+tipped with sharpened bones instead of the usual points of javelins, and
+these bones are admirably fastened into the shaft of the javelin or
+arrow; but when they are at close quarters they fight with the sword,
+without any regard for their own safety; and often while their
+antagonists are warding off their blows they entangle them with twisted
+cords, so that, their hands being fettered, they lose all power of
+either riding or walking.
+
+None of them plough, or even touch a plough handle; for they have no
+settled abode, but are homeless and lawless, perpetually wandering with
+their wagons, which they make their homes; in fact, they seem to be
+people always in flight. Their wives live in these wagons, and there
+weave their miserable garments; and here, too, they sleep with their
+husbands, and bring up their children till they reach the age of
+puberty; nor, if asked, can any one of them tell you where he was born,
+as he was conceived in one place, born in another at a great distance,
+and brought up in another still more remote.
+
+In truces they are treacherous and inconstant, being liable to change
+their minds at every breeze of every fresh hope which presents itself,
+giving themselves up wholly to the impulse and inclination of the
+moment; and, like brute beasts, they are utterly ignorant of the
+distinction between right and wrong. They express themselves with great
+ambiguity and obscurity; have no respect for any religion or
+superstition whatever; are immoderately covetous of gold; and are so
+fickle and irascible that they very often, on the same day that they
+quarrel with their companions without any provocation, again become
+reconciled to them without any mediator.
+
+This active and indomitable race, being excited by an unrestrainable
+desire of plundering the possessions of others, went on ravaging and
+slaughtering all the nations in their neighborhood till they reached the
+Alani, who were formerly called the Massagetæ; and from what country
+these Alani came, or what territories they inhabit--since my subject has
+led me so far--it is expedient now to explain, after showing the
+confusion existing in the accounts of the geographers, who, at last,
+have found out the truth.
+
+The Danube, which, is greatly increased by other rivers falling into it,
+passes through the territory of the Sauromatæ [Scythians], which extends
+as far as the river Don, the boundary between Asia and Europe. On the
+other side of this river the Alani inhabit the enormous deserts of
+Scythia, deriving their own name from the mountains around; and they,
+like the Persians, having gradually subdued all the bordering nations by
+repeated victories, have united them to themselves and comprehended them
+under their own name. Of these other tribes the Neuri inhabit the inland
+districts, being near the highest mountain chains, which are both
+precipitous and covered with the everlasting frost of the north. Next to
+them are the Budini, and the Geloni, a race of exceeding ferocity, who
+flay the enemies they have slain in battle, and make of their skins
+clothes for themselves and trappings for their horses. Next to the
+Geloni are the Agathyrsi, who dye both their bodies and their hair of a
+blue color, the lower classes using spots few in number and small; the
+nobles broad spots, close and thick, and of a deeper hue.
+
+Next to those are the Melanchlænæ and the Anthropophagi, who roam about
+upon different tracts of land and live on human flesh. And these men are
+so avoided on account of their horrid food that all the tribes which
+were their neighbors have removed to a distance from them. And in this
+way the whole of that region to the northeast, till you come to the
+Chinese, is uninhabited.
+
+On the other side the Alani again extend to the east, near the
+territories of the Amazons, and are scattered among many populous and
+wealthy nations, stretching to the parts of Asia which, as I am told,
+extend up to the Ganges, a river which passes through the country of the
+Indians, and falls into the Southern Ocean.
+
+Then the Alani, being thus divided among the two quarters of the
+globe--the various tribes which make up the whole nation it is not worth
+while to enumerate--although widely separated, wander, like the nomads,
+over enormous districts. But in the progress of time all these tribes
+came to be united under one generic appellation, and are called Alani.
+
+They have no cottages, and never use the plough, but live solely on meat
+and plenty of milk, mounted on their wagons which they cover with a
+curved awning made of the bark of trees, and then drive them through
+their boundless deserts. And when they come to any pasture land, they
+pitch their wagons in a circle, and live like a herd of beasts, eating
+up all the forage--carrying, as it were, their cities with them in their
+wagons. In them the husbands sleep with their wives--in them their
+children are born and brought up; these wagons, in short, are their
+perpetual habitation, and, wherever they fix them, that place they look
+upon as their home.
+
+They drive before them their flocks and herds to their pasturage; and
+about all other cattle, they are especially careful of their horses. The
+fields in that country are always green, and are interspersed with
+patches of fruit-trees, so that, wherever they go, there is no dearth
+either of food for themselves or fodder for their cattle. And this is
+caused by the moisture of the soil and the number of the rivers which
+flow through these districts.
+
+All their old people, and especially all the weaker sex, keep close to
+the wagons and occupy themselves in the lighter employments. But the
+young men, who from their earliest childhood are trained to the use of
+the horses, think it beneath them to walk. They are also all trained by
+careful discipline of various sorts to become skilful warriors. And this
+is the reason why the Persians, who are originally of Scythian
+extraction, are very skilful in war.
+
+Nearly all the Alani are men of great stature and beauty. Their hair is
+somewhat yellow, their eyes are terribly fierce; the lightness of their
+armor renders them rapid in their movements, and they are in every
+respect equal to the Huns, only more civilized in their food and their
+manner of life. They plunder and hunt as far as the Sea of Azov and the
+Cimmerian Bosporus, ravaging also Armenia and Media.
+
+And as ease is a delightful thing to men of a quiet and placid
+disposition, so danger and war are a pleasure to the Alani, and among
+them that man is called happy who has lost his life in battle; for those
+who grow old, or who go out of the world from accidental sicknesses,
+they pursue with bitter reproaches as degenerate and cowardly. Nor is
+there anything of which they boast with more pride than of having killed
+a man; and the most glorious spoils they esteem the scalps which they
+have torn from the heads of those whom they have slain, which they put
+as trappings and ornaments on their war horses.
+
+Nor is there any temple or shrine seen in their country, nor even any
+cabin thatched with straw, their only idea of religion being to plunge a
+naked sword into the ground with barbaric ceremonies, and they worship
+that with great respect, as Mars, the presiding deity of the regions
+over which they wander.
+
+They presage the future in a most remarkable manner, for they collect a
+number of great twigs of osier, then with certain secret incantations
+they separate them from one another on particular days; and from them
+they learn clearly what is about to happen.
+
+They have no idea of slavery, inasmuch as they themselves are all born
+of noble families; and those whom even now they appoint to be judges are
+always men of proved experience and skill in war. But now let us return
+to the subject which we proposed to ourselves.
+
+The Huns, after having traversed the territories of the Alani, and
+especially of that tribe of them who border on the Gruthungi, and who
+are called Tanaitæ, and having slain many of them and acquired much
+plunder they made a treaty of friendship and alliance with those who
+remained. And when they had united them to themselves, with increased
+boldness they made a sudden incursion into the extensive and fertile
+districts of Ermenrichus, a very warlike prince, and one whom his
+numerous gallant actions of every kind had rendered formidable to all
+the neighboring nations.
+
+He was astonished at the violence of this sudden tempest, and although,
+like a prince whose power was well established, he long attempted to
+hold his ground, he was at last overpowered by a dread of the evils
+impending over his country, which were exaggerated by common report,
+till he terminated his fear of great danger by a voluntary death.
+
+After his death Vithimiris was made king. He for some time maintained a
+resistance to the Alani, relying on the aid of other tribes of the Huns
+whom by large promises of pay he had won over to his party; but, after
+having suffered many losses, he was defeated by superior numbers and
+slain in battle. He left an infant son named Viderichus, of whom
+Alatheus and Saphrax undertook the guardianship, both generals of great
+experience and proved courage. And when they, yielding to the
+difficulties of the crisis, had given up all hope of being able to make
+an effectual resistance, they retired with caution till they came to the
+river Dniester, which lies between the Danube and the Dnieper, and flows
+through a vast extent of country.
+
+When Athanaric, the chief magistrate of the Thuringians, had become
+informed of those unexpected occurrences, he prepared to maintain his
+ground, with a resolution to rise up in strength should he be assailed
+as the others had been.
+
+At last he pitched his camp at a distance in a very favorable spot near
+the banks of the Dniester and the valleys of the Gruthungi, and sent
+Muderic, who afterward became duke of the Arabian frontier, with
+Lagarimanus and others of the nobles, with orders to advance for twenty
+miles, to reconnoitre the approach of the enemy; while in the mean time
+he himself, without delay, marshalled his troops in line of battle.
+
+However, things turned out in a manner very contrary to his
+expectations. For the Huns--being very sagacious in
+conjectures--suspecting that there must be a considerable
+multitude farther off, contrived to pass beyond those they had
+seen, and arranged themselves to take their rest where there was
+nothing at hand to disturb them; and then, when the moon
+dispelled the darkness of night, they forded the river, which was
+the best plan which presented itself, and fearing lest the
+pickets at the outposts might give the alarm to the distant camp,
+they made all possible speed and advanced with the hope of
+surprising Athanaric himself.
+
+He was stupefied at the suddenness of their onset, and, after losing
+many of his men, was compelled to flee for refuge to the precipitous
+mountains in the neighborhood, where, being wholly bewildered with the
+strangeness of this occurrence, and the fear of greater evils to come,
+he began to fortify with lofty walls all the territory between the banks
+of the River Pruth and the Danube, where it passes through the land of
+the Taifali; and he completed this line of fortification with great
+diligence, thinking that by this step he should secure his own personal
+safety.
+
+While this important work was going on, the Huns kept pressing on his
+traces with great speed, and they would have overtaken and destroyed him
+if they had not been forced to abandon the pursuit from being impeded by
+the great quantity of their booty. In the mean time a report spread
+extensively through the other nations of the Goths, that a race of men,
+hitherto unknown, had suddenly descended like a whirlwind from the lofty
+mountains, as if they had risen from some secret recess of the earth,
+and were ravaging and destroying everything which came in their way. And
+then the greater part of the population which, because of their want of
+necessaries, had deserted Athanaric, resolved to flee and to seek a home
+remote from all knowledge of the barbarians; and after a long
+deliberation where to fix their abode, they resolved that a retreat into
+Thrace was the most suitable for these two reasons: first of all,
+because it is a district most fertile in grass; and also because, by the
+great breadth of the Danube, it is wholly separated from the barbarians,
+who were already exposed to the thunder-bolts of foreign warfare. And
+the whole population of the tribe adopted this resolution unanimously.
+
+Accordingly, under the command of their leader Alavivus, they occupied
+the bank of the Danube, and having sent ambassadors to Valens, they
+humbly entreated to be received by him as his subjects, promising to
+live quietly, and to furnish a body of auxiliary troops if any necessity
+for such a force should arise.
+
+While these events were passing in foreign countries, a terrible rumor
+arose that the tribes of the North were planning new and unprecedented
+attacks upon us; and that over the whole region, which extends from the
+country of the Marcomanni and Quadi to Pontus, a barbarian host,
+composed of different distant nations, which had suddenly been driven by
+force from their own country, was now, with all their families,
+wandering about in different directions on the banks of the river
+Danube.
+
+At first this intelligence was lightly treated by our people, because
+they were not in the habit of hearing of any wars in those remote
+districts till they were terminated either by victory or by treaty.
+
+But presently, as the belief in these occurrences grew stronger, being
+confirmed, too, by the arrival of the foreign ambassadors, who, with
+prayers and earnest entreaties, begged that the people thus driven from
+their homes and now encamped on the other side of the river might be
+kindly received by us, the affair seemed a cause of joy rather than of
+fear, according to the skilful flatterers who were always extolling and
+exaggerating the good fortune of the Emperor; congratulating him that an
+embassy had come from the farthest corners of the earth unexpectedly,
+offering him a large body of recruits; and that, by combining the
+strength of his own nation with these foreign forces, he would have an
+army absolutely invincible; observing further that, by the yearly
+payment for military reinforcements which came in every year from the
+provinces, a vast treasure of gold might be accumulated in his coffers.
+
+Full of this hope, he sent forth several officers to bring this
+ferocious people and their wagons into our territory. And such great
+pains were taken to gratify this nation which was destined to overthrow
+the Empire of Rome, that not one was left behind, not even of those who
+were stricken with mortal disease. Moreover, having obtained permission
+of the Emperor to cross the Danube and to cultivate some districts in
+Thrace, they crossed the stream day and night, without ceasing,
+embarking in troops on board ships and rafts, and canoes made of the
+hollow trunks of trees, in which enterprise, as the Danube is the most
+difficult of all rivers to navigate, and was at that time swollen with
+continual rains, a great many were drowned, who, because they were too
+numerous for the vessels, tried to swim across, and in spite of all
+their exertions were swept away by the stream.
+
+In this way, through the turbulent zeal of violent people, the ruin of
+the Roman Empire was brought on. This, at all events, is neither obscure
+nor uncertain that the unhappy officers who were intrusted with the
+charge of conducting the multitude of the barbarians across the river,
+though they repeatedly endeavored to calculate their numbers, at last
+abandoned the attempt as hopeless; and the man who would wish to
+ascertain the number might as well--as the most illustrious of poets
+says--attempt to count the waves in the African Sea, or the grains of
+sand tossed about by the zephyrs.
+
+Let, however, the ancient annals be accredited which record that the
+Persian host which was led into Greece was, while encamped on the shores
+of the Hellespont, and making a new and artificial sea, numbered in
+battalions at Doriscus; a computation which has been unanimously
+regarded by all posterity as fabulous.
+
+But after the innumerable multitudes of different nations, diffused over
+all our provinces and spreading themselves over the vast expanses of our
+plains, who filled all the champaign country and all the mountain
+ranges, are considered, the credibility of the ancient accounts is
+confirmed by this modern instance. And first of all Tritigernus was
+received with Alavivus, and the Emperor assigned them a temporary
+provision for their immediate support, and ordered lands to be assigned
+them to cultivate.
+
+At that time the defences of our provinces were much exposed, and the
+armies of barbarians spread over them like the lava of Mount Ætna. The
+imminence of our danger manifestly called for generals already
+illustrious for their past achievements in war; but nevertheless, as if
+some unpropitious deity had made the selection, the men who were sought
+out for the chief military appointments were of tainted character. The
+chief among them were Lupicinus and Maximus, the one being count of
+Thrace, the other a leader notoriously wicked--and both men of great
+ignorance and rashness.
+
+And their treacherous covetousness was the cause of all our disasters.
+For--to pass over other matters in which the officers aforesaid, or
+others with their unblushing connivance, displayed the greatest
+profligacy in their injurious treatment of the foreigners dwelling in
+our territory, against whom no crime could be alleged--this one
+melancholy and unprecedented piece of conduct--which, even if they were
+to choose their own judges, must appear wholly unpardonable--must be
+mentioned:
+
+When the barbarians who had been conducted across the river were in
+great distress from want of provisions, those detested generals
+conceived the idea of a most disgraceful traffic; and having collected
+hounds from all quarters with the most unsatiable rapacity, they
+exchanged them for an equal number of slaves, among whom were several
+sons of men of noble birth.
+
+About this time also, Vitheric, the King of the Gruthungi, with Alatheus
+and Saphrax, by whose influence he was mainly guided, and also with
+Farnobius, approached the bank of the Danube and sent envoys to the
+Emperor to entreat that he also might be received with the same kindness
+that Alavivus and Fritigern had experienced.
+
+But when, as seemed best for the interests of the State, these
+ambassadors had been rejected, and were in great anxiety what they
+should do, Athanaric, fearing similar treatment, departed, recollecting
+that long ago, when he was discussing a treaty with Valens, he had
+treated that Emperor with contempt in affirming that he was bound by a
+religious obligation never to set his foot on the Roman territory; and
+that, by this excuse, he had compelled the Emperor to conclude a peace
+in the middle of the war. And he, fearing that the grudge which Valens
+bore him for this conduct was still lasting, withdrew with all his
+forces to Caucalandes, a place which, from the height of its mountains
+and the thickness of its woods, is completely inaccessible; and from
+which he had lately driven out the Sarmatians.
+
+
+
+
+FINAL DIVISION OF ROMAN EMPIRE: THE DISRUPTIVE INTRIGUES
+
+A.D. 395
+
+J. B. BURY
+
+     When Theodosius I, surnamed "the Great," was elevated to power as
+     ruler of the East, that part of the empire was distracted in
+     consequence of wars with the Visigoths who, flying from the Huns,
+     had been granted a refuge in the Roman provinces of Moesia and
+     Thrace. Ill-treatment by the Romans drove the Visigoths to revolt,
+     and Valens, then Emperor of the East, set out with an army to
+     punish them. In the battle of Adrianople, August 9, 378, the Roman
+     army was defeated, and in the retreat Valens was killed. The
+     Visigoths pressed on, ravaging the country even to the foot of the
+     walls of Constantinople, and the doom of the empire seemed to be at
+     hand.
+
+     At this juncture Gratian--Emperor of the West, who also upon the
+     death of Valens succeeded him as ruler of the East--sent for
+     Theodosius, then a Roman general living in retirement in Spain,
+     made him his colleague in the East, and placed him, A.D., 379 at
+     the head of an army for the suppression of the Gothic outbreaks.
+     Theodosius enabled his soldiers to regain their lost confidence by
+     waging a successful _guerilla_ war with the marauding Goths; but
+     having thus shown his mastery over their straggling bands, he did
+     not undertake to drive them out from Roman territory, but weakened
+     them by causing them to quarrel among themselves; then, showing
+     himself as their friend, he gave them lands and settled them within
+     definite limits. To the Visigoths, or West Goths, he gave Thrace,
+     and to the Ostrogoths, or East Goths, who had also now poured into
+     the Roman provinces, he assigned Pannonia.
+
+     By this policy Theodosius established his authority in the East and
+     restored the empire to something of its earlier power. Except
+     during the last four months of his life, when he was sole Emperor,
+     his direct authority was confined to the East; but he exerted a
+     potent influence upon the affairs of the whole empire, both
+     temporal and spiritual. He warred steadily against paganism and
+     heresy. He took the side of Trinitarian orthodoxy against Arianism,
+     which had previously triumphed in the East, and restored religious
+     unity to the empire by making the Athanasian doctrine the faith of
+     Constantinople, as it was that of the West. This policy was
+     ratified by the second ecumenical council, called by Theodosius,
+     at Constantinople in 381, when the orthodoxy first promulgated by
+     the Council of Nicæa in 325 was substantially reaffirmed. It was
+     also largely through the influence of Theodosius, who was the
+     friend of Ambrose, archbishop of Milan, that the Roman senate, by a
+     great majority, voted (388) to abolish the worship of Jupiter and
+     to adopt the worship of Christ, thus making Christianity the state
+     religion. In the debate which preceded this transition the
+     eloquence of Symmachus, on the pagan side, was overmatched by the
+     arguments of Ambrose, aided by the powerful support of Theodosius
+     in person.
+
+     In his further dealings with the Visigoths, Theodosius, following a
+     precedent already established, enlisted in the Roman service a
+     separate Gothic army of forty thousand soldiers; but this policy,
+     as the event proved, was fatal to the permanency of his hitherto
+     successful control of these alien elements, for they soon gathered
+     strength to take the mastery into their own hands. Theodosius died
+     in 395, after publishing a decree for partition of the empire
+     between his two sons, Honorius to rule in the West, and Arcadius in
+     the East. He meant, not to establish two independent jurisdictions,
+     but that there should be one commonwealth, whose two rulers should
+     be colleagues and coadjutors in its defence. This new disposition
+     of the empire was followed by dissensions and intrigues against
+     which the weak sons of Theodosius were helpless in the hands of
+     able and unscrupulous self-seekers, the result of which was the
+     final separation of the empire into two distinct governments and
+     the weakening of the powers of resistance of both against those
+     ever-increasing encroachments of the barbarians which eventually
+     caused the fall of both empires.
+
+
+One of the few men in history who have won the title of great, the
+emperor Theodosius I, who had by his policy, at once friendly and firm,
+pacified the Goths, who had confirmed the triumph of Athanasian over
+Arian Christianity, who had stamped out the last flames of refractory
+paganism represented by the tyrant Eugenius, died on the 17th of
+January, A.D. 395. His wishes were that his younger son, Honorius, then
+a boy of ten years, should reign in the West, where he had already
+installed him, and that his eldest son, Arcadius, whom he had left as
+regent in Constantinople when he set out against Eugenius, should
+continue to reign in the East.
+
+But he was not willing to leave his youthful heirs--Arcadius was only
+eighteen--without a protector, and the most natural protector was one
+bound to them by ties of relationship. Accordingly on his deathbed he
+commended them to the care of the Vandal Stilicho, whom he had raised
+for his military and other talents to the rank of commander-in-chief,
+and, deeming him worthy of an alliance with his own family, had united
+to his favorite niece Serena. We can hardly doubt that it was in this
+capacity, as the husband of his niece and a trusted friend, not as a
+general, that Stilicho received Theodosius' dying wishes; it was as an
+elder member of the same family that the husband of their cousin could
+claim to exert an influence over Arcadius and Honorius, of whom,
+however, the latter, it would appear, was more especially committed to
+his care, not only as the younger, but because Stilicho, being _magister
+militum_ of the armies of Italy, would come more directly into contact
+with him than with his brother.
+
+Arcadius, with whom we are especially concerned, was about eighteen at
+the time of his father's death. He was of short stature, of dark
+complexion, thin and inactive, and the dulness of his wit was betrayed
+by his speech and by his eyes, which always seemed as if they were about
+to close in sleep. His smallness of intellect and his weakness of
+character made it inevitable that he should come under the influence,
+good or bad, of commanding personalities, with which he might be brought
+in contact. Such a potent personality was the prætorian prefect Rufinus,
+a native of Aquitaine, who in almost every respect presented a contrast
+to his sovereign. He was tall and manly, and the restless movements of
+his keen eyes and the readiness of his speech signified his intellectual
+powers. He was a strong, worldly man, ambitious of power, and
+sufficiently unprincipled; avaricious, too, like most ministers of the
+age.
+
+He had made many enemies by acts which were perhaps somewhat more than
+usually unscrupulous, but we cannot justly assume that in the overthrow
+of certain rivals he was entirely guilty and they entirely innocent, as
+is sometimes represented. It is almost certain that he formed the scheme
+and cherished the hope of becoming joint emperor with Arcadius.
+
+This ambition of Rufinus placed him at once in an attitude of opposition
+to Stilicho, who was himself not above the suspicion of entertaining
+similar schemes, not, however, in the interest of his own person, but
+for his son Eucherius. The position of the Vandal, who was connected by
+marriage with the imperial family, gave him an advantage over Rufinus,
+which was strengthened by the generally known fact that Theodosius had
+given him his last instructions. Stilicho, moreover, was popular with
+the army, and for the present the great bulk of the forces of the empire
+was at his disposal; for the regiments united to suppress Eugenius had
+not yet been sent back to their various stations. Thus a struggle was
+imminent between the ambitious minister who had the ear of Arcadius, and
+the strong general who held the command and enjoyed the favor of the
+army.
+
+Before the end of the year this struggle began and concluded in an
+extremely curious way; but we must first relate how a certain scheme of
+Rufinus had been checkmated by an obscurer but wilier rival nearer at
+hand.
+
+It was the cherished project of Rufinus to unite Arcadius with his only
+daughter; once the Emperor's father-in-law, he might hope to become
+speedily an emperor himself. But he imprudently made a journey to
+Antioch, in order to execute vengeance personally on the Count of the
+East, who had offended him; and during his absence from Byzantium an
+adversary stole a march on him. This adversary was the eunuch Eutropius,
+the lord chamberlain, a bald old man, who with oriental craftiness had
+won his way up from the meanest services and employments. Determining
+that the future Empress should be bound to himself and not to Rufinus,
+he chose Eudoxia, a girl of singular beauty, the daughter of a
+distinguished Frank, but herself of Roman education.
+
+Her father, Bauto, was dead, and she lived in the house of the widow and
+sons of one of the victims of Rufinus. Eutropius showed a picture of the
+Frank maiden to the Emperor and engaged his affections for her; the
+nuptials were arranged by the time Rufinus returned to Constantinople,
+and were speedily celebrated (April 27, 395). This was a blow to
+Rufinus, but he was still the most powerful man in the East.
+
+The event which at length brought him into contact with Stilicho was the
+rising of the Visigoths, who had been settled by Theodosius in Moesia
+and Thrace, and were bound in return for their lands to serve in the
+army as _foederati_. They had accompanied the Emperor to Italy against
+Eugenius, and had returned to their habitations sooner than the rest of
+the army.
+
+The causes of discontent which led to their revolt are not quite clear;
+but it seems that Arcadius refused to give them certain grants of money
+which had been allowed them by his father, and, as has been suggested,
+they probably expected that favor would wane and influence decrease now
+that the "friend of Goths" was dead, and consequently determined to make
+themselves heard and felt. To this must be added that their most
+influential chieftain, Alaric, called Baltha ("the Bold"), desired to be
+made a commander-in-chief, _magister militum_, and was offended that he
+had been passed over.
+
+However this may be, the historical essence of the matter is that an
+immense body of restless, uncivilized Germans could not abide
+permanently in the centre of Roman provinces in a semi-dependent,
+ill-defined relation to the Roman government; the West Goths had not yet
+found their permanent home. Under the leadership of Alaric they raised
+the ensign of revolt, and spread desolation in the fields and homesteads
+of Macedonia, Moesia, and Thrace, even advancing close to the walls of
+Constantinople. They carefully spared certain estates outside the city,
+belonging to the prefect Rufinus, but this policy does not seem to have
+been adopted with the same motive that caused Archidamus to spare the
+lands of Pericles. Alaric may have wished not to render Rufinus
+suspected, but to conciliate his friendship and obtain thereby more
+favorable terms. Rufinus actually went to Alaric's camp, dressed as a
+Goth, but the interview led to nothing.
+
+It was impossible to take the field against the Goths, because there
+were no forces available, as the eastern armies were still with Stilicho
+in the West. Arcadius therefore was obliged to summon Stilicho to send
+or bring them back immediately, to protect his throne. This summons gave
+that general the desired opportunity to interfere in the politics of
+Constantinople; and having with energetic celerity arranged matters on
+the Gallic frontier, he marched overland through Illyricum and
+confronted Alaric in Thessaly, whither the Goth had traced his
+devastating path from the Propontis.
+
+It appears that Stilicho's behavior is quite as open to the charges of
+ambition and artfulness as the behavior of Rufinus, for I do not
+perceive how we can strictly justify his detention of the forces, which
+ought to have been sent back to defend the provinces of Arcadius at the
+very beginning of the year. Stilicho's march to Thessaly can scarcely
+have taken place before October, and it is hard to interpret this long
+delay in sending back the troops, over which he had no rightful
+authority, if it were not dictated by a wish to implicate the government
+of New Rome in difficulties and render his own intervention necessary.
+
+We are told, too, that he selected the best soldiers from the eastern
+regiments and enrolled them in the western corps. If we adopted the
+Cassian maxim, _Cui bono fuerit_, we should be inclined to accuse
+Stilicho of having been privy to the revolt of Alaric; such a
+supposition would at least be far more plausible than the calumny which
+was circulated charging Rufinus with having stirred up the Visigoths.
+For such a supposition, too, we might find support in the circumstance
+that the estates of Rufinus were spared by the soldiers of Alaric; it
+would be intelligible that Stilicho suggested the plan in order to bring
+odium upon Rufinus. To such a conjecture, finally, certain other
+circumstances, soon to be related, point: but it remains nothing more
+than a suspicion.
+
+It seems that before Stilicho arrived Alaric had experienced a defeat at
+the hands of garrison soldiers in Thessaly; at all events he shut
+himself up in a fortified camp and declined to engage with the Roman
+general. In the mean time Rufinus induced Arcadius to send a peremptory
+order to Stilicho to despatch the eastern troops to Constantinople and
+depart himself whence he had come; the Emperor resented, or pretended to
+resent, the presence of his cousin as an officious interference.
+Stilicho yielded so readily that his willingness seems almost
+suspicious; but we shall probably never know whether he was responsible
+for the events that followed. He consigned the eastern soldiers to the
+command of a Gothic captain, Gainas, and himself departed to Salona,
+allowing Alaric to proceed on his wasting way into the lands of Hellas.
+
+Gainas and his soldiers marched by the Via Egnatia to Constantinople,
+and it was arranged that, according to a usual custom, the Emperor and
+his court should come forth from the city to meet the army in the Campus
+Martius, which extended on the west side of the city near the Golden
+Gate. We cannot trust the statement of a hostile writer that Rufinus
+actually expected to be created augustus on this occasion, and appeared
+at the Emperor's side prouder and more sumptuously arrayed than ever; we
+only know that he accompanied Arcadius to meet the army.
+
+It is said that, when the Emperor had saluted the troops, Rufinus
+advanced and displayed a studied affability and solicitude to please
+toward even individual soldiers. They closed in round him as he smiled
+and talked, anxious to secure their good-will for his elevation to the
+throne, but just as he felt himself very nigh to supreme success, the
+swords of the nearest were drawn, and his body, pierced with wounds,
+fell to the ground. His head, carried through the streets, was mocked by
+the people, and his right hand, severed from the trunk, was presented at
+the doors of houses with the request: "Give to the insatiable!"
+
+We can hardly suppose that the lynching of Rufinus was the fatal
+inspiration of a moment, but whether it was proposed or approved of by
+Stilicho, or was a plan hatched among the soldiers on their way to
+Constantinople, is uncertain. One might even conjecture that the whole
+affair was the result of a prearrangement between Stilicho and the party
+in Byzantium, which was adverse to Rufinus and led by the eunuch
+Eutropius; but there is no evidence. Our knowledge of this scene
+unfortunately depends on a partial and untrustworthy writer, who,
+moreover, wrote in verse--the poet Claudian.
+
+He enjoyed the patronage of Stilicho, and his poems _Against Rufinus_,
+_Against Eutropius_, and _On the Gothic War_ are a glorification of his
+patron's splendid virtues. Stilicho and Rufinus he paints as two
+opposite forces, the force of good and the force of evil, like the
+principles of the Manichæans.
+
+Rufinus is the terrible Pytho, the scourge of the world; Stilicho is the
+radiant Apollo, the deliverer of mankind. Rufinus is a power of
+darkness, whose tartarean wickedness surpasses even the wickedness of
+the Furies of hell; Stilicho is an angel of light. In the works of a
+poet whose leading idea was so extravagant, we can hardly expect to find
+much fair historical truth; it is, as a rule, only accidental references
+and allusions that we can accept, unless other authorities confirm his
+statements. Yet even modern writers, who know well how cautiously
+Claudian must be used, have been unconsciously prejudiced in favor of
+Stilicho and against Rufinus.
+
+We must return to the movements of Alaric, who had entered the regions
+of classical Greece, for which he showed scant respect. The commander of
+the garrison at Thermopylæ, and the proconsul of Achaia, offered no
+resistance, and the West Goths entered Boeotia, where Thebes alone
+escaped their devastation. They occupied the Piræus, but Athens itself
+was spared, and Alaric was entertained as a guest in the city of Athene.
+But the great temple of the mystic goddesses Demeter and Persephone, at
+Eleusis, was burned down by the irreverent barbarians; Megara, the next
+place on their southward route, fell; then Corinth, Argos, and Sparta.
+
+But when they reached Elis they were confronted by an unexpected
+opponent. Stilicho had returned from Italy, by way of Salona, which he
+reached by sea, to stay the hand of the invader. He blockaded him in the
+plain of Pholoe, but for some reason, not easily comprehensible, he
+did not press his advantage, and set free the hordes of the Visigothic
+land pirates to resume their career of devastation. He went back to
+Italy, and Alaric returned, plundering as he went, to Illyricum and
+Thrace, where he made terms with the government of New Rome, and
+received the desired title of _magister militum per Illyricum_. No one
+will suppose that Stilicho went all the way from Italy to the
+Peloponnesus, and then, although he had Alaric practically at his mercy,
+retreated, leaving matters just as they were, without some excellent
+reason.
+
+If he had genuinely wished to deliver the distressed countries and
+assist the emperor Arcadius, he would not have acted in this ineffectual
+manner. And it is difficult to see that his conduct is explained by
+assuming that he was not willing, by a complete extermination of the
+Goths, to enable Arcadius to dispense with his help in future. In that
+case, what did he gain by going to the Peloponnesus at all? Or we might
+ask, if he wished Arcadius to summon his assistance from year to year,
+is it likely that he would have adopted the method of rendering no
+assistance whatever? But, above all, the question occurs, what pleasure
+would it have been to the general to look forward to being called upon
+again and again to take the field against the Visigoths?
+
+It seems evident that Stilicho and Alaric made at Pholoe some secret
+and definite arrangement, which conditioned Stilicho's departure, and
+that this arrangement was conducive to the interests of Stilicho, who
+was in the position of advantage, and at the same time not contrary to
+the interests of Alaric, for otherwise Stilicho could not have been sure
+that the agreement would be carried out. What this secret compact was
+can only be a matter of conjecture; but I would suggest that Stilicho
+had already formed the plan of creating his son Eucherius emperor, and
+that he designed the Balkan peninsula to be the dominion over which
+Eucherius should hold sway. His conduct becomes perfectly explicable if
+we assume that by a secret agreement he secured Alaric's assistance for
+the execution of this scheme, which the preponderance of Gothic power in
+Illyricum and Thrace would facilitate.
+
+It was not only the European parts of Arcadius' dominions that were
+ravaged in 395, by the fire and sword of barbarians. In the same year
+hordes of trans-Caucasian Huns poured through the Caspian gates, and,
+rushing southward through the provinces of Mesopotamia, carried
+desolation into Syria. St. Jerome was in Palestine at this time, and in
+two of his letters we have the account of an eye-witness: "As I was
+searching for an abode worthy of such a lady (Fabiola, his friend),
+behold, suddenly messengers rush hither and thither, and the whole East
+trembles with the news that from the far Mæotis, from the land of the
+ice-bound Don and the savage Massagetæ, where the strong works of
+Alexander on the Caucasian cliffs keep back the wild nations, swarms of
+Huns had burst forth, and, flying hither and thither, were scattering
+slaughter and terror everywhere. The Roman army was at that time, absent
+in consequence of the civil wars in Italy.... May Jesus protect the
+Roman world in future from such beasts! They were everywhere, when they
+were least expected, and their speed outstripped the rumor of their
+approach; they spared neither religion nor dignity nor age; they showed
+no pity to the cry of infancy.
+
+"Babes, who had not yet begun to live, were forced to die; and, ignorant
+of the evil that was upon them, as they were held in the hands and
+threatened by the swords of the enemy, there was a smile upon their
+lips. There was a consistent and universal report that Jerusalem was the
+goal of the foes, and that on account of their insatiable lust for gold
+they were hastening to this city. The walls, neglected by the
+carelessness of peace, were repaired. Antioch was enduring a blockade.
+Tyre, fain to break off from the dry land, sought its ancient island.
+Then we too were constrained to provide ships, to stay on the sea-shore,
+to take precautions against the arrival of the enemy, and, though the
+winds were wild, to fear a shipwreck less than the barbarians--making
+provision not for our own safety so much as for the chastity of our
+virgins." In another letter, speaking of these "wolves of the north," he
+says: "How many monasteries were captured? The waters of how many rivers
+were stained with human gore? Antioch was besieged and the other cities,
+past which the Halys, the Cydnus, the Orontes, the Euphrates flow. Herds
+of captives were dragged away; Arabia, Phoenicia, Palestine, Egypt,
+were led captive by fear."
+
+The Huns, however, were not the only depredators at whose hands the
+provinces of Asia Minor and Syria suffered. There were other enemies
+within, whose ravages were constant, while the expedition of the Huns
+from without occurred only once. These enemies were the freebooters who
+dwelt in the Isaurian mountains, wild and untamed in their secure
+fastnesses. Ammianus Marcellinus describes picturesquely the habits of
+these sturdy robbers. They used to descend from the difficult mountain
+slopes like a whirlwind to places on the sea-shore, where in hidden ways
+and glens they lurked till the fall of night, and in the light of the
+crescent moon watched until the mariners riding at anchor slept; then
+they boarded the vessels, killed and plundered the crews. Thus the coast
+of Isauria was like a deadly shore of Sciron; it was avoided by sailors,
+who made a practice of putting in at the safer ports of Cyprus.
+
+The Isaurians did not always confine their land expeditions to the
+surrounding provinces of Cilicia and Pamphylia; they penetrated, in A.D.
+403, northward to Cappadocia and Pontus, or southward to Syria and
+Palestine; and the whole range of the Taurus, as far as the confines of
+Syria, seems to have been their spacious habitation. An officer named
+Arbacazius was intrusted by Arcadius with an office similar in object to
+that which, four and a half centuries ago, had been assigned to
+Pompeius; but, though he quelled the spirits of the freebooters for a
+moment, Arbacazius did not succeed in eradicating the lawless element,
+in the same way as Pompeius had succeeded in exterminating the piracy
+which in his day infested the same regions. In the years 404 and 405
+Cappadocia was overrun by the robber bands.
+
+Meanwhile, after the death of Rufinus, the weak emperor Arcadius passed
+under the influence of the eunuch Eutropius, who, in unscrupulous greed
+of money, resembled Rufinus and many other officials of the time, and,
+like Rufinus, has been painted far blacker than he really was. All the
+evil things that were said by his enemies of Rufinus were said of
+Eutropius by his enemies; but in reading of the enormities of the latter
+we must make great allowance for the general prejudice existing against
+a person with Eutropius' physical disqualifications.
+
+Eutropius naturally looked on the prætorian prefects, the most powerful
+men in the administration next to the Emperor, with jealousy and
+suspicion, as dangerous rivals. It was his interest to reduce their
+power and to raise the dignity of his own office to an equality with
+theirs. To his influence, then, we are probably justified in ascribing
+two innovations which were made by Arcadius. The administration of the
+_cursus publicus_, or office of postmaster-general, was transferred from
+the prætorian prefects to the master of offices, and the same
+transferrence was made in regard to the manufactories of arms. On the
+other hand, the grand chamberlain, _præpositus sacri cubiculi_, was made
+an _illustris_, equal in rank to the prætorian prefects. Both these
+innovations were afterward altered.
+
+The general historical import of the position of Eutropius is that the
+empire was falling into a danger, by which it had been threatened from
+the outset, and which it had been ever trying to avoid. We may say that
+there were two dangers which constantly impended over the Roman Empire
+from its inauguration by Augustus to its redintegration by Diocletian--a
+Scylla and Charybdis, between which it had to steer. The one was a
+cabinet of imperial freedmen, the other was a military despotism. The
+former danger called forth, and was counteracted by, the creation of a
+civil service system, to which Hadrian perhaps made the most important
+contributions, and which was finally elaborated by Diocletian, who at
+the same time averted the other danger by separating the military and
+civil administrations. But both dangers revived in a new form. The
+danger from the army became danger from the Germans, who preponderated
+in it; and the institution of court ceremonial tended to create a
+cabinet of chamberlains and imperial dependents.
+
+This oriental ceremonial, so marked a feature of late "Byzantinism,"
+involved, as one of its principles, difficulty of access to the Emperor,
+who, living in the retirement of his palace, was tempted to trust less
+to his eyes than his ears, and saw too little of public affairs.
+Diocletian appreciated this disadvantage himself, and remarked that the
+sovereign, shut up in his palace, cannot know the truth, but must rely
+on what his attendants and officers tell him. We may also remark that
+absolute monarchy, by its very nature, tends in this direction; for
+absolute monarchy naturally tends to a dynasty, and a dynasty implies
+that there must sooner or later come to the throne weak men,
+inexperienced in public affairs, reared up in an atmosphere of flattery
+and illusion, easily guided by intriguing chamberlains and eunuchs.
+Under such conditions, then, aulic cabals and chamber cabinets are sure
+to become dominant sometimes. Diocletian, whose political insight and
+ingenuity were remarkable, tried to avoid the dangers of a dynasty by
+his artificial system, but artifice could not contend with success
+against nature.
+
+The greatest blot on the ministry of Eutropius--for, as he was the most
+trusted adviser of the Emperor, we may use the word ministry--was the
+sale of offices, of which Claudian gives a vivid and exaggerated
+account. This was a blot, however, that stained other men of those days
+as well as Eutropius, and we must view it rather as a feature of the
+times than as a personal enormity. Of course, the eunuch's spies were
+ubiquitous; of course, informers of all sorts were encouraged and
+rewarded. All the usual stratagems for grasping and plundering were put
+into practice.
+
+The strong measures that a determined minister was ready to take for the
+mere sake of vengeance may be exemplified by a treatment which the whole
+Lycian province received at the hands of Rufinus. On account of a single
+individual, Tatian, who had offended that minister, all the provincials
+were excluded from public offices. After the death of Rufinus, the
+Lycians were relieved from these disabilities; but the fact that the
+edict of emancipation expressly enjoins "that no one henceforward
+venture to wound a Lycian citizen with a name of scorn" shows what a
+serious misfortune their degradation was.
+
+The eunuch won considerable odium in the first year of his power (396)
+by bringing about the fall of two men of distinction--Abundantius, to
+whose patronage he owed his rise in the world, and Timasius, who had
+been the commander-general in the East. An account of the manner in
+which the ruin of the latter was wrought will illustrate the sort of
+intrigues that were spun at the Byzantine court.
+
+Timasius had brought with him from Sardis a Syrian sausage-seller, named
+Bargus, who, with native address, had insinuated himself into his good
+graces and obtained a subordinate command in the army. The prying
+omniscience of Eutropius discovered that, years before, this same Bargus
+had been forbidden to enter Constantinople for some misdemeanor, and by
+means of this knowledge he gained an ascendency over the Syrian, and
+compelled him to accuse his benefactor, Timasius, of a treasonable
+conspiracy, supporting the charge by forgeries. The accused was tried,
+condemned, and banished to the Lybian oasis, a punishment equivalent to
+death; he was never heard of more. Eutropius, foreseeing that the
+continued existence of Bargus might at some time compromise himself,
+suborned his wife to lodge very serious charges against her husband, in
+consequence of which he was put to death. Whether Eutropius then got rid
+of the wife we are not informed.
+
+Among the adherents of Eutropius, who were equally numerous and
+insincere, two were of especial importance--Osius, who had risen from
+the post of a cook to be count of the sacred largesses, and finally
+master of the offices, and Leo, a soldier, corpulent and good-humored,
+who was known by the sobriquet of Ajax, a man of great body and little
+mind, fond of boasting, fond of eating, fond of drinking, and fond of
+women.
+
+On the other hand, Eutropius had many enemies, and enemies in two
+different quarters. Romans of the stamp of Timasius and Aurelian were
+naturally opposed to the supremacy of an emasculated chamberlain; while,
+as we shall see subsequently, the German element in the empire,
+represented by Gainas, was also inimical. It seems certain that a
+serious confederacy was formed in the year 397, aiming at the overthrow
+of Eutropius. Though this is not stated by any writer, it seems an
+inevitable conclusion from the law which was passed in the autumn of
+that year, assessing the penalty of death to anyone who had conspired
+"with soldiers or private persons, including barbarians," against the
+lives "of _illustres_ who belong to our consistory or assist at our
+counsels," or other senators, such a conspiracy being considered
+equivalent to treason. Intent was to be regarded as equivalent to crime,
+and not only did the individual concerned incur capital punishment, but
+his descendants were visited with disfranchisement.
+
+It is generally recognized that this law was an express palladium for
+chamberlains; but surely it must have been suggested by some actually
+formed conspiracy, of which Eutropius discovered the threads before it
+was carried out. The particular mention of soldiers and barbarians
+points to a particular danger, and we may suspect that Gainas, who
+afterward brought about the fall of Eutropius, had some connection with
+it.
+
+While the eunuch was sailing in the full current of success at
+Byzantium, the Vandal Stilicho was enjoying an uninterrupted course of
+prosperity in the somewhat less stifling air of Italy. The poet
+Claudian, who acted as a sort of poet-laureate to Honorius, was really
+an apologist for Stilicho, who patronized and paid him. Almost every
+public poem he produced is an extravagant panegyric on that general, and
+we cannot but suspect that many of his utterances were direct
+manifestoes suggested by his patron. In the panegyric in honor of the
+third consulate of Honorius (396), which, composed soon after the death
+of Rufinus, breathes a spirit of concord between East and West, the
+writer calls upon Stilicho "to protect with his right hand the two
+brothers" (_geminos dextra tu protege fratres_).
+
+Such lines as this are written to put a certain significance on
+Stilicho's policy. In the panegyric in honor of the fourth consulate of
+Honorius (398) he gives an absolutely false and misleading account of
+Stilicho's expedition to Greece two years before, an account which no
+allowance for poetical exaggeration can defend. At the same time he
+extols Honorius with the most absurd eulogiums, and overwhelms him with
+the most extravagant adulations, making out the boy of fourteen to be
+greater than his father and grandfather. If Claudian were not a poet, we
+should say that he was a most outrageous liar. We are therefore unable
+to accord him the smallest credit when he boasts that the subjects in
+the western provinces are not oppressed by heavy taxes and that the
+treasury is not replenished by extortion.
+
+Stilicho and Eutropius had shaken hands over the death of Rufinus, but
+the good understanding was not destined to last longer than the song of
+triumph. We cannot justly blame Eutropius for this. No minister of
+Arcadius could regard with good-will or indifference the desire of
+Stilicho to interfere in the affairs of New Rome; for this desire cannot
+be denied, even if one do not accept the theory that the scheme of
+detaching Illyricum from Arcadius' dominion was entertained by him at as
+early a date as 396. His position as master of soldier in Italy gave him
+no power in other parts of the empire; and the attitude which he assumed
+as an elderly relative, solicitously concerned for the welfare of his
+wife's young cousin, in obedience to the wishes of that cousin's father,
+was untenable, when it led him to exceed the acts of a strictly private
+friendship.
+
+We can then well understand the indignation felt at New Rome, not only
+by Eutropius, but probably also by men of a quite different faction,
+when the news arrived that Stilicho purposed to visit Constantinople to
+set things in order and arrange matters for Arcadius. Such officiousness
+was intolerable, and it was plain that the strongest protest must be
+made against it. The senate accordingly passed a resolution declaring
+Stilicho a public enemy. This action of the senate is very remarkable,
+and its signification is not generally perceived. If the act had been
+altogether due to Eutropius, it would surely have taken the form of an
+imperial decree. Eutropius would not have resorted to the troublesome
+method of bribing or threatening the whole senate even if he had been
+able to do so. We must conclude then that the general feeling against
+Stilicho was strong, and we must confess naturally strong.
+
+The situation was now complicated by a revolt in Africa, which
+eventually proved highly fortunate for the glory and influence of
+Stilicho.
+
+Eighteen years before, the Moor Firmus had made an attempt to create a
+kingdom for himself in the African provinces (A.D. 379), and had been
+quelled by the arms of Theodosius, who received important assistance
+from Gildo, the brother and enemy of Firmus. Gildo was duly rewarded. He
+was finally military commander, or Count, of Africa, and his daughter
+Salvina was united in marriage to a nephew of the empress Ælia
+Flaccilla. But the faith of the Moors was as the faith of Carthaginians.
+Gildo refused to send aid to Theodosius in his expedition against
+Eugenius.
+
+After Theodosius' death he prepared to take a more positive attitude,
+and he engaged numerous African nomad tribes to support him in his
+revolt. The strained relations between Old and New Rome, which did not
+escape his notice, suggested to him that his rebellion might assume the
+form of a transition from the sovereignty of Honorius to the sovereignty
+of Arcadius. He knew that if he were dependent only on New Rome he would
+be practically independent. He entered accordingly into communication
+with the government of Arcadius, but the negotiations came to nothing.
+It appears that Gildo demanded that Lybia should be consigned to his
+rule, and he certainly took possession of it. It also appears that
+embassies on the subject passed between Italy and Constantinople, and
+that Symmachus the orator was one of the ambassadors. But it is certain
+that Arcadius did not in any way assist Gildo, and the comparatively
+slight and moderate references which the hostile Claudius makes to the
+hesitating attitude of New Rome indicate that the government of
+Alexandrius did not behave very badly after all.
+
+We need not go into the details of the Gildonic war, through which
+Stilicho won well-deserved laurels, although he did not take the field
+himself. What made the revolt of the Count of Africa of such great
+moment was the fact that the African provinces were the granary of Old
+Rome, as Egypt was the granary of New Rome. By stopping the supplies of
+corn, Gildo might hope to starve out Italy. The prompt action and
+efficient management of Stilicho, however, prevented any catastrophe;
+for ships from Gaul and from Spain, laden with corn, appeared in the
+Tiber, and Rome was supplied during the winter months. Early in 398 a
+fleet sailed against the tyrant, whose hideous cruelties and oppressions
+were worthy of his Moorish blood; and it is a curious fact that this
+fleet was under the command of Mascezel, Gildo's brother, who was now
+playing the same part toward Gildo that Gildo had played toward his
+brother Firmus. The undisciplined nomadic army of the rebel was
+scattered without labor at Ardalio, and Africa was delivered from the
+Moor's reign of ruin and terror, to which Roman rule, with all its
+fiscal sternness, was peace and prosperity.
+
+This subjugation of the man whom the senate of Old Rome had pronounced a
+public enemy redounded far and wide to the glory of the man whom the
+senate of New Rome had proclaimed a public enemy. And in the mean time
+Stilicho's position had become still more splendid and secure by the
+marriage of his daughter Maria with the emperor Honorius (398), for
+which an epithalamium was written by Claudian, who, as we might expect,
+celebrates the father-in-law as expressly as the bridal pair. The
+Gildonic war also supplied, we need hardly remark, a grateful material
+for his favorite theme; and the year 400, to which Stilicho gave his
+name of consul, inspired an enthusiastic effusion.
+
+It may seem strange that now, almost at the zenith of his fame, the
+father-in-law of the Emperor and the hero of the Gildonic war did not
+make some attempt to carry out his favorite project of interfering with
+the government of the eastern provinces. But there are two
+considerations which may help to explain this.
+
+In the first place Stilicho himself was not the man of indomitable will
+who forms a project and carries it through; he was a man rather of that
+ambitious but hesitating character which Mommsen attributes to Pompey.
+He was half a Roman and half a barbarian; he was half strong and half
+weak; he was half patriotic and half selfish. His intentions were
+unscrupulous, but he was almost afraid of them. Besides this, his wife,
+Serena, probably endeavored to check his policy of discord and maintain
+unity in the Theodosian house. In the second place, it is sufficiently
+probable that he was in constant communication with Gainas, the German
+general of the eastern armies and chief representative of the German
+interests in the realm of Arcadius, and that Gainas was awaiting his
+time for an outbreak, by which Stilicho hoped to profit and execute his
+designs. He had no excuse for interference, and he was willing to wait.
+His inactive policy of the next two years must not be taken to indicate
+that he cherished no ambitious projects.
+
+The Germans looked up to Stilicho as the most important German in the
+empire; their natural protector and friend, while there was a large
+Roman faction opposed to him as a foreigner. But as yet this faction was
+not strong enough to overpower him. It is remarkable that his fall was
+finally brought about by the influence of a palace official (A.D. 408),
+while the fall of his rival Eutropius, which occurred far sooner (A.D.
+399), was brought about by the compulsion of a German general. These
+facts indicate that the two dangers to which I have already called
+attention--the preponderating influence of chamberlains and
+eunuchs--were mutually checks on each other.
+
+
+
+
+CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY
+
+EMBRACING THE PERIOD COVERED IN THIS VOLUME
+
+A.D. 13-409
+
+JOHN RUDD, LL. D.
+
+
+
+
+CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY
+
+EMBRACING THE PERIOD COVERED IN THIS VOLUME
+
+A.D. 13-409
+
+JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
+
+
+Events treated at length are here indicated in large type; the numerals
+following give volume and page.
+
+Separate chronologies of the various nations, and of the careers of
+famous persons, will be found in the INDEX VOLUME, with volume and page
+references showing where the several events are fully treated.
+
+*  Denotes date uncertain.
+
+A.D.
+
+13. A fifth ten-year term of imperial rule is voted to Augustus at Rome.
+
+Roman invasion of Germany under Germanicus. See "GERMANICUS IN GERMANY,"
+iii, 1.
+
+14. Death of Augustus; succeeded by his adopted son, Tiberius, as
+emperor of Rome.
+
+16. Germanicus successful in his campaign against Arminius. He is
+recalled to Rome by Tiberius. See "GERMANICUS IN GERMANY," iii, 1.
+
+17. Ephesus, Magnesia, and other cities in Asia destroyed by an
+earthquake.
+
+Germanicus fêted in Rome.
+
+18. Herod the Tetrarch builds the city of Tiberias in Galilee.
+
+Wealthy women of Jerusalem provide wine medicated with opiates for
+crucified malefactors. See "THE CRUCIFIXION," iii, 23.
+
+19. Death of Germanicus.
+
+Jews and Egyptians expelled from Rome; four thousand of them colonize in
+Sardinia.
+
+21. The theatre of Pompey, at Rome, destroyed by fire.
+
+23. Birth of Pliny the Elder.
+
+26. Tiberius leaves Rome to the government of Sejanus.
+
+27. The Roman Pantheon completed.
+
+30 (29-33). Death of Jesus. See "THE CRUCIFIXION," iii, 23.
+
+31. Downfall and execution of Sejanus.
+
+33. Great impetus of Christianity. See "THE RISE AND SPREAD OF
+CHRISTIANITY," iii, 40.
+
+37. Caius, called Caligula, succeeds Tiberius as emperor of Rome.
+
+41. Emperor Caligula murdered; Claudius elevated to the throne.
+
+The Herodian kingdom of Judea restored under Herod Agrippa.
+
+43. Beginning of the Roman conquest of Britain under Aulus Plautius and
+Claudius.
+
+44. Plautius is appointed the first Roman governor of Britain.
+
+Death of Herod Agrippa; end of the kingdom of Judea.
+
+51. Caractacus, King of the Trinobantes in Britain, captured by Ostorius
+and sent in chains to Rome.
+
+52. Aqueducts of the Aqua Claudia in Rome, begun in A.D. 38, completed.
+
+54. Agrippina poisons Claudius; Nero, her son, becomes emperor.
+
+55.* Birth of Tacitus.
+
+59. Agrippina murdered at Nero's order.
+
+61. Boadicea in Britain revolts against the Romans; the uprising quelled
+by Suetonius Paulinus.
+
+62.* Birth of Pliny the Younger.
+
+64. The burning of Rome. See "BURNING OF ROME UNDER NERO," iii, 108.
+
+First persecution of Christians. See "PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS
+UNDER NERO," iii, 134.
+
+65. The conspiracy of Piso against Nero. Execution of Lucan and Seneca
+by command of Nero.
+
+66. Revolt of the Jews against the Roman government.
+
+67. Victorious campaigns of Vespasian against the rebellious Jews.
+
+68. Rise of the Roman commanders against Nero. Galba's march upon Rome.
+Suicide of Emperor Nero; accession of Galba.
+
+69. Galba murdered. Otho becomes emperor; vanquished by Vitellius, who
+ascends the throne. Vespasian overthrows Vitellius and succeeds him.
+
+Uprising of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis.
+
+70. The Roman Capitol rebuilt by Vespasian.
+
+Jerusalem besieged and destroyed by Titus. See "THE GREAT JEWISH
+REVOLT," iii, 150.
+
+76. Birth of the emperor Hadrian.
+
+78. Agricola succeeds Julius Frontinus in Britain; extends the Roman
+dominion to the Tyne and introduces the useful arts.
+
+79. Death of Vespasian; Titus on the throne.
+
+Destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii by an eruption of Vesuvius; Pliny
+the Elder, writer of the _Studiosus_, loses his life. See "DESTRUCTION
+OF POMPEII," iii, 207.
+
+80. The Roman Empire swept by pestilence.
+
+The Colosseum, the work of Vespasian, dedicated by Titus.
+
+81. Death of Titus; Domitian, his brother, becomes emperor.
+
+Agricola extends Roman dominion in Britain.
+
+84. Successful campaigns of Agricola against the Caledonians under
+Galgacus. Agricola builds a wall of defence between the Clyde and the
+Forth, and sails around the north of Scotland for the first time.
+
+85. Agricola recalled to Rome through jealousy of Domitian, who appoints
+Sallustius in his stead.
+
+86. Successful onslaught of the Dacians, under the Decebalus, against
+the Romans.
+
+Capitoline games instituted by Domitian at Rome.
+
+87. Dacian wars led Rome to agree to pay tribute and provoked the
+cruelties of Domitian.
+
+88. Celebration of the secular games at Rome.
+
+Tacitus appointed prætor.
+
+91. Domitian concludes a peace with the Dacians.
+
+94. Domitian's wholesale slaughter of his subjects appalls Rome.
+
+95. Jews and Christians refusing to pay taxes to rebuild the temple of
+Jupiter at Rome are severely punished. These cruelties are sometimes
+called the "second persecution."
+
+96. The tyrannies of Domitian finally provoke a conspiracy which
+accomplishes his death. Nerva succeeds him as emperor. Exiles recalled
+and the unjustly imprisoned freed.
+
+97. Tacitus, the historian, becomes consul at Rome. Nerva adopts Trajan.
+
+98. Nerva dies and is succeeded by Trajan; Pliny and Plutarch are highly
+distinguished by him.
+
+99. Julius Servius becomes governor of Britain.
+
+101. Trajan discontinues the annual payment to the Dacians; they invade
+the Roman provinces; Trajan attacks and drives them over the Danube.
+
+102. Rome continues the war in Dacia. Trajan's Empress, Plotina Pompeia,
+and his sister, Marciana, by their example reform the manners and
+character of the Roman women.
+
+103. Trajan dictates a treaty of peace to Decebalus, the Dacian leader.
+
+104. Rome renews the Dacian war; Trajan again in command; Hadrian serves
+under him.
+
+Pliny writes his famous letter to the Roman Emperor in regard to the
+Christians.
+
+105. Trajan's bridge over the Danube constructed.
+
+Plutarch is governor of Illyricum.
+
+106. Decebalus falling in battle, the Dacian war ends; Dacia becomes a
+Roman province beyond the Danube.
+
+107. Trajan drains the Pontine marshes and constructs a road through
+them; he erects a school for poor children and performs other
+meritorious works.
+
+Great discontent is aroused by the progress of Christianity among the
+numerous classes of those whose livelihood is derived from the services
+and ceremonies of the heathen temples. The third persecution of
+Christians begins.
+
+114. Trajan's Column erected; it was made of twenty-four huge blocks of
+marble so closely united that they seem like one piece; it is still in
+existence, although Trajan's statue, surmounting it, was replaced by one
+of St. Peter.
+
+115. War of Rome with Parthia; Trajan adds Armenia and Mesopotamia to
+the Roman domains. Rome attains its greatest extension.
+
+Great earthquake at Antioch.
+
+116. Great revolt of the Jews in Cyrene, Cyprus, and Egypt; they
+slaughter many thousands of Greeks and Romans.
+
+117. Death of Trajan, who is succeeded by Hadrian; the Asiatic conquests
+are relinquished by him.
+
+118. Hadrian, who was with Trajan at the time of his death, returns to
+Rome; a plot against him is discovered and four conspiring senators are
+put to death. Hadrian conciliates the people with large gifts. He enters
+upon his campaign in Moecia.
+
+119. Hadrian begins a personal survey of his dominions; he visits
+Campania, Gaul, and Britain.
+
+121. Birth of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
+
+131. Birth of Galen, long the supreme authority in medical science.
+
+132. Insurrection of the Jews under Bar Cocheba; their final dispersion
+follows. See "THE JEWS' LAST STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM: THEIR FINAL
+DISPERSION," iii, 222.
+
+138. Death of Hadrian and succession of Antoninus Pius.
+
+155.* About this time Polycarp and Justin suffer martyrdom. See
+"MARTYRDOM OF POLYCARP AND JUSTIN MARTYR," iii, 231.
+
+161. Death of Antoninus Pius; Marcus Aurelius Antoninus succeeds to the
+Roman throne and makes Lucius Verus his associate in the Empire.
+
+Roman war with Parthia begins.
+
+162. Volagases, with a Parthian army, invades Syria and defeats the
+Romans.
+
+163. Verus, the Roman Emperor, enjoys himself at Antioch and Daphne
+while his generals reap successes in Armenia and Media.
+
+165. Seleucia and Ctesiphon are captured by the Romans; end of the
+Parthian war; Rome acquires Mesopotamia.
+
+166.* Great plague throughout the Roman Empire.
+
+War begins between Rome and the Germanic tribes of the Marcomanni and
+Quadi, which had invaded Roman territories.
+
+168. The Marcomanni retire into their own country, but M. Aurelius
+pursues his preparations against them, in order to safeguard Italy.
+
+169. Sudden death of Verus, while in his chariot, on his journey to
+Rome.
+
+174. Aurelius makes a short visit to Rome; when he rejoins the army the
+German tribes are signally defeated; this gives rise to the fable of the
+"Thundering Legion."
+
+177. Persecution of the Christians in Gaul begins; Pothinus, Bishop of
+Lyons, suffers martyrdom. See "PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS IN GAUL,"
+iii, 246.
+
+180. Death of Marcus Aurelius; his son, Commodus, succeeds him on the
+Roman throne. See "BEGINNING OF ROME'S DECLINE: COMMODUS," iii, 263.
+
+183. Lucilla, the sister of Commodus, having conspired against her
+brother, is exiled from Rome; Commodus vents his rage on the senators.
+
+184. The Caledonians break through the wall on the northern borders of
+Britain; they are driven back by Ulpius Marcellus.
+
+185. Marcia, the favorite of Commodus, protects the Christians.
+
+Birth of Origen, one of the early Church fathers, at Alexandria.
+
+186. Many prominent Roman citizens are put to death, by order of
+Commodus.
+
+187. Commodus degrades himself by acting as a gladiator and slaying wild
+beasts in the Circus at Rome. See "BEGINNING OF ROME'S DECLINE:
+COMMODUS," iii, 263.
+
+188. Lightning strikes the Capitol at Rome; the library and many
+adjacent buildings are burned.
+
+189. Revolt of Maternus in Spain and Gaul subdued by Pescennius Niger.
+
+Famine and pestilence in Rome; popular commotions; the guards are
+overcome and Commodus is driven to Lanuvium; the populace is appeased by
+the sacrifice of Cleander. See "BEGINNING OF ROME'S DECLINE: COMMODUS,"
+iii, 263.
+
+191. Great fire at Rome; the temples of Vesta and of Peace are burned;
+many valuable libraries destroyed, in which some works of Galen's are
+lost.
+
+192. Murder of Commodus.
+
+193. Pertinax elected emperor by the Roman senate; he is later
+assassinated by the prætorians. The Imperial dignity is purchased by
+Didius Julianus; he is slain the same year. Albinus in Britain, Niger in
+Syria, and Septimus Severus in Pannonia are proclaimed emperors by their
+respective legions. Fall of Didius Julianus and accession of Severus.
+
+194. In the East, Severus triumphs over his rival, Niger. Byzantium
+resists Severus.
+
+196. Byzantium falls before Severus.
+
+197. Albinus in Gaul is crushed by Severus.
+
+198. Septimus Severus proceeds against the Parthians; he besieges and
+captures Ctesiphon.
+
+208. Successful campaign of Severus against the Caledonians in Britain
+and Caledonia.
+
+211. Death of Septimus Severus at York; his sons Caracalla and Geta
+succeed him.
+
+212. Caracalla slays his brother Geta.
+
+213. Caracalla, universally detested for his cruelties, goes into Gaul
+and assumes the surname of Germanicus. He leads the first attack of the
+Romans against the Alemanni.
+
+215. Having proceeded through Dacia, Thrace, and Antioch to Alexandria,
+Caracalla orders a massacre of the Egyptians.
+
+216. By a delusive offer of marriage with the daughter of Artabanus,
+Caracalla decoys the Parthians into his camp, where he treacherously
+attacks and slays a great number of them.
+
+217. Caracalla is assassinated; Macrinus is proclaimed emperor; he
+purchases peace with the Parthians. Julia Domna, the mother of Caracalla
+and Geta, being banished to Antioch, starves herself to death.
+
+218. Macrinus is overthrown by Elagabalus, who succeeds him as emperor
+of Rome. This was accomplished by Moesa, sister of Julia Domna,
+bribing a portion of the army to espouse the cause of her grandson
+Elagabalus.
+
+219. Elagabalus arrives at Rome; he brings with him his Syrian idol,
+which he places in a stately temple.
+
+220. The highest offices of the State are filled by Elagabalus with his
+vilest associates.
+
+222. Alexander Severus (Alexianus) succeeds Elagabalus, who is slain by
+the prætorians; his mother, Sooemias, is killed with him.
+
+223. All persecution of the Christians ceases in Rome.
+
+Alexander Severus guided by his mother, Marnæa, who is created augusta.
+
+224. The Persians, under Ardashir (known by the Greeks as Artaxerxes),
+revolt against the Parthians.
+
+225. Marriage of Alexander Severus to Sulpitia Memmia.
+
+226. Ardashir overthrows the Parthian kingdom; he founds the new Persian
+kingdom of the Sassanidæ.
+
+228. Ulpian, prætorian prefect, endeavors to restrain the licentiousness
+of the guards; a mutiny ensues and he is put to death.
+
+229. Dion Cassius having, as governor of Dalmatia and Pannonia, offended
+the army by his strictness, the Emperor testifies his approbation by
+making him his colleague in the consulship.
+
+230. Artaxerxes, now at the head of a powerful empire and great army,
+lays claim to all the former territories of Persia.
+
+231. Alexander Severus, at Antioch, prepares to resist the Persian
+demands by arms.
+
+232. After a campaign in Mesopotamia without decisive results, but in
+which the Romans claim the victory, Alexander returns to Antioch.
+
+233. Close of the Persian war.
+
+234. Alexander musters his forces in Gaul to repel the German tribes
+that had invaded the province.
+
+235. Alexander Severus and his mother, Mamæa, are murdered in a mutiny
+of the army, near Mainz (or Mentz).
+
+Maximin is proclaimed emperor.
+
+Ambrosius assists the labors of Origen by paying clerks to copy for
+him.
+
+236. Maximin defeats the Germans and drives them across the Rhine.
+
+237. Maximin proceeds to Sirmium, with the design of attacking the
+Sarmatians. His ferocious tyranny excites universal horror.
+
+238. A rebellion against Maximin in Africa; Gordian, the proconsul, and
+his son are proclaimed emperors; they are overthrown by Capelianus and
+slain, Maximus and Balbinus are elected by the senate as joint emperors;
+they are murdered by the prætorians. On his march to Rome, Maximin is
+assassinated by his soldiers; his son is also slain. The Third Gordian
+is associated with Maximus and Capelianus in the empire. The two latter
+are slain, and Gordian becomes ruler of the Roman domain.
+
+239. The young emperor of Rome, at first deceived by the eunuchs of the
+palace, is extricated from their pernicious influence by Misitheus.
+
+240. Various tribes of Germany confederate under the name of Franks.
+This is the first time they are mentioned in history.
+
+241. Victorious advance of Sapor I against the Roman dominions. See
+"EVENTFUL REIGN OF SAPOR I, KING OF PERSIA," iii, 277.
+
+242. The Persians are defeated by Gordian; Misitheus, his general,
+recovers Mesopotamia. Plotinus accompanies the Roman army, in the hope
+of reaching India.
+
+244. Gordian, aged nineteen, is murdered, near Circesium (Carchemish); a
+lofty mound is there raised to his memory.
+
+Philip the Arabian becomes emperor of Rome; he makes peace with Sapor.
+
+249. The Roman legions revolt in several provinces; some proclaim
+Jotapianus, and others Marinus, both of whom are killed by their own
+men. Decius, who is sent to appease the mutineers, is compelled by them
+to assume the purple and lead them into Italy. Battle of Verona. Philip
+is defeated and slain, and his son murdered at Rome. Decius is emperor.
+
+250. Decius orders the persecution of the Christians.
+
+The Goths cross the Danube, enter the Roman dominions as far as Thrace,
+and capture Philippopolis.
+
+251. Victory of the Goths; Decius, at the head of the Romans, is
+defeated and slain. Gallus ascends the throne.
+
+253. Barbarians invade Moesia and Pannonia; they are defeated by
+Æmilianus, who is hailed as emperor by his army; he marches against
+Gallus, who, with his son, is assassinated by his soldiers. On the
+approach of Valerian, at the head of the Gallic legions, Æmilianus is
+slain, near Spoleto. Valerian becomes emperor.
+
+254. Franks invade the northern provinces of Gaul.
+
+An eruption of Mount Ætna.
+
+Persecution of the Christians recommences.
+
+256. The Roman Empire is assailed on all sides. The Franks pass through
+Gaul and sack Tarraco in Spain; the Alemanni attack Italy; the
+Sarmatians and Quadi force their way into Pannonia; Macedon and Greece
+are ravaged by the Goths; Persians invade Syria and Mesopotamia.
+
+Cyprian, one of the early fathers of the Church, assembles another
+council at Carthage, which provokes angry disputes.
+
+258. Valerian goes into the East against the Persians. The invaders of
+Gaul are checked by Postumus. The Goths capture Trebizond.
+
+260. Roman war with Persia; defeat and capture of Valerian by Sapor.
+Outbreaks continue throughout the provinces. Gallienus ascends the
+throne.
+
+261. Manes originates the Manichæan heresy, which taught among other
+things that there were two souls or spirits in man, one good and the
+other evil; also that the soul at death went first to the moon and then
+to the sun, and thence to God.
+
+267. Various Gothic bands, called by some Scythians, ravage Greece and
+Asia. One section is driven out of Asia by Odenathus; later he is
+assassinated by his nephew, Mæonius. His widow, Zenobia, avenges his
+death and fills with glory his vacant throne of Palmyra.
+
+268. Murder of the emperor Gallienus; accession of Claudius II.
+
+269. Claudius signally defeats the Goths at Naissus, Moesia.
+
+Zenobia rules in Egypt in the name of Claudius.
+
+270. The Goths are again defeated by Claudius; shortly after, he dies of
+the plague at Sirmium. His brother assumes the purple, but dies by his
+own hand seventeen days later. Aurelian is universally acknowledged as
+emperor; he makes peace with the Goths, and relinquishes Dacia to them,
+transferring that name to another province south of the Danube.
+
+271. The Alemanni who had invaded Italy are overwhelmed by Aurelian.
+
+272. Aurelian attacks Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra; he captures Tyana,
+Emesa, and Antioch.
+
+273. Palmyra surrenders to Aurelian, and Queen Zenobia is made prisoner.
+
+274. Aurelian, having reunited the Roman Empire, celebrates a splendid
+triumph at Rome. Queen Zenobia is treated generously and passes her life
+in peace and affluence.
+
+275. On his march to attack Persia, Aurelian is assassinated; Tacitus is
+elected by the senate.
+
+276. Aurelian's murderers are punished by Tacitus; he dies while leading
+an expedition against the Goths, who had invaded Asia. Florian, his
+brother, succeeds him; he is slain. Probus is proclaimed emperor by the
+army; the senate confirms it.
+
+277. Probus drives out the Franks, Burgundians, and other German tribes
+that had overrun Gaul. A number of his prisoners, removed to Pontus,
+seize a fleet in the Euxine, escape through the Bosporus, plunder many
+cities on the shores of the Mediterranean, and reach Germany again.
+
+278. Probus repairs the fortified line from the Rhine to the Danube,
+expels the Goths from Thrace, represses the Isaurian robbers, and
+arrives in Syria, where he arranges terms of peace with Persia.
+
+282. Probus, successful since 276 against the enemies of Rome, is killed
+in a mutiny of the army at Sirmium.
+
+Accession of Carus; he gives the title of cæsar to each of his two sons,
+Carinus and Numerianus.
+
+283. Carus wages a successful campaign against Persia; he dies
+mysteriously in his tent, near Ctesiphon, during a violent storm.
+Carinus and Numerianus become joint emperors of Rome.
+
+284. Murder of Numerianus; Diocletian proclaimed emperor.
+
+285. Carinus is murdered.
+
+286. Maximian made Imperial colleague of Diocletian.
+
+287. The Bagauds revolt in Gaul.
+
+288. Carausius, in command of the Roman fleet at Gessoriacum, revolts
+and establishes an independent sovereignty in Britain.
+
+292. Constantius Chlorus and Galerius are appointed cæsars by Diocletian
+and Maximian; the Roman Empire is divided among the four.
+
+293. Carausius is treacherously murdered by Allectus, who assumes the
+government of Britain.
+
+296. Athanasius, the "Father of Orthodoxy," born.*
+
+297. Achillius having revolted in Egypt, Diocletian in person suppresses
+the insurrection; Alexandria is captured and the inhabitants
+slaughtered.
+
+298. Rome makes a victorious peace with Persia; extension of the Roman
+Empire.
+
+300. From this date paganism declines. See "CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE,"
+iii, 289.
+
+303. Diocletian persecutes the Christians; the fiercest and most
+systematic persecution which they had yet suffered.
+
+304. Severe illness of Diocletian, imputed to his long journey in the
+winter, but attributable rather to his vexation at the disorders caused
+by his change of policy toward the Christians, and to his finding it
+impossible to extirpate their religion. See "CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE,"
+iii, 289.
+
+305. The dilemma in which Diocletian is placed by the rash counsels of
+Galerius determines him to abdicate. He resigns the purple at Nicomedia,
+and persuades Maximian to follow his example on the same day at Milan.
+Constantius and Galerius take the title of augustus, and that of cæsar
+is given to Severus and Maximian.
+
+306. Death of Constantius Chlorus; Constantine the Great, his son, is
+made cæsar; Severus becomes augustus; Maxentius, son of Maximian,
+assumes the purple. Maximian resumes the rank of augustus. Civil war
+begins between Constantine and his rivals. The Salian Franks are
+defeated by Constantine.
+
+307. Licinius is made augustus on the fall of Severus.
+
+308. There are five emperors actually ruling in the Roman Empire, with
+Maximian, as a sixth, holding nominal power in the court of his
+son-in-law, Constantine.
+
+310. Maximian is slain by order of Constantine.
+
+311. Galerius issues an order to stop the persecution of the Christians;
+his death occurs soon afterward.
+
+312. Constantine vanquishes Maxentius in Italy, and becomes sole ruler
+of the Western Roman Empire. See "CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE," iii, 289.
+
+313. Constantine and Licinius proclaim toleration for the Christians.
+
+Maximian is overthrown by Licinius, who unites the Roman Empire of the
+East under his rule.
+
+314. Constantine and Licinius have their first war; the latter is
+vanquished. See "CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE," iii, 289.
+
+315. Constantine issues an edict against infanticide; another edict
+condemns to be burned alive any Jews who persecute or ill-treat converts
+from their sect to Christianity.
+
+318. Beginning of the Arian controversy.
+
+321. Constantine makes an edict ordering the Aruspices to be consulted
+in certain cases, according to the ancient form. Two others prescribe
+the observance of Sunday.
+
+323. Licinius is overcome by Constantine, who becomes sole master of the
+Roman Empire. See "CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE," iii, 289.
+
+324. Constantine, who had promised his sister not to injure Licinius,
+orders Licinius to be strangled.
+
+325. Council of Nice, the first general council of the Church; the
+followers of Athanasius pronounce the condemnation of the Arians. See
+"FIRST NICENE COUNCIL," iii, 299.
+
+326. Helena, saint and Empress, visits Palestine and founds churches
+there.
+
+329. Frumentius preaches Christianity to the Abyssinians.
+
+330. Removal of the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium.
+See "FOUNDATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE," iii, 320.
+
+331. Birth of Hieronymus (St. Jerome).
+
+333. The title of cæsar given by Constantine to his youngest son,
+Constans.
+
+An edict of Constantine's exempts medical men and professors of
+literature from military service. This confirmed the procedure of
+certain former emperors.
+
+337. Death of Constantine, soon after his baptism by Eusebius, an Arian
+bishop. Partition of the Roman Empire between his sons, Constantine,
+Constans, and Constantius.
+
+340. Constantine II makes war upon Constans; the former is slain, and
+Constans becomes ruler of the greater part of the Roman Empire.
+Constantius rules in the East.
+
+341. Gaul is invaded by the Franks, who resist Constans.
+
+Ulfilas becomes bishop of the Goths.*
+
+Violent earthquakes in Syria. The Synod of Antioch assents to an Arian
+creed, deposes Athanasius, and appoints Gregory bishop of Alexandria.
+
+347. A general council is held at Sardica. The majority approves the
+Nicene faith; the deposition of Arian bishops voted, and the restoration
+of Athanasius and Marcellus to episcopal honors. The minority secede to
+Philippopolis and annul their acts; the two bodies mutually
+excommunicate each other.
+
+348. Sapor, at the head of the Persians, defeats the Romans at Singara.
+
+350. Magentius proclaims himself emperor; Constans flees into Spain,
+where he is assassinated.
+
+351. Constantius defeats Magentius at the battle of Mursa.
+
+352. Italy declares against Magentius, who gains a useless victory at
+Pavia.
+
+353. Constantius sole emperor, Magentius being overthrown by him.
+
+Constantius convokes the Council of Arles, which condemns Arianism.
+
+354. Birth of St. Augustine.
+
+355. Julian, being appointed cæsar, takes command of the Roman troops in
+Gaul.
+
+Athanasius is deposed by the Council of Milan.
+
+356. Julian is successful against the Alemanni and Franks in Gaul.
+
+357. Constantius visits Rome; he presents an obelisk from Egypt to the
+city.
+
+Julian has a great victory at Strasburg.
+
+358. Julian winters in Paris, after which he resumes his campaign and
+defeats the Franks.
+
+359. Again the Rhine is crossed by Julian, who conquers all before him.
+
+360. The Cathedral of St. Sophia is dedicated at Constantinople.
+
+Julian is elected emperor in Gaul. See "JULIAN THE APOSTATE BECOMES
+EMPEROR OF ROME," iii, 333.
+
+361. Death of Constantius while on his way to oppose Julian.
+
+A revival of paganism.
+
+362. Julian proclaims universal toleration and recalls the exiled
+bishops to their sees.
+
+363. Expedition of Julian against the Persians, under Sapor II; Julian
+retreats and is slain; Jovian succeeds him in the purple; he purchases
+peace of Sapor by allotting him the Roman frontiers.
+
+Christianity again in the ascendant.
+
+364. Death of Emperor Jovian; Valentinian succeeds him in the West, and
+Valens in the East.
+
+365. Great earthquake in the Roman dominions.
+
+Gaul is harassed by the Alemanni; Britain by the Picts, Scots, and
+Saxons.
+
+367. First campaign of Theodosius against the Picts and Scots in
+Britain.
+
+368. The Alemanni repulsed from Gaul.
+
+369. Theodosius, having subdued a revolt in Britain, returns to Gaul.
+
+370. Saxons infest the coast of Gaul; they are driven back to their
+ships by Severus.
+
+374. Huns cross the Volga and proceed westward, overpowering the Alani.
+See "THE HUNS AND THEIR WESTERN MIGRATION," iii, 352.
+
+St. Ambrose is elected bishop of Milan.
+
+375. Death of Valentinian I; he is succeeded by his son Gratian and
+Valentinian II, his infant brother.
+
+376. Driven by the Huns, the Visigoths are admitted into the Roman
+Empire south of the Danube.
+
+378. Death of Emperor Valens in an encounter with the Visigoths at
+Adrianople.
+
+Gaul is invaded by the Alemanni; they are repulsed by Gratian.
+
+379. Theodosius is recalled from his retirement in Spain and awarded the
+sovereignty of the East by Gratian.
+
+380. Theodosius is baptized by the Bishop of Thessalonica.
+
+381. Second general council, held at Constantinople.
+
+382. Theodosius makes a treaty with the Visigoths; their final
+settlement in Thrace and Moesia.
+
+383. Rebellion of Maximus in Britain; he lands in Gaul, where he is
+joined by the forces there; he overthrows Gratian.
+
+387. Maximus invades Italy. Valentinian flees with his mother and
+sister, Galla, to Thessalonica; Theodosius meets them, marries Galla,
+and prepares to meet Maximus.
+
+388. Maximus is defeated and slain.
+
+A formal vote of the senate establishes Christianity in the Roman
+Empire.
+
+389. Theodosius visits Rome; he commands the destruction of the heathen
+temples. Valentinian becomes sole ruler of the West.
+
+390. Sedition at Thessalonica, and massacre of its inhabitants, by order
+of Theodosius.
+
+392. Paganism in the Roman Empire is finally suppressed by law.
+
+Murder of Valentinian II by Arbogast; Eugenius usurps the throne in the
+West.
+
+394. Eugenius and Arbogast are vanquished by Theodosius the Great, who
+unites the whole Roman Empire under his sceptre.
+
+395. Death of Theodosius the Great; final division of the Empire. See
+"FINAL DIVISION OF ROMAN EMPIRE," iii, 364.
+
+399. The Ostrogoths, under Tribigild, revolt and ravage Phrygia.
+
+Stilicho sends additional forces into Britain, and fortifies the coast
+against the Saxons.
+
+402. Alaric advances in Italy, and Stilicho prepares to resist him.
+
+403. Honorius, on the approach of Alaric, flees from Milan.
+
+Alaric, King of the Visigoths, encounters Stilicho, Honorius' general,
+at Pollentia; the Romans claim the victory, but Alaric continues his
+advance toward Rome. Stilicho defeats and drives him back, near Verona;
+Alaric retires from Italy.*
+
+404. Triumph of Honorius and Stilicho at Rome. Combats of gladiators
+exhibited for the last time.
+
+The capital of the Western Empire is removed from Rome to Ravenna.*
+
+Chrysostom, the patriarch, is banished Constantinople; the Church of St.
+Sophia, probably kindled by the angry adherents of Chrysostom, burned to
+the ground.
+
+405. Radagaisus collects a great horde of Ostrogoths, Vandals, Suevi,
+and other Barbarians, and leads them into Italy. He is defeated by
+Stilicho near Florence, and surrenders on condition of having his life
+spared. He is, however, treacherously put to death.
+
+St. Jerome completes his Latin translation of the Bible.*
+
+406. German tribes break down the Rhine barrier and establish themselves
+in Gaul.
+
+Vigilantius, a presbyter of Barcelona, condemns celibacy, the worship of
+relics, etc.; St. Jerome attacks him in a furious epistle, saying that
+he ought to be put to death.
+
+407. Constantine usurps authority in Britain and Gaul.
+
+408. Arcadius is succeeded by his son Theodosius II in the Byzantine
+empire.
+
+Honorius orders Stilicho to be put to death, accusing him of
+treacherously treating with Alaric, who is besieging Rome.
+
+409. Alaric receives a large ransom from the citizens of Rome and
+withdraws into Tuscany. Deceived in his negotiations with Honorius, he
+again lays siege to Rome, which is again spared on condition of Attalus
+being made emperor.
+
+Owing to the passes of the Pyrenees being left unguarded, the Vandals,
+Suevi, and Alani enter Spain.
+
+
+END OF VOLUME III
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Events by Famous Historians,
+Volume 03, by Various
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Events by Famous Historians,
+Volume 03, by Various
+
+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: The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Rossiter Johnson
+        Charles Horne
+        John Rudd
+
+Release Date: June 6, 2008 [EBook #25712]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT EVENTS, VOLUME 03 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p><a name="front" id="front"></a></p>
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 296px;">
+<img src="images/fronta.jpg" width="296" height="500" alt="Famous painting of the head Jesus Christ." title="" />
+<span class="caption">Famous painting of the head Jesus Christ<br /><br />
+
+(By steadily gazing at the eyes in the picture they will be seen to
+suddenly open.)<br /><br />
+
+Painting by Gabriel Max.</span>
+</div>
+<div class="figright" style="width: 309px;">
+<img src="images/frontb.jpg" width="309" height="500" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1>THE GREAT EVENTS</h1>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>FAMOUS HISTORIANS</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><b>A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY, EMPHASIZING
+THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS, AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES
+IN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS</b></p>
+
+<h4>
+NON-SECTARIAN&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;NON-PARTISAN&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; NON-SECTIONAL
+</h4>
+
+<p class="center"><b>ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOST
+DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE, INCLUDING BRIEF
+INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED
+NARRATIVES, ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY. WITH THOROUGH INDICES,
+BIBLIOGRAPHIES, CHRONOLOGIES. AND COURSES OF READING</b></p>
+
+<h3>EDITOR-IN-CHIEF</h3>
+
+<h2>ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.</h2>
+
+<h4>ASSOCIATE EDITORS</h4>
+
+<h3>CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D.</h3>
+
+<h3>JOHN RUDD, LL.D.</h3>
+
+<h4><i>With a staff of specialists</i></h4>
+
+<h4><i>VOLUME III</i></h4>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 125px;">
+<img src="images/deco.jpg" width="125" height="70" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h4>The National Alumni</h4>
+
+<p class="center">
+COPYRIGHT, 1905,<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">By</span> THE NATIONAL ALUMNI<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<h3>VOLUME III</h3>
+<p>
+<span class="tocnum">PAGE</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>An Outline Narrative of the Great Events</i>,                <span class="tocnum"><a href="#Page_xi">xi</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">CHARLES F. HORNE</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Germanicus in Germany (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 13-16)</i>,                       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">TACITUS</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>The Crucifixion (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 30)</i>,                               <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_23'>23</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">FREDERIC WILLIAM FARRAR</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>The Rise and Spread of Christianity (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 33)</i>,           <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_40'>40</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">RENAN</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">WISE</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">NEWMAN</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Burning of Rome under Nero (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 64)</i>,                   <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_108'>108</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">SIENKIEWICZ</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">TACITUS</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Persecution of the Christians under Nero (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 64-68)</i>,  <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_134'>134</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">FREDERIC WILLIAM FARRAR</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>The Great Jewish Revolt</i><br />
+<i>Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 70)</i>,           <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_150'>150</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">JOSEPHUS</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Destruction of Pompeii (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 79)</i>,                       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_207'>207</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">PLINY</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">LYTTON</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>The Jews' Last Struggle for Freedom</i><br />
+<i>Their Final Dispersion (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 132)</i>,                      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_222'>222</a></span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 3em;">CHARLES MERIVALE</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Martyrdom of Polycarp and Justin Martyr</i><br />
+<i>Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 155)</i>,         <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_231'>231</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">HOMERSHAM COX</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">POLYCARP</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Persecution of the Christians in Gaul (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 177)</i>,         <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_246'>246</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">FRAN&Ccedil;OIS P. G. GUIZOT</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Beginning of Rome's Decline</i><br />
+<i>Commodus (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 180)</i>,                                      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_263'>263</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">EDWARD GIBBON</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Eventful Reign of Sapor I, King of Persia (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 241)</i>,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_277'>277</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">GEORGE RAWLINSON</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Conversion of Constantine</i><br />
+<i>Decline of Paganism (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 300-337)</i>,                       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_289'>289</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">JOHANN L. VON MOSHEIM</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>First Nicene Council</i><br />
+<i>Rise and Decline of Arianism (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 325)</i>,                  <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_299'>299</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">JOHANN L. VON MOSHEIM</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">ARTHUR P. STANLEY</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Foundation of Constantinople (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 330)</i>,                  <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_320'>320</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">EDWARD GIBBON</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Julian the Apostate Becomes Emperor of Rome (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 360)</i>,   <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_333'>333</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">EDWARD GIBBON</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>The Huns and Their Western Migration (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 374-376)</i>,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_352'>352</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">MARCELLINUS</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Final Division of Roman Empire</i><br />
+<i>The Disruptive Intrigues (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 395)</i>,                      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_364'>364</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">J. B. BURY</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Universal Chronology (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 13-409)</i>,                       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_385'>385</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">JOHN RUDD</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p>
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<h3>VOLUME III</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span class="tocnum">PAGE</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Famous painting of the head of Jesus Christ</i> (<i>page 23</i>),<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">By Gabriel Max.</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href="#front">Frontispiece</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Queen Thusnelda, wife of Arminius, taken prisoner<br />
+by the soldiers of the Roman general Germanicus</i>,                <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_4'>4</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Painting by H. Koenig.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p>
+<h2>AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE</h2>
+
+<h4>TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF</h4>
+
+<h2>THE GREAT EVENTS</h2>
+
+<h4>(THE PERIOD OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE)</h4>
+
+<h3>CHARLES F. HORNE</h3>
+
+
+<p>So vast and wonderful a construction was the Roman world, so different
+from our own, that we are apt to imagine it as an arrangement far more
+deliberately planned, far more mechanically complete, than it appeared
+to its own inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p>From a cursory glance, we may carry away wholly mistaken conceptions of
+its thought and purpose. Thus, for instance, the Roman Republic never
+assumed the definite design of conquering the world; its people had only
+the vaguest conception of whither the world might extend. They merely
+quarrelled with their neighbors, defeated and then annexed them.</p>
+
+<p>At almost any time after Hannibal's death, Rome might have marched her
+legions, practically unopposed, over all the lands within her reach. Yet
+she permitted a century and a half to elapse ere Pompey asserted her
+sovereignty over Asia. It was left for Augustus to take the final step,
+and, by absorbing Egypt, make his country become in name what it had
+long been in fact, the ruler of the civilized world.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, too, we think of Augustus as a kindly despot, supreme, and
+governed only by his own will. But his compatriots looked on him as
+simply the chief citizen of their republic. They considered that of
+their own free will, to escape the dangers of further civil war, they
+had chosen to confer upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span> one man, eminently "safe and sane," all the
+high offices whose holders had previously battled against one another.
+So Augustus was Emperor or Imperator, which meant no more than general
+of the armies of the Republic; he was Consul, or chief civil
+administrator of the Republic; he was Pontifex Maximus, high-priest of
+the Republic. He could have had more titles and offices still if he
+would have accepted them from an obsequious senate.</p>
+
+<p>But the title of "king," so obnoxious to Roman taste, Augustus never
+sought, nor did his successors, who were in turn appointed to all his
+offices. For nearly three centuries after the one-man power had become
+absolute, Rome continued to call itself a republic, to go through forms
+of election and ceremonial, which grew ever more and more meaningless
+and trivial.</p>
+
+<p>Augustus seems to have felt the tremendous weight of his position, and
+to have tried honestly to divide his authority. He invested the
+trembling senate with both power and responsibility. In theory, it
+became as influential as he. But the appointment of its members, and
+also the supreme control of the armies, remained always with the
+Imperator; and thus the senate continued in reality little better than a
+flickering shadow. Under the reign of a well-meaning emperor, it loomed
+large, and often dilated into a very valuable and honorable body. In the
+grip of a tyrant, it sank at once to its true aspect of helpless and
+obsequious submission.</p>
+
+
+<h4>THE "ROMAN PEACE"</h4>
+
+<p>To the outside world the reign of the emperors was welcome. The
+provinces were governed by salaried officials, whose conduct was
+seriously investigated. The hideous extortions and cruelties of the
+governors sent out in the earlier days of the Republic almost
+disappeared. This milder rule seemed happy in the contrast. An emperor
+might be a brute at home, but his personal cruelties could scarce spread
+over an entire world. Money for even the hugest extravagances of only
+one man, the provinces could supply. At first they scarce felt the
+drain.</p>
+
+<p>For two entire centuries after Augustus had assumed power, the world
+flourished and apparently prospered under the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span> "Roman peace." The ruins
+of Pompeii, the tale of its destruction, show how well and how lazily
+the upper classes and even the masses lived.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> The legions were scarce
+needed except for petty wars along the frontier. The defeat inflicted by
+the German barbarians was avenged, and the northern wilderness seems to
+have come very near to sharing the fate of Gaul.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> But the long
+campaigns were costly and apparently valueless. No taxes flowed into the
+treasury from the poor half-subjugated savages; and the emperor Tiberius
+contemptuously declared that he would leave them to fight among
+themselves. Another frontier strife completed the subjugation of Spain.
+Another added Britain to the Empire. Another made temporary conquest
+over Dacia and extended the Asian boundary. There were minor revolts in
+Gaul.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Jews, roused to sudden religious frenzy and believing
+themselves invincible, burst into rebellion.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Titus stormed their
+capital and burned their Temple. But the lesson was wasted on the
+stubborn, fanatical race, and sixty years later they flared out again.
+Roman relentlessness was roused to its fullest rage, and accomplished
+against them the destruction of prophecy. Their cities were razed to the
+ground, and the poor remnant of the race were scattered abroad. Yet,
+apparently imperishable, refusing to be merged with other men, they
+remained a people though without a country. They became what they are
+to-day, a nation of wanderers.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+
+<p>One other tumult, more central and in that sense more serious, intruded
+on the Roman system. Just a century after the rise of Augustus, the
+tyrannies of his successor Nero became so unbearable that even his own
+senate turned against him; and he was slain, without having appointed a
+successor. The purely military character of the Empire was at once
+revealed. Different armies each upheld their own general as emperor. The
+claimants attacked one another in turn, and the strongest won. The
+turmoil lasted for only a year or so, just long enough for the distant
+legions to gather around Rome;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span> the bloodshed was nothing as compared to
+former ages; the helpless senate acquiesced in each new proclamation of
+each successful army; and the rest of the world, scarce even jarred in
+its daily course, flowed on as before.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, then, these two hundred years were one long period of
+peace. It was Augustus who for the first time in centuries closed the
+gates of the war-god's temple in Rome. He encouraged literature, and we
+have the "Augustan" age. He boasted that he found Rome built of bricks,
+and left it of marble. He and his successors did far more than that.
+They constructed roads extending from end to end of their domains.
+Communication became easy; a mail post was established; people began to
+travel for pleasure. The nations of the world intermingled freely, and
+discovered, for the first time on earth, that they were much alike. The
+universal brotherhood of man may be not even yet fully recognized and
+welcomed; but the first step toward its acknowledgment was taken under
+imperial Rome.</p>
+
+
+<h4>CHRISTIANITY</h4>
+
+<p>This brings us to a very solemn thought. Many earnest men have believed
+that they see a divine Providence running through the whole course of
+history, and nowhere more obvious than here. They point to the careers
+of both Greece and Rome as being a special preparation for the coming of
+the Christ. The mission of Greece, they tell us, was to arouse the mind
+of man, to make him capable of thought and sensitive to spiritual
+beauty; that of Rome was to teach him the value of law and peace, and
+yet more, to draw all men together, that all might have opportunity to
+hear the lessons of the new faith.</p>
+
+<p>Certain it is that at any earlier date it would have seemed practically
+impossible for a religion to spread beyond a single people. Not only was
+communication between the nations faint and intermittent, but they were
+so savage, so suspicious of each other, that a wanderer had to meet them
+weapon in hand. He must have a ship to flee to or an army at his back.
+Now, however, under the restraint of Roman law, strangers met and passed
+without a blow. Latin, the tongue of law, was everywhere partly known.
+Greek was almost equally widespread as the language of art and culture.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Hebrews, too, had done their share in the work of preparation. They
+had developed the religious sense, beyond any of the Aryan peoples.
+Their religion had become a part, the main part, of their daily lives.
+They believed it, not with the languid logic of the Romans, not with the
+sensuous pleasure of the Greeks, but fiercely, fervidly, with a passion
+that swept all reason to the winds.</p>
+
+<p>Among them appeared the Christ, born in the days of Augustus, crucified
+in those of Tiberius.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> His teaching was mainly the doctrine of love,
+which Buddha had announced five hundred years before, but which was new
+to the Roman world; and the promise of life beyond the grave, which many
+races had more or less believed in, but which never before had been made
+to carry a vision of such splendor and such glory. He also advocated
+non-resistance to enemies, a principle which the early Church obeyed,
+but which has found small favor among the masses of later Christians.</p>
+
+<p>These teachings, then, were none of them wholly unconceived before; but
+they were enforced by a life so pure, a manner so earnest, as compelled
+respect. Converts became many; and one of these at least took literally
+the command of the Master, to proclaim the faith to all peoples of the
+earth. The apostle Paul, stepping beyond the narrow bounds of Judea,
+preached Christianity to mankind.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>
+
+<p>Paul was the first great missionary. The earlier faiths of Greece and
+Rome had not sought to extend themselves, because they did not recognize
+the brotherhood of man. The new faith insisted upon this, insisted on
+our duty to our fellows; and so under Paul's leadership every Christian
+became a missionary, teaching, uplifting the downtrodden, giving them
+hope, not of this world, but of an infinitely brighter one. The faith
+spread faster than ever world conquest had been spread before. Scarce a
+generation after the Crucifixion it had permeated the Empire, and Nero,
+to divert from himself the suspicion of having burned Rome, accused the
+Christians.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span></p><p>This led to their first persecution. They were tortured as a punishment
+and to extort confession. Most of them stood nobly by their doctrine of
+non-resistance, and endured heroically a martyrdom which they looked on
+as opening the gates of heaven.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p>
+
+<p>Their devotion drew to them the first serious notice of the Roman
+authorities. Hitherto they had been regarded merely as a sect among the
+Jews. But now, with reluctant admiration of their courage, there came
+also a recognition of their rapid growth and a suspicion of their
+motives. The Romans could not understand such devotion to a mere
+religion; and they always feared lest the faith was something more, a
+cloak for nameless crimes, or a secret conspiracy of rebellion among
+their slaves, who would some day turn and rend them.</p>
+
+<p>Thus while Nero's attack on the Christians was in a sense an accident,
+the blind rush of a half-crazed beast, the later persecutions were often
+directed by serious and well-intentioned emperors and magistrates. The
+Romans were far from being intolerant. They had interfered very little
+with the religions of their subject races, and had, indeed, adopted more
+than one foreign god into their own temples. They were quite willing
+that the Christ should be worshipped. What they could not understand was
+that reverence to one god should forbid reverence to another.</p>
+
+<p>It was the new religion which was intolerant, which, in the passionate
+intensity of its faith, attacked the old gods, denied their existence,
+or declared them devils. When a man was summoned before a Roman court on
+the charge of being a Christian, he was not, as a rule, asked to deny
+Christ; only, there being a general impression that his sect was evil,
+he was required to prove his honest citizenship and general good
+character by doing reverence to the Roman gods.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<p>In spite of persecution, some writers say because of it, Christianity
+spread. Toward the end of the first two hundred years of the Empire, it
+seemed about the only prosperous institution in a world which was
+beginning to go badly. During the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the last of
+the "good" emperors<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span> (161-180), troubles, some accidental, some inherent
+in the Roman system, were gathering very dark.</p>
+
+<p>The curse of inaction, of wealth without liberty, of intellect without a
+goal to strive toward, had long been corrupting the upper classes. Now,
+a terrible plague swept the world from end to end, so that laborers
+became scarce, lands went untenanted, taxes unpaid. The drain of
+supporting Rome's boundless extravagance, in buildings, feasts, and
+gladiatorial displays, began to tell upon the provinces at last. Newer
+and ever harsher methods had to be employed to wring money from
+exhausted lands. Driven by their sufferings to cling to religion as a
+support, men thought of it more seriously; and a cry went up that earth
+was being punished for its neglect and insult of the ancient gods. The
+Christians were persecuted anew.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p>
+
+
+<h4>THE PERIOD OF DECAY</h4>
+
+<p>The reign of Commodus,<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> son of Marcus Aurelius, marks the beginning
+of a century which sank almost into anarchy. He was murdered, and his
+guards auctioned the Empire to the highest bidder. Once more the legions
+fought against each other and placed their generals upon the throne.
+During ninety-two years there were twenty-five emperors fully
+acknowledged, besides a far larger number of claimants who were
+overthrown before Rome had time to hear of and salute them. The Imperial
+city was no longer mistress of the world; she was only its capital, as
+feeble and helpless as the other cities, which these unstable emperors
+began at times to favor in her stead.</p>
+
+<p>The barbarians also, who through all these ages were growing stronger
+while Rome grew weaker, became ever a more serious menace. The internal
+disorder of the Empire left its frontiers often unguarded. The Germans
+plundered Gaul in the West, the Persians ravaged Asia in the East. In
+fact, so comparatively strong had the Persians grown that one emperor,
+venturing against them, was defeated and captured, and lived out his
+miserable life a Persian slave. Rome could not rescue him.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[Pg xviii]</a></span></p><p>In the year 284 there came to the front an emperor "of iron,"
+Diocletian. He did what Augustus had done three centuries before,
+re-formed and recast the government of the world. The last empty
+ceremonies of the Republic were discarded. Even the pretence of Rome's
+leadership was brushed aside. The Empire was divided into four
+districts, each with a capital of its own, and Diocletian selected three
+other generals to share its rule with him. He and his colleagues
+restored the long-lost peace. They chastised the barbarians.
+Diocletian's reforms saved the Roman fabric from what seemed inevitable
+extinction, and enabled it to exist in some shape for almost another two
+hundred years.</p>
+
+<p>His system of division did not, however, save the Empire from civil
+wars. No sooner was his restraining hand removed than his colleagues
+fought among themselves, until Constantine overthrew his antagonists and
+once more united the entire Empire. Constantine became a Christian.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p>
+
+<p>It has been repeatedly asserted that his conversion was one of policy
+rather than belief; and there could be no stronger evidence of the
+changed position of the new faith. Diocletian had ordered a persecution
+against it, the last and most terrible which its martyrs suffered. But
+all that was best and most energetic and most living in the moribund
+Empire seemed to have gathered round the Church. The persecution did but
+emphasize its worth and influence.</p>
+
+<p>Constantine did not force his followers to change their beliefs with
+him; but he encouraged and rewarded those who did. Under him was held
+the first general council of the faith. The bishops gathered from all
+the different cities of the world to compare ideas and settle more
+exactly the doctrines to be taught. Christianity stepped out from its
+hiding-place and supplanted paganism as the state religion of the
+Empire.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p>
+
+<p>As though the unimportance of Rome were not thus sufficiently
+established, Constantine abandoned the decaying capital altogether, and
+built himself a new city, Constantinople, at the junction of Europe and
+Asia. This became the centre of the changing world. Built upon the site
+of an old Greek colony,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[Pg xix]</a></span> it was almost wholly Greek, not only in the
+nationality of the people who flocked to it, but in the manners of the
+court which Constantine created around him, in the art of its
+decorators, in the language of its streets.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> The Empire remained
+Roman only in name. The might of a thousand years had made that name a
+magic spell, had sunk its restraining influence deep in the minds of
+men. It was not lightly to be thrown aside.</p>
+
+<p>Julian, a nephew of Constantine, who after an interval succeeded him
+upon the throne, abandoned the adopted religion of his family, and tried
+to revive paganism.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> Julian was a powerful and clever man; he seems
+also to have been an honest and an earnest one. But he could not turn
+back the current of the world. He could not make shallow speculation
+take the place of earnest faith. Altruism, the spirit of brotherhood,
+which was the animating force of Christianity, might and later somewhat
+did lose itself amid the sands of selfishness; but it could not be
+combated by one man with a chance preference for egotism.</p>
+
+<p>Julian turned to a worthier purpose. He died fighting the barbarians.
+These, held back for a time by Diocletian and Constantine, were
+recommencing their ravages with renewed force. And now a change comes
+over the character of the invasions. Hitherto they had been mere raids
+for plunder; but now a huge, far-reaching, racial movement was in
+progress.</p>
+
+<p>From the distant plains of Asia came the vanguard of the Huns, a race of
+horsemen, whose swift steeds enabled them to scatter or concentrate at
+will around slower-paced opponents.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> The Huns swept over Southern
+Russia, then occupied by the Goths, the most civilized of the Teutonic
+tribes. The Goths, finding themselves helpless against the active and
+fierce marauders, moved onward in their turn. They crossed the Danube,
+not as a raiding troop, but as an entire nation, and, half begging, half
+demanding a place of refuge, they penetrated into the world of
+civilization. With them came fearful stories of the Huns; but these
+latter, sweeping off in another direction, failed for a while to follow
+up the fugitives.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">[Pg xx]</a></span></p>
+<p>As for the Goths, after they had defeated and slain one emperor, they
+were given lands and temporarily subdued by Theodosius the Great, the
+last ruler to hold the entire Roman domain. In 395 Theodosius, dying,
+divided his possessions, quite like a hereditary monarch, between his
+two sons, both mere boys.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> To the elder he gave Constantinople and
+the East, to the younger Rome and the West. So instead of one kingdom
+there were two. Partly through its own disorganization, partly from the
+pressure of the barbarians, the Roman world had burst and fallen into
+halves. These proved two very helpless and feeble halves in the hands of
+their boy rulers; and the eager Teutons, finding themselves no longer
+withheld, began that remarkable series of plundering invasions by which
+they overwhelmed the ancient world.</p>
+
+
+<p>[FOR THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS GENERAL SURVEY SEE VOLUME IV.]</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See <i>Destruction of Pompeii</i>, page <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> See <i>Germanicus in Germany</i>, page <a href="#Page_1">1</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> See <i>Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem</i>, page <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> See <i>Jews' Last Struggle for Freedom</i>, page <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> See <i>The Crucifixion</i>, page <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> See <i>Rise and Spread of Christianity</i>, page <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> See <i>Burning of Rome under Nero</i>, page <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> See <i>Persecution of the Christians under Nero</i>, page <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> See <i>Martyrdom of Polycarp and Justin Martyr</i>, page <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> See <i>Persecutions of Christians in Gaul</i>, page <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> See <i>Beginning of Rome's Decline</i>, page <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> See <i>Eventful Reign of Sapor I, King of Persia</i>, page
+<a href="#Page_277">277</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> See <i>Conversion of Constantine</i>, page <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> See <i>First Nicene Council</i>, page <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> See <i>Foundation of Constantinople</i>, page <a href="#Page_320">320</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> See <i>Julian the Apostate</i>, page <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> See <i>The Huns and Their Western Migration</i>, page <a href="#Page_352">352</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> See <i>Final Division of the Roman Empire</i>, page <a href="#Page_364">364</a>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h2>GERMANICUS IN GERMANY</h2>
+
+<h4>A.D. 13-16</h4>
+
+<h3>TACITUS</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>When the Germans first became known to the Romans&mdash;about <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>
+112&mdash;they showed themselves as warlike tribes along the northern
+borders of Italy and in various parts of Gaul, where C&aelig;sar
+afterward had frequent encounters with them, driving them across
+the Rhine into their own country. But C&aelig;sar's knowledge of them was
+confined to those tribes whose dwellings were near the Rhine,
+beyond which he did not pursue them.</p>
+
+<p>Augustus fortified against the Germans along the Rhine, and Drusus,
+his step-son, took command against them, defeating them in several
+expeditions (<span class="smcap">b.c.</span> 13-9). As a reward, he received for himself and
+his posterity the surname of Germanicus, conqueror of Germany. He
+died at the age of thirty.</p>
+
+<p>His son, Germanicus, born <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> 14, was sent, in <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 12, to command
+the forces on the Rhine. After quelling serious mutinies among his
+legions he crossed the Rhine and attacked and routed some of the
+German tribes who had been actively aggressive against the Romans.
+During the following year he defeated other tribes, and after his
+return across the Rhine he was persuaded by Segestes to aid him
+against his son-in-law Arminius (the Latin name for Herman), by
+whom Segestes was besieged and who, according to Tacitus, became in
+the end the deliverer of Germany from the power of the Romans. But
+before he was able to render this service to the German peoples he
+had many hardships to endure, and at the hands of Germanicus he met
+with severe reverses.</p>
+
+<p>Arminius had defeated Varus, who, by reason of that disgrace,
+killed himself (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 10), and the despatch of Germanicus to command
+the German legions was ordered in the first instance to revenge the
+overthrow of his predecessor. Although it required several
+campaigns, the work of Germanicus was so effectual that he withdrew
+in the end, at the command of Tiberius, with advantage on his side,
+and, returning to Rome, enjoyed a triumph (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 17). His name is
+preserved in history, alike for his military talents and services,
+for his attainments in literary pursuits, and his nobleness of
+mind.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>In the consulship of Drusus C&aelig;sar and Caius Norbanus a triumph was
+decreed to Germanicus; the war continuing. He was preparing with all
+diligence to prosecute it in the summer, but anticipated it by a sudden
+irruption early in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> spring into the territories of the Cattians: for
+he had conceived a hope that the enemy was divided into opposite parties
+under Arminius and Segestes, both remarkable for perfidy or fidelity
+toward us: Arminius was the incendiary of Germany, but Segestes had
+given repeated warning of an intended revolt at other times and during
+the banquet immediately preceding the insurrection, and advised Varus
+"to secure him and Arminius and all the other chiefs; that the
+multitude, bereft of their leaders, would not dare to attempt anything;
+and Varus would have an opportunity to separate the guilty from the
+innocent." But fate decreed it, and he was slain by Arminius. Segestes,
+though drawn into the war by the universal agreement of the nation in
+it, yet continued to disapprove of it; his detestation being augmented
+by motives of a domestic nature, for Arminius had carried away the
+daughter of Segestes, already betrothed to another: the son-in-law
+hated, the fathers-in-law were at enmity; and those relations which are
+bonds of affection between friends fomented the animosities of enemies.</p>
+
+<p>Germanicus therefore handed over to C&aelig;cina four legions, five thousand
+auxiliaries, and some tumultuous bands of Germans who dwelt on this side
+the Rhine; he led, himself, as many legions, with double the number of
+allies, and erecting a fort in Mount Taunus, upon the site of one raised
+by his father, he pushed on in light marching order against the
+Cattians; having left Lucius Apronius to secure the roads and the
+rivers, for, as the roads were dry and the rivers within bounds&mdash;events
+in that climate of rare occurrence&mdash;he had found no check in his rapid
+march, but on his return apprehended the violent rains and floods. He
+fell upon the Cattians with such surprise that all the weak (through sex
+or age) were instantly taken or slaughtered. The young men swam over the
+Adrana and endeavored to obstruct the Romans, who commenced building a
+bridge; then, repulsed by engines and arrows and having in vain tried
+terms of peace&mdash;after some had gone over to Germanicus&mdash;the rest
+abandoned their cantons and villages and dispersed themselves into the
+woods. Mattium, the capital of the nation, he burned, ravaged the open
+country, and bent his march to the Rhine; nor durst the enemy harass his
+rear, which is their custom whenever they have fled, more from craft<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>
+than fear. The Cheruscans had purposed to assist the Cattians, but were
+deterred by C&aelig;cina, who moved about with his forces from place to place;
+and the Marsians, who dared to engage him, he checked by a victory.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after arrived deputies from Segestes, praying relief against the
+violence of his countrymen, by whom he was besieged; Arminius having
+more influence with them than himself, because he advised war, for with
+barbarians the more resolute in daring a man is the more he is trusted
+and preferred in times of commotion. To the deputies Segestes had added
+Segimund, his son; but the young man hesitated from self-conviction; for
+the year when Germany revolted, having been created priest at the Ubian
+altar, he had rent the fillets and fled to the revolters: yet, induced
+to rely upon Roman clemency, he undertook the execution of his father's
+orders, was graciously received, and conducted with a guard to the
+Gallic bank of the Rhine. Germanicus thought it worth while to march
+back, fought the besiegers, and rescued Segestes with a numerous train
+of his relations and followers, in which were ladies of illustrious
+rank, and among them the wife of Arminius&mdash;the same who was the daughter
+of Segestes&mdash;with a spirit more like that of her husband than her
+father; neither subdued to tears, nor uttering the language of
+supplication, but her hands folded within her bosom, and her eyes fixed
+upon her teeming womb. There were, likewise, carried off the spoils
+taken at the slaughter of Varus and his army, and given as booty to most
+of those who then surrendered.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time appeared Segestes himself, of vast stature, and
+undaunted in the consciousness of his fidelity. In this manner he spoke:
+"This is not the first day that I have approved my faith and constancy
+to the Roman people: from the moment I was by the deified Augustus
+presented with the freedom of the city I have chosen my friends and
+enemies with reference to your interests, and that not from hatred of my
+country&mdash;for odious are traitors even to the party they prefer&mdash;but,
+because the interests of the Romans and Germans were the same, and
+because I was inclined to peace rather than war. For this reason, before
+Varus, the then general, I arraigned Arminius, the ravisher of my
+daughter and the violator of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> league with you. Put off, from the
+supineness of the general, and seeing there was little protection in the
+laws, I importuned him to throw into irons myself and Arminius and his
+accomplices: witness that night&mdash;to me I would rather it had been the
+last! More to be lamented than defended are the events which followed.
+However, I cast Arminius into irons, and was myself cast into irons by
+his faction: and now, on the first opportunity of conferring with you, I
+prefer old things to new, peace to turbulence; and at the same time I
+might be a fitting mediator for the German nation, with no view of
+reward, but to clear myself of perfidy, if they would rather repent than
+be destroyed. For the youth and inexperience of my son I implore pardon.
+I admit my daughter has been brought into this state by constraint; it
+will be yours to consider which should preponderate with you&mdash;that she
+is the wife of Arminius or the daughter of Segestes." The answer of
+Germanicus was gracious: he promised indemnity to his children, and
+kindred, and to himself, as a retreat, a place called "Vetera," in the
+province; then returned with his army, and by the direction of Tiberius
+received the title of <i>Imperator</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/p4a.jpg" width="500" height="459" alt="Queen Thusnelda, wife of Arminius, taken prisoner by the
+soldiers of the Roman general Germanicus" title="" />
+<span class="caption">Queen Thusnelda, wife of Arminius, taken prisoner by the
+soldiers of the Roman general Germanicus<br /><br />
+
+Painting by H. Koenig</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 343px;">
+<img src="images/p4b.jpg" width="343" height="500" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>The account circulated of the surrender of Segestes, and his gracious
+reception, affected his countrymen with hope or anguish as they were
+severally prone or averse to the war. Acting upon a temper naturally
+violent, the captivity of his wife and the child in her womb subjected
+to bondage drove Arminius to distraction: he flew about among the
+Cheruscans, calling them to arms against Segestes, against Germanicus;
+nor did he refrain from invectives&mdash;"An excellent father! a great
+general; a valiant army, whose many hands had carried off one bit of a
+woman! That before him three legions fell, three lieutenants-general;
+for his method of carrying on war was not by treason nor against
+pregnant women, but openly, against armed hosts. That the Roman
+standards were still to be seen in the German groves, there suspended by
+him to his country's gods. Segestes might live upon the vanquished bank;
+he might get the priesthood restored to his son; but the Germans would
+ever regard the fellow as the guilty cause of their having seen between
+the Elbe and Rhine rods and axes and the toga. That to other nations who
+know not the Roman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> domination, executions and tributes were unknown;
+and as they had thrown them off, and as Augustus (he who was enrolled
+with the gods) had retreated without accomplishing his object, and
+Tiberius, his chosen successor, let them not dread an inexperienced
+stripling and a mutinous army. If they preferred their country, their
+parents, and their ancient possessions, to masters and new settlements,
+they should follow Arminius, who led them to glory and liberty, rather
+than Segestes, who conducted them to infamous servitude."</p>
+
+<p>By these means not the Cheruscans only were roused, but the bordering
+nations; and Inguiomer, paternal uncle to Arminius, a man long in high
+credit with the Romans, was drawn into the confederacy. Hence Germanicus
+became more alarmed, and to prevent the war falling upon him with
+unbroken force, sent C&aelig;cina with forty Roman cohorts to the river
+Amisia, through the territories of the Bructerians, to effect a division
+in the army of the enemy. Pedo, the prefect, led the cavalry along the
+confines of the Frisians; he himself, embarking four legions, sailed
+through the lakes; and at the aforesaid river the whole body met&mdash;foot,
+horse, and fleet. The Chaucians, upon offering their assistance, were
+taken into the service; but the Bructerians, setting fire to their
+effects and dwellings, were routed by Lucius Stertinius, despatched
+against them by Germanicus with a band lightly armed. And amid the
+carnage and plunder he found the eagle of the Nineteenth legion lost in
+the overthrow of Varus. The army marched next to the farthest borders of
+the Bructerians, and the whole country between the rivers Amisia and
+Luppia was laid waste. Not far hence lay the forest of Teutoburgium, and
+in it the bones of Varus and the legions, by report, still unburied.</p>
+
+<p>Germanicus, therefore, conceived a desire to pay the last offices to the
+legions and their leader; while the whole of the army present were moved
+to deep commiseration for their kinsmen and friends, and generally for
+the calamities of war and the condition of humanity. C&aelig;cina having been
+sent before to explore the gloomy recesses of the forest, and to lay
+bridges and causeways over the watery portions of the morasses and
+insecure places in the plains, they enter the doleful scene, hideous in
+appearance and association. The first camp of Varus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> appeared in view.
+The extent of ground and the measurement of the <i>principia</i> left no
+doubt that the whole was the work of three legions. After that a
+half-decayed rampart with a shallow foss, where their remains, now sadly
+reduced, were understood to have sunk down. In the intervening portion
+of the plain were whitening bones, either scattered or accumulated,
+according as they had fled or had made a stand. Near them lay fragments
+of javelins and limbs of horses. There were also skulls fixed upon the
+trunks of trees. In the adjacent groves were the savage altars, where
+they had immolated the tribunes and centurions of the first rank. Those
+who survived the slaughter, having escaped from captivity and the sword,
+related the sad particulars to the rest: "Here the commanders of the
+legions were slain; there we lost the eagles; here Varus had his first
+wound; there he gave himself another, and perished by his own unhappy
+hand. In that place, too, stood the tribunal whence Arminius harangued.
+How many gibbets he erected for the execution of his captives; what
+trenches he dug; and how, in proud scorn, he made a mock at the
+standards and eagles."</p>
+
+<p>The Roman army which was on the spot buried the bones of the three
+legions six years after the slaughter: nor could anyone distinguish
+whether he buried the remains of a stranger or of a kinsman; but all
+considered the whole as friends, as relations, with heightened
+resentment against the foe, at once sad and revengeful. Germanicus laid
+the first sod used in raising a tomb, thus rendering a most acceptable
+service to the dead, and showing that he shared the sorrows of the
+living, a proceeding not liked by Tiberius; whether it were that upon
+every action of Germanicus he put a malignant construction, or that he
+believed that the impression produced by the sight of the unburied slain
+would dampen the ardor of the army for battle and inspire them with fear
+of the enemy. He also said that "A general invested with the office of
+augur and the most ancient religious functions ought not to have put his
+hand to the ceremonies of the dead."</p>
+
+<p>Arminius, retiring into pathless places, was pursued by Germanicus, who,
+as soon as he reached him, commanded the horse to advance and dislodge
+the enemy from the post he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> possessed. Arminius, having directed his
+men to keep close together and draw near to the wood, wheeled suddenly
+about, and to those whom he had hid in the forest gave the signal to
+rush out. Then the Roman horse were thrown into disorder by the assault
+of a new army, and the cohorts sent out to support them, broken in upon
+by the body of troops that fled, had augmented the consternation, and
+were now being pushed into the morass&mdash;a place well known to the
+pursuers, but dangerous to those unacquainted with it&mdash;had not
+Germanicus drawn out the legions in order of battle. Hence the enemy
+became terrified, our men reanimated, and both retired without advantage
+on either side. Germanicus, soon after, returning with the army to the
+Amisia, reconducted the legions, as he had brought them, in the fleet;
+part of the horse were ordered to march along the sea-shore to the
+Rhine. C&aelig;cina, who led his own men, was warned that, though he was to
+return through well-known roads, yet he should with all speed pass the
+causeway called the Long Bridges. It is a narrow causeway, between vast
+marshes, and formerly raised by Lucius Domitius. The rest of the country
+is of a moist nature, either tough and sticky from a heavy kind of clay
+or dangerous from the streams which intersect it. Round about are woods
+which rise gently from the plain, which at that time were filled with
+soldiers by Arminius, who, by short cuts and quick marching, had arrived
+there before our men, who were loaded with arms and baggage. C&aelig;cina, who
+was perplexed how at once to repair the causeway decayed by time and to
+repulse the foe, resolved to encamp in the place, that while some were
+employed in the work, others might begin the fight.</p>
+
+<p>The barbarians, having made a vigorous effort to break through the
+outposts and fall upon those employed in the works, harass the troops,
+march round them, and throw themselves in their way. A mingled shout
+arose from the workmen and the combatants; all things equally combined
+to distress the Romans&mdash;the place deep with ooze, sinking under those
+who stood, slippery to such as advanced; their bodies were encumbered
+with their coats of mail, nor could they hurl their javelins in the
+midst of water. The Cheruscans, on the contrary, were inured to
+encounters in the bogs: their persons tall; their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> spears long, so as to
+wound at a distance. At last the legions, already giving way, were saved
+from defeat by the approach of night; the Germans not feeling fatigue on
+account of their success, without refreshing themselves with sleep, even
+then diverted all the courses of the springs which rise in the
+neighboring mountains into the plains; thus the ground being flooded,
+and the work, as far as they had carried it, overturned, the soldiers
+had all to do over again. C&aelig;cina, who had served forty years, either
+under others or in command, was experienced in the vicissitudes of war,
+prosperous or disastrous, and thence undaunted. Weighing, therefore, all
+probabilities, he could devise no other expedient than that of
+restraining the enemy to the wood until he had sent forward all the
+wounded and baggage; for between the mountains and the marshes there
+stretched a plain large enough to admit a small army. To this purpose
+the legions selected were: The Fifth, for the right wing, and
+Twenty-first, for the left; the soldiers of the First legion to lead the
+van of the Twentieth to oppose the pursuers.</p>
+
+<p>It was a restless night to both armies, but from different causes. The
+barbarians, with festive carousals, songs of triumph, or horrid cries,
+filled the vales below and echoing wood. Among the Romans were feeble
+fires, low broken murmurs; they leaned, drooping here and there, against
+the pales, or wandered about the tents, more like men wanting sleep than
+quite awake. The general, too, was alarmed by direful visions during his
+sleep; he thought he heard, and saw, Quintilius Varus, rising out of the
+marsh, all besmeared with blood, stretching forth his hand and calling
+upon him, but that he rejected the call, and pushed back his hand as he
+held it toward him. At break of day the legions, posted on the wings,
+whether from perverseness or fear, deserted their post and took sudden
+possession of a field beyond the bogs; neither did Arminius fall
+straight upon them, though they lay open to assault; but when the
+baggage was set fast in the mire and ditches, the soldiers about it in
+disorder, the order of the standards confounded, and&mdash;as usual at such a
+time&mdash;each man acting hastily for himself, when the ears are slow to
+catch the word of command, he then commanded his Germans to charge,
+exclaiming vehemently, "Behold! Varus and his legions again subdued by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+the same fate!" Thus he cried, and instantly, with a select body, broke
+through the mass, and chiefly against the horse directed his weapons.
+Floundering in their own blood and the slippery soil of the marsh, they
+threw their riders, overturned all they met, and trampled on those that
+were on the ground. The greatest distress was around the eagles, which
+could neither be carried against a shower of darts nor be planted in the
+slimy ground. C&aelig;cina, while he sustained the fight, had his horse shot
+and, having fallen, would have been overpowered had not the First legion
+come up to succor him. Our relief came from the greediness of the enemy,
+who ceased slaying, to seize the spoil. And the legions, as the day
+closed in, by great exertion got into the open and firm ground. Nor was
+this the end of their miseries; a palisade was to be raised, an
+intrenchment digged; their instruments, too, for throwing up and
+carrying earth, and their tools for cutting turf, were almost all lost.
+No tents for the soldiers; no remedies for the wounded. While dividing
+among them their food, defiled with mire or blood, they lamented that
+mournful night; they lamented the approaching day, to so many thousand
+men the last.</p>
+
+<p>It happened that a horse which had broken his fastenings and, as he
+strayed about, become frightened by a noise, had run over some that were
+in his way. This raised such a consternation in the camp&mdash;from a
+persuasion that the Germans had forced an entrance&mdash;that all rushed to
+the gates, especially to the postern,<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> as the farthest from the foe
+and safer for flight. C&aelig;cina having ascertained that there was no cause
+for alarm, but unable to stop them or hold them back, either by his
+authority or prayers or even by force, prostrated himself on the
+threshold of the gate; and thus at length by appealing to their
+humanity&mdash;for if they proceeded it must be over the body of the
+general&mdash;he blocked the passage, and the tribunes and centurions
+satisfied them the while that it was a false alarm.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p>
+<p>Then assembling them in the court, and desiring them to hear him with
+silence, he warned them of their difficulties, and their duty under
+them: "That their sole hope of safety was in their valor, but that must
+be guided by counsel; that they must keep close within their camp till
+the enemy, in hopes of taking it by storm, came up nearer to them; then
+make a sudden sally on every side, that by this sally they might make
+good their way to the Rhine; but if they fled, more forests, deeper
+marshes, and the fierce attack of the foe still remained to them; but
+that if they conquered, honor and renown awaited them." He reminded them
+of all that was dear to them at home, and the rewards to be obtained in
+the camp, but suppressed all mention of defeat. He next distributed
+horses, first his own, then those of the tribunes and leaders of the
+legions, to all the bravest warriors, without any flattery, that these
+first, and afterward the infantry, might charge the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans were in no less agitation from hope, eagerness, and the
+opposite counsels of their leaders. Arminius proposed "To let them march
+out, and to beset them again in their way when they got into marshes and
+difficult passes." Inguiomer advised measures more resolute and
+acceptable to barbarians&mdash;"To invest the camp; it would be quickly
+captured; there would be more captives, and the plunder uninjured." As
+soon therefore as it was light, they level the ditch, cast hurdles into
+it, attempt to scale the palisade, there being but few men on the
+rampart, and those who were, standing as if paralyzed by fear. But when
+they were hampered in the fortifications, the signal was given to the
+cohorts; the cornets and trumpets sounded at once, and instantly,
+shouting and charging, they poured down upon their rear, telling them
+tauntingly "that there were no thickets, no marshes, but equal chances
+in a fair field." The enemy, expecting an easy conquest, and that the
+Romans were few and half-armed, were overpowered with the sounds of
+trumpets and glitter of arms, which were then magnified in proportion as
+they were unexpected; and they fell like men who, as they are void of
+moderation in prosperity, are also destitute of conduct in distress.
+Arminius fled from the fight unhurt, Inguiomer severely wounded. The men
+were slaughtered as long as day and rage lasted. At length, at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> night,
+the legions returned, and though distressed by the same want of
+provisions and more wounds, yet in victory they found all
+things&mdash;health, vigor, and abundance.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile a report had spread that an army was cut off, and a body of
+Germans on full march to invade Gaul; so that, under the terror of this
+news, there were those whose cowardice would have emboldened them to
+demolish the bridge upon the Rhine, had not Agrippina forbidden the
+infamous attempt. This high-minded woman took upon herself all the
+duties of a general, and distributed to the soldiers, gratuitously,
+medicines and clothes, according as anyone was in want or wounded. Caius
+Plinius, the writer of the German wars, relates that she stood at the
+head of the bridge as the legions returned, and bestowed on them thanks
+and praises; a behavior which sunk deep into the heart of Tiberius, for
+these attentions he thought were not disinterested; nor was it against
+foreigners she sought to win the army; for nothing was now left the
+generals to do, when a woman paid her visits of inspection to the
+companies, attended the standards, and presumed to distribute largesses;
+as if before she had shown but small tokens of ambitious designs in
+carrying her child (the son of the general) in a soldier's uniform about
+the camp and desiring that he be styled C&aelig;sar Caligula. Already
+Agrippina was in greater credit with the army than the
+lieutenants-general, or even the generals&mdash;a woman had suppressed a
+sedition which the authority of the Emperor was not able to restrain.
+These jealousies were inflamed and ministered to by Sejanus, who was
+well acquainted with the temper of Tiberius, and supplied him with
+materials for hatred, prospectively, that he might treasure them up in
+his heart and draw them out augmented in bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>Germanicus handed over the Second and Fourteenth of the legions, which
+he had brought in ships, to Publius Vitellius to conduct them by land,
+that his fleet, thus lightened, might sail on the shoally sea, or run
+aground with safety when the tide ebbed. Vitellius at first marched
+without interruption while the ground was dry or the tide flowed within
+bounds. Presently the ocean beginning to swell by the action of the
+northwest wind upon it, and also by the influence of the equinoxial
+constellation&mdash;at which season the sea swells most&mdash;the troops<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> were
+miserably harassed and driven about. The lands were completely
+inundated; the sea, the shore, the fields, had one uniform face: no
+distinction of depths from shallows, of firm from treacherous footing;
+they were overturned by billows, absorbed by the eddies; beasts of
+burden, baggage, and dead bodies floated among them and came in contact
+with them. The several companies were mixed at random, wading now breast
+high, now up to their chin; sometimes, the ground failing them, they
+fell, some never more to rise. Their cries and mutual encouragements
+availed them nothing; the noise of the water drowning them; no
+difference between the coward and the brave, the wise and the foolish;
+none between circumspection and hap-hazard, but all were involved in the
+sweeping torrent. Vitellius at length, having by great exertion gained
+the higher ground, withdrew the legions thither, where they passed the
+night without fire and without food, many of them naked or lamed, not
+less miserable than men enclosed by an enemy&mdash;for even such had the
+resource of an honorable death, while these must perish ingloriously.
+Daylight restored the land, and they marched to the river Unsingis,
+whither Germanicus had gone with the fleet. The legions were then
+embarked, while rumor reported that they were sunk; nor was their escape
+believed until Germanicus and the army were seen to return.</p>
+
+<p>Stertinius, who had been sent before to receive the submission of
+Sigimer, the brother of Segestes, had now brought him and his son to the
+city of the Ubians; both were pardoned, the father promptly, the son
+with more hesitation, because he was said to have insulted the corpse of
+Varus. For the rest, Spain, Italy, and the Gauls vied in supplying the
+losses of the army, offering arms, horses, money, whatever each had at
+hand. Germanicus, applauding their zeal, accepted only the horses and
+arms for the war; with his own money he assisted the soldiers; and, to
+soften by kindness also the memory of the late disaster, he visited the
+wounded, extolled the exploits of individuals, and, looking at their
+wounds, with hopes encouraged some, with a sense of glory animated
+others, and by affability and attention confirmed them all in devotion
+to himself and to his service. Between the Romans and the Cheruscans
+flowed the river Visurgis. On its bank stood Arminius, with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> other
+chiefs, inquiring whether Germanicus was come; and being answered that
+he was there, he prayed leave to speak with his brother. This brother of
+his was in the army, his name Flavius, remarkable for his fidelity, and
+for the loss of an eye under Tiberius. Permission was then granted.
+Flavius, advancing, was saluted by Arminius, who having removed his own
+attendants, requested that the archers ranged upon our bank might
+retire. When they were gone&mdash;"How came you," he asked his brother, "by
+that deformity in your face?" The brother having informed him where and
+in what fight, he desired to know "what reward he had received"? Flavius
+answered, "Increase of pay, the chain, the crown, and other military
+gifts"; which Arminius treated with derision, as the vile wages of
+servitude.</p>
+
+<p>After that they began in different strains. Flavius urged "the Roman
+greatness, the power of C&aelig;sar, the severe punishment inflicted on the
+vanquished; and the clemency vouchsafed to those who submitted; that
+neither the wife nor son of Arminius was treated as a captive." Arminius
+to this opposed "the claims of country, their hereditary liberty, the
+domestic gods of Germany; their mother, who joined in his prayer that he
+would not prefer the character of a deserter, and a betrayer of his
+kinsmen and connections, in short, of his race, to that of their
+general." From this they gradually proceeded to invectives; nor would
+the interposition of the river have restrained them from an encounter,
+had not Stertinius, running to him, held back Flavius, full of rage and
+calling for his arms and his horse. On the opposite side was seen
+Arminius, menacing furiously and proclaiming battle. For most of what he
+said in this dialogue was in Latin, having, as the general of his
+countrymen, served in the Roman camp.</p>
+
+<p>Next day the German army stood in order of battle beyond the Visurgis.
+Germanicus, who thought it became not a general to endanger the legions
+in the passage without bridges and guards, made the horse ford over.
+They were led by Stertinius and &AElig;milius, one of the principal
+centurions, who entered the river at distant places to divide the
+attention of the foe. Cariovalda, captain of the Batavians, dashed
+through where the stream was most rapid, and was by the Cheruscans&mdash;who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+feigned flight&mdash;drawn into a plain surrounded by woods. Then starting up
+at once, and pouring upon him on every side, they overthrew those who
+resisted, and pressed after those who gave way, who at length, forming
+themselves into a circle, were assailed by some hand-to-hand, by others
+were annoyed by missiles. Cariovalda, having long sustained the fury of
+the enemy, exhorted his men to break through the assailing bands in a
+solid body; he himself charged into the thickest, and fell under a
+shower of darts&mdash;his horse also being killed&mdash;and many nobles fell
+around him. The rest were saved by their own bravery, or by the cavalry
+under Stertinius and &AElig;milius, which came up to their assistance.</p>
+
+<p>Germanicus, having passed the Visurgis, learned from a deserter that
+Arminius had marked out the place of battle; that more tribes also had
+joined him at a wood sacred to Hercules, and would attempt to storm our
+camp by night. The deserter was believed, the enemy's fires were in
+view, and the scouts, having advanced toward them, reported that they
+heard the neighing of horses and the murmur of a mighty and tumultuous
+host. Being thus upon the eve of a decisive battle, Germanicus thought
+it behooved him to learn the sentiments of the soldiers, and deliberated
+with himself how to get at the truth; "the reports of the tribunes and
+centurions were oftener agreeable than true; the freedmen had servile
+spirits; friends were apt to flatter; if an assembly were called, there,
+too, the counsel proposed by a few was carried by the clamorous plaudits
+of the rest. The minds of soldiers could, then, only be thoroughly known
+when, by themselves, free from all restraint, and over their mess, they
+gave unreserved utterance to their hopes and fears."</p>
+
+<p>At nightfall, taking the path leading by the place of divination,<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> he
+went out with a single attendant, a deerskin covering his shoulders,<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a>
+and proceeding by a secret way where there were no sentinels, entered
+the avenues of the camp, stationed himself near the tents, and eagerly
+listened to what was said of himself, while one magnified the imperial
+birth of his general,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> another his graceful person, very many his
+firmness, condescension, and the evenness of his temper, whether
+seriously occupied or in moments of relaxation; and they confessed that
+their sense of his merits should be shown in battle, protesting at the
+same time that those traitors and violators of peace should be made a
+sacrifice to vengeance and to fame. In the mean time one of the enemy
+who understood Latin rode up to the palisades, and with a loud voice
+offered, in the name of Arminius, to every deserter a wife and land,
+and, as long as the war lasted, a hundred sesterces a day. This affront
+kindled the wrath of the legions. "Let day come," they cried, "battle
+should be given, the soldiers would themselves take the lands of the
+Germans, lead away wives by right of conquest; they, however, welcomed
+the omen, and considered the wealth and women of the enemy their
+destined prey." About the third watch<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> an attempt was made upon the
+camp, but not a dart was discharged, as they found the cohorts planted
+thick upon the works, and nothing neglected that was necessary for a
+vigorous defence.</p>
+
+<p>Germanicus had the same night a cheering dream: he thought he
+sacrificed, and, in place of his own robe besmeared with the blood of
+the victim, received one fairer from the hands of his grandmother
+Augusta. Elated by the omen, and the auspices being favorable, he called
+an assembly, and laid before them what in his judgment seemed likely to
+be advantageous and suitable for the impending battle. He said "that to
+the Roman soldiers not only plains, but, with due circumspection, even
+woods and forests were convenient. The huge targets, the enormous spears
+of the barbarians, could never be wielded among trunks of trees and
+thickets of underwood shooting up from the ground like Roman swords and
+javelins, and armor fitting the body; that they should reiterate their
+blows, and aim at the face with their swords. The Germans had neither
+helmet nor coat of mail; their bucklers were not even strengthened with
+leather or iron, but mere contextures of twigs, and boards of no
+substance flourished over with paint; their first rank was armed with
+pikes, in some sort, the rest had only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> stakes burned at the end, or
+short darts. And now to come to their persons, as they were terrific to
+sight, and vigorous enough for a brief effort, so they were utterly
+impatient of wounds; unaffected with shame for misconduct, and destitute
+of respect for their generals. They would quit their posts or run away
+before the enemy; cowards in adversity, in prosperity despisers of all
+divine, of all human laws; if weary of marches and sea voyages, they
+wished an end of these things, by this battle it was presented to them.
+The Elbe was now nearer than the Rhine; there was nothing to subdue
+beyond this; they had only to place him, crowned with victory, in the
+same country which had witnessed the triumphs of his father and uncle,
+in whose footsteps he was treading." The ardor of the soldiers was
+kindled by this speech of the general, and the signal for the onset was
+given.</p>
+
+<p>Neither did Arminius or the other chiefs neglect solemnly to assure
+their several bands that "these were Romans; the most desperate
+fugitives of the Varian army, who, to avoid the hardships of war, had
+put on the character of rebels; who, without any hope of success, were
+again braving the angry gods, and exposing to their exasperated foes,
+some of them backs burdened with wounds, others limbs enfeebled with the
+effects of storms and tempests. Their motive for having recourse to a
+fleet and the pathless regions of the ocean was that no one might oppose
+them as they approached or pursue them when repulsed; but when they
+engaged hand-to-hand, vain would be the help of winds and oars after a
+defeat. The Germans needed only remember their rapine, cruelty, and
+pride; was any other course left them than to maintain their liberty,
+and, if they could not do that, to die before they took a yoke upon
+them?"</p>
+
+<p>The enemy thus inflamed, and calling for battle, were led into a plain
+called Idistavisus. It lies between the Visurgis and the hills, and
+winds irregularly along, as it is encroached upon by the projecting
+bases of the mountains or enlarged by the receding banks of the river.
+At their rear rose a majestic forest, the branches of the trees shooting
+up into the air, but the ground clear between their trunks. The army of
+barbarians occupied the plain and the entrances of the forest; the
+Cheruscans alone sat in ambush upon the mountain, in order to pour<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> down
+from thence upon the Romans when engaged in the fight. Our army marched
+thus: the auxiliary Gauls and Germans in front, after them the foot
+archers, next four legions, and then Germanicus with two pr&aelig;torian
+cohorts and the choice of the cavalry; then four legions more, and the
+light foot with the mounted archers, and the other cohorts of the
+allies; the men were on the alert and in readiness, so that the order of
+march might form the order of battle when they halted.</p>
+
+<p>As the bands of Cheruscans who had impatiently rushed forward were now
+perceived, Germanicus commanded the most efficient of his horse to
+charge them in the flank, and Stertinius with the rest to wheel round to
+attack them in the rear, and promised to be ready to assist them at the
+proper moment. Meanwhile an omen of happiest import appeared; eight
+eagles, seen to fly toward the wood and to enter it, caught the eye of
+the general. "Advance!" he cried, "follow the Roman birds; follow the
+tutelar deities of the legions!"</p>
+
+<p>At once the foot charged, and the cavalry sent forward attacked their
+flank and rear, and, strange to relate, the two divisions of their army
+fled opposite ways; that in the wood ran to the plain, that in the plain
+rushed into the wood. The Cheruscans between both were driven from the
+hills; among them Arminius formed a conspicuous object, while with his
+hand, his voice, and the exhibition of his wounds he strove to sustain
+the fight. He had vigorously assaulted the archers, and would have
+broken through them had not the cohorts of the Rh&aelig;tians, the
+Vindelicians, and the Gauls advanced to oppose him. However, by his own
+personal effort and the impetus of his horse he made good his passage,
+his face besmeared with his own blood to avoid being known. Some have
+related that the Chaucians, who were among the Roman auxiliaries, knew
+him and let him go; the same bravery or stratagem procured Inguiomer his
+escape; the rest were slain on all hands; great numbers attempting to
+swim the Visurgis perished either by the darts showered after them or
+the violence of the current, or, if they escaped these, they were
+overwhelmed by the weight of the rushing crowd and the banks which fell
+upon them. Some, seeking an ignominious refuge, climbed to the tops of
+trees, and, concealing themselves among the branches, were shot in
+sport<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> by the archers, who were brought up for the purpose; others were
+dashed against the ground as the trees were felled. This was a great
+victory, and withal achieved without loss on our side.</p>
+
+<p>This slaughter of the foe, from the fifth hour<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> of the day until
+night, filled the country for ten miles with carcasses and arms. Among
+the spoils, chains were found, which, sure of conquering, they had
+brought to bind the Roman captives. The soldiers saluted Tiberius as
+"Imperator"<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> upon the field of battle, and, raising a mount, placed
+upon it, after the manner of trophies, the German arms, with the names
+of all the vanquished nations inscribed below.</p>
+
+<p>This sight filled the Germans with more anguish and rage than all their
+wounds, afflictions, and overthrows. They, who were just now prepared to
+abandon their dwellings and retire beyond the Elbe, meditate war and
+grasp their arms; people, nobles, youth, aged, all rush suddenly upon
+the Roman army in its march and disorder it. Lastly, they chose a
+position shut in by a river and a forest, the inner space being a
+confined and humid plain; the forest, too, surrounded with a deep marsh,
+except that the Angrivarii had elevated one side by erecting a broad
+mound to part them and the Cheruscans. Here their foot were posted;
+their horse were concealed among the neighboring groves, that they might
+be on the rear of the legions when they had entered the wood.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing of all this was a secret to Germanicus. He knew their counsels,
+their stations, their overt movements and their concealed measures; and
+turned their subtlety to the destruction of themselves. To Seius Tubero,
+his lieutenant, he committed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> the horse and the plain; the infantry he
+so formed that part might pass the level approaches into the wood, and
+the rest force their way up the rampart; whatever was arduous he
+reserved to himself, the rest he committed to his lieutenants. Those who
+had the even ground to traverse easily forced an entrance; but they who
+were to storm the rampart were battered from above, as if they had been
+assaulting a wall. The general perceived the inequality of this close
+encounter, and, drawing off the legions a small distance, ordered the
+slingers and engineers to discharge their missiles and dislodge the
+enemy. Immediately darts were poured from the engines, and the defenders
+of the barrier, the more conspicuous they were, with the more wounds
+were beaten down. Germanicus, having taken the rampart, first forced his
+way at the head of the pr&aelig;torian cohorts into the wood, and there
+fought, foot-to-foot. Behind the enemy was the morass, behind the Romans
+the mountains or the river; no room for either to retreat, no hope but
+in valor, no safety but in victory.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans were not inferior in courage, but in their method of
+fighting and the nature of their arms; as their vast numbers, hampered
+in narrow places, could not push forward, nor recover their immense
+spears, nor practise their usual assaults and rapid motions, being
+compelled by their crowded condition to adopt a stationary manner of
+fighting. On the contrary, our soldiers, with shields fitted to their
+breasts, and their hands firmly grasping their sword hilts, could gash
+the brawny limbs and naked faces of the barbarians, and open themselves
+a way with havoc to the enemy. Besides, the activity of Arminius now
+failed him, being either exhausted by a succession of disasters or
+disabled by his recent wound. Nay, Inguiomer, too, who flew from place
+to place throughout the battle, was abandoned by fortune rather than
+courage. Germanicus, to be the easier known, pulled off his helmet, and
+exhorted his men "to prosecute the slaughter; they wanted no captives,"
+he said; "the extermination of the people alone would put an end to the
+war!" It was now late in the day and he drew off a legion to pitch a
+camp; the rest glutted themselves till night with the blood of the foe;
+the horse fought with doubtful success.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Germanicus, having in a public harangue praised his victorious troops,
+raised a pile of arms with this proud inscription: "That the army of
+Tiberius C&aelig;sar, having subdued the nations between the Rhine and the
+Elbe, had consecrated these memorials to Mars, to Jupiter, and to
+Augustus." Of himself he made no mention; either fearful of provoking
+envy or that he felt satisfied with the consciousness of his own merit.
+He next charged Stertinius with the war among the Angrivarians, and he
+would have proceeded had they not made haste to submit; approaching as
+supplicants, and making a full confession of their guilt, they received
+pardon without reserve.</p>
+
+<p>The summer being now far advanced, some of the legions were sent back
+into winter quarters by land; the greater part C&aelig;sar put on board the
+fleet and conveyed them along the Amisia to the ocean. The sea, at first
+serene, resounded only with the oars of a thousand ships or their
+impulse when under sail; but presently a shower of hail poured down from
+a black mass of clouds; at the same time storms raging on all sides in
+every variety, the billows rolling now here, now there, obstructed the
+view and made it impossible to manage the ships. The soldiers, too,
+unaccustomed to the perils of the sea, in their alarm embarrassed the
+mariners, or, helping them awkwardly, rendered unavailing the services
+of the skilful. After this, the whole expanse of air and sea was swept
+by a southwest wind, which, deriving strength from the mountainous
+regions of Germany, its deep rivers, and boundless tract of clouded
+atmosphere, and rendered still harsher by the rigor of the neighboring
+north, tore away the ships, scattered and drove them into the open
+ocean, or upon islands, dangerous from precipitous rocks or the hidden
+sand-banks which beset them. Having got a little clear of these (but
+with great difficulty), the tide turned, and, flowing in the same
+direction as that in which the wind blew, they were unable to ride at
+anchor or bale out the water that broke in upon them. Horses, beasts of
+burden, baggage, even arms, were thrown overboard to lighten the holds
+of the vessels, which took in water at their sides and from the waves
+running over them. Around them were either shores inhabited by enemies
+or a sea so vast and unfathomable as to be supposed to be the limit of
+the world and unbounded by any land. Part<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> of the fleet was swallowed
+up; many ships were driven upon remote islands where, without a trace of
+civilized humanity, the men perished through famine, or were kept alive
+by the carcasses of horses that were dashed upon the same shore. The
+galley of Germanicus alone reached the coast of the Chaucians<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> where,
+during the whole period of his stay, both day and night, amid the rocks
+and prominences of the shore, he reproached himself as being the author
+of such overwhelming destruction, and was hardly restrained by his
+friends from destroying himself in the sea. At last, with the returning
+tide and favoring gale, the shattered ships returned&mdash;almost all
+destitute of oars, or with garments spread for sails, and some towed by
+those which were less disabled. He repaired them hastily, and despatched
+them to search the islands. By this diligence the greater part were
+recovered; many were by the Angrivarians (our new subjects) redeemed
+from their more inland neighbors and restored; and some, driven into
+Great Britain, were sent back by the petty kings. Each according to the
+remoteness of the region he had returned from recounted the wonders he
+had witnessed: "the impetuosity of whirlwinds; strange birds; sea
+monsters of ambiguous form between man and beast"&mdash;things either seen or
+fancied from the effects of fear.</p>
+
+<p>Intelligence of this wreck animated the Germans with hopes of renewing
+the war, which Germanicus, perceiving, resolved to check. He commanded
+Caius Silius, with thirty thousand foot and three thousand horse, to
+march into the country of the Cattians; he himself, with a greater
+force, invaded the Marsians, where he learned from Malovendus, their
+general&mdash;lately taken into our subjection&mdash;that the eagle of one of
+Varus' legions was hidden underground in a neighboring grove kept by a
+slender guard. Instantly two parties were despatched: one to face the
+enemy and draw him from his position, the other to march around upon the
+rear and open the ground. Success attended both. Hence Germanicus,
+advancing toward the interior with greater alacrity, laid waste the
+country and destroyed the effects of the late disaster. The foe,
+wherever they engaged, were instantly defeated; nor (as was learned from
+the prisoners) were they ever more dismayed. "The Romans," they
+exclaimed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> "are invincible; no calamities can subdue them; they have
+wrecked their fleet, their arms are lost, our shores are covered with
+the bodies of their horses and men; and yet they have invaded us with
+their usual spirit, with the same firmness, and as if their numbers were
+increased."</p>
+
+<p>The army was thence led back into winter quarters, full of joy to have
+balanced, by this prosperous expedition, their misfortunes at sea; and
+by the bounty of Germanicus their happiness was increased; since to each
+sufferer he paid as much as he declared he had lost; neither was it
+doubted but that the enemy was tottering and concerting measures for
+obtaining peace, and that the next summer would terminate the war.
+Tiberius, by frequent letters, pressed him "to come home to the triumph
+decreed him." He urged also that he had experienced enough of events and
+casualties; he had indeed fought great and successful battles, but he
+must likewise remember his losses and calamities, which (however, owing
+to wind and waves, and no fault of the general) were yet great and
+grievous. He himself had been sent nine times into Germany by Augustus,
+and effected much more by policy than arms. It was thus he had brought
+the Sygambrians into subjection, thus the Suevians, thus King Maroboduus
+had been obliged to submit to terms. The Cheruscans, too, and the other
+hostile nations&mdash;now the Roman honor was vindicated&mdash;might be left to
+pursue their own intestine feuds. Germanicus besought one year to
+accomplish his conquest, but Tiberius assailed his modesty with fresh
+importunity, by offering him another consulship, the duties of which
+would require his presence; he added "that if the war were still to be
+prosecuted, he should leave materials for the fame of his brother,
+Drusus, who, as there then remained no other enemy, could acquire the
+title of <i>Imperator</i>, and earn the privilege of presenting the laurel in
+Germany alone." Germanicus persisted no longer; though he knew that this
+was all hypocrisy, and that through envy he was torn away from a ripened
+harvest of glory.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> There were four gates to a Roman camp. Livy says so in
+express terms: "<i>Ad quatuor portas exercitum instruxit, ut, signo dato,
+ex omnibus portubus eruptionem facerent.</i>" The several gates were the
+<i>pr&aelig;torian</i>; the gate opposite to it, at the extremity of the camp,
+called the <i>decuman</i>; and two others, called the <i>right</i> and <i>left
+principals</i>, because they stood on the right and left sides of the camp,
+fronting the street called <i>Principia</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> In the camp a place was set apart for taking the auspices,
+on the right of the general's tent.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> He assumed this disguise in order to appear like a German
+soldier.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> The Romans divided the night into four watches. Each watch
+was on duty three hours, and then relieved by the next in turn. The
+third watch began about the modern twelve at night.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> It appears that the battle was fought in July or the
+beginning of August, <i>adulta jam &aelig;state</i>. If so, the <i>fifth</i> hour nearly
+agrees with our nine in the morning.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> In the time of the republic, the title of Imperator was
+given by the soldiers in the field of battle to the commander-in-chief.
+The custom ceased under Augustus, who annexed the title to the imperial
+dignity, the prince being then generalissimo of all the armies of the
+empire. The name of Imperator, it is true, was afterward given to the
+general who gained a victory; but that was not done without the special
+permission of the prince. The same rule was observed under the following
+emperors; and accordingly we find that Tiberius was saluted Imperator;
+but the soldiers did not presume to do that honor to Germanicus.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> The mouth of the Visurgis, or the Weser.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE CRUCIFIXION</h2>
+
+<h4>A.D. 30<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></h4>
+
+<h3>FREDERIC WILLIAM FARRAR</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ took place on Friday of the
+Passover week of the Jews, in the year <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 30. This day is known
+and now generally observed by Christians as Good Friday.
+Crucifixion, as a means of inflicting death in the most cruel,
+lingering, and shameful way, was used by many nations of antiquity.
+The Jews never executed their criminals in this way, but the Greeks
+and Romans made the cross the instrument of death to malefactors.
+The cross was in the shape either of the letter T or the letter X,
+or was in the form familiar in such paintings of the Crucifixion as
+the well-known representation of Rubens. It was the usual custom to
+compel the criminal to carry his own cross to the place of
+execution. The cross was then set up and the criminal was usually
+tied to it by the hands and feet and left to perish of hunger and
+thirst. Sometimes he was given a narcotic drink to stupefy him. In
+the case of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ the victim was fastened
+to the cross by nails driven through his hands and feet.</p>
+
+<p>As Dr. Judson Titsworth has plainly pointed out, the men who were
+crucified with Jesus Christ were not thieves, but robbers (this is
+the term also used below by Farrar), or perhaps Jewish patriots, to
+the Romans political rebels and outlaws. They would then be classed
+with Jesus under the accusation that they were not loyal to the
+sovereignty of the Roman Emperor. During the procuratorship of
+Pontius Pilate there was a widely prevailing spirit of sedition and
+revolt among the Jews, and many rebels were sentenced to
+crucifixion. Such a rebel was the robber Barabbas, whom Pilate
+wished to substitute for Jesus as the victim of popular fury. The
+"robber" episode of the Crucifixion is treated by Farrar with a
+picturesque effect which heightens the vivid coloring in his
+account of the supreme event that marks "the central point of the
+world's history."</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Utterly brutal and revolting as was the punishment of crucifixion, which
+has now for fifteen hundred years been abolished by the common pity and
+abhorrence of mankind, there was one custom in Judea, and one
+occasionally practised<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> by the Romans, which reveal some touch of
+passing humanity. The latter consisted in giving to the sufferer a blow
+under the armpit, which, without causing death, yet hastened its
+approach. Of this I need not speak, because, for whatever reason, it was
+not practised on this occasion. The former, which seems to have been due
+to the milder nature of Judaism, and which was derived from a happy
+piece of rabbinic exegesis on Prov. xxxi. 6, consisted in giving to the
+condemned, immediately before his execution, a draught of wine medicated
+with some powerful opiate. It had been the custom of wealthy ladies in
+Jerusalem to provide this stupefying potion at their own expense, and
+they did so quite irrespectively of their sympathy for any individual
+criminal. It was probably taken freely by the two malefactors, but when
+they offered it to Jesus he would not take it. The refusal was an act of
+sublimest heroism. The effect of the draught was to dull the nerves, to
+cloud the intellect, to provide an an&aelig;sthetic against some part at least
+of the lingering agonies of that dreadful death. But he, whom some
+modern sceptics have been base enough to accuse of feminine feebleness
+and cowardly despair, preferred rather "to look Death in the face"&mdash;to
+meet the king of terrors without striving to deaden the force of one
+agonizing anticipation, or to still the throbbing of one lacerated
+nerve.</p>
+
+<p>The three crosses were laid on the ground&mdash;that of Jesus, which was
+doubtless taller than the other two, being placed in bitter scorn in the
+midst. Perhaps the cross-beam was now nailed to the upright, and
+certainly the title, which had either been borne by Jesus fastened round
+his neck or carried by one of the soldiers in front of him, was now
+nailed to the summit of his cross. Then he was stripped naked of all his
+clothes, and then followed the most awful moment of all. He was laid
+down upon the implement of torture. His arms were stretched along the
+cross-beams; and at the centre of the open palms the point of a huge
+iron nail was placed, which, by the blow of a mallet, was driven home
+into the wood. Then through either foot separately, or possibly through
+both together as they were placed one over the other, another huge nail
+tore its way through the quivering flesh. Whether the sufferer was
+<i>also</i> bound to the cross we do not know; but, to prevent the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> hands and
+feet being torn away by the weight of the body, which could not "rest
+upon nothing but four great wounds," there was, about the centre of the
+cross, a wooden projection strong enough to support, at least in part, a
+human body which soon became a weight of agony.</p>
+
+<p>It was probably at this moment of inconceivable horror that the voice of
+the Son of Man was heard uplifted, not in a scream of natural agony at
+that fearful torture, but calmly praying in divine compassion for his
+brutal and pitiless murderers&mdash;aye, and for all who in their sinful
+ignorance crucify him afresh forever: "Father, forgive them, for they
+know not what they do."</p>
+
+<p>And then the accursed tree&mdash;with its living human burden hanging upon it
+in helpless agony, and suffering fresh tortures as every movement
+irritated the fresh rents in hands and feet&mdash;was slowly heaved up by
+strong arms, and the end of it fixed firmly in a hole dug deep in the
+ground for that purpose. The feet were but a little raised above the
+earth. The victim was in full reach of every hand that might choose to
+strike, in close proximity to every gesture of insult and hatred. He
+might hang for hours to be abused, outraged, even tortured by the
+ever-moving multitude who, with that desire to see what is horrible
+which always characterizes the coarsest hearts, had thronged to gaze
+upon a sight which should rather have made them weep tears of blood.</p>
+
+<p>And there, in tortures which grew ever more insupportable, ever more
+maddening as time flowed on, the unhappy victims might linger in a
+living death so cruelly intolerable that often they were driven to
+entreat and implore the spectators or the executioners, for dear pity's
+sake, to put an end to anguish too awful for man to bear&mdash;conscious to
+the last, and often, with tears of abject misery, beseeching from their
+enemies the priceless boon of death.</p>
+
+<p>For indeed a death by crucifixion seems to include all that pain and
+death <i>can</i> have of horrible and ghastly&mdash;dizziness, cramp, thirst,
+starvation, sleeplessness, traumatic fever, tetanus, publicity of shame,
+long continuance of torment, horror of anticipation, mortification of
+untended wounds&mdash;all intensified just up to the point at which they can
+be endured at all, but all stopping just short of the point which would
+give to the sufferer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> the relief of unconsciousness. The unnatural
+position made every movement painful; the lacerated veins and crushed
+tendons throbbed with incessant anguish; the wounds, inflamed by
+exposure, gradually gangrened; the arteries&mdash;especially of the head and
+stomach&mdash;became swollen and oppressed with surcharged blood; and while
+each variety of misery went on gradually increasing, there was added to
+them the intolerable pang of a burning and raging thirst; and all these
+physical complications caused an internal excitement and anxiety which
+made the prospect of death itself&mdash;of death, the awful unknown enemy, at
+whose approach man usually shudders most&mdash;bear the aspect of a delicious
+and exquisite release.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the death to which Christ was doomed; and though for him it was
+happily shortened by all that he had previously endured, yet he hung
+from soon after noon until nearly sunset before "he gave up his soul to
+death."</p>
+
+<p>When the cross was uplifted the leading Jews, for the first time,
+prominently noticed the deadly insult in which Pilate had vented his
+indignation. Before, in their blind rage, they had imagined that the
+manner of his crucifixion was an insult aimed at <i>Jesus</i>; but now that
+they saw him hanging between the two robbers, on a cross yet loftier, it
+suddenly flashed upon them that it was a public scorn inflicted upon
+<i>them</i>. For on the white wooden tablet smeared with gypsum, which was to
+be seen so conspicuously over the head of Jesus on the cross, ran, in
+black letters, an inscription in the three civilized languages of the
+ancient world&mdash;the three languages of which <i>one</i> at least was certain
+to be known by every single man in that assembled multitude&mdash;in the
+official Latin, in the current Greek, in the vernacular
+Aramaic&mdash;informing all that this Man who was thus enduring a shameful,
+servile death&mdash;this Man thus crucified between two <i>sicarii</i> in the
+sight of the world, was "<span class="smcap">The King of the Jews</span>."</p>
+
+<p>To him who was crucified the poor malice seemed to have in it nothing of
+derision. Even on his cross he reigned; even there he seemed divinely
+elevated above the priests who had brought about his death, and the
+coarse, idle, vulgar multitude who had flocked to feed their greedy eyes
+upon his sufferings. The malice was quite impotent against One whose
+spiritual and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> moral nobleness struck awe into dying malefactors and
+heathen executioners, even in the lowest abyss of his physical
+degradation. With the passionate ill-humor of the Roman governor there
+probably blended a vein of seriousness. While he was delighted to
+revenge himself on his detested subjects by an act of public insolence,
+he probably meant, or half meant, to imply that this <i>was</i>, in one
+sense, the King of the Jews&mdash;the greatest, the noblest, the truest of
+his race, whom therefore his race had crucified. The King was not
+unworthy of his kingdom, but the kingdom of the King. There was
+something loftier even than royalty in the glazing eyes which never
+ceased to look with sorrow on the City of Righteousness, which had now
+become a city of murderers. The Jews felt the intensity of the scorn
+with which Pilate had treated them. It so completely poisoned their hour
+of triumph that they sent their chief priests in deputation, begging the
+governor to alter the obnoxious title. "Write not," they said, "'The
+King of the Jews,' but that 'He <i>said</i>, I am the King of the Jews.'" But
+Pilate's courage, which had oozed away so rapidly at the name of C&aelig;sar,
+had now revived. He was glad in any and every way to browbeat and thwart
+the men whose seditious clamor had forced him in the morning to act
+against his will. Few men had the power of giving expression to a
+sovereign contempt more effectually than the Romans. Without deigning
+any justification of what he had done, Pilate summarily dismissed these
+solemn hierarchs with the curt and contemptuous reply, "What I have
+written I have written."</p>
+
+<p>In order to prevent the possibility of any rescue, even at the last
+moment&mdash;since instances had been known of men taken from the cross and
+restored to life&mdash;a quaternion of soldiers with their centurion were
+left on the ground to guard the cross. The clothes of the victims always
+fell as perquisites to the men who had to perform so weary and
+disagreeable an office. Little dreaming how exactly they were fulfilling
+the mystic intimations of olden Jewish prophecy, they proceeded,
+therefore, to divide between them the garments of Jesus. The <i>tallith</i>
+they tore into four parts, probably ripping it down the seams; but the
+<i>cetoneth</i>, or undergarment, was formed of one continuous woven texture,
+and to tear would have been to spoil it; they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> therefore contented
+themselves with letting it become the property of any one of the four to
+whom it should fall by lot. When this had been decided, they sat down
+and watched him till the end, beguiling the weary lingering hours by
+eating and drinking, and gibing, and playing dice.</p>
+
+<p>It was a scene of tumult. The great body of the people seem to have
+stood silently at gaze; but some few of them as they passed by the
+cross&mdash;perhaps some of the many false witnesses and other conspirators
+of the previous night&mdash;mocked at Jesus with insulting noises and furious
+taunts, especially bidding him come down from the cross and save
+himself, since he could destroy the Temple and build it in three days.
+And the chief priests, and scribes, and elders, less awe-struck, less
+compassionate than the mass of the people, were not ashamed to disgrace
+their gray-haired dignity and lofty reputation by adding their heartless
+reproaches to those of the evil few. Unrestrained by the noble patience
+of the sufferer, unsated by the accomplishment of their wicked
+vengeance, unmoved by the sight of helpless anguish and the look of eyes
+that began to glaze in death, they congratulated one another under his
+cross with scornful insolence: "He saved others, himself he cannot
+save;" "Let this Christ, this King of Israel, descend now from the
+cross, that we may see and believe." No wonder then that the ignorant
+soldiers took their share of mockery with these shameless and
+unvenerable hierarchs: no wonder that, at their midday meal, they
+pledged in mock hilarity the Dying Man, cruelly holding up toward his
+burning lips their cups of sour wine, and echoing the Jewish taunts
+against the weakness of the King whose throne was a cross, whose crown
+was thorns. Nay, even the poor wretches who were crucified with him
+caught the hideous infection; comrades, perhaps, of the respited
+Barabbas, heirs of the rebellious fury of a Judas the Gaulonite, trained
+to recognize no Messiah but a Messiah of the sword, they reproachfully
+bade him, if his claims were true, to save himself and them. So <i>all</i>
+the voices about him rang with blasphemy and spite, and in that long
+slow agony his dying ear caught no accent of gratitude, of pity, or of
+love. Baseness, falsehood, savagery, stupidity&mdash;such were the
+characteristics of the world which thrust itself into hideous prominence
+before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> the Saviour's last consciousness, such the muddy and miserable
+stream that rolled under the cross before his dying eyes.</p>
+
+<p>But amid this chorus of infamy Jesus spoke not. He <i>could</i> have spoken.
+The pains of crucifixion did not confuse the intellect or paralyze the
+powers of speech. We read of crucified men who, for hours together upon
+the cross, vented their sorrow, their rage, or their despair in the
+manner that best accorded with their character; of some who raved and
+cursed, and spat at their enemies; of others who protested to the last
+against the iniquity of their sentence; of others who implored
+compassion with abject entreaties; of one even who, from the cross, as
+from a tribunal, harangued the multitude of his countrymen, and
+upbraided them with their wickedness and vice. But, except to bless and
+to encourage, and to add to the happiness and hope of others, Jesus
+spoke not. So far as the malice of the passers-by, and of priests and
+sanhedrists and soldiers, and of these poor robbers who suffered with
+him, was concerned&mdash;as before during the trial so now upon the cross&mdash;he
+maintained unbroken his kingly silence.</p>
+
+<p>But that silence, joined to his patient majesty and the divine holiness
+and innocence which radiated from him like a halo, was more eloquent
+than any words. It told earliest on one of the crucified robbers. At
+first this <i>bonus latro</i> of the Apocryphal Gospels seems to have faintly
+joined in the reproaches uttered by his fellow-sinner; but when those
+reproaches merged into deeper blasphemy, he spoke out his inmost
+thought. It is probable that he had met Jesus before, and heard him, and
+perhaps been one of those thousands who had seen his miracles. There is
+indeed no authority for the legend which assigns to him the name of
+Dysmas, or for the beautiful story of his having saved the life of the
+Virgin and her Child during their flight into Egypt. But on the plains
+of Gennesareth, perhaps from some robber's cave in the wild ravines of
+the Valley of the Doves, he may well have approached his presence&mdash;he
+may well have been one of those publicans and sinners who drew near to
+him for to hear him. And the words of Jesus had found some room in the
+good ground of his heart; they had not all fallen upon stony places.
+Even at this hour of shame and death, when he was suffering the just
+consequence of his past<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> evil deeds, faith triumphed. As a flame
+sometimes leaps up among dying embers, so amid the white ashes of a
+sinful life which lay so thick upon his heart, the flame of love toward
+his God and his Saviour was not quite quenched. Under the hellish
+outcries which had broken loose around the cross of Jesus there had lain
+a deep misgiving. Half of them seem to have been instigated by doubt and
+fear. Even in the self-congratulations of the priests we catch an
+undertone of dread. Suppose that even now some imposing miracle should
+be wrought! Suppose that even now that martyr-form should burst indeed
+into messianic splendor, and the King, who seemed to be in the slow
+misery of death, should suddenly with a great voice summon his legions
+of angels, and, springing from his cross upon the rolling clouds of
+heaven, come in flaming fire to take vengeance upon his enemies! And the
+air seemed to be full of signs. There was a gloom of gathering darkness
+in the sky, a thrill and tremor in the solid earth, a haunting presence
+as of ghostly visitants who chilled the heart and hovered in awful
+witness above that scene. The dying robber had joined at first in the
+half-taunting, half-despairing appeal to a defeat and weakness which
+contradicted all that he had hoped; but now this defeat seemed to be
+greater than victory, and this weakness more irresistible than strength.
+As he looked, the faith in his heart dawned more and more into the
+perfect day. He had long ceased to utter any reproachful words; he now
+rebuked his comrade's blasphemies. Ought not the suffering innocence of
+him who hung between them to shame into silence their just punishment
+and flagrant guilt? And so, turning his head to Jesus, he uttered the
+intense appeal, "O Jesus, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom."
+Then he, who had been mute amid invectives, spake at once in surpassing
+answer to that humble prayer, "Verily, I say to thee, to-day shalt thou
+be with me in Paradise."</p>
+
+<p>Though none spoke to comfort Jesus&mdash;though deep grief, and terror, and
+amazement kept them dumb&mdash;yet there were hearts amid the crowd that beat
+in sympathy with the awful sufferer. At a distance stood a number of
+women looking on, and perhaps, even at that dread hour, expecting his
+immediate deliverance. Many of these were women who had ministered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> to
+him in Galilee, and had come from thence in the great band of Galilean
+pilgrims. Conspicuous among this heart-stricken group were his mother
+Mary, Mary of Magdala, Mary the wife of Clopas, mother of James and
+Joses, and Salome the wife of Zebedee. Some of them, as the hours
+advanced, stole nearer and nearer to the cross, and at length the
+filming eye of the Saviour fell on his own mother Mary, as, with the
+sword piercing through and through her heart, she stood with the
+disciple whom he loved. His mother does not seem to have been much with
+him during his ministry. It may be that the duties and cares of a humble
+home rendered it impossible. At any rate, the only occasions on which we
+hear of her are occasions when she is with his brethren, and is joined
+with them in endeavoring to influence, apart from his own purposes and
+authority, his messianic course. But although at the very beginning of
+his ministry he had gently shown her that the earthly and filial
+relation was now to be transcended by one far more lofty and divine, and
+though this end of all her high hopes must have tried her faith with an
+overwhelming and unspeakable sorrow, yet she was true to him in this
+supreme hour of his humiliation, and would have done for him all that a
+mother's sympathy and love can do. Nor had he for a moment forgotten her
+who had bent over his infant slumbers, and with whom he had shared those
+thirty years in the cottage at Nazareth. Tenderly and sadly he thought
+of the future that awaited her during the remaining years of her life on
+earth, troubled as they must be by the tumults and persecutions of a
+struggling and nascent faith. After his resurrection her lot was wholly
+cast among his apostles, and the apostle whom he loved the most, the
+apostle who was nearest to him in heart and life, seemed the fittest to
+take care of her. To him, therefore&mdash;to John whom he had loved more than
+his brethren&mdash;to John whose head had leaned upon his breast at the Last
+Supper, he consigned her as a sacred charge. "Woman," he said to her, in
+fewest words, but in words which breathed the uttermost spirit of
+tenderness, "behold thy son;" and then to St. John, "Behold thy mother."
+He could make no gesture with those pierced hands, but he could bend his
+head. They listened in speechless emotion, but from that hour&mdash;perhaps
+from that very moment&mdash;leading her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> away from a spectacle which did but
+torture her soul with unavailing agony, that disciple took her to his
+own home.</p>
+
+<p>It was now noon, and at the Holy City the sunshine should have been
+burning over that scene of horror with a power such as it has in the
+full depth of an English summer-time. But instead of this, the face of
+the heavens was black, and the noonday sun was "turned into darkness,"
+on "this great and terrible day of the Lord." It could have been no
+darkness of any natural eclipse, for the Paschal moon was at the full;
+but it was one of those "signs from heaven" for which, during the
+ministry of Jesus, the Pharisees had so often clamored in vain. The
+early Fathers appealed to pagan authorities&mdash;the historian Phallus, the
+chronicler Phlegon&mdash;for such a darkness; but we have no means of testing
+the accuracy of these references, and it is quite possible that the
+darkness was a local gloom which hung densely over the guilty city and
+its immediate neighborhood. But whatever it was, it clearly filled the
+minds of all who beheld it with yet deeper misgiving. The taunts and
+jeers of the Jewish priests and the heathen soldiers were evidently
+confined to the earlier hours of the Crucifixion. Its later stages seem
+to have thrilled alike the guilty and the innocent with emotions of
+dread and horror. Of the incidents of those last three hours we are told
+nothing, and that awful obscuration of the noonday sun may well have
+overawed every heart into an inaction respecting which there was nothing
+to relate. What Jesus suffered <i>then</i> for us men and our salvation we
+cannot know, for during those three hours he hung upon his cross in
+silence and darkness; or, if he spoke, there was none there to record
+his words. But toward the close of that time his anguish culminated,
+and, emptied to the very uttermost of that glory which he had since the
+world began, drinking to the very deepest dregs the cup of humiliation
+and bitterness, enduring not only to have taken upon him the form of a
+servant, but also to suffer the last infamy which human hatred could
+impose on servile helplessness, he uttered that mysterious cry, of which
+the full significance will never be fathomed by man: <i>Eli, Eli, lama
+Sabachthani?</i> ("My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?")</p>
+
+<p>In those words, quoting the psalm in which the early Fathers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> rightly
+saw a far-off prophecy of the whole passion of Christ, he borrowed from
+David's utter agony the expression of his own. In that hour he was
+alone. Sinking from depth to depth of unfathomable suffering, until, at
+the close approach of a death which&mdash;because he was God, and yet had
+been made man&mdash;was more awful to him than it could ever be to any of the
+sons of men, it seemed as if even his divine humanity could endure no
+more.</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless the voice of the sufferer&mdash;though uttered loudly in that
+paroxysm of an emotion which, in another, would almost have touched the
+verge of despair&mdash;was yet rendered more uncertain and indistinct from
+the condition of exhaustion in which he hung; and so, amid the darkness,
+and confused noise, and dull footsteps of the moving multitude, there
+were some who did not hear what he had said. They had caught only the
+first syllable, and said to one another that he had called on the name
+of Elijah. The readiness with which they seized this false impression is
+another proof of the wild state of excitement and terror&mdash;the
+involuntary dread of something great and unforeseen and terrible&mdash;to
+which they had been reduced from their former savage insolence. For
+Elijah, the great prophet of the Old Covenant, was inextricably mingled
+with all the Jewish expectations of a Messiah, and these expectations
+were full of wrath. The coming of Elijah would be the coming of a day of
+fire, in which the sun should be turned into blackness and the moon into
+blood, and the powers of heaven should be shaken. Already the noonday
+sun was shrouded in unnatural eclipse; might not some awful form at any
+moment rend the heavens and come down, touch the mountains and they
+should smoke? The vague anticipation of conscious guilt was unfulfilled.
+Not such as yet was to be the method of God's workings. His messages to
+man for many ages more were not to be in the thunder and earthquake, not
+in rushing wind or roaring flame, but in the "still small voice"
+speaking always amid the apparent silences of Time in whispers
+intelligible to man's heart, but in which there is neither speech nor
+language, though the voice is heard.</p>
+
+<p>But now the end was very rapidly approaching, and Jesus, who had been
+hanging for nearly six hours upon the cross, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> suffering from that
+torment of thirst which is most difficult of all for the human frame to
+bear&mdash;perhaps the most unmitigated of the many separate sources of
+anguish which were combined in this worst form of death. No doubt this
+burning thirst was aggravated by seeing the Roman soldiers drinking so
+near the cross; and happily for mankind, Jesus had never sanctioned the
+unnatural affectation of stoic impassibility. And so he uttered the one
+sole word of physical suffering which had been wrung from him by all the
+hours in which he had endured the extreme of all that man can inflict.
+He cried aloud, "I thirst." Probably a few hours before, the cry would
+have only provoked a roar of frantic mockery; but now the lookers-on
+were reduced by awe to a readier humanity. Near the cross there lay on
+the ground the large earthen vessel containing the <i>posca</i>, which was
+the ordinary drink of the Roman soldiers. The mouth of it was filled
+with a piece of sponge, which served as a cork. Instantly some one&mdash;we
+know not whether he was friend or enemy, or merely one who was there out
+of idle curiosity&mdash;took out the sponge and dipped it in the posca to
+give it to Jesus. But low as was the elevation of the cross, the head of
+the sufferer, as it rested on the horizontal beam of the accursed tree,
+was just beyond the man's reach; and therefore he put the sponge at the
+end of a stalk of hyssop&mdash;about a foot long&mdash;and held it up to the
+parched and dying lips. Even this simple act of pity, which Jesus did
+not refuse, seemed to jar upon the condition of nervous excitement with
+which some of the multitude were looking on. "Let be," they said to the
+man, "let us see whether Elias is coming to save him." The man did not
+desist from his act of mercy, but when it was done he, too, seems to
+have echoed those uneasy words. But Elias came not, nor human comforter,
+nor angel deliverer. It was the will of God, it was the will of the Son
+of God, that he should be "perfected through sufferings"; that&mdash;for the
+eternal example of all his children as long as the world should last&mdash;he
+should "endure unto the end."</p>
+
+<p>And now the end was come. Once more, in the words of the sweet Psalmist
+of Israel, but adding to them that title of trustful love which, through
+him, is permitted to the use of all mankind, "Father," he said, "into
+thy hands I commend my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> spirit." Then with one more great effort he
+uttered the last cry&mdash;"It is finished." It may be that that great cry
+ruptured some of the vessels of his heart, for no sooner had it been
+uttered than he bowed his head upon his breast and yielded his life, "a
+ransom for many"&mdash;a willing sacrifice to his Heavenly Father. "Finished
+was his holy life; with his life his struggle, with his struggle his
+work, with his work the redemption, with the redemption the foundation
+of the new world." At that moment the veil of the Temple was rent in
+twain from the top to the bottom. An earthquake shook the earth and
+split the rocks, and as it rolled away from their places the great
+stones which closed and covered the cavern sepulchres of the Jews, so it
+seemed to the imaginations of many to have disimprisoned the spirits of
+the dead, and to have filled the air with ghostly visitants, who after
+Christ had risen appeared to linger in the Holy City. These
+circumstances of amazement, joined to all they had observed in the
+bearing of the Crucified, cowed even the cruel and gay indifference of
+the Roman soldiers. On the centurion who was in command of them the
+whole scene had exercised a yet deeper influence. As he stood opposite
+to the cross and saw the Saviour die, he glorified God and exclaimed,
+"This Man was in truth righteous"&mdash;nay, more, "This Man was a Son of
+God." Even the multitude, utterly sobered from their furious excitement
+and frantic rage, began to be weighed down with a guilty consciousness
+that the scene which they had witnessed had in it something more awful
+than they could have conceived, and as they returned to Jerusalem they
+wailed and beat upon their breasts. Well might they do so! This was the
+last drop in a full cup of wickedness: this was the beginning of the end
+of their city and name and race.</p>
+
+<p>And in truth that scene was more awful than they, or even we, can know.
+The secular historian, be he ever so sceptical, cannot fail to see in it
+the central point of the world's history. Whether he be a believer in
+Christ or not, he cannot refuse to admit that this new religion grew
+from the smallest of all seeds to be a mighty tree, so that the birds of
+the air took refuge in its branches; that it was the little stone cut
+without hands which dashed into pieces the colossal image of heathen
+greatness, and grew till it became a great mountain and filled the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
+earth. Alike to the infidel and to the believer the Crucifixion is the
+boundary instant between ancient and modern days. Morally and
+physically, no less than spiritually, the faith of Christ was the
+<i>palingenesia</i> of the world. It came like the dawn of a new spring to
+nations "effete with the drunkenness of crime." The struggle was long
+and hard, but from the hour when Christ died began the death-knell to
+every satanic tyranny and every tolerated abomination. From that hour
+holiness became the universal ideal of all who name the name of Christ
+as their Lord, and the attainment of that ideal the common heritage of
+souls in which his spirit dwells.</p>
+
+<p>The effects, then, of the work of Christ are even to the unbeliever
+indisputable and historical. It expelled cruelty; it curbed passion; it
+branded suicide; it punished and repressed an execrable infanticide; it
+drove the shameless impurities of heathendom into a congenial darkness.
+There was hardly a class whose wrongs it did not remedy. It rescued the
+gladiator; it freed the slave; it protected the captive; it nursed the
+sick; it sheltered the orphan; it elevated the woman; it shrouded as
+with a halo of sacred innocence the tender years of the child. In every
+region of life its ameliorating influence was felt. It changed pity from
+a vice into a virtue. It elevated poverty from a curse into a beatitude.
+It ennobled labor from a vulgarity into a dignity and a duty. It
+sanctified marriage from little more than a burdensome convention into
+little less than a blessed sacrament. It revealed for the first time the
+angelic beauty of a purity of which men had despaired and of a meekness
+at which they had utterly scoffed. It created the very conception of
+charity, and broadened the limits of its obligation from the narrow
+circle of a neighborhood to the widest horizons of the race. And while
+it thus evolved the idea of humanity as a common brotherhood, even where
+its tidings were <i>not</i> believed&mdash;all over the world, wherever its
+tidings <i>were</i> believed, it cleansed the life and elevated the soul of
+each individual man. And in all lands where it has moulded the
+characters of its true believers it has created hearts so pure and lives
+so peaceful and homes so sweet that it might seem as though those angels
+who had heralded its advent had also whispered to every depressed and
+despairing sufferer among the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> sons of men: "Though ye have lien among
+the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove, that is covered with
+silver wings, and her feathers like gold."</p>
+
+<p>Others, if they <i>can</i> and <i>will</i>, may see in such a work as this no
+divine Providence, they may think it philosophical enlightenment to hold
+that Christianity and Christendom are adequately accounted for by the
+idle dreams of a noble self-deceiver and the passionate hallucinations
+of a recovered demoniac. We persecute them not, we denounce them not, we
+judge them not; but we say that, unless all life be a hollow, there
+could have been no such miserable origin to the sole religion of the
+world which holds the perfect balance between philosophy and popularity,
+between religion and morals, between meek submissiveness and the pride
+of freedom, between the ideal and the real, between the inward and the
+outward, between modest stillness and heroic energy&mdash;nay, between the
+tenderest conservatism and the boldest plans of world-wide reformation.
+The witness of history to Christ is a witness which has been given with
+irresistible cogency; and it has been so given to none but him.</p>
+
+<p>But while even the unbeliever must see what the life and death of Jesus
+have effected in the world, to the believer that life and death are
+something deeper still; to him they are nothing less than a resurrection
+from the dead. He sees in the cross of Christ something which far
+transcends its historical significance. He sees in it the fulfilment of
+all prophecy as well as the consummation of all history; he sees in it
+the explanation of the mystery of birth, and the conquest over the
+mystery of the grave. In that life he finds a perfect example; in that
+death an infinite redemption. As he contemplates the Incarnation and the
+Crucifixion, he no longer feels that God is far away, and that this
+earth is but a disregarded speck in the infinite azure, and he himself
+but an insignificant atom chance-thrown amid the thousand million living
+souls of an innumerable race, but he exclaims in faith and hope and
+love: "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men; yea, he will be their
+God, and they shall be his people." "Ye are the temple of the living
+God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The sun was westering as the darkness rolled away from the completed
+sacrifice. They who had not thought it a pollution to inaugurate their
+feast by the murder of their Messiah, were seriously alarmed lest the
+sanctity of the following day&mdash;which began at sunset&mdash;should be
+compromised by the hanging of the corpses on the cross. And horrible to
+relate, the crucified often lived for many hours&mdash;nay, even for two
+days&mdash;in their torture. The Jews therefore begged Pilate that their legs
+might be broken, and their bodies taken down. This <i>crurifragium</i>, as it
+was called, consisted in striking the legs of the sufferers with a heavy
+mallet, a violence which seemed always to have hastened, if it did not
+instantly cause, their death. Nor would the Jews be the only persons who
+would be anxious to hasten the end by giving the deadly blow. Until life
+was extinct the soldiers appointed to guard the execution dared not
+leave the ground. The wish, therefore, was readily granted. The soldiers
+broke the legs of the two malefactors first, and then, coming to Jesus,
+found that the great cry had been indeed his last, and that he was dead
+already. They did not therefore break his legs, and thus unwittingly
+preserved the symbolism of that Paschal lamb, of which he was the
+antetype, and of which it had been commanded that "a bone of it shall
+not be broken." And yet, as he might be only in a syncope&mdash;as instances
+had been known in which men apparently dead had been taken down from the
+cross and resuscitated&mdash;and as the lives of the soldiers would have had
+to answer for any irregularity, one of them, in order to make death
+certain, drove the broad head of his <i>hasta</i> into his side. The wound,
+as it was meant to do, pierced the region of the heart, and "forthwith,"
+says St. John, with an emphatic appeal to the truthfulness of his
+eye-witness&mdash;an appeal which would be singularly and impossibly
+blasphemous if the narrative were the forgery which so much elaborate
+modern criticism has wholly failed to prove that it is&mdash;"forthwith came
+there out blood and water." Whether the water was due to some abnormal
+pathological conditions caused by the dreadful complication of the
+Saviour's sufferings, or whether it rather means that the pericardium
+had been rent by the spear point, and that those who took down the body
+observed some drops of its serum mingled with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> blood, in either case
+that lance thrust was sufficient to hush all the heretical assertions
+that Jesus had only <i>seemed</i> to die; and as it assured the soldiers, so
+should it assure all who have doubted, that he, who on the third day
+rose again, had in truth been crucified, dead, and buried, and that his
+soul had passed into the unseen world.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> The disputed date of the Crucifixion of Jesus&mdash;long
+variously placed between <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 29 and 33&mdash;is definitely fixed by many
+later authorities at the year 30.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE RISE AND SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY</h2>
+
+<h4>A.D. 33</h4>
+
+<h3>
+RENAN&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;WISE&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;NEWMAN
+</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>It is a favorite view of historians and critical students that
+Jesus was born at a time when the world seemed especially prepared
+for his birth. The correspondence between world conditions then and
+the actual process of Christianity in its rise and early spread
+appears to conform to evolutionary laws as regarded in the light of
+modern interpretation.</p>
+
+<p>In its origin Christianity is most intimately connected with
+Judaism, the parent religion. The known world, however, in the time
+of Jesus was largely under Roman dominion. This was true of the
+land where Jesus was born. The Roman Empire was then comparatively
+at peace, and it was the admonition of St. Paul that the first
+Christians should maintain that peace. The wide sovereignty of Rome
+gave the apostles of Christ access to different nations, many of
+whom had become civilized under Roman influence. But pure
+monotheism existed only among the Jews. All other nations had a
+variety of gods and peculiar forms of worship. In most of the pagan
+religions there were elements of truth and beauty, but they lacked
+in ethical principles and in moral application to life. Most of
+their priestcraft was a vulgar imposition upon the ignorance and
+credulity of the common people. The prevailing philosophies&mdash;which,
+among the more enlightened, took the place of religion&mdash;were the
+Grecian, adopted also by the Romans, and the oriental, with
+numerous followers in Persia, Syria, Chald&aelig;a, Egypt, and likewise
+among the Jews. But the philosophers were divided into antagonistic
+sects. Out of such conditions no practical religion could develop.
+In the doctrines of Buddhism were to be found the spirit and
+purpose of a devout and humanely religious people, but the
+intricate mythology and racial and other limitations of Buddhism
+forbade that, although it conquered the half of Asia, it should
+ever become a universal faith.</p>
+
+<p>The condition of the Jews at this period was little better than
+that of other peoples. Among the Jews there was a lack of
+intellectual unity, and their moral ideals had been lowered.
+Oppressed by Herod, the tributary Roman King&mdash;who, although
+professedly a Jew, copied the open despisers of all religion&mdash;they
+yielded to the influences of Roman luxury and licentiousness which
+spread over Palestine. Although still conducted by the priests and
+Levites and under the eye of the Sanhedrim or senate, the Jewish
+religion had lost much of its earlier character. Like philosophy,
+it was vexed with contending sects. Strict observance of the Mosaic
+law<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> and the performance of prescriptive rites and duties were in
+the main regarded as the sum of religion.</p>
+
+<p>The race of prophets appeared extinct until prophecy was revived in
+John the Baptist. The successors of the Maccab&aelig;an patriots were not
+animated by their spirit. There was widespread and passionate
+expectation of a national messiah, but not such a messiah as John
+proclaimed and Jesus proved to be; rather a powerful warrior and
+vindicator of Jewish liberty. Galilee, the early home of Jesus, was
+especially stirred with messianic fervor. In such a condition of
+the national mind, and at such a stage of the world's empire, it
+seems natural in the course of spiritual evolution that such a
+teacher as Jesus&mdash;a spiritual messiah&mdash;should arise to be the
+deliverer not of one people only, but of the world itself. Among
+the Jewish doctors when Jesus was a child was at least one wise and
+liberal rabbi, Hillel, a Pharisee, the great reformer of his time,
+and "the most eminent Jew of the generation before the birth of
+Jesus." At his feet the boy Jesus may have sat and learned lessons
+of wisdom and liberality. It gives us a reassurance of spiritual
+continuity to think that the teachings of Hillel may have "helped
+to inspire the humane and tender counsels of the founder of
+Christianity."</p>
+
+<p>In grouping the glowing words of Renan, with their fine spiritual
+interpretations and descriptive eloquence, the judgments of an
+eminent contemporary Jewish scholar, and Newman's learned yet
+simple portrayal of the Church as it took form in its early
+environment, and as it was seen through the media of contemporary
+governments, customs, and criticisms, it is believed that readers
+will derive satisfaction, and will be aided in their own inquiries,
+through this threefold presentation. On so vast a subject, with its
+momentous implications, no single author, however profound his
+genius, can do more than contribute a partial essay toward the
+many-sided truth.</p></div>
+
+
+<h4>JOSEPH ERNEST RENAN</h4>
+
+<p>From the moment of the arrest of Jesus, and immediately after his death,
+it is probable that many of the disciples had already found their way to
+the northern provinces. At the time of the Resurrection a rumor was
+spread abroad, according to which it was in Galilee that he would be
+seen again. Some of the women who had been to the sepulchre came back
+with the report that the angel had said to them that Jesus had already
+preceded them into Galilee. Others said that it was Jesus himself who
+had ordered them to go there. Now and then some people said that they
+themselves remembered that he had said so during his lifetime.</p>
+
+<p>What is certain is that at the end of a few days, probably after the
+Paschal Feast of the Passover had been quite over,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> the disciples
+believed they had a command to return into their own country, and to it
+accordingly they returned. Perhaps the visions began to abate at
+Jerusalem. A species of melancholy seized them. The brief appearances of
+Jesus were not sufficient to compensate for the enormous void left by
+his absence. In a melancholy mood they thought of the lake and of the
+beautiful mountains where they had received a foretaste of the kingdom
+of God. The women especially wished, at any cost, to return to the
+country where they had enjoyed so much happiness. It must be observed
+that the order to depart came especially from them. That odious city
+weighed them down. They longed to see once more the ground where they
+had possessed Him whom they loved, well assured in advance of meeting
+him again there.</p>
+
+<p>The majority of the disciples then departed, full of joy and hope,
+perhaps in the company of the caravan which took back the pilgrims from
+the Feast of the Passover. What they hoped to find in Galilee were not
+only transient visions, but Jesus himself to continue with them, as he
+had done before his death. An intense expectation filled their souls.
+Was he going to restore the kingdom of Israel, to found definitely the
+kingdom of God, and, as was said, "reveal his justice"? Everything was
+possible. They already called to mind the smiling landscapes where they
+had enjoyed his presence. Many believed that he had given to them a
+rendezvous upon a mountain, probably the same to which with them there
+clung so many sweet recollections. Never, it is certain, had there been
+a more pleasant journey. All their dreams of happiness were on the point
+of being realized. They were going to see him once more! And, in fact,
+they did see him again. Hardly restored to their harmless chimeras, they
+believed themselves to be in the midst of the gospel-dispensation
+period. It was now drawing near to the end of April. The ground is then
+strewn with red anemones, which were probably those "lilies of the
+fields" from which Jesus delighted to draw his similes. At each step his
+words were brought to mind, adhering, as it were, to the thousand
+accidental objects they met by the way. Here was the tree, the flower,
+the seed, from which he had taken his parables; there was the hill on
+which he delivered his most touching<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> discourses; here was the little
+ship from which he taught. It was like the recommencement of a beautiful
+dream&mdash;like a vanished illusion which had reappeared. The enchantment
+seemed to revive. The sweet Galilean "Kingdom of God" had recovered its
+sway. The clear atmosphere, the mornings upon the shore or upon the
+mountain, the nights passed on the lakes watching the nets, all these
+returned again to them in distinct visions. They saw him everywhere
+where they had lived with him. Of course it was not the joy of the first
+enjoyment. Sometimes the lake had to them the appearance of being very
+solitary. But a great love is satisfied with little. If all of us, while
+we are alive, could surreptitiously, once a year, and during a moment
+long enough to exchange but a few words, behold again those loved ones
+whom we have lost&mdash;death would not be death!</p>
+
+<p>Such was the state of mind of this faithful band, in this short period
+when Christianity seemed to return for a moment to his cradle and bid to
+him an eternal adieu. The principal disciples, Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel,
+the sons of Zebedee, met again on the shores of the lake, and henceforth
+lived together; they had taken up again their former calling of
+fishermen, at Bethsaida or at Capernaum. The Galilean women were no
+doubt with them. They had insisted more than the others on that return,
+which was to them a heartfelt love. This was their last act in the
+establishment of Christianity. From that moment they disappear. Faithful
+to their love, their wish was to quit no more the country in which they
+had tasted their greatest delight. More than five hundred persons were
+already devoted to the memory of Jesus. In default of the lost master
+they obeyed the disciples, the most authoritative&mdash;Peter&mdash;in particular.</p>
+
+<p>The activity of these ardent souls had already turned in another
+direction. What they believed to have heard from the lips of the dear
+risen One was the order to go forth and preach, and to convert the
+world. But where should they commence? Naturally, at Jerusalem. The
+return to Jerusalem was then resolved upon by those who at that time had
+the direction of the sect. As these journeys were ordinarily made by
+caravan at the time of the feasts, we now suppose, with all manner of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+likelihood, that the return in question took place at the Feast of
+Tabernacles at the close of the year 33, or the Paschal Feast of the
+year 34. Galilee was thus abandoned by Christianity, and abandoned
+forever. The little Church which remained there continued, no doubt, to
+exist; but we hear it no more spoken of. It was probably broken up, like
+all the rest, by the frightful disaster which then overtook the country
+during the war of Vespasian; the wreck of the dispersed community sought
+refuge beyond Jordan. After the war it was not Christianity which was
+brought back into Galilee; it was Judaism.</p>
+
+<p>Galilee thus counted but an hour in the history of Christianity; but it
+was the sacred hour, <i>par excellence</i>; it gave to the new religion that
+which has made it endure&mdash;its poetry, its penetrating charms. "The
+Gospel," after the manner of the synoptics, was a Galilean work. But
+"the Gospel" thus extended has been the principal cause of the success
+of Christianity, and continues to be the surest guarantee of its future.
+It is probable that a fraction of the little school which surrounded
+Jesus in his last days remained at Jerusalem.</p>
+
+<p>It is about this period that we can place the vision of James, mentioned
+by St. Paul. James was the brother, or at least a relation, of Jesus. We
+do not find that he had accompanied Jesus on his last sojourn to
+Jerusalem. He probably went there with the apostles, when the latter
+quitted Galilee.</p>
+
+<p>It is very remarkable that the family of Jesus, some of whose members
+during his life had been incredulous and hostile to his mission,
+constituted now a part of the Church, and held in it a very exalted
+position. One is led to suppose that the reconciliation took place
+during the sojourn of the apostles in Galilee. The celebrity which had
+attached itself to the name of their relative, those who believed in
+him, and were assured of having seen him after he had arisen, served to
+make an impression on their minds. From the time of the definite
+establishment of the apostles at Jerusalem, we find with them Mary, the
+mother of Jesus, and the brothers of Jesus. In what concerns Mary, it
+appears that John, thinking in this to obey a recommendation of the
+Master, had adopted and taken her to his own home. He perhaps took her
+back to Jerusalem. This woman, whose personal history and character have
+remained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> veiled in obscurity, assumed hence great importance. The words
+that the evangelist put into the mouth of some unknown woman, "Blessed
+is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked," began
+to be verified. It is probable that Mary survived her son a few years.
+As for the brothers of Jesus, their history is wrapped in obscurity.
+Jesus had several brothers and sisters. It seemed probable, however,
+that in the class of persons which were called "Brothers of the Lord"
+there were included relations in the second degree. The question is only
+of moment so far as it concerns James, whom we see playing a great part
+in the first thirty years of Christianity.</p>
+
+<p>The apostles henceforth separated no more, except to make temporary
+journeys. Jerusalem became their head-quarters; they seemed to be afraid
+to disperse, while certain acts served to reveal in them the
+prepossession of being opposed to return again into Galilee, which
+latter had dissolved its little society. An express order of Jesus is
+supposed to have interdicted their quitting Jerusalem, before, at least,
+the great manifestations which were to take place. People's thoughts
+were turned with great force toward a promise which it was supposed
+Jesus had made. During his lifetime Jesus, it was said, had often spoken
+of the Holy Spirit, which was understood to mean a personification of
+divine wisdom. He had promised his disciples that the Spirit would nerve
+them in the combats that they would have to engage in, would be their
+inspirer in difficulties, and their advocate if they had to speak in
+public. Sometimes it was supposed that Jesus suddenly presented himself
+in the midst of his disciples assembled, and breathed on them out of his
+own mouth a current of vivifying air. At other times the disappearance
+of Jesus was regarded as a premonition of the coming of the Spirit. Many
+people established an intimate connection between this descent and the
+restoration of the kingdom of Israel.</p>
+
+<p>The affection that the disciples had the one for the other, while Jesus
+was alive, was thus enhanced tenfold after his death. They formed a very
+small and very retired society, and lived exclusively by themselves. At
+Jerusalem they numbered about one hundred and twenty. Their piety was
+active, and,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> as yet, completely restrained by the forms of Jewish
+piety. The Temple was then the chief place of devotion. They worked, no
+doubt, for a living; but at that time manual labor in Jewish society
+engaged very few. Everyone had a trade, but that trade by no means
+hindered a man from being educated and well-bred.</p>
+
+<p>The dominant idea in the Christian community, at the moment at which we
+are now arrived, was the coming of the Holy Spirit. People were believed
+to receive it in the form of a mysterious breath, which passed over the
+assembly. Every inward consolation, every bold movement, every flush of
+enthusiasm, every feeling of lively and pleasant gayety, which was
+experienced without knowing whence it came, was the work of the Spirit.
+These simple consciences referred, as usual, to some exterior cause the
+exquisite sentiments which were being created in them. When all were
+assembled, and when they awaited in silence inspiration from on high, a
+murmur, any noise whatever, was believed to be the coming of the Spirit.
+In the early times, it was the apparitions of Jesus which were produced
+in this manner. Now the turn of ideas had changed. It was the divine
+breath which passed over the little Church, and filled it with a
+celestial effluvium. These beliefs were strengthened by notions drawn
+from the Old Testament. The prophetic spirit is represented in the
+Hebrew books as a breathing which penetrates man and inspires him. In
+the beautiful vision of Elijah, God passes by in the form of a gentle
+wind, which produces a slight rustling noise.</p>
+
+<p>Among all these "descents of the Spirit," which appear to have been
+frequent enough, there was one which left a profound impression on the
+nascent Church. One day, when the brethren were assembled, a
+thunder-storm burst forth. A violent wind threw open the windows: the
+heavens were on fire. Thunder-storms, in these countries, are
+accompanied by prodigious sheets of lightning; the atmosphere is, as it
+were, everywhere furrowed with ridges of flame. Whether the electric
+fluid had penetrated the room itself or whether a dazzling flash of
+lightning had suddenly illuminated the faces of all, everyone was
+convinced that the Spirit had entered, and that it had alighted on the
+head of each in the form of tongues of fire.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> The idea that the Spirit
+had alighted on them in the form of jets of flame, resembling tongues of
+fire, gave rise to a series of singular ideas, which took a foremost
+place in the thought of the period.</p>
+
+<p>The tongues of fire appeared a striking symbol. People were convinced
+that God desired to signify in this manner that he poured out upon the
+apostles his most precious gifts of eloquence and of inspiration. But
+they did not stop there. Jerusalem was, like the majority of the large
+cities of the East, a city in which many languages were spoken. The
+diversity of tongues was one of the difficulties which one found there
+in the way of propagating a universal form of faith. One of the things,
+moreover, which alarmed the apostles, at the commencement of a ministry
+destined to embrace the world, was the number of languages which were
+spoken there: they were asking themselves incessantly how they could
+learn so many tongues. "The gift of tongues" became thus a marvellous
+privilege. It was believed that the preaching of the Gospel would clear
+away the obstacle which was created by the diversity of idioms. There
+was in this a liberal idea; they meant to imply that the Gospel should
+have no language of its own; that it should be translatable into every
+tongue; and that the translation should be of the same value as the
+original.</p>
+
+<p>The custom of living together, holding the same faith, and indulging the
+same expectation, necessarily produced many common habits. All lived in
+common, having but one heart and one mind. No one possessed anything
+which was his own. On becoming a disciple of Jesus, one sold one's goods
+and made a gift of the proceeds to the society. The chiefs of the
+society then distributed the common possessions to each, according to
+his needs. They lived in the same quarter. They took their meals
+together, and continued to attach to them the mystic sense that Jesus
+had prescribed. They passed long hours in prayers. Their prayers were
+sometimes improvised aloud, but more often meditated in silence. The
+concord was perfect; no dogmatic quarrels, no disputes in regard to
+precedence. The tender recollection of Jesus effaced all dissensions.
+Joy, lively and deep-seated, was in every heart. Their morals were
+austere, but pervaded by a soft and tender sentiment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> They assembled in
+houses to pray and to devote themselves to ecstatic exercises. The
+recollection of these two or three first years remained and seemed to
+them like a terrestrial paradise, which Christianity will pursue
+henceforth in all its dreams and to which it will vainly endeavor to
+return. Such an organization could only be applicable to a very small
+church.</p>
+
+<p>The apostles chosen by Jesus, and who were supposed to have received
+from him a special mandate to announce to the world the kingdom of God,
+had, in the little community, an incontestable superiority. One of the
+first cares, as soon as they saw the sect settle quietly down at
+Jerusalem, was to fill the vacancy that Judas of Kerioth had left in its
+ranks. The opinion that the latter had betrayed his master, and had been
+the cause of his death, became more and more general. The legend was
+mixed up with him, and every day one heard of some new circumstance
+which enhanced the black-heartedness of his deed. In order to replace
+him, it was resolved to have recourse to a vote of some sort. The sole
+condition was that the candidate should be chosen from the groups of the
+oldest disciples, who had been witnesses of the whole series of events,
+from the time of the baptism of John. This reduced considerably the
+number of those eligible. Two only were found in the ranks, Joseph
+Bar-Saba, who bore the name of Justus, and Matthias. The lot fell upon
+Matthias, who was accounted as one of the Twelve. But this was the sole
+instance of such a replacing.</p>
+
+<p>The body of Twelve lived, generally, permanently at Jerusalem. Till
+about the year 60 the apostles did not leave the holy city except upon
+temporary missions. This explains the obscurity in which the majority of
+the members of the central council remained. Very few of them had a
+<i>r&ocirc;le</i>. This council was a kind of sacred college or senate, destined
+only to represent tradition and a spirit of conservatism. It finished by
+being relieved of every active function, so that its members had nothing
+to do but to preach and pray; but as yet the brilliant feats of
+preaching had not fallen to their lot. Their names were hardly known
+outside Jerusalem, and about the year 70 or 80 the lists which were
+given of these chosen Twelve agreed only in the principal names.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The "Brothers of the Lord" appear often by the side of the "apostles,"
+although they were distinct from them. Their authority, however, was
+equal to that of the apostles. Here two groups constituted, in the
+nascent Church, a sort of aristocracy founded solely on the more or less
+intimate relations that their members had had with the Master. These
+were the men whom Paul denominated "the pillars" of the Church at
+Jerusalem. For the rest, we see that no distinctions in the
+ecclesiastical hierarchy yet existed. The title was nothing; the
+personal authority was everything. The principle of ecclesiastical
+celibacy was already established, but it required time to bring all
+these germs to their complete development. Peter and Philip were married
+and had sons and daughters.</p>
+
+<p>The term used to designate the assembly of the faithful was the Hebrew
+<i>Kahal</i>, which was rendered by the essentially democratic word
+<i>Ecclesia</i>, which is the convocation of the people in the ancient
+Grecian cities, the summons to the Pnyx or the <i>Agora</i>. Commencing with
+the second or the third century before Jesus Christ, the words of the
+Athenian democracy became a sort of common law in Hellenic language;
+many of these terms, on account of their having been used in the Greek
+confraternities, entered into the Christian vocabulary. It was, in
+reality, the popular life, which, restrained for centuries, resumed its
+power under forms altogether different. The primitive Church was, in its
+way, a little democracy.</p>
+
+<p>The power which was ascribed to the Church assembled and to its chiefs
+was enormous. The Church conferred every mission, and was guided solely
+in its choice by the signs given by the Spirit. Its authority went as
+far as decreeing death. It is recorded that at the voice of Peter
+several delinquents had fallen back and expired immediately. St. Paul, a
+little later, was not afraid, in excommunicating a fornicator, "to
+deliver him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit
+may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." Excommunication was held to
+be equivalent to a sentence of death. The apostles were believed to be
+invested with supernatural powers. In pronouncing such condemnations,
+they thought that their anathemas could not fail but be effectual. The
+terrible impression which their excommunications produced, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> the
+hatred manifested by the brethren against all the members thus cut off,
+were sufficient, in fact, in many cases, to bring about death, or at
+least to compel the culprit to expatriate himself. Accounts like those
+of the death of Ananias and Sapphira did not excite any scruple. The
+idea of the civil power was so foreign to all that world placed without
+the pale of the Roman law, people were so persuaded that the Church was
+a complete society, sufficient in itself, that no person saw, in a
+miracle leading to death or the mutilation of an individual, an outrage
+punishable by the civil law. Enthusiasm and faith covered all, excused
+everything. But the frightful danger which these theocratic maxims laid
+up in store for the future is readily perceived. The Church is armed
+with a sword; excommunication is a sentence of death. There was
+henceforth in the world a power outside that of the State, which
+disposed of the life of citizens.</p>
+
+<p>Peter had among the apostles a certain precedence, derived directly from
+his zeal and his activity. In these first years he was hardly ever
+separate from John, son of Zebedee. They went almost always together,
+and their amity was doubtless the corner-stone of the new faith. James,
+the brother of the Lord, almost equalled them in authority, at least
+among a fraction of the Church.</p>
+
+<p>It is needless to remark that this little group of simple people had no
+speculative theology. Jesus wisely kept himself far removed from all
+metaphysics. He had only one dogma, his own divine Sonship and the
+divinity of his mission. The whole symbol of the primitive Church might
+be embraced in one line: "Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God." This
+belief rested upon a peremptory argument&mdash;the fact of the resurrection,
+of which the disciples claimed to be witnesses. To attest the
+resurrection of Jesus was the task which all considered as being
+specially imposed upon them. It was, however, very soon put forth that
+the Master had predicted this event. Different sayings of his were
+recalled, which were represented as having not been well understood, and
+in which was seen, on second thoughts, an announcement of the
+Resurrection. The belief in the near glorious manifestation of Jesus was
+universal. The secret word which the brethren used among themselves, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+order to be recognized and confirmed, was <i>maran-atha</i>, "the Lord is at
+hand."</p>
+
+<p>Jesus, with his exquisite tact in religious matters, had instituted no
+new ritual. The new sect had not yet any special ceremonies. The
+practices of piety were Jewish. The assemblies had, in a strict sense,
+nothing liturgic. They were the meetings of confraternities, at which
+prayers were offered up, devoted themselves to <i>glossolaly</i> or prophecy,
+and the reading of correspondence. There was nothing yet of
+sacerdotalism. There was no priest (<i>cohen</i>); the <i>presbyter</i> was the
+"elder," nothing more. The only priest was Jesus: in another sense, all
+the faithful were priests. Fasting was considered a very meritorious
+practice. Baptism was the token of admission to the sect. The rite was
+the same as administered by John, but it was administered in the name of
+Jesus. Baptism was, however, considered an insufficient initiation. It
+had to be followed by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which were effected
+by means of a prayer, offered up by the apostles, upon the head of the
+new convert, accompanied by the imposition of hands.</p>
+
+<p>This imposition of hands, already so familiar to Jesus, was the
+sacramental act <i>par excellence</i>. It conferred inspiration, universal
+illumination, the power to produce prodigies, prophesying, and the
+speaking of languages. It was what was called the Baptism of the Spirit.
+It was supposed to recall a saying of Jesus: "John baptized you with
+water; but as for you, you shall be baptized by the Spirit." Gradually
+all these ideas became amalgamated, and baptism was conferred "in the
+name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." But it is not
+probable that this formula, in the early days in which we now are, was
+yet employed. We see the simplicity of this primitive Christian worship.
+Neither Jesus nor the apostles had invented it. Certain Jewish sects had
+adopted, before them, these grave and solemn ceremonies, which appeared
+to have come in part from Chald&aelig;a, where they are still practised with
+special liturgies by the Sabeans or Mendaites. The religion of Persia
+embraced also many rites of the same description.</p>
+
+<p>The beliefs in popular medicine, which constituted a part of the force
+of Jesus, were continued in his disciples. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> power of healing was one
+of the marvellous gifts conferred by the Spirit. The first Christians,
+like almost all the Jews of the time, looked upon diseases as the
+punishment of a transgression, or the work of a malignant demon. The
+apostles passed, just as Jesus did, for powerful exorcists. People
+imagined that the anointings of oil administered by the apostles, with
+imposition of hands and invocation of the name of Jesus, were
+all-powerful to wash away the sins which were the cause of disease, and
+to heal the afflicted one. Oil has always been in the East the medicine
+<i>par excellence</i>. For the rest, the simple imposition of the hands of
+the apostles was reputed to have the same effect. This imposition was
+made by immediate contact. Nor is it impossible that, in certain cases,
+the heat of the hands, being communicated suddenly to the head, insured
+to the sick person a little relief.</p>
+
+<p>The sect being young and not numerous, the question of deaths was not
+taken into account until later on. The effect caused by the first
+demises which took place in the ranks of the brethren was strange.
+People were troubled by the manner of the deaths. It was asked whether
+they were less favored than those who were reserved to see with their
+eyes the advent of the Son of Man? They came generally to consider the
+interval between death and the resurrection as a kind of blank in the
+consciousness of the defunct. At the time of which we speak, belief in
+the resurrection almost alone prevailed. The funeral rite was
+undoubtedly the Jewish rite. No importance was attached to it; no
+inscription indicated the name of the dead. The great resurrection was
+near; the bodies of the faithful had only to make in the rock a very
+short sojourn. It did not require much persuasion to put people in
+accord on the question as to whether the resurrection was to be
+universal, that is to say, whether it would embrace the good and the
+bad, or whether it would apply to the elect only. One of the most
+remarkable phenomena of the new religion was the reappearance of
+prophecy. For a long time people had spoken but little of prophets in
+Israel. That particular species of inspiration seemed to revive in the
+little sect. The primitive Church had several prophets and prophetesses
+analogous to those of the Old Testament. The psalmists also reappeared.
+The model<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> of our Christian psalms is without doubt given in the
+canticles which Luke loved to disseminate in his gospel, and which were
+copied from the canticles of the Old Testament. These psalms and
+prophecies are, as regards form, destitute of originality, but an
+admirable spirit of gentleness and of piety animates and pervades them.
+It is like a faint echo of the last productions of the sacred lyre of
+Israel. The Book of Psalms was in a measure the calyx from which the
+Christian bee sucked its first juice. The Pentateuch, on the contrary,
+was, as it would seem, little read and little studied; there was
+substituted for it allegories after the manner of the Jewish
+<i>midraschim</i> in which all the historic sense of the books was
+suppressed.</p>
+
+<p>The music which was sung to the new hymns was probably that species of
+sobbing, without distinct notes, which is still the music of the Greek
+Church, of the Maronites, and in general of the Christians of the East.
+It is less a musical modulation than a manner of forcing the voice and
+of emitting by the nose a sort of moaning in which all the inflections
+follow each other with rapidity. That odd melop&oelig;ia was executed
+standing, with the eyes fixed, the eyebrows crumpled, the brow knit, and
+with an appearance of effort. The word <i>amen</i>, in particular, was given
+out in a quivering, trembling voice. That word played a great part in
+the liturgy. In imitation of the Jews, the new adherents employed it to
+mark the assent of the multitude to the words of the prophet or the
+precentor. People, perhaps, already attributed to it some secret virtues
+and pronounced it with a certain emphasis. We do not know whether that
+primitive ecclesiastical song was accompanied by instruments. As to the
+inward chant, by which the faithful "made melody in their hearts," and
+which was but the overflowing of those tender, ardent, pensive souls, it
+was doubtless executed like the <i>catilenes</i> of the Lollards of the
+Middle Ages, in medium voice. In general, it was joyousness which was
+poured out in these hymns.</p>
+
+<p>Till now the Church of Jerusalem presents itself to the outside world as
+a little Galilean colony. The friends whom Jesus had made at Jerusalem
+and in its environs, such as Lazarus, Martha, Mary of Bethany, Joseph of
+Arimathea, and Nicodemus, had disappeared from the scene. The Galilean
+group,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> who pressed around the Twelve, alone remained compact and
+active. The proselytism of the faithful was chiefly carried on by means
+of struggling conversions, in which the fervor of their souls was
+communicated to their neighbors. Their preachings under the porticoes of
+Solomon were addressed to circles not at all numerous. But the effect of
+this was only the more profound. Their discourses consisted principally
+of quotations from the Old Testament, by which it was sought to prove
+that Jesus was the Messiah.</p>
+
+<p>The real preaching was the private conversations of these good and
+sincere men; it was the reflection, always noticeable in their
+discourses, of the words of Jesus; it was, above all, their piety, their
+gentleness. The attraction of communistic life carried with it also a
+great deal of force. Their houses were a sort of hospitals, in which all
+the poor and the forsaken found asylum and succor.</p>
+
+<p>One of the first to affiliate himself with the rising society was a
+Cypriote, named Joseph Hallevi, or the Levite. Like the others, he sold
+his land and carried the price of it to the feet of the Twelve. He was
+an intelligent man, with a devotion proof against everything, and a
+fluent speaker. The apostles attached him closely to themselves and
+called him <i>Barnaba</i>, that is to say, "the son of prophecy" or of
+"preaching." He was accounted, in fact, of the number of the prophets,
+that is to say, of the inspired preachers. Later on we shall see him
+play a capital part. Next to St. Paul, he was the most active missionary
+of the first century. A certain Mnason, his countryman, was converted
+about the same time. Cyprus possessed many Jews. Barnabas and Mnason
+were undoubtedly Jewish by race. The intimate and prolonged relations of
+Barnabas with the Church at Jerusalem induces the belief that
+Syro-Chaldaic was familiar to him.</p>
+
+<p>A conquest, almost as important as that of Barnabas, was that of one
+John, who bore the Roman surname of Marcus. He was a cousin of Barnabas,
+and was circumcised. His mother, Mary, enjoyed an easy competency; she
+was likewise converted, and her dwelling was more than once made the
+rendezvous of the apostles. These two conversions appear to have been
+the work of Peter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The first flame was thus spread with great rapidity. The men, the most
+celebrated of the apostolic century, were almost all gained over to the
+cause in two or three years, by a sort of simultaneous attraction. It
+was a second Christian generation, similar to that which had been formed
+five or six years previously, upon the shores of Lake Tiberias. This
+second generation had not seen Jesus, and could not equal the first in
+authority. But it was destined to surpass it in activity and in its love
+for distant missions. One of the best known among the new converts was
+Stephen, who, before his conversion, appears to have been only a simple
+proselyte. He was a man full of ardor and of passion. His faith was of
+the most fervent, and he was considered to be favored with all the gifts
+of the Spirit. Philip, who, like Stephen, was a zealous deacon and
+evangelist, attached himself to the community about the same time. He
+was often confounded with his namesake, the apostle. Finally, there were
+converted at this epoch, Andronicus and Junia, probably husband and
+wife, who, like Aquila and Priscilla, later on, were the model of an
+apostolic couple, devoted to all the duties of missionary work. They
+were of the blood of Israel, and were in the closest relations with the
+apostles.</p>
+
+<p>The new converts, when touched by grace, were all Jews by religion, but
+they belonged to two very different classes of Jews. The one class was
+the Hebrews; that is to say, the Jews of Palestine, speaking Hebrew or
+rather Armenian, reading the Bible in the Hebrew text; the other class
+was "Hellenists," that is to say, Jews speaking Greek, and reading the
+Bible in Greek. These last were further subdivided into two classes, the
+one being of Jewish blood, the other being proselytes, that is to say,
+people of non-Israelitish origin, allied in divers degrees to Judaism.
+These Hellenists, who almost all came from Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, or
+Cyrene, lived at Jerusalem in distinct quarters. They had their separate
+synagogues, and formed thus little communities apart. Jerusalem
+contained a great number of these special synagogues. It was in these
+that the words of Jesus found the soil prepared to receive it and to
+make it fructify.</p>
+
+<p>The primitive nucleus of the Church at Jerusalem had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> composed
+wholly and exclusively of Hebrews; the Aramaic dialect, which was the
+language of Jesus, was alone known and employed there. But we see that
+from the second or third year after the death of Jesus, Greek was
+introduced into the little community, where it soon became dominant. In
+consequence of their daily relations with the new brethren, Peter, John,
+James, Jude, and in general the Galilean disciples acquired the Greek
+with much more facility than if they had already known something of it.
+The Palestinian dialect came to be abandoned from the day in which
+people dreamed of a widespread propaganda. A provincial <i>patois</i>, which
+was rarely written, and which was not spoken beyond Syria, was as little
+adapted as could be to such an object. Greek, on the contrary, was
+necessarily imposed on Christianity. It was at the time the universal
+language, at least for the eastern basin of the Mediterranean. It was,
+in particular, the language of the Jews who were dispersed over the
+Roman Empire.</p>
+
+<p>The conversions to Christianity became soon much more numerous among the
+"Hellenists" than among the "Hebrews." The old Jews at Jerusalem were
+but little drawn toward a sect of provincials, moderately advanced in
+the single science that a Pharisee appreciated&mdash;the science of the law.
+The position of the little Church in regard to Judaism was, as with
+Jesus himself, rather equivocal. But every religious or political party
+carries in itself a force that dominates it, and obliges it, despite
+itself, to revolve in its own orbit. The first Christians, whatever
+their apparent respect for Judaism was, were in reality only Jews by
+birth or by exterior customs. The true spirit of the sect came from
+another source. That which grew out of official Judaism was the
+<i>Talmud</i>; but Christianity has no affinity with the Talmudic school.
+This is why Christianity found special favor among the parties the least
+Jewish belonging to Judaism. The rigid orthodoxists took to it but
+little; it was the newcomers, people scarcely catechized, who had not
+been to any of the great schools, free from routine, and not initiated
+into the holy tongue, which lent an ear to the apostles and the
+disciples.</p>
+
+<p>This family of simple and united brethren drew associates from every
+quarter. In return for that which these brought,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> they obtained an
+assured future, the society of a congenial brotherhood, and precious
+hopes. The general custom, before entering the sect, was for each one to
+convert his fortune into specie. These fortunes ordinarily consisted of
+small rural, semi-barren properties, and difficult of cultivation. It
+had one advantage, especially for unmarried people: it enabled them to
+exchange these plots of land against funds sunk in an assurance society,
+with a view to the Kingdom of God. Even some married people came to the
+fore in that arrangement; and precautions were taken to insure that the
+associates brought all that they really possessed, and did not retain
+anything outside the common fund. Indeed, seeing that each one received
+out of the latter a share, not in proportion to what one put in, but in
+proportion to one's needs, every reservation of property was actually a
+theft made upon the community. The Christian communism had religion for
+a basis, while modern socialism has nothing of the kind.</p>
+
+<p>Under such a social constitution, the administrative difficulties were
+necessarily very numerous, whatever might be the degree of fraternal
+feeling which prevailed. Between two factions of a community, whose
+language was not the same, misapprehensions were inevitable. It was
+difficult for well-descended Jews not to entertain some contempt for
+their coreligionists who were less noble. In fact, it was not long
+before murmurs began to be heard. The "Hellenists," who each day became
+more numerous, complained because their widows were not so well treated
+at the distributions as those of the "Hebrews." Till now, the apostles
+had presided over the affairs of the treasury. But in face of these
+protestations they felt the necessity of delegating to others this part
+of their powers. They proposed to the community to confide these
+administrative cares to seven experienced and considerate men. The
+proposition was accepted. The seven chosen were Stephanas, or Stephen,
+Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas. Stephen was
+the most important of the seven, and, in a sense, their chief.</p>
+
+<p>To the administrators thus designated were given the Syriac name of
+<i>Schammaschin</i>. They were also sometimes called "the Seven," to
+distinguish them from "the Twelve." Such,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> then, was the origin of the
+diaconate, which is found to be the most ancient ecclesiastical
+function, the most ancient of sacred orders. Later, all the organized
+churches, in imitation of that of Jerusalem, had deacons. The growth of
+such an institution was marvellous. It placed the claims of the poor on
+an equality with religious services. It was a proclamation of the truth
+that social problems are the first which should occupy the attention of
+mankind. It was the foundation of political economy in the religious
+sense. The deacons were the first preachers of Christianity. As
+organizers, financiers, and administrators, they filled a yet more
+important part. These practical men, in constant contact with the poor,
+the sick, the women, went everywhere, observed everything, exhorted, and
+were most efficacious in converting people. They accomplished more than
+the apostles, who remained on their seats of honor at Jerusalem. They
+were the founders of Christianity, in respect of that which it possessed
+which was most solid and enduring.</p>
+
+<p>At an early period women were admitted to this office. They were
+designated, as in our day, by the name of "sisters." At first widows
+were selected; later, virgins were preferred. The tact which guided the
+primitive Church in all this was admirable. The grand idea of
+consecrating by a sort of religious character and of subjecting to a
+regular discipline the women who were not in the bonds of marriage, is
+wholly Christian. The term "widow" became synonymous with religious
+person, consecrated to God, and, by consequence, a "deaconess." In those
+countries where the wife, at the age of twenty-four, is already faded,
+where there is no middle state between the infant and the old woman, it
+was a kind of new life, which was created for that portion of the human
+species the most capable of devotion. These women, constantly going to
+and fro, were admirable missionaries of the new religion.</p>
+
+<p>The bishop and the priest, as we now know them, did not yet exist.
+Still, the pastoral ministry, that intimate familiarity of souls, not
+bound by ties of blood, had already been established. This latter has
+ever been the special gift of Jesus, and a kind of heritage from him.
+Jesus had often said that to everyone he was more than a father and a
+mother, and that in order to follow him it was necessary to forsake
+those the most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> dear to us. Christianity placed some things above
+family; it instituted brotherhood and spiritual marriage. The ancient
+form of marriage, which placed the wife unreservedly in the power of the
+husband, was pure slavery. The moral liberty of the woman began when the
+Church gave to her in Jesus a guide and a confidant, who should advise
+and console her, listen always to her, and on occasion counsel
+resistance on her part. Woman needs to be governed, and is happy in so
+being; but it is necessary that she should love him who governs her.
+This is what neither ancient societies nor Judaism nor Islamism have
+been able to do. Woman has never had, up to the present time, a
+religious conscience, a moral individuality, an opinion of her own,
+except in Christianity.</p>
+
+<p>It was now about the year 36. Tiberius, at Capre&aelig;, has little idea of
+the enemy to the empire which is growing up. In two or three years the
+sect had made surprising progress. It numbered several thousand of the
+faithful. It was already easy to foresee that its conquests would be
+effected chiefly among the Hellenists and proselytes. The Galilean group
+which had listened to the Master, though preserving always its
+precedence, seemed as if swamped by the floods of newcomers speaking
+Greek. One could already perceive that the principal parts were to be
+played by the latter. At the time at which we are arrived no pagan, that
+is to say, no man without some anterior connection with Judaism, had
+entered into the Church. Proselytes, however, performed very important
+functions in it. The circle <i>de provenance</i> of the disciples had
+likewise largely extended; it is no longer a simple little college of
+Palestineans; we can count in it people from Cyprus, Antioch, and
+Cyrene, and from almost all the points of the eastern coasts of the
+Mediterranean, where Jewish colonies had been established. Egypt alone
+was wanting in the primitive Church, and for a long time continued to be
+so.</p>
+
+<p>It was inevitable that the preachings of the new sect, although
+delivered with so much reserve, should revive the animosities which had
+accumulated against its Founder, and eventually brought about his death.
+The Sadducee family of Hanan, who had caused the death of Jesus, was
+still reigning. Joseph Caiaphas occupied, up to 36, the sovereign
+pontificate,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> the effective power of which he gave over to his
+father-in-law Hanan, and to his relatives, John and Alexander. These
+arrogant and pitiless men viewed with impatience a troop of good and
+holy people, without official title, winning the favor of the multitude.
+Once or twice Peter, John, and the principal members of the apostolic
+college were put in prison and condemned to flagellation. This was the
+chastisement inflicted on heretics. The authorization of the Romans was
+not necessary in order to apply it. As we might indeed suppose, these
+brutalities only served to inflame the ardor of the apostles. They came
+forth from the Sanhedrim, where they had just undergone flagellation,
+rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Him whom
+they loved. Eternal puerility of penal repressions applied to things of
+the soul! They were regarded, no doubt, as men of order, as models of
+prudence and wisdom; these blunderers, who seriously believed in the
+year 36 to gain the upper hand of Christianity by means of a few strokes
+of a whip!</p>
+
+<p>These outrages proceeded chiefly from the Sadducees, that is to say,
+from the upper clergy, who crowded the Temple and derived from it
+immense profits. We do not find that the Pharisees exhibited toward the
+sect the animosity they displayed to Jesus. The new believers were
+strict and pious people, somewhat resembling in their manner of life the
+Pharisees themselves. The rage which the latter manifested against the
+Founder arose from the superiority of Jesus&mdash;a superiority which he was
+at no pains to dissimulate. His delicate railleries, his wit, his charm,
+his contempt for hypocrites, had kindled a ferocious hatred. The
+apostles, on the contrary, were devoid of wit; they never employed
+irony. The Pharisees were at times favorable to them; many Pharisees had
+even become Christians. The terrible anathemas of Jesus against
+Pharisaism had not yet been written, and the accounts of the words of
+the Master were neither general nor uniform. These first Christians
+were, besides, people so inoffensive that many persons of the Jewish
+aristocracy, who did not exactly form part of the sect, were well
+disposed toward them. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who had known
+Jesus, remained no doubt with the Church in the bonds of brotherhood.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The most celebrated Jewish doctor of the age, Rabbi Gamaliel the elder,
+grandson of Hillel, a man of broad and very tolerant ideas, spoke, it is
+said, in the Sanhedrim in favor of permitting gospel preaching. The
+author of the Acts credits him with some excellent reasoning, which
+ought to be the rule of conduct of governments on all occasions when
+they find themselves confronted with novelties of an intellectual or
+moral order. "If this work is frivolous," said he, "leave it alone&mdash;it
+will fall of itself; if it is serious, how dare you resist the work of
+God? In any case, you will not succeed in stopping it." Gamaliel's words
+were hardly listened to. Liberal minds in the midst of opposing
+fanaticisms have no chance of succeeding.</p>
+
+<p>A terrible commotion was produced by the deacon Stephen. His preaching
+had, as it would appear, great success. Multitudes flocked around him,
+and these gatherings resulted in acrimonious quarrels. It was chiefly
+Hellenists, or proselytes, <i>habitu&eacute;s</i> of the synagogue, called
+<i>Libertini</i>, people of Cyrene, of Alexandria, of Cilicia, of Ephesus,
+who took an active part in these disputes. Stephen passionately
+maintained that Jesus was the Messiah, that the priests had committed a
+crime in putting him to death, that the Jews were rebels, sons of
+rebels, people who rejected evidence. The authorities resolved to
+despatch this audacious preacher. Several witnesses were suborned to
+seize upon some words in his discourses against Moses. Naturally they
+found that for which they sought. Stephen was arrested and led into the
+presence of the Sanhedrim. The sentence with which they reproached him
+was almost identical with the one which led to the condemnation of
+Jesus. They accused him of saying that Jesus of Nazareth would destroy
+the Temple and change the traditions attributed to Moses. It is quite
+possible, indeed, that Stephen had used such language. A Christian of
+that epoch could not have had the idea of speaking directly against the
+Law, inasmuch as all still observed it; as for traditions, however,
+Stephen might combat them as Jesus had himself done; nevertheless, these
+traditions were foolishly ascribed by the orthodox to Moses, and people
+attributed to them a value equal to that of the written Law.</p>
+
+<p>Stephen defended himself by expounding the Christian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> thesis, with a
+wealth of citations from the written Law, from the Psalms, from the
+Prophets, and wound up by reproaching the members of the Sanhedrim with
+the murder of Jesus. "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart," said
+he to them, "you will then ever resist the Holy Ghost as your fathers
+also have done. Which of the prophets have not your fathers prosecuted?
+They have slain those who announced the coming of the Just One, whom you
+have betrayed, and of whom you have been the murderers. This law that
+you have received from the mouth of angels you have not kept." At these
+words a scream of rage interrupted him. Stephen, his excitement
+increasing more and more, fell into one of those transports of
+enthusiasm which were called the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. His
+eyes were fixed on high; he witnessed the glory of God, and Jesus by the
+side of his Father, and cried out, "Behold, I see the heavens opened,
+and the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of God." The whole assembly
+stopped their ears and threw themselves upon him, gnashing their teeth.
+He was dragged outside the city and stoned. The witnesses, who,
+according to the law, had to cast the first stones, divested themselves
+of their garments and laid them at the feet of a young fanatic named
+Saul, or Paul, who was thinking with secret joy of the renown he was
+acquiring in participating in the death of a blasphemer.</p>
+
+<p>In that epoch the persecutors of Christianity were not Romans; they were
+orthodox Jews. The Romans preserved in the midst of this fanaticism a
+principle of tolerance and of reason. If we can reproach the imperial
+authority with anything it is with being too lenient, and with not
+having cut short with a stroke the civil consequences of a sanguinary
+law which visited with death religious derelictions. But as yet the
+Roman domination was not so complete as it became later.</p>
+
+<p>As Stephen's death may have taken place at any time during the years 36,
+37, 38, we cannot, therefore, affirm whether Caiaphas ought to be held
+responsible for it. Caiaphas was deposed by Lucius Vitellius, in the
+year 36, shortly after the time of Pilate; but the change was
+inconsiderable. He had for a successor his brother-in-law, Jonathan, son
+of Hanan. The latter, in turn, was succeeded by his brother Theophilus,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+son of Hanan, who continued the pontificate in the house of Hanan till
+the year 42. Hanan was still alive, and, possessed of the real power,
+maintained in his family the principles of pride, severity, hatred
+against innovators, which were, so to speak, hereditary.</p>
+
+<p>The death of Stephen produced a great impression. The proselytes
+solemnized his funeral with tears and groanings. The separation of the
+new sectaries from Judaism was not yet absolute. The proselytes and the
+Hellenists, less strict in regard to orthodoxy than the pure Jews,
+considered that they ought to render public homage to a man who
+respected their constitution, and whose peculiar beliefs did not put him
+without the pale of the law. Thus began the era of Christian martyrs.</p>
+
+<p>The murder of Stephen was not an isolated event. Taking advantage of the
+weakness of the Roman functionaries, the Jews brought to bear upon the
+Church a real persecution. It seems that the vexations pressed chiefly
+on the Hellenists and the proselytes, whose free behavior exasperated
+the orthodox. The Church of Jerusalem, though already strongly
+organized, was compelled to disperse. The apostles, according to a
+principle which seems to have seized strong hold of their minds, did not
+quit the city. It was probably so, too, with the whole purely Jewish
+group, those who were denominated the "Hebrews." But the great community
+with its common table, its diaconal services, its varied exercises,
+ceased from that time, and was never reformed upon its first model. It
+had endured for three or four years. It was for nascent Christianity an
+unequalled good fortune that its first attempts at association,
+essentially communistic, were so soon broken up. Essays of this kind
+engender such shocking abuses that communistic establishments are
+condemned to crumble away in a very short time or to ignore very soon
+the principle upon which they are founded.</p>
+
+<p>Thanks to the persecution of the year 37, the cenobitic Church of
+Jerusalem was saved from the test of time. It was nipped in the bud
+before interior difficulties had undermined it. It remained like a
+splendid dream, the memory of which animated in their life of trial all
+those who had formed part of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> it, like an ideal to which Christianity
+incessantly aspires without ever succeeding in reaching its goal.</p>
+
+<p>The leading part in the persecution we have just related belonged to
+that young Saul, whom we have above found abetting, as far as in him
+lay, the murder of Stephen. This hot-headed youth, furnished with a
+permission from the priests, entered houses suspected of harboring
+Christians, laid violent hold on men and women, and dragged them to
+prison or before the tribunals. Saul boasted that there was no one of
+his generation so zealous as himself for the traditions. True it is that
+often the gentleness and the resignation of his victims astonished him;
+he experienced a kind of remorse; he fancied he heard these pious women,
+whom, hoping for the Kingdom of God, he had cast into prison, saying
+during the night, in a sweet voice, "Why persecutest thou us?" The blood
+of Stephen, which had almost smothered him, sometimes troubled his
+vision. Many things that he had heard said of Jesus went to his heart.
+This superhuman being, in his ethereal life, whence he sometimes
+emerged, revealing himself in brief apparitions, haunted him like a
+spectre. But Saul shrunk with horror from such thoughts; he confirmed
+himself with a sort of frenzy in the faith of his traditions, and
+meditated new cruelties against those who attacked him. His name had
+become a terror to the faithful; they dreaded at his hands the most
+atrocious outrages and the most sanguinary treacheries.</p>
+
+<p>The persecution of the year 37 had for its result, as is always the
+case, the spread of the doctrine which it was wished to arrest. Till now
+the Christian preaching had not extended far beyond Jerusalem; no
+mission had been undertaken; enclosed within its exalted but narrow
+communion, the mother Church had spread no halos around herself nor
+formed any branches. The dispersion of the little circle scattered the
+good seed to the four winds of heaven. The members of the Church of
+Jerusalem, driven violently from their quarters, spread themselves over
+every part of Judea and Samaria, and preached everywhere the Kingdom of
+God. The deacons, in particular, freed from their administrative
+functions by the destruction of the community, became excellent
+evangelists.</p>
+
+<p>The scene of the first missions, which was soon to embrace<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> the whole
+basin of the Mediterranean, was the region about Jerusalem, within a
+radius of two or three days' journey. Philip the Deacon was the hero of
+this first holy expedition. He evangelized Samaria most successfully.
+Peter and John, after confirming the Church of Sebaste, departed again
+for Jerusalem, evangelizing on their way the villages of the country of
+Samaria. Philip the Deacon continued his evangelizing journeys,
+directing his steps toward the south, into the ancient country of the
+Philistines.</p>
+
+<p>Azote and the Gaza route were the limits of the first evangelical
+preachings toward the south. Beyond were the desert and the nomadic life
+upon which Christianity has never taken much hold. From Azote Philip the
+Deacon turned toward the north and evangelized all the coast as far as
+C&aelig;sarea, where he settled and founded an important church. C&aelig;sarea was a
+new city and the most considerable of Judea. It was in a kind of way the
+port of Christianity, the point by which the Church of Jerusalem
+communicated with all the Mediterranean.</p>
+
+<p>Many other missions, the history of which is unknown to us, were
+conducted simultaneously with that of Philip. The very rapidity with
+which this first preaching was done was the reason of its success. In
+the year 38, five years after the death of Jesus, and probably one year
+after the death of Stephen, all this side of Jordan had heard the glad
+tidings from the mouths of missionaries hailing from Jerusalem. Galilee,
+on its part, guarded the holy seed and probably scattered it around her,
+although we know of no missions issuing from that quarter. Perhaps the
+city of Damascus, from the period at which we now are, had also some
+Christians, who received the faith from Galilean preachers.</p>
+
+<p>The year 38 is marked in the history of the nascent Church by a much
+more important conquest. During that year we may safely place the
+conversion of that Saul whom we witnessed participating in the stoning
+of Stephen, and as a principal agent in the persecution of 37, but who
+now, by a mysterious act of grace, becomes the most ardent of the
+disciples of Jesus.</p>
+
+<p>From the year 38 to the year 44 no persecution seems to have been
+directed against the Church. The faithful were, no doubt, far more
+prudent than before the death of Stephen, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> avoided speaking in
+public. Perhaps, too, the troubles of the Jews who, during all the
+second part of the reign of Caligula, were at variance with that prince,
+contributed to favor the nascent sect.</p>
+
+<p>This period of peace was fruitful in interior developments. The nascent
+Church was divided into three provinces, Judea, Samaria, Galilee, to
+which Damascus was no doubt attached. The primacy of Jerusalem was
+uncontested. The Church of this city, which had been dispersed after the
+death of Stephen, was quickly reconstituted. The apostles had never
+quitted the city. The brothers of the Lord continued to reside there and
+to wield a great authority.</p>
+
+<p>Peter undertook frequent apostolical journeys in the environs of
+Jerusalem. He had always a great reputation as a thaumaturgist. At Lydda
+in particular he was reputed to have cured a paralytic named &AElig;neas, a
+miracle which is said to have led to numerous conversions in the plain
+of Saron. From Lydda he repaired to Joppa, a city which appears to have
+been a centre for Christianity. Peter made a long sojourn at Joppa, at
+the house of a tanner named Simon, who dwelt near the sea. The
+organization of works of charity was soon actively entered upon.</p>
+
+<p>The germ of those associations of women, which are one of the glories of
+Christianity, existed in the first churches of Judea. At Jaffa commenced
+those societies of veiled women, clothed in linen, who were destined to
+continue through centuries the tradition of charitable secrets. Tabitha
+was the mother of a family which will have no end as long as there are
+miseries to be relieved and feminine instincts to be gratified.</p>
+
+<p>The Church of Jerusalem was still exclusively composed of Jews and of
+proselytes. The Holy Ghost being shed upon the uncircumcised before
+baptism, appeared an extraordinary fact. It is probable that there
+existed thenceforward a party opposed in principle to the admission of
+Gentiles, and that all did not accept the explanations of Peter. The
+author of the Acts would have us believe that the approbation was
+unanimous. But in a few years we shall see the question revived with
+much greater intensity. This matter of the good centurion was, perhaps,
+like that of the Ethiopian eunuch, accepted as an exceptional<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> case,
+justified by a revelation and an express order from God. Still the
+matter was far from being settled. This was the first controversy which
+had taken place in the bosom of the Church; the paradise of interior
+peace had lasted for six or seven years.</p>
+
+<p>About the year 40 the great question upon which depended all the future
+of Christianity appears thus to have been propounded. Peter and Philip
+took a very just view of what was the true solution, and baptized
+pagans.</p>
+
+<p>The new faith was spread from place to place with marvellous rapidity.
+The members of the Church of Jerusalem, who had been dispersed
+immediately after the death of Stephen, pushing their conquests along
+the coast of Ph&oelig;nicia, reached Cyprus and Antioch. They were at first
+guided by the sole principle of preaching the Gospel to the Jews only.</p>
+
+<p>Antioch, "the metropolis of the East," the third city of the world, was
+the centre of this Christian movement in Northern Syria. It was a city
+with a population of more than five hundred thousand souls, and the
+residence of the imperial legate of Syria. Suddenly advanced to a high
+degree of splendor by the Seleucid&aelig;, it reaped great benefit from the
+Roman occupation. Antioch, from its foundation, had been wholly a
+Grecian city. The Macedonians of Antigone and Seleucus had brought with
+them into that country of the Lower Orontes their most lively
+recollections, their worship, and the names of their country. The
+Grecian mythology was there adopted as it were in a second home; they
+pretended to show in the country a crowd of "holy places" forming part
+of this mythology. The city was full of the worship of Apollo and of the
+nymphs. The degradation of the people was awful. The peculiarity of
+these centres of moral putrefaction is to reduce all the race of mankind
+to the same level. The depravity of certain Levantine cities, which are
+dominated by the spirit of intrigue and delivered up entirely to low
+cunning, can scarcely give us an idea of the degree of corruption
+reached by the human race at Antioch. It was an inconceivable medley of
+mountebanks, quacks, buffoons, magicians, miracle-mongers, sorcerers,
+false priests; a city of races, games, dances, processions, <i>f&ecirc;tes</i>,
+revels, of unbridled luxury, of all the follies of the East, of the most
+unhealthy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> superstitions, and of the fanaticism of the orgy. The city
+was very literary, but literary only in the literature of rhetoricians.
+The beauty of works of art and the infinite charm of nature prevented
+this moral degradation from sinking entirely into hideousness and
+vulgarity.</p>
+
+<p>The Church of Antioch owed its foundation to some believers originally
+from Cyprus and Cyrene, who had already been much engaged in preaching.
+Up to this time they had only addressed themselves to the Jews. But in a
+city where pure Jews&mdash;Jews who were proselytes, "people fearing God"&mdash;or
+half-Jewish pagans and pure pagans, lived together, exclusive preaching
+restricted to a group of houses became impossible. That feeling of
+religious aristocracy on which the Jews of Jerusalem so much prided
+themselves did not exist in those large cities, where civilization was
+altogether of the profane sort, where the scope was greater, and where
+prejudices were less firmly rooted. The Cypriot and Cyrenian
+missionaries were then constrained to depart from their rule. They
+preached to the Jews and to the Greeks indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>The success of the Christian preaching was great. A young, innovating,
+and ardent Church, full of the future, because it was composed of the
+most diverse elements, was quickly founded. All the gifts of the Holy
+Spirit were there poured out, and it was easy to perceive that this new
+Church, emancipated from the strict Mosaism which erected an insuperable
+barrier around Jerusalem, would become the second cradle of
+Christianity. Assuredly, Jerusalem must remain forever the capital of
+the Christian world; nevertheless, the point of departure of the Church
+of the Gentiles, the primordial focus of Christian missions, was, in
+truth, Antioch. It was there that for the first time a Christian church
+was established, freed from the bonds of Judaism; it was there that the
+great propaganda of the apostolic age was established; it was there that
+St. Paul assumed a definite character. Antioch marks the second
+halting-place of the progress of Christianity, and, in respect of
+Christian nobility, neither Rome nor Alexandria nor Constantinople can
+be at all compared with it.</p>
+
+<p>The foundation of Christianity, from this point of view, is the greatest
+work that the men of the people have ever achieved.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> Very quickly,
+without doubt, men and women of the high Roman nobility joined
+themselves to the Church. At the end of the first century, Flavius
+Clemens and Flavia Domitilla show us Christianity penetrating almost
+into the palace of the C&aelig;sars.</p>
+
+
+<h4>ISAAC M. WISE</h4>
+
+<p>In the rabbinical literature several successes of the apostles are
+noticed, especially at Capernaum and Capersamia. One of them is most
+remarkable, viz., the conversion of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcan by the
+apostle James. This rabbi, the <i>Talmud</i> narrates, was actually arrested
+by Roman officers, and, in obedience to the edict against Christianity,
+was accused of the crime of being a Christian, which he did not deny,
+although he repented it.</p>
+
+<p>The most important success, however, which the apostles could boast was
+the conversion of Paul. The man whose colossal genius and gigantic
+energies grasped the pillars upon which the superstructure of
+Gr&aelig;co-Roman paganism rested, bent and broke them like rotten staves,
+till with a thundering noise down came the ancient fabric, with its
+gods, altars, temples, priests, and priestesses, depositing <i>d&eacute;bris</i>
+that took centuries to remove and remodel; the man whose hands were
+against all, and against whom were all hands; who defied the philosophy
+of the philosophers, the power of the priests, and the religions of the
+world; who was all alone all in all&mdash;this man was Paul of Tarsus, the
+great apostle to the Gentiles, with an original gospel of his own. He
+kindled a fire in the very heart of the Roman Empire, under the eyes of
+the authorities of Rome and of Jerusalem, which in a few centuries
+consumed ancient heathenism from the Tigris to the Tiber, and from the
+Tiber to the Thames. With a skilful hand he threw the sparks upon the
+accumulated combustibles of error, corruption, and slavery, and ancient
+society exploded, to make room and furnish the material for a new
+civilization. The conversion of this man was the apostles' great
+success. If it had not been for him the nascent Church, like other
+Jewish sects, would have perished in the catastrophe of Jerusalem,
+because the apostles did not possess that vigor and energy to resist the
+violent shock. In Paul,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> however, the spirit of John and of Jesus
+resurrected with double vigor, and he became the actual founder of the
+Christianity of history.</p>
+
+<p>Few and far apart are the brilliant stars in the horizon of history.
+Strike out a hundred names and their influence upon the fate of man, and
+you have no history.</p>
+
+<p>Those brilliant stars, however, did not always make history from their
+own wealth, from the original resources of their minds. Ideas which tens
+of thousands have held, without an attempt to carry them into effect,
+and others have unsuccessfully attempted to realize, in the right time
+and under favorable circumstances are seized upon by an executive
+genius, and a new epoch in history is opened. The numerous minor spirits
+which contributed to the sum total of the creative idea disappear in the
+brilliancy of the one star which remains visible in history. The world
+is a machine shop. Each artificer makes the part of a machine. One
+master mind combines the parts, and he is known as the master machinist.</p>
+
+<p>Paul was one of those master machinists, one of those brilliant stars in
+the horizon of history. In him the spirit of Jesus resurrected as
+eminently and vigorously as John had resurrected in Jesus. He was the
+author of Gentile Christianity. He conceived the idea of carrying into
+effect what all the prophets, all pious Israelites of all ages, hoped
+and expected&mdash;the denationalization of the Hebrew ideas, and their
+promulgation in the form of universal religion among the Gentiles; to
+conciliate and unite the human family under the great banner inscribed
+with the motto of "One God and one code of morals to all." All Jews of
+all ages hoped and expected that the kingdom of heaven should be
+extended to all nations and tongues; but Paul went forth <span class="smcap">to do</span> it; this
+is his particular greatness.</p>
+
+<p>The circumstances, of course, favored his enterprise. Gr&aelig;co-Roman
+paganism was undermined. The gods stood in disrepute, and the augurs
+smiled. The state religion was an organized hypocrisy. The learned
+believed nothing; the vulgar almost everything, if it was but
+preposterously absurd enough. The progress of Grecian philosophy and the
+inroads of Judaism in the Roman world were so considerable that royal
+families had embraced Judaism, and the emperor Tiberius had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> found it
+necessary to drive the Jews, together with the Egyptian priests, from
+Rome, because their religion had its admirers in the very palace of the
+C&aelig;sars, as well as among priests, nobles, and plebeians. All the devout
+Gentiles whom Paul met on his journeys were Judaized Greeks or Syrians;
+for the Pharisees traversed land and sea to make one proselyte.
+Therefore, when Paul preached in Asia Minor, Cicero and Cato <i>had</i>
+spoken in Rome; Seneca and Epictetus gave utterance to sentiments as
+nearly like those of Paul and other Jews as are the two eyes of the same
+head.</p>
+
+<p>Again, on the other hand, Epicurism in its worst sequences, sensualism
+in its most outrageous form, the despotism and brutality of the C&aelig;sars
+and their favorites, had so undermined the moral sentiments and
+religious feelings of the masses that scepticism, fraught with shocking
+vices and unnatural crimes, coupled with contemptible hypocrisy and
+ridiculous superstition, demoralized the masses and brought truth itself
+into ill-repute. To add to all this there came the steady decline of the
+Jewish state, the growing demonstration of fast-approaching ruin, and,
+in consequence thereof, the growth of superstition among the Hebrews,
+among whom a class of mystics sprang up, who professed to know what God
+and his angels do, speak, and think in the secret cabinet of heaven,
+where the throne of the Almighty stands, splendidly and minutely
+described by those mystics who supposed that they received superior
+knowledge by special impressions from on high, without study or research
+on their part; and expected to see the status of social and political
+affairs suddenly changed by miraculous interpositions of the Deity,
+without human exertion and co&ouml;peration. This state of affairs was highly
+favorable to Paul's stupendous enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>But who was Paul himself? Notwithstanding all the attempts of the author
+of the Acts to mystify him into as mythical a character as the Gospels
+made of Jesus, Paul is an open book in history. We have his genuine
+epistles, in which he gives considerable account of himself and his
+exploits. We have one portion of the Acts in which, contrary to the rest
+of that book, the author narrates in the first person plural, "we,"
+which appears to be taken from the notes of one of Paul's
+companions&mdash;Luke,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> Timothy, Silas, or any other. Then we have the
+<i>Talmud</i>, with its numerous anecdotes about <i>Acher</i>, as the rabbis
+called Paul, which are of inestimable value to the historian. These
+sources enable us to form a conception of the man. A few remarks on his
+life will be found interesting.</p>
+
+<p>Paul is not a proper name. It signifies "the little one." The author of
+the Acts states that his name was Saul. But, it appears, he knew no more
+about it than we do, and changed the P of Paul into an S, to make of it
+the Hebrew name Saul. In his epistles he invariably calls himself Paul,
+and not Saul. So the author of the "we" portion of the Acts always calls
+him Paul. Passing under an assumed name, the rabbis called him <i>Acher</i>,
+"another," <i>i.e.</i>, one who passes under another or assumed name. They
+maintain that his name was Elisha ben Abujah. But this name must be
+fictitious, because it is a direct and express reference to Paul's
+theology. It signifies "the saving deity, son of the father god," and
+Paul was the author of the "Son of God" doctrine. The fact is, he was
+known to the world under his assumed name only.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing is known of his youth, except a few spurious anecdotes recorded
+in the <i>Talmud</i>. When quite young he studied the law and some Grecian
+literature at the feet of Gamaliel in Jerusalem, among the thousand
+students who listened to the wisdom of that master. He states that he
+was a very zealous Pharisee, who persecuted the Christians. But all of a
+sudden he embraced the cause of the persecuted, and became one of its
+most zealous apostles. We can easily imagine the nature of that
+persecution, although the Stephen story, like the Damascus story and the
+vision on the way, as narrated in the Acts, is spurious, because Paul
+never alludes to it, and the Jews of Jerusalem had no jurisdiction in
+Damascus over anybody. But what caused his remarkable transition from
+one extreme to the other? First a Pharisee, with law and nothing but
+law, and then the author of the epistles, which reject and abrogate the
+entire law. Transitions of this nature require time, and are wrought by
+violent agencies only.</p>
+
+<p>A number of stories narrated in the <i>Talmud</i>, together with those of the
+Acts, point to the fact that the youthful Paul, with his vivid
+imagination, witnessed many an act of barbarous violence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> and outrageous
+injustice. Occurrences of this nature were not rare under the military
+despotism of Rome in Judea. The soil was saturated with innocent blood.
+The world was governed by the sword, and Rome groaned under the
+unnatural crimes of her C&aelig;sars. There was universal depravity among the
+governing class, and endless misery among the governed. The rabbis give
+us to understand that this state of affairs misled Paul into the belief
+that there was no justice in heaven or earth, no hope for Israel, no
+reward and no punishment, that the balance of justice was destroyed. It
+is quite natural that under such circumstances such a scepticism should
+overpower young and sensitive reasoners.</p>
+
+<p>King Saul, in a state of despair, receiving no reply from the prophets,
+none from the Urim and Thumim, deeply fallen as he was, went in disguise
+to the Witch of Endor. Goethe's Faust, in imitation thereof, receiving
+no answer to his questions addressed to heaven and eternity, no answer
+through his knowledge of nature's laws and nature's forces, no answer
+from the philosophy of his century and the theology of his priests,
+throws himself into the embrace of Mephistopheles. That is human nature.
+Exactly the same thing was done in the days of Paul, and exactly the
+same thing he himself did. There was the indescribable misery of the
+age, and there were the knowledge and theories of that overburdened
+century, and no answer, no reply to the questions addressed to heaven
+and eternity; and they went to the fountains of mysticism and secret
+knowledge to quench the thirst of the soul. There sprung up the
+visionary Gnostics among the Gentiles, and the Cabalistic Mystics among
+the Jews. History notices the same rotation continually&mdash;idealism,
+sensualism, scepticism, and finally mysticism.</p>
+
+<p>The mystic art among the Hebrews then was of two different kinds, either
+to attract an evil spirit or to be transported alive into paradise or
+heaven. An evil spirit was attracted by fasting and remaining for days
+and nights alone in burial-grounds, till the brain was maddened and
+infatuated, when the artificial demoniac prophesied and performed sundry
+miracles. The transportation to heaven or paradise was more difficult.
+The candidate for a tour into heaven would retire to some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> isolated
+spot, fast until the brain was maddened with delirium and the nerves
+excited to second sight by the loss of sleep. Then, in that state of
+trance, he would sit down on the ground, draw up his knees, bend down
+his head between them, and murmur magic spells, until, through the
+reversed circulation of the blood, the maddened brain, and the unstrung
+nerves, he would imagine that he saw the heaven opening to his
+inspection, palace after palace thrown widely open to his gaze, hosts of
+angels passing within view, until finally he imagined himself entirely
+removed from the earth, transported aloft into those diamond palaces on
+high, or, as Paul calls it, "caught up into paradise," where he heard
+"unspeakable words, which it is not possible for a man to utter," and
+the throne of God, with all the seraphim and cherubim, archangels and
+angels, became visible and their conversation intelligible to the
+enraptured and transported mystic, in a fit of hallucination, when the
+bewildered imagination sees objectively its own subjective phantasma,
+and hears from without, in supposed articulate sounds, its own silent
+thoughts. It requires no great stretch of the imagination to form a
+correct idea of the mystic eccentricities to which this awful practice
+must have led those who frequently indulged in it. Rabbinical mystics,
+like modern trance-speakers, gave vivid descriptions of the interior
+splendor and grand sceneries of heaven and of the conversations of
+angels. One of those descriptions is preserved in <i>Pirke Rabbi Eliezer</i>,
+and others in various fragments of the <i>Talmud</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Among those particularly noticed in the <i>Talmud</i> as having been in
+heaven or paradise there is also Acher, or Paul, who states so himself
+in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians (xii.). That passage gave rise
+to the story of Jesus appearing in person to Paul, just as the
+rabbinical mystics claimed to have had frequent intercourse with the
+prophet Elijah, who had been transported alive to heaven.</p>
+
+<p>So Paul passed the transition from the law school of the Pharisees to
+the new school of mystics. In this state of trance he discovered that
+central figure of the Cabalistic speculation, the <i>Metathron</i>, the
+co-regent of the Almighty; or, as he otherwise was called, the
+<i>Synadelphos</i>, the <i>confr&egrave;re</i> of the Deity, or Suriel, the "Prince of
+the Countenance," whom the Cabalists<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> imagined to be the chief marshal
+or chief scribe in heaven; who was once on earth, as Enoch or as Elijah,
+and was advanced to that high position in heaven.</p>
+
+<p>It is the Demiurge, the highest magistrate in heaven, whom the gnostic
+Valentine calls a godlike angel, and of whom the rabbis said, "His name
+is like unto the name of his Master."</p>
+
+<p>This central figure, blended with the messianic speculations of that
+age, with the doctrines of Peter and the nascent Church, combined in
+Paul's mind to one mystic conception of the "Son of God," intelligible
+to pagan ears. So he went forth and proclaimed Jesus of Nazareth the Son
+of God. In substance, the expression is about the same as Metathron and
+Synadelphos, and the office which Paul ascribed to Jesus is precisely of
+the same nature with that which the Cabalists ascribed to the angel who
+was the <i>Saar Haolom</i>, the prince or ruler of this world, who stands
+before God, or also sits before him, as Paul's Jesus stands before God
+or sits at his right hand. It is precisely the same in both systems, the
+names only are changed; so that it is difficult to decide whether Paul
+was or the rabbis were the authors of the metathronic speculations,
+especially as these two angels only have Greek names, while all others
+are Hebrew or Chald&aelig;an, and later Cabalists frequently put down Joshua
+or Jesus in the place of Metathron.</p>
+
+<p>Those who believe that Acher's dualism of the Deity was the Persian
+<i>Ormuzd</i> and <i>Ahriman</i>, hence a good and an evil principle, and that
+Metathron never was an evil demon, are as decidedly mistaken as those
+who believe that Paul had more than one God. Paul's Son of God and
+Acher's Metathron are the same central figure before the throne of God,
+and the two authors are identical.</p>
+
+<p>In that world of secret thoughts Paul discovered the harmonization of
+discordant speculations and the remedy for all existing evils. "The
+world must be regenerated by a new religion," was his great ideal. The
+ancient religions and the philosophies have produced the corruption
+which rages universally. They must be swept away. Society must be
+reconstructed on a new basis, and this basis is in the theology and
+ethics of Israel, separated and liberated from their climatical and
+national limitations, their peculiar Jewish garb. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> was no hope
+left of saving the Jewish nationality and political organization from
+the hands of omnipotent Rome, which swallowed and neutralized kingdoms
+and nations with wonderful ease; nor was there any particular necessity
+for it if society at large was reconstructed on the new basis. The
+object of Jesus was to reconstruct the kingdom of heaven <i>in Israel</i>,
+and he was crucified. All Israel had the same object in view, and stood
+at the brink of dissolution. If the basis and principles of the kingdom
+of heaven became the postulate of society at large, Jesus is resurrected
+in the world, and Israel is saved, was Paul's main idea.</p>
+
+<p>The Pharisean rabbis hoped that this would come to pass at some future
+day, when, they maintained, all sacrifices and all laws would be
+abolished, and all the nations of the earth would be one family, with
+one God and one moral law. Paul seized upon the idea, and added to it
+the simple dogma of Peter, "The Messiah has come." That hoped-for future
+is now. God's promise to Abraham, "And there shall be blessed by thee,
+and by thy seed, all the families of the earth," is to be fulfilled at
+once. So he came forth from his mystical paradise an apostle of Jesus
+and a new redeemer of Israel. He argued exactly as the Pharisean doctors
+did who maintained that the Messiah would come when all mankind should
+be guilty or all righteous. In the estimation of Paul, at that
+particular time all mankind was corrupt and demoralized, and so that was
+the time for the Messiah to make his appearance.</p>
+
+<p>He went to work at once. He began to preach his new Christianity at
+Damascus about the year 51, and found out that the world was not
+prepared for his ideas. He had a narrow escape at Damascus, where the
+governor and soldiers pursued him. Like the spies at Jericho, he was let
+down in a basket over the city walls and made his escape. So <i>he</i>
+narrates the story. The author of the Acts, true to his hostility to the
+Jews, of course brings them in as the persecutors. But Paul, in general,
+never speaks otherwise than with the highest regard and love of his
+kinsmen and his brothers according to the flesh.</p>
+
+<p>The failure at Damascus did not discourage Paul. It only convinced him
+that he was too young&mdash;he could not at that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> time have been much over
+twenty-one years; that he was not sufficiently prepared for the great
+enterprise; that it was not such an easy task to throw down the
+superannuated heathenism and to reorganize society on a new basis. He
+retired into Arabia and remained there nearly three years, to perfect a
+plan of operation. Nearly three years he spent in silent contemplation,
+to discover the proper means, to take the right hold upon the heathen
+world, and to unfurl a new banner of heaven upon this wicked earth. In
+53 or 54 we meet him again at Antioch, with his new and original
+gospel&mdash;the gospel for the Gentiles&mdash;prepared for his mission and ready
+to embark in the great enterprise, to wage active war upon all existing
+systems of religion and philosophy, and to replace all of them by Paul's
+gospel. He had been in Jerusalem fifteen days, had conversed with Peter
+and nobody else, but he repeatedly tells us that he had taken advice of
+none, consulted none, was appointed by nobody, and learned nothing of
+anybody. The gospel was his gospel, and he was an apostle by the
+appointment of God Almighty himself, who had revealed his Son to him. In
+Antioch he established the first congregation of Jews and Gentiles, and
+called them Christians. So Paul was the actual author of Christianity
+among the Gentiles.</p>
+
+<p>What was Paul's gospel? Paul, setting out on his journeys with the great
+idea of converting heathens, was obliged to paganize the Gospel. The
+heathens knew nothing of the Jewish Messiah, and he gave him the name
+popularly known among them&mdash;he called him the Son of God, which was a
+common name in mythology. The Son of God and Mary was a term as popular
+among heathens as it was foreign to the Jews, among whom Jesus was to
+remain the Messiah, only that he became also the Metathron. This
+explained to Jewish mystics the possibility of the second advent, and
+gave a metaphysical foundation to the resurrection doctrine. The kingdom
+of heaven, or the theocracy, was another unintelligible idea to the
+heathen. Israel's laws and form of government were as odious and decried
+among the pagans as the hostility to that people was fierce and
+implacable. Paul made thereof a theological kingdom of heaven, when all
+the dead shall resurrect in spiritual bodies, and the living shall be
+changed accordingly, together<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> with this earth and all that is thereon;
+and declared all the laws of Israel abrogated, so that only the spirit
+thereof, the precepts and not the laws, should be obligatory in the new
+state of society.</p>
+
+<p>The sins and wickedness of the world are forgiven to all who believe in
+the Son, and whose flesh is crucified with him, to resurrect with him in
+purity; for he died a vicarious atonement for all. He was the last
+sacrifice, to blot out the sins of all who have faith in him.</p>
+
+<p>The Crucified One did not resurrect merely in the spirit, of which the
+heathens could not form a satisfactory conception, because the
+immortality of the soul was by no means a general belief among them, and
+their gods were no spirits; he resurrected in his very body, and was
+caught up to heaven, to sit or stand there at God's right hand, to come
+down again in proper time. "Here, then, is your tangible proof of
+immortality," he said to the heathens. "Like the Crucified One, all of
+you will resurrect from the dead, or be changed on the day of judgment."
+This was plain language to heathens, who knew that but lately C&aelig;sar had
+been caught up to heaven as Romulus was before him, and asked no
+questions as to how a human body can rise in the atmosphere and become
+incorruptible; none as to what means above or below, up or down, as to
+where God is and where he is not, where his right hand, where before and
+where behind him; or as to whether the world is full of his glory. No
+such questions were asked, and there was the ocular demonstration of
+immortality, tangible and intelligible to the grossest intellect.</p>
+
+<p>The Jewish nationality and the Jewish law are at their end, and the
+world is the heir to that covenant and to the blessing of God by Abraham
+and his seed. With the new covenant the old one ceases. It has fulfilled
+its destiny. It was a state of preparation for this period of universal
+salvation to all who have love, hope, and faith. With Adam and the flesh
+came the sin, law, and death; with Jesus the flesh ceases, hence no more
+sin, law, or death.</p>
+
+<p>These are the main features of Paul's gospel: The Son of God, the
+theological kingdom of heaven, the vicarious atonement, the bodily
+resurrection of the Crucified One, the abrogation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> of the law, and the
+beginning of the new covenant. He was the first man to utter these
+doctrines; with him Christianity begins, and he named it.</p>
+
+<p>But Paul knew well that doctrines alone would be insufficient to rouse
+the heathen world from its demoralized state, its dreary and stupid
+dreams; and he resorted to the most terrible and most shocking of all
+messages. He came to the heathens with the terror-striking proclamation,
+"The end is nigh!" The whole earth, with all the creatures thereon; the
+whole human family, with all its wickedness, all its atrocious crimes,
+will be destroyed in one moment. All of you, men, women, and children,
+with all your vices and crimes, will be suddenly summoned before the
+Eternal and All-just; you have to go, all of you, and appear before the
+omniscient God. The end is nigh, the destruction of the human family is
+certain and right before you. It will come soon. It may come any day, at
+any moment.</p>
+
+<p>Now Paul's gospel came in. Here is your choice. There are death and
+damnation; here are life and happiness everlasting. God has sent his Son
+in advance of the approaching catastrophe to warn you, and he is
+appointed now to conduct the end of all flesh. Cling to him and be
+saved, or believe not and be condemned forever. So he came to the
+heathens. This was his gospel. How did he succeed? We will explain after
+a brief pause.</p>
+
+<p>All passages in the Gospels and the Acts which have reference to the
+above Christology, to the end of things or against it&mdash;in which the
+synoptics most fatally contradict one another&mdash;are the products of
+writers long after Paul, when the attempts to reconcile Jewish and
+Gentile Christianity were made. For with Paul begins the new form of
+Christianity and the struggle with the representatives of the old form.
+Within ten years he traversed the land from Antioch to Athens, in three
+different journeys, and established his bishopric, the first Christian
+congregations among the Gentiles. He organized them fully, with deacons
+and deaconesses, preachers and prophets; and he was their bishop, their
+oracle, their revelation, and their demi-god. He let his converts
+believe that they could do wonderful things, in healing the sick,
+driving out demons, prophesying and speaking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> with strange tongues,
+because it served his purposes, although he did none of these things. He
+gave them the Holy Ghost, <i>i.e.</i>, he regenerated their feelings and
+pacified their stormy passions, suppressed their brutal lusts, and
+elevated their aspirations to higher ideals. He did not feel that
+sovereign contempt for money which the Master did whom he glorified; for
+he, like the other apostles, took his pay, and argued with the
+Corinthians, like a good Pharisean lawyer, that bishops and preachers
+must be paid&mdash;an argument well understood by the dignitaries of the
+Church to this day.</p>
+
+<p>Wonderful, indeed, is the progress which Paul made among the Gentiles in
+ten years. Like a pillar of fire, he traversed the deserts of
+heathenism; like a second Elijah, he battled against the priests and
+prophets of Baal, and conjured down the fire from heaven to his
+assistance. Within ten years he laid the foundation of a new
+civilization, of the reorganization of society on the new basis. He did
+not live to see it realized, but he saw the new system take root and
+promise golden fruit. Wonderful, we maintain, was his success; for he
+was not only opposed by the entire heathen world, and by the orthodox
+Jews, although he proclaimed their God and their doctrines, their
+religion and their hopes, but was also most strenuously opposed by the
+apostles and the nascent congregation in Jerusalem, whose Master he
+glorified, and whose cause he made the cause of the world. The
+dissensions between Paul and the apostles were of a very serious
+character, and there was ample cause for them.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, he took it upon himself to be an apostle, and they
+had their college of Twelve, to which none could be added, especially
+not Paul, who had never seen Jesus of Nazareth. He maintained that God
+had appointed him, God had revealed his Son and his Gospel to him; but
+the apostles did not believe it, and never acknowledged him as an
+apostle. At the end of his journeys, Peter, James, and John, three out
+of Twelve, acknowledged him as an apostle to the Gentiles, but not to
+the Jews. The rest never did, which, of course, was a great trouble and
+drawback to Paul among his own converts.</p>
+
+<p>In the second place, they could never forgive him for the idea of going
+to the Gentiles. Peter, who had become a pious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> Essene and considered it
+unlawful to go to the house or into the company of a Gentile; James, who
+dreaded the idea of eating of the bread of the Gentile, and made a
+hypocrite in this point of Peter at Antioch&mdash;and they were the heads of
+the Church&mdash;could not forgive Paul's innovation in going to the
+Gentiles. Paul was sensible enough to silence them by begging money for
+them, and to appoint the Sunday for collections to be made for the
+saints of Jerusalem. But it was too much for them that Paul went to the
+Gentiles.</p>
+
+<p>In the third place, he changed their whole religion into a new sort of
+mythology. He made of Jesus a Son of God, of which they had no
+knowledge. He preached vicarious atonement, bodily resurrection, the end
+of the old covenant and the beginning of a new, the end of all flesh,
+the last judgment&mdash;all of which was foreign to them; not one word of all
+that had their Master told them, and they knew only what he did tell
+them. They naturally looked upon him as an unscrupulous innovator. They
+had not experience and forethought enough to understand that Paul's
+success among the heathens depended on that means. They were pious men
+who prayed much, believed seriously, and had no knowledge of the world
+as it was.</p>
+
+<p>In the fourth place, they could not possibly give their consent to
+Paul's abrogation of the whole law, knowing, as they did, how their
+Master respected every tittle, every iota of the law; that he had come
+to fulfil the law, and to re&euml;stablish the theocracy; how could they
+possibly think of the idea of abolishing Sabbath and holidays,
+circumcision and ablutions, all and everything, to be guided by the
+phantom of hope, love, and faith, against which James argues in his
+epistle with all the energy of his soul? Those inexperienced saints did
+not know that the Pharisean doctors held similar theories, and that Paul
+could not possibly hope to meet with any success among the Gentiles if
+he had come to them with the laws of the Jews. They were Roman citizens,
+who contemned the laws of the barbarians. Had Paul come with the word
+Judaism on his lips, he would have surely failed. Had he come to enforce
+a foreign law, he would have been laughed at as a madman. They did not
+know that Paul cared not for an hundred and one laws, as long as the
+essence and substance could be saved and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> preserved; that he held that
+laws are local, the spirit is universal; that laws are limitations, the
+spirit is free and the property of all men of all ages and climes; that
+he was determined to drop everything which could retard his progress.</p>
+
+<p>In the fifth place, and this was the worst, they could not forgive him
+for preaching the theological kingdom of heaven. A kingdom of Israel&mdash;a
+throne of David, a Davidian prince, a Zion and a Jerusalem in heaven,
+and slavery, misery, and oppression on earth&mdash;was so new and foreign to
+them, so contrary to what they had heard from their Master, that they
+could not accept it. What should become of Peter's Messiah, of the hopes
+and promises connected with the second advent, if all at once the whole
+scheme is transported from earth to heaven? It was too much
+disappointment, they could not endure it. Those men did not understand
+that Paul had carefully to avoid every conflict with the Roman
+authorities. He was too prudent to be crucified. They could not
+comprehend that his great object was not to remove the evil at once; he
+intended to sow the seed, to bring forth the plant; to give to the
+heathens correct notions of God, duty, responsibility, purity, holiness,
+morality, justice, humanity, and freedom, which in proper time should
+necessarily break the chains, revolutionize the sentiments, and elevate
+the views, hopes, aspirations, and designs of the nations.</p>
+
+<p>They could not comprehend that their Messiah and kingdom of heaven,
+together with his terrible message of the end of all flesh and the last
+judgment day, were means, and nothing but means, to captivate and reform
+the heathen. His Son of God was crucified and resurrected from the dead
+to forewarn all of the approaching end of all flesh; to show that in a
+little while all the dead should resurrect and the living should be
+changed to spiritual beings. He had been given all power by the Almighty
+to conduct the catastrophe of the world, and would be present at the
+last judgment day. But after all that is over, the earth and man changed
+to a new state of spiritual life, then the Son of God returns the
+kingdom to the Father, and God will be again all in all. So the Son of
+God was a general superintendent, the demiurge for the time being, a
+doctrine of which the apostles had no knowledge, and to which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> they
+could not give their consent. He could not get them to understand that
+these were the means for the conversion of the Gentiles, and that he had
+quite another gospel for the enlightened portion of the community. They
+could not see that among heathens used to apotheosis, man-worship, and
+plastic gods, ideas, to become effective, must put on concrete and
+tangible bodies.</p>
+
+<p>They could not imagine that the sensuality and corruption of the age
+required heroic and terror-striking means to rouse and to move the
+masses; and so the dissensions and troubles between Paul and the nascent
+Church increased with the success of Paul among the Gentiles. His
+epistles, one and all, are polemics, not against heathenism or against
+Judaism, but against his colleagues in Jerusalem, whom, together with
+their doctrines, he treats in a most reckless manner. They could not
+write to counterbalance Paul&mdash;in fact, there were no writers of any note
+among them. Therefore, only one side of the polemics, that of Paul, is
+fully represented in the New Testament; and the side of the Jewish
+Christians remained mostly matter of tradition.</p>
+
+<p>Messengers were sent to follow Paul to undo his gospel and preach that
+of the apostles; to introduce the law and circumcision among the Gentile
+Christians. Those messengers in many cases succeeded, notwithstanding
+the thundering epistles of Paul. So his influence was weakened and his
+progress retarded among the Gentiles till finally, after ten years of
+hard work, he concluded upon going to Jerusalem and, if possible,
+effecting a compromise with the apostolic congregation. It was a
+dangerous time for him to go to Jerusalem, for just then the fanatic
+high-priest, Ananias, had convened a court of his willing tools, tried
+James, the brother of Jesus, and, finding him guilty, of what God only
+knows, had him and some of his associates executed&mdash;a bloody deed, which
+cost him his office, on account of the loud and emphatic protestations
+of the Jews before Agrippa II and the Roman governor. Therefore, Paul
+was cautioned by prophets and friends not to go to Jerusalem.</p>
+
+<p>But he was not the man to be frightened by dangers; he was the very type
+of boldness and courage. He went to Jerusalem to effect a conciliation
+with the Church. A synod met<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> in the house of James the apostle, who had
+succeeded the former James as head of the Church, and Paul was told to
+do that against which his conscience, his honor, his manhood must have
+revolted: he was required to play the hypocrite in Jerusalem, in order
+to pacify the brethren who were angry at him. The thousands of Jews,
+they said, who were zealous for the law, and were informed how Paul
+taught the people to forsake Moses, to give up circumcision and the
+ancient customs, hearing of his presence in Jerusalem, "the multitude
+must needs come together," which points to the Jewish Christians
+faithful to the law. Therefore they advised him to go through the
+mockery of a purification at the Temple, "to be at charges," as they
+called it, with some who had vowed a vow, and make the prescribed
+sacrifices after the purification.</p>
+
+<p>Poor man! After so much labor, such ardent toils, such numerous perils,
+dangers, anxieties, trials, reverses, and triumphs, after ten long years
+of such work and such dangers, he is not safe in Jerusalem among his own
+kinsmen and among those whose Master he glorified, whose doctrines he
+taught, and whose interests he protected. How small must he have
+appeared to himself when walking up the Temple Mount in the company of
+the four men, whose expenses he paid, to be purified with them: "And all
+may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee,
+are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly and keepest the
+law." The man who had defied a world, to submit to the humbling
+dictation of his colleagues, who were children in comparison with
+him&mdash;this is mortifying to the utmost. This is the time of which it is
+said in the <i>Talmud</i> that Paul or Acher narrated, that on passing behind
+the <i>sanctum sanctorum</i> he heard the <i>Bath-kol</i> or Holy Ghost exclaim:
+"Return, all ye forward children; all return, except Paul, who has known
+me and rebelled against me." Paul never forgot, never forgave, this
+humiliation. It estranged his feelings altogether from his colleagues in
+Jerusalem, and he embraced the first best opportunity to rid himself
+entirely of his Jewish associations.</p>
+
+<p>The opportunity soon offered. While near the Temple some Jews from Asia
+Minor recognized him. A disturbance ensued. He was arrested and locked
+up in the castle by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> Roman commander. Here the author of the Acts
+brings in a terrible tumult&mdash;speeches, trials, a Jewish mob, with a
+noble Roman stepping in in time to wind up dramatically&mdash;not one word of
+which is historical. Paul, standing accused as the ringleader of the new
+sect who expected the second advent of the Messiah, could only appear
+dangerous to the zealous and vigilant Roman authorities. Nothing else
+was necessary to put his life in jeopardy. In the night he made up his
+mind to appeal to C&aelig;sar, because he was a Roman citizen. Therefore he
+was sent to C&aelig;sarea, to the governor, under the protection of soldiers.
+Not a sound was heard in his favor among the Jewish Christians. Not an
+angel appeared. Not a solitary miracle was wrought; none dreamed a
+dream; nobody had a vision; the Holy Ghost was as silent as the grave;
+none of all the Christians in Palestine showed his face, when Paul,
+loaded with chains, was transported from Jerusalem to C&aelig;sarea. This
+silence speaks volumes. They did not care much about the innovator.
+Therefore Paul's epistles from his prison in C&aelig;sarea are thunder-bolts
+against the law, circumcision, and his colleagues in Jerusalem. It is
+the offended man, the wounded lion, who retaliates in his anger.</p>
+
+<p>In C&aelig;sarea another mock trial is described by the author of the Acts.
+There can be little doubt that Ananias, the Sadducean high-priest who
+had slain James, thirsted also after the blood of Paul. But it is
+certainly not true that Felix was governor of Judea when Ananias was
+high-priest. Felix and Festus had been removed from their offices before
+Ananias was made high-priest, as the authentic sources of history show.
+If tried at C&aelig;sarea at all&mdash;which is doubtful, because Paul had appealed
+to C&aelig;sar&mdash;he was tried before Albinus. His speeches recorded in the Acts
+contain sentences of Paul, but many more additions from the author of
+the Acts.</p>
+
+<p>It matters little, however, whether Paul was tried before Albinus or
+Felix, or whether there was a trial at all. He had appealed to C&aelig;sar, in
+order to estrange himself from his colleagues in Jerusalem and to come
+before his converts as an expatriated man, although Agrippa himself had
+said, "This man might have been set at liberty had he not appealed unto
+C&aelig;sar."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Fortunately he was detained in C&aelig;sarea, when Nero in Rome put to death
+the Christians in his own gardens with exquisite cruelty, and added
+mockery and derision to their sufferings. Had he been brought to Rome
+<i>then</i>, no angels could have saved his life, and no power could have
+protected him for two years. He came to Rome in the year 65, when the
+cruelty of Nero's proceedings against the Christians filled every breast
+with compassion, and humanity relented in favor of the Christians. Then
+it was possible for Paul to have a hearing in Rome, where he lived in a
+hired house for two years.</p>
+
+<p>Neither Paul nor Peter was ever bishop of Rome, nor was either of them
+beheaded in Rome or anywhere else. All the legends and myths concerning
+them are void of truth. We know that Paul, who was then about
+thirty-five years old, wrote from Rome epistles in defence of his gospel
+and against his colleagues in Jerusalem, in the same spirit as those
+from C&aelig;sarea. We know, furthermore, that he went from Rome to Illyricum,
+where he preached his gospel. We know that he returned to Asia, and
+wrote the quintessence of his gospel in his epistle to the Romans. We
+know that many passages in his epistles were written, after the
+destruction of Jerusalem, when Paul was about forty years old, and his
+principal activity commenced still later, in opposition to Rabbi Akiba
+and his colleagues. We know from the <i>Talmud</i> that he married and left
+daughters. We know also numerous stories of Acher or Paul and his
+disciple, Rabbi Mair.</p>
+
+<p>Long after the death of the apostles the Christianity of Paul and the
+Messiahism of Peter were Platonized by the Alexandrian eclectics in a
+semi-gnostic manner, which gave birth to the fourth gospel, according to
+John, and the two epistles of John the Elder, not the apostle, about
+<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 160, of which the Synoptics have no idea. They had only the
+Christianity of Paul and of Peter before them. An original Peter gospel,
+Paul's epistles, and the different traditions of the various
+congregations were their sources, which they attempted to blend into one
+system. All the gospel writers lived in the second century; were not
+acquainted with the particulars of the story; had an imperfect knowledge
+of the Jews, their laws and doctrines; wrote in favor of the Romans,
+whom they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> wished to convert, and against the Jews, whom they could not
+convert.</p>
+
+<p>The third century inherited four distinct systems of Christianity: that
+of Jesus with the pure theocracy, that of Peter with the Messiah and his
+second advent, that of Paul with the Son of God and the approaching end
+of all flesh, and that of John with the Logos and the self-aggrandizing
+demi-god or man-god on earth. The difficulties and dissensions arising
+from the attempts at uniting all these contradictory systems in one,
+ended with the Council of Nice, in the beginning of the fourth century,
+and the establishment of an orthodox creed, the excommunication of the
+Jewish Christians, and the establishment of the Church as a state
+institution. Then the sword and the pyre established doctrines.</p>
+
+<p>On comparison you will find that Jesus became the Saviour of the
+Gentiles by the exertion of Paul; that the means which Peter and Paul
+adopted for momentary purposes have been turned into main dogmas; that
+the religion which Jesus taught and believed is partly laid aside, and
+the rest is unimportant in Christology, but he himself has been adopted
+in place of his religion; and that the entire New Testament has no
+knowledge of the Trinity and the orthodox creed. On comparison you will
+discover that, if any of our modern congregations are Christian, the
+apostolic congregation of Jerusalem was heretic. If the pope is a
+Christian, Paul was not. If the orthodox creed tells what one must
+believe in order to be a Christian, then Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew. If
+the religion and the theocracy which Jesus preached are to become the
+universal religion, all dogmas must fall, and God alone be all in all.
+Man must become his own priest, prince, and prophet. Justice must govern
+the nations, love must construe the law, virtue and righteousness must
+lead to satisfaction and happiness, and man's consciousness of God,
+immortality, morals, and moral responsibility must be his catechism, his
+guiding star, his protecting angel in life and death. No dogmas; truth,
+in the name of God!</p>
+
+<p>I see it, although it is not now; I behold it, although it is not nigh.
+A star will arise from Jacob in whose soft brilliancy will shine forth
+all the great and redeeming truth. Freedom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> and humanity, justice and
+love in the name of God, are the right religion; to strive for them is
+divine worship, to love them is holiness.</p>
+
+<p>This was the object of Paul. The means to accomplish that object were
+the necessities of the age to convert that generation. He could not
+dream of the idea that the means would obscure the object, that the
+servant would occupy the master's seat. His was a fearless, powerful,
+and unyielding character, terribly in earnest to break down the ancient
+world and create a new one, and his success, though incomplete, was
+wonderful. Men like Jesus and Paul, whose great aim was to benefit and
+to elevate human nature, however widely we may differ from them, deserve
+the student's laborious research, the philanthropist's most profound
+admiration, the monuments which the human mind rears to their memory.
+Great works are the testimony of their authors, and great minds are the
+diadem and honor, the ornament and pride of human nature. The God Jesus
+and the supernatural Paul appear small in the focus of reason. The
+patriotic and enthusiastic Jesus and the brave, bold, wise, and mighty
+Paul are grand types of humanity among those hundred stars in the
+horizon of history which have made the history of the human family.</p>
+
+
+<h4>JOHN HENRY NEWMAN</h4>
+
+<p>The <i>prima-facie</i> view of early Christianity, in the eyes of witnesses
+external to it, is presented to us in the brief but vivid descriptions
+given by Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, the only heathen writers who
+distinctly mention it for the first hundred and fifty years.</p>
+
+<p>Tacitus is led to speak of the religion, on occasion of the
+conflagration of Rome, which was popularly imputed to Nero. "To put an
+end to the report," he says, "he laid the guilt on others, and visited
+them with the most exquisite punishment, those, namely, who, held in
+abhorrence for their crimes (<i>per flagitia invisos</i>), were popularly
+called Christians. The author of that profession (<i>nominis</i>) was Christ,
+who, in the reign of Tiberius, was capitally punished by the procurator,
+Pontius Pilate. The deadly superstition (<i>exitiabilis superstitio</i>),
+though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> checked for a while, broke out afresh; and that, not only
+throughout Judea, the original seat of the evil, but through the city
+also, whither all things atrocious or shocking (<i>atrocia aut pudenda</i>)
+flow together from every quarter and thrive. At first, certain were
+seized who avowed it; then, on their report, a vast multitude were
+convicted not so much of firing the city, as of hatred of mankind (<i>odio
+humani generis</i>)." After describing their tortures, he continues: "In
+consequence, though they were guilty, and deserved most signal
+punishment, they began to be pitied, as if destroyed not for any public
+object, but from the barbarity of one man."</p>
+
+<p>Suetonius relates the same transactions thus: "Capital punishments were
+inflicted on the Christians, a class of men of a new and magical
+superstition (<i>superstitionis nov&aelig; et malefic&aelig;</i>)." What gives additional
+character to this statement is its context, for it occurs as one out of
+various police or sanctuary or domestic regulations, which Nero made,
+such as "controlling private expenses, forbidding taverns to serve meat,
+repressing the contests of theatrical parties, and securing the
+integrity of wills."</p>
+
+<p>When Pliny was governor of Pontus, he wrote his celebrated letter to the
+emperor Trajan, to ask advice how he was to deal with the Christians,
+whom he found there in great numbers. One of his points of hesitation
+was whether the very profession of Christianity was not by itself
+sufficient to justify punishment; "whether the name itself should be
+visited, though clear of flagitious acts (<i>flagitia</i>), or only when
+connected with them." He says he had ordered for execution such as
+persevered in their profession after repeated warnings, "as not
+doubting, whatever it was they professed, that at any rate contumacy and
+inflexible obstinacy ought to be punished." He required them to invoke
+the gods, to sacrifice wine and frankincense to the images of the
+Emperor, and to blaspheme Christ; "to which," he adds, "it is said no
+real Christian can be compelled." Renegades informed him that "the sum
+total of their offence or fault was meeting before light on an appointed
+day, and saying with one another a form of words (<i>carmen</i>) to Christ,
+as if to a god, and binding themselves by oath (not to the commission of
+any wickedness, but) against the commission of theft, robbery, adultery,
+breach of trust, denial of deposits; that, after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> this they were
+accustomed to separate, and then to meet again for a meal, but eaten all
+together and harmless; however, that they had even left this off after
+his edicts enforcing the imperial prohibition of <i>het&aelig;ri&aelig;</i> or
+associations." He proceeded to put two women to the torture, but
+"discovered nothing beyond a bad and excessive superstition"
+(<i>superstitionem pravam et immodicam</i>), "the contagion" of which, he
+continues, "had spread through villages and country, till the temples
+were emptied of worshippers."</p>
+
+<p>In these testimonies, which will form a natural and convenient text for
+what is to follow, we have various characteristics brought before us of
+the religion to which they relate. It was a superstition, as all three
+writers agree; a bad and excessive superstition, according to Pliny; a
+magical superstition, according to Suetonius; a deadly superstition,
+according to Tacitus. Next, it was embodied in a society, and, moreover,
+a secret and unlawful society or <i>het&aelig;ria</i>; and it was a proselytizing
+society; and its very name was connected with "flagitious," "atrocious,"
+and "shocking" acts.</p>
+
+<p>Now these few points, which are not all which might be set down, contain
+in themselves a distinct and significant description of Christianity;
+but they have far greater meaning when illustrated by the history of the
+times, the testimony of later writers, and the acts of the Roman
+government toward its professors. It is impossible to mistake the
+judgment passed on the religion by these three writers, and still more
+clearly by other writers and imperial functionaries. They evidently
+associated Christianity with the oriental superstitions, whether
+propagated by individuals or embodied in a rite, which were in that day
+traversing the empire, and which in the event acted so remarkable a part
+in breaking up the national forms of worship, and so in preparing the
+way for Christianity. This, then, is the broad view which the educated
+heathen took of Christianity; and, if it had been very unlike those
+rites and curious arts in external appearance, they would not have
+confused it with them.</p>
+
+<p>Changes in society are by a providential appointment commonly preceded
+and facilitated by the setting in of a certain current in men's thoughts
+and feelings in that direction toward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> which a change is to be made.
+And, as lighter substances whirl about before the tempest and presage
+it, so words and deeds, ominous but not effective of the coming
+revolution, are circulated beforehand through the multitude or pass
+across the field of events. This was specially the case with
+Christianity, as became its high dignity; it came heralded and attended
+by a crowd of shadows, shadows of itself, impotent and monstrous as
+shadows are, but not at first sight distinguishable from it by common
+spectators. Before the mission of the apostles a movement, of which
+there had been earlier parallels, had begun in Egypt, Syria, and the
+neighboring countries, tending to the propagation of new and peculiar
+forms of worship throughout the empire. Prophecies were afloat that some
+new order of things was coming in from the East, which increased the
+existing unsettlement of the popular mind; pretenders made attempts to
+satisfy its wants, and old traditions of the truth, embodied for ages in
+local or in national religions, gave to these attempts a doctrinal and
+ritual shape, which became an additional point of resemblance to that
+truth which was soon visibly to appear.</p>
+
+<p>The distinctive character of the rites in question lay in their
+appealing to the gloomy rather than to the cheerful and hopeful
+feelings, and in their influencing the mind through fear. The notions of
+guilt and expiation, of evil and good to come, and of dealings with the
+invisible world, were in some shape or other pre&euml;minent in them, and
+formed a striking contrast to the classical polytheism, which was gay
+and graceful, as was natural in a civilized age. The new rites, on the
+other hand, were secret; their doctrine was mysterious; their profession
+was a discipline, beginning in a formal initiation, manifested in an
+association, and exercised in privation and pain. They were from the
+nature of the case proselytizing societies, for they were rising into
+power; nor were they local, but vagrant, restless, intrusive, and
+encroaching. Their pretensions to supernatural knowledge brought them
+into easy connection with magic and astrology, which are as attractive
+to the wealthy and luxurious as the more vulgar superstitions to the
+populace.</p>
+
+<p>The Christian, being at first accounted a kind of Jew, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> even on that
+score included in whatever odium, and whatever bad associations,
+attended on the Jewish name. But in a little time his independence of
+the rejected people was clearly understood, as even the persecutions
+show; and he stood upon his own ground. Still his character did not
+change in the eyes of the world; for favor or for reproach, he was still
+associated with the votaries of secret and magical rites. The emperor
+Hadrian, noted as he is for his inquisitive temper, and a partaker in so
+many mysteries, still believed that the Christians of Egypt allowed
+themselves in the worship of Serapis. They are brought into connection
+with the magic of Egypt in the history of what is commonly called the
+Thundering legion, so far as this, that the rain which relieved the
+Emperor's army in the field, and which the Church ascribed to the
+prayers of the Christian soldiers, is by Dio Cassius attributed to an
+Egyptian magician, who obtained it by invoking Mercury and other
+spirits. This war had been the occasion of one of the first recognitions
+which the State had conceded to the oriental rites, though statesmen and
+emperors, as private men, had long taken part in them. The emperor
+Marcus had been urged by his fears of the Marcomanni to resort to these
+foreign introductions, and is said to have employed Magi and Chald&aelig;ans
+in averting an unsuccessful issue of the war.</p>
+
+<p>It is observable that, in the growing countenance which was extended to
+these rites in the third century, Christianity came in for a share. The
+chapel of Alexander Severus contained statues of Abraham, Orpheus,
+Apollonius, Pythagoras, and our Lord. Here indeed, as in the case of
+Zenobia's Judaism, an eclectic philosophy aided the comprehension of
+religions. But, immediately before Alexander, Heliogabalus, who was no
+philosopher, while he formally seated his Syrian idol in the Palatine,
+while he observed the mysteries of Cybele and Adonis, and celebrated his
+magic rites with human victims, intended also, according to Lampridius,
+to unite with his horrible superstition "the Jewish and Samaritan
+religions and the Christian rite, that so the priesthood of Heliogabalus
+might comprise the mystery of every worship." Hence, more or less, the
+stories which occur in ecclesiastical history of the conversion or
+good-will of the emperors to the Christian faith, of Hadrian, Mamm&aelig;a,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+and others, besides Heliogabalus and Alexander. Such stories might often
+mean little more than that they favored it among other forms of oriental
+superstition.</p>
+
+<p>What has been said is sufficient to bring before the mind an historical
+fact, which indeed does not need evidence. Upon the established
+religions of Europe the East had renewed her encroachments, and was
+pouring forth a family of rites which in various ways attracted the
+attention of the luxurious, the political, the ignorant, the restless,
+and the remorseful. Armenian, Chaldee, Egyptian, Jew, Syrian, Phrygian,
+as the case might be, was the designation of the new hierophant; and
+magic, superstition, barbarism, jugglery, were the names given to his
+rite by the world. In this company appeared Christianity. When then
+three well-informed writers call Christianity a superstition and a
+magical superstition, they were not using words at random, or the
+language of abuse, but they were describing it in distinct and
+recognized terms as cognate to those gloomy, secret, odious,
+disreputable religions which were making so much disturbance up and down
+the empire.</p>
+
+<p>The Gnostic family suitably traces its origin to a mixed race, which had
+commenced its national history by associating orientalism with
+revelation. After the captivity of the ten tribes Samaria was colonized
+by "men from Babylon and Cushan, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from
+Sepharvaim," who were instructed at their own instance in "the manner of
+the God of the land," by one of the priests of the Church of Jeroboam.
+The consequence was that "they feared the Lord and served their own
+gods." Of this country was Simon, the reputed patriarch of the Gnostics;
+and he is introduced in the Acts of the Apostles as professing those
+magical powers which were so principal a characteristic of the oriental
+mysteries. His heresy, though broken into a multitude of sects, was
+poured over the world with a catholicity not inferior in its day to that
+of Christianity. St. Peter, who fell in with him originally in Samaria,
+seems to have encountered him again at Rome. At Rome St. Polycarp met
+Marcion of Pontus, whose followers spread through Italy, Egypt, Syria,
+Arabia, and Persia.</p>
+
+<p>"When [the reader of Christian history] comes to the second century,"
+says Dr. Burton, "he finds that Gnosticism,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> under some form or other,
+was professed in every part of the then civilized world. He finds it
+divided into schools, as numerously and as zealously attended as any
+which Greece or Asia could boast in their happiest days. He meets with
+names totally unknown to him before, which excited as much sensation as
+those of Aristotle or Plato. He hears of volumes having been written in
+support of this new philosophy, not one of which has survived to our own
+day." Many of the founders of these sects had been Christians. Others
+were of Jewish parentage; others were more or less connected in fact
+with the pagan rites to which their own bore so great a resemblance.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever might be the history of these sects, and though it may be a
+question whether they can be properly called "superstitions," and though
+many of them numbered educated men among their teachers and followers,
+they closely resembled&mdash;at least in ritual and profession&mdash;the vagrant
+pagan mysteries which have been above described. Their very name of
+"Gnostic" implied the possession of a secret, which was to be
+communicated to their disciples. Ceremonial observances were the
+preparation, and symbolical rites the instrument, of initiation. Tatian
+and Montanus, the representatives of very distinct schools, agreed in
+making asceticism a rule of life.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the Gnostics; and to external and prejudiced spectators,
+whether philosophers, as Celsus and Porphyry, or the multitude, they
+wore an appearance sufficiently like the Church to be mistaken for her
+in the latter part of the ante-Nicene period, as she was confused with
+the pagan mysteries in the earlier.</p>
+
+<p>Let us proceed in our contemplation of this reflection, as it may be
+called, of primitive Christianity in the mirror of the world. All three
+writers, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, call it a "superstition"; this
+is no accidental imputation, but is repeated by a variety of subsequent
+writers and speakers. The charge of Thyestean banquets scarcely lasts a
+hundred years; but, while pagan witnesses are to be found, the Church is
+accused of superstition. Now what is meant by the word thus attached by
+a <i>consensus</i> of heathen authorities to Christianity? At least it cannot
+mean a religion in which a man might think what he pleased, and was set
+free from all yokes, whether of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> ignorance, fear, authority, or
+priestcraft. When heathen writers call the oriental rites superstitions,
+they evidently use the word in its modern sense. It cannot surely be
+doubted that they apply it in the same sense to Christianity. But
+Plutarch explains for us the word at length in his treatise which bears
+the name: "Of all kinds of fear," he says, "superstition is the most
+fatal to action and resource. He does not fear the sea who does not
+sail, nor war who does not serve, nor robbers who keeps at home, nor the
+sycophant who is poor, nor the envious if he is a private man, nor an
+earthquake if he lives in Gaul, nor thunder if he lives in &AElig;thiopia; but
+he who fears the gods fears everything&mdash;earth, seas, air, sky, darkness,
+light, noises, silence, sleep. Slaves sleep and forget their masters; of
+the fettered doth sleep lighten the chain; inflamed wounds, ulcers cruel
+and agonizing, are not felt by the sleeping. Superstition alone has come
+to no terms with sleep; but in the very sleep of her victims, as though
+they were in the realms of the impious, she raises horrible spectres and
+monstrous phantoms and various pains, and whirls the miserable soul
+about and persecutes it. They rise, and, instead of making light of what
+is unreal, they fall into the hands of quacks and conjurers, who say,
+'Call the crone to expiate, bathe in the sea, and sit all day on the
+ground.'"</p>
+
+<p>Here we have a vivid picture of Plutarch's idea of the essence of
+superstition; it was the imagination of the existence of an unseen
+ever-present Master; the bondage of a rule of life, of a continual
+responsibility; obligation to attend to little things, the impossibility
+of escaping from duty, the inability to choose or change one's religion,
+an interference with the enjoyment of life, a melancholy view of the
+world, sense of sin, horror at guilt, apprehension of punishment, dread,
+self-abasement, depression, anxiety, and endeavor to be at peace with
+heaven, and error and absurdity in the methods chosen for the purpose.
+Such, too, had been the idea of the Epicurean Velleius, when he shrunk
+with horror from the "<i>sempiternus dominus</i>" and "<i>curiosus Deus</i>" of
+the Stoics. Such, surely, was the meaning of Tacitus, Suetonius, and
+Pliny. And hence, of course, the frequent reproach cast on Christians as
+credulous, weak-minded, and poor-spirited. The heathen objectors in
+Minucius<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> and Lactantius speak of their "old-woman's tales." Celsus
+accuses them of "assenting at random and without reason," saying, "Do
+not inquire, but believe." "They lay it down," he says elsewhere: "Let
+no educated man approach, no man of wisdom, no man of sense; but if a
+man be unlearned, weak in intellect, an infant, let him come with
+confidence. Confessing that these are worthy of their God, they
+evidently desire, as they are able, to convert none but fools, and
+vulgar, and stupid, and slavish, women and boys." They "take in the
+simple and lead him where they will." They address themselves to
+"youths, house-servants, and the weak in intellect." They "hurry away
+from the educated, as not fit subjects of their imposition, and inveigle
+the rustic." "Thou," says the heathen magistrate to the martyr
+Fructuosus, "who as a teacher dost disseminate a new fable, that fickle
+girls may desert the groves and abandon Jupiter, condemn, if thou art
+wise, the anile creed."</p>
+
+<p>Hence the epithets of itinerant, mountebank, conjurer, cheat, sophist,
+and sorcerer, heaped upon the teachers of Christianity; sometimes to
+account for the report or apparent truth of their miracles, sometimes to
+explain their success. Our Lord was said to have learned his miraculous
+power in Egypt; "wizard, mediciner, cheat, rogue, conjurer," were the
+epithets applied to him by the opponents of Eusebius; they "worship that
+crucified sophist," says Lucian; "Paul, who surpasses all the conjurers
+and impostors who ever lived," is Julian's account of the apostle. "You
+have sent through the whole world," says St. Justin to Trypho, "to
+preach that a certain atheistic and lawless sect has sprung from one
+Jesus, a Galilean cheat." "We know," says Lucian, speaking of Chald&aelig;ans
+and magicians, "the Syrian from Palestine, who is the sophist in these
+matters, how many lunatics, with eyes distorted and mouth in foam, he
+raises and sends away restored, ridding them from the evil at a great
+price." "If any conjurer came to them, a man of skill and knowing how to
+manage matters," says the same writer, "he made money in no time, with a
+broad grin at the simple fellows." The officer who had custody of St.
+Perpetua feared her escape from prison "by magical incantations." When
+St. Tiburtius had walked barefoot on hot coals, his judge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> cried out
+that Christ had taught him magic. St. Anastasia was thrown into prison
+as a mediciner; the populace called out against St. Agnes, "Away with
+the witch," <i>Tolle magam, tolle maleficam</i>. When St. Bonosus and St.
+Maximilian bore the burning pitch without shrinking, Jews and Gentiles
+cried out, "<i>Isti magi et malefici</i>." "What new delusion," says the
+heathen magistrate concerning St. Romanus, "has brought in these
+sophists to deny the worship of the gods? How doth this chief sorcerer
+mock us, skilled by his Thessalian charm (<i>carmine</i>) to laugh at
+punishment!"</p>
+
+<p>It explains the phenomenon, which has created so much surprise to
+certain moderns&mdash;that a grave, well-informed historian like Tacitus
+should apply to Christians what sounds like abuse. Yet what is the
+difficulty, supposing that Christians were considered <i>mathematici</i> and
+<i>magi</i>, and these were the secret intriguers against established
+government, the allies of desperate politicians, the enemies of the
+established religion, the disseminators of lying rumors, the
+perpetrators of poisonings and other crimes? "Read this," says Paley,
+after quoting some of the most beautiful and subduing passages of St.
+Paul, "read this, and then think of <i>exitiabilis superstitio</i>"; and he
+goes on to express a wish "in contending with heathen authorities, to
+produce our books against theirs," as if it were a matter of books.</p>
+
+<p>Public men care very little for books; the finest sentiments, the most
+luminous philosophy, the deepest theology, inspiration itself, moves
+them but little; they look at facts, and care only for facts. The
+question was, What was the worth, what the tendency of the Christian
+body in the State? What Christians said, what they thought, was little
+to the purpose. They might exhort to peaceableness and passive obedience
+as strongly as words could speak; but what did they <i>do</i>, what was their
+political position? This is what statesmen thought of then, as they do
+now. What had men of the world to do with abstract proofs or first
+principles? A statesman measures parties and sects and writers by their
+bearing upon <i>him</i>; and he has a practised eye in this sort of judgment,
+and is not likely to be mistaken. "'What is Truth?' said jesting
+Pilate." Apologies, however eloquent or true, availed nothing with the
+Roman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> magistrate against the sure instinct which taught him to dread
+Christianity. It was a dangerous enemy to any power not built upon
+itself; he felt it, and the event justified his apprehension.</p>
+
+<p>We must not forget the well-known character of the Roman State in its
+dealings with its subjects. It had had from the first an extreme
+jealousy of secret societies; it was prepared to grant a large
+toleration and a broad comprehension, but, as is the case with modern
+governments, it wished to have jurisdiction and the ultimate authority
+in every movement of the body politic and social, and its civil
+institutions were based, or essentially depended, on its religion.
+Accordingly, every innovation upon the established paganism, except it
+was allowed by the law, was rigidly repressed. Hence the professors of
+low superstitions, of mysteries, of magic, of astrology, were the
+outlaws of society, and were in a condition analogous, if the comparison
+may be allowed, to smugglers or poachers among ourselves, or perhaps to
+burglars and highwaymen; for the Romans had ever burnt the sorcerer and
+banished his consulters for life. It was an ancient custom. And at
+mysteries they looked with especial suspicion, because, since the
+established religion did not include them in its provisions, they really
+did supply what may be called a demand of the age.</p>
+
+<p>We know what opposition had been made in Rome even to the philosophy of
+Greece; much greater would be the aversion of constitutional statesmen
+and lawyers to the ritual of barbarians. Religion was the Roman point of
+honor. "Spaniards might rival them in numbers," says Cicero, "Gauls in
+bodily strength, Carthaginians in address, Greeks in the arts, Italians
+and Latins in native talent, but the Romans surpassed all nations in
+piety and devotion." It was one of their laws, "Let no one have gods by
+himself, nor worship in private new gods nor adventitious, unless added
+on public authority." M&aelig;cenas in <i>Dio</i> advises Augustus to honor the
+gods according to the national custom, because the contempt of the
+country's deities leads to civil insubordination, reception of foreign
+laws, conspiracies, and secret meetings. "Suffer no one," he adds, "to
+deny the gods or to practise sorcery." The civilian Julius Paulus lays
+it down as one of the leading principles of Roman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> law, that those who
+introduce new or untried religions should be degraded, and if in the
+lower orders put to death. In like manner, it is enacted in one of
+Constantine's laws that the haruspices should not exercise their art in
+private; and there is a law of Valentinian's against nocturnal
+sacrifices or magic. It is more immediately to our purpose that Trajan
+had been so earnest in his resistance to <i>het&aelig;ri&aelig;</i> or secret societies,
+that, when a fire had laid waste Nicomedia, and Pliny proposed to him to
+incorporate a body of a hundred and fifty firemen in consequence, he was
+afraid of the precedent and forbade it.</p>
+
+<p>What has been said will suggest another point of view in which the
+oriental rites were obnoxious to the government&mdash;namely, as being
+vagrant and proselytizing religions. If it tolerated foreign
+superstitions, this would be on the ground that districts or countries
+within its jurisdiction held them; to proselytize to a rite hitherto
+unknown, to form a new party, and to propagate it through the empire&mdash;a
+religion not local, but catholic&mdash;was an offence against both order and
+reason. The State desired peace everywhere, and no change;
+"considering," according to Lactantius, "that they were rightly and
+deservedly punished who execrated the public religion handed down to
+them by their ancestors."</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible, surely, to deny that, in assembling for religious
+purposes, the Christians were breaking a solemn law, a vital principle
+of the Roman constitution; and this is the light in which their conduct
+was regarded by the historians and philosophers of the empire. This was
+a very strong act on the part of the disciples of the great apostle, who
+had enjoined obedience to the powers that be. Time after time they
+resisted the authority of the magistrate; and this is a phenomenon
+inexplicable on the theory of private judgment or of the voluntary
+principle. The justification of such disobedience lies simply in the
+necessity of obeying the higher authority of some divine law; but if
+Christianity were in its essence only private and personal, as so many
+now think, there was no necessity of their meeting together at all. If,
+on the other hand, in assembling for worship and holy communion, they
+were fulfilling an indispensable observance, Christianity has imposed a
+social law on the world, and formally enters the field of politics.
+Gibbon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> says that, in consequence of Pliny's edict, "the prudence of the
+Christians suspended their <i>agap&aelig;</i>; but it was <i>impossible</i> for them to
+omit the exercise of public worship." We can draw no other conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of three hundred years a more remarkable violation of law
+seems to have been admitted by the Christian body. It shall be given in
+the words of Dr. Burton; he has been speaking of Maximin's edict, which
+provided for the restitution of any of their lands or buildings which
+had been alienated from them. "It is plain," he says, "from the terms of
+this edict, that the Christians had for some time been in possession of
+property. It speaks of houses and lands which did not belong to
+individuals, but to the whole body. Their possession of such property
+could hardly have escaped the notice of the government; but it seems to
+have been held in direct violation of a law of Diocletian, which
+prohibited corporate bodies or associations which were not legally
+recognized, from acquiring property. The Christians were certainly not a
+body recognized by law at the beginning of the reign of Diocletian, and
+it might almost be thought that this enactment was specially directed
+against them. But, like other laws which are founded upon tyranny, and
+are at variance with the first principles of justice, it is probable
+that this law about corporate property was evaded. We must suppose that
+the Christians had purchased lands and houses before the law was passed;
+and their disregard of the prohibition may be taken as another proof
+that their religion had now taken so firm a footing that the executors
+of the laws were obliged to connive at their being broken by so numerous
+a body."</p>
+
+<p>No wonder that the magistrate who presided at the martyrdom of St.
+Romanus calls them in Prudentius "a rebel people"; that Galerius speaks
+of them as "a nefarious conspiracy"; the heathen in Minucius, as "men of
+a desperate faction"; that others make them guilty of sacrilege and
+treason, and call them by those other titles which, more closely
+resembling the language of Tacitus, have been noticed above. Hence the
+violent accusations against them as the destructors of the empire, the
+authors of physical evils, and the cause of the anger of the gods.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Men cry out," says Tertullian, "that the State is beset, that the
+Christians are in their fields, in their forts, in their islands. They
+mourn as for a loss that every sex, condition, and now even rank is
+going over to this sect. And yet they do not by this very means advance
+their minds to the idea of some good therein hidden; they allow not
+themselves to conjecture more rightly, they choose not to examine more
+closely. The generality run upon a hatred of this name, with eyes so
+closed that in bearing favorable testimony to anyone they mingle with it
+the reproach of the name. 'A good man Caius Seius, only he is a
+Christian.' So another, 'I marvel that that wise man Lucius Titius hath
+suddenly become a Christian.' No one reflecteth whether Caius be not
+therefore good and Lucius wise because a Christian, or therefore a
+Christian because wise and good. They praise that which they know, they
+revile that which they know not. Virtue is not in such account as hatred
+of the Christians. Now, then, if the hatred be of the name, what guilt
+is there in names? What charge against words? Unless it be that any word
+which is a name have either a barbarous or ill-omened, or a scurrilous
+or an immodest sound. If the Tiber cometh up to the walls, if the Nile
+cometh not up to the fields, if the heaven hath stood still, if the
+earth hath been moved, if there be any famine, if any pestilence, 'The
+Christians to the lions' is forthwith the word."</p>
+
+<p>"Men of a desperate, lawless, reckless faction," says the heathen
+C&aelig;cilius, in the passage above referred to, "who collect together out of
+the lowest rabble the thoughtless portion, and credulous women seduced
+by the weakness of their sex, and form a mob of impure conspirators, of
+whom nocturnal assemblies and solemn fastings and unnatural food, no
+sacred rite but pollution, is the bond. A tribe lurking and
+light-hating, dumb for the public, talkative in corners, they despise
+our temples as if graves, spit at our gods, deride our religious forms;
+pitiable themselves, they pity, forsooth, our priests; half-naked
+themselves, they despise our honors and purple; monstrous folly and
+incredible impudence!... Day after day their abandoned morals wind their
+serpentine course; over the whole world are those most hideous rites of
+an impious association growing into shape;... they recognize each<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> other
+by marks and signs, and love each other almost before they recognize;
+promiscuous lust is their religion. Thus does their vain and mad
+superstition glory in crimes.... The writer who tells the story of a
+criminal capitally punished, and of the gibbet (<i>ligna feralia</i>) of the
+cross being their observance (<i>ceremonias</i>), assigns to them thereby an
+altar in keeping with the abandoned and wicked, that they may worship
+(<i>colant</i>) what they merit.... Why their mighty effort to hide and
+shroud whatever it is they worship (<i>colunt</i>), since things honest ever
+like the open day, and crimes are secret? Why have they no altars, no
+temples, no images known to us, never speak abroad, never assemble
+freely, were it not that what they worship and suppress is subject
+either of punishment or of shame?</p>
+
+<p>"What monstrous, what portentous notions do they fabricate! that that
+God of theirs, whom they can neither show nor see, should be inquiring
+diligently into the characters, the acts&mdash;nay, the words and secret
+thoughts of all men; running to and fro, forsooth, and present
+everywhere, troublesome, restless&mdash;nay, impudently curious they would
+have him; that is, if he is close at every deed, interferes in all
+places, while he can neither attend to each as being distracted through
+the whole, nor suffice for the whole as being engaged about each. Think,
+too, of their threatening fire, meditating destruction to the whole
+earth&mdash;nay, the world itself with its stars!... Nor content with this
+mad opinion, they add and append their old wives' tales about a new
+birth after death, ashes and cinders, and by some strange confidence
+believe each other's lies.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor creatures! consider what hangs over you after death, while you are
+still alive. Lo, the greater part of you, the better, as you say, are in
+want, cold, toil, hunger, and your God suffers it; but I omit common
+trials. Lo, threats are offered to you, punishments, torments; crosses
+to be undergone now, not worshipped (<i>adorand&aelig;</i>); fires, too, which ye
+predict and fear; where is that God who can recover, but cannot preserve
+your life? The answer of Socrates, when he was asked about heavenly
+matters, is well known: 'What is above us does not concern us.' My
+opinion also is, that points which are doubtful, as are the points in
+question, must be left; nor, when so many and such great men are in
+controversy on the subject,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> must judgment be rashly and audaciously
+given on either side, lest the consequence be either anile superstition
+or the overthrow of all religion."</p>
+
+<p>Such was Christianity in the eyes of those who witnessed its rise and
+propagation&mdash;one of a number of wild and barbarous rites which were
+pouring in upon the empire from the ancient realms of superstition, and
+the mother of a progeny of sects which were faithful to the original
+they had derived from Egypt or Syria; a religion unworthy of an educated
+person, as appealing, not to the intellect, but to the fears and
+weaknesses of human nature, and consisting, not in the rational and
+cheerful enjoyment, but in a morose rejection of the gifts of
+Providence; a horrible religion, as inflicting or enjoining cruel
+sufferings, and monstrous and loathsome in its very indulgence of the
+passions; a religion leading by reaction to infidelity; a religion of
+magic, and of the vulgar arts, real and pretended, with which magic was
+accompanied; a secret religion which dared not face the day; an
+itinerant, busy, proselytizing religion, forming an extended confederacy
+against the State, resisting its authority and breaking its laws. There
+may be some exceptions to this general impression, such as Pliny's
+discovery of the innocent and virtuous rule of life adopted by the
+Christians of Pontus; but this only proves that Christianity was not in
+fact the infamous religion which the heathen thought it; it did not
+reverse their general belief to that effect.</p>
+
+<p>Now it must be granted that, in some respects, this view of Christianity
+depended on the times, and would alter with their alteration. When there
+was no persecution, martyrs could not be obstinate; and when the Church
+was raised aloft in high places, it was no longer in caves. Still, I
+believe, it continued substantially the same in the judgment of the
+world external to it while there was an external world to judge of it.
+"They thought it enough," says Julian in the fourth century, of our Lord
+and his apostles, "to deceive women, servants, and slaves, and by their
+means wives and husbands." "A human fabrication," says he elsewhere,
+"put together by wickedness, having nothing divine in it, but making a
+perverted use of the fable-loving, childish, irrational part of the
+soul, and offering a set of wonders to create belief."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Miserable men," he says elsewhere, "you refuse to worship the ancile,
+yet you worship the wood of the cross, and sign it on your foreheads,
+and fix it on your doors. Shall one for this hate the intelligent among
+you, or pity the less understanding, who in following you have gone to
+such an excess of perdition as to leave the everlasting gods and go over
+to a dead Jew?" He speaks of their adding other dead men to him who died
+so long ago. "You have filled all places with sepulchres and monuments,
+though it is nowhere told you in your religion to haunt the tombs and to
+attend upon them." Elsewhere he speaks of their "leaving the gods for
+corpses and relics." On the other hand, he attributes the growth of
+Christianity to its humanity toward strangers, care in burying the dead,
+and pretended religiousness of life. In another place he speaks of their
+care of the poor.</p>
+
+<p>Libanius, Julian's preceptor in rhetoric, delivers the same testimony,
+as far as it goes. He addressed his <i>Oration for the Temples</i> to a
+Christian emperor, and would in consequence be guarded in his language;
+however it runs in one direction. He speaks of "those black-habited
+men," meaning the monks, "who eat more than elephants, and by the number
+of their potations trouble those who send them drink in their chantings,
+and conceal this by paleness artificially acquired." They "are in good
+condition out of the misfortunes of others, while they pretend to serve
+God by hunger." Those whom they attack "are like bees, they like
+drones." I do not quote this passage to prove that there were monks in
+Libanius' days, which no one doubts, but to show his impression of
+Christianity, as far as his works betray it.</p>
+
+<p>Numantian in the same century describes in verse his voyage from Rome to
+Gaul: one book of the poem is extant; he falls in with Christianity on
+two of the islands which lie in his course. He thus describes them as
+found on one of these: "The island is in a squalid state, being full of
+light-haters. They call themselves monks, because they wish to live
+alone without witness. They dread the gifts, from fearing the reverses,
+of fortune." He meets on the other island a Christian, whom he had
+known, of good family and fortune, and happy in his marriage, who
+"impelled by the Furies had left men and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> gods, and, credulous exile,
+was living in base concealment. Is not this herd," he continues, "worse
+than Circean poison? then bodies were changed, now minds."</p>
+
+<p>In the <i>Philopatris</i>, which is the work of an author of the fourth
+century, Critias is introduced pale and wild. His friend asks him if he
+has seen Cerberus or Hecate; and he answers that he has heard a
+rigmarole from certain "thrice-cursed sophists"; which he thinks would
+drive him mad if he heard it again, and was nearly sending him headlong
+over some cliff as it was. He retires for relief with his inquirer to a
+pleasant place, shadowed by planes, where swallows and nightingales are
+singing, and a quiet brook is purling. Triephon, his friend, expresses a
+fear lest he has heard some incantation, and is led by the course of the
+dialogue, before his friend tells his tale, to give some account of
+Christianity, being himself a Christian. After speaking of the creation,
+as described by Moses, he falls at once upon that doctrine of a
+particular providence which is so distasteful to Plutarch, Velleius in
+Cicero, and C&aelig;cilius, and generally to unbelievers. "He is in heaven,"
+he says, "looking at just and unjust, and causing actions to be entered
+in books; and he will recompense all on a day which he has appointed."
+Critias objects that he cannot make this consistent with the received
+doctrine about the Fates, "even though he has perhaps been carried aloft
+with his master, and initiated in unspeakable mysteries." He also asks
+if the deeds of the Scythians are written in heaven for if so there must
+be many scribes there.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the language of paganism after Christianity had for fifty years
+been exposed to the public gaze; after it had been before the world for
+fifty more, St. Augustine had still to defend it against the charge of
+being the cause of the calamities of the empire. And for the charge of
+magic, when the Arian bishops were in formal disputations with the
+Catholic, before Gungebald, Burgundian king of France, at the end of the
+fifth century, we find still that they charged the Catholics with being
+"<i>pr&aelig;stigiatores</i>," and worshipping a number of gods; and when the
+Catholics proposed that the King should repair to the shrine of St.
+Justus, where both parties might ask him concerning their respective
+faiths, the Arians cried out that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> "they would not seek enchantments
+like Saul, for Scripture was enough for them, which was more powerful
+than all bewitchments." This was said, not against strangers of whom
+they knew nothing, as Ethelbert might be suspicious of St. Augustine and
+his brother missionaries, but against a body of men who lived among
+them.</p>
+
+<p>I do not think it can be doubted then that, had Tacitus, Suetonius, and
+Pliny, Celsus, Porphyry, and the other opponents of Christianity lived
+in the fourth century, their evidence concerning Christianity would be
+very much the same as it has come down to us from the centuries before
+it. In either case, a man of the world and a philosopher would have been
+disgusted at the gloom and sadness of its profession, its
+mysteriousness, its claim of miracles, the want of good sense imputable
+to its rule of life, and the unsettlement and discord it was introducing
+into the social and political world.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole then I conclude as follows: If there is a form of
+Christianity now in the world which is accused of gross superstition, of
+borrowing its rites and customs from the heathen, and of ascribing to
+forms and ceremonies an occult virtue; a religion which is considered to
+burden and enslave the mind by its requisitions, to address itself to
+the weak-minded and ignorant, to be supported by sophistry and
+imposture, and to contradict reason and exalt mere irrational faith; a
+religion which impresses on the serious mind very distressing views of
+the guilt and consequences of sin, sets upon the minute acts of the day,
+one by one, their definite value for praise or blame, and thus casts a
+grave shadow over the future; a religion which holds up to admiration
+the surrender of wealth, and disables serious persons from enjoying it
+if they would; a religion, the doctrines of which, be they good or bad,
+are to the generality of men unknown; which is considered to bear on its
+very surface signs of folly and falsehood so distinct that a glance
+suffices to judge of it, and that careful examination is preposterous;
+which is felt to be so simply bad that it may be calumniated at hazard
+and at pleasure, it being nothing but absurdity to stand upon the
+accurate distribution of its guilt among its particular acts, or
+painfully to determine how far this or that story concerning it is
+literally true, or what has to be allowed in candor, or what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> is
+improbable, or what cuts two ways, or what is not proved, or what may be
+plausibly defended; a religion such that men look at a convert to it
+with a feeling which no other denomination raises except Judaism,
+socialism, or Mormonism&mdash;namely, with curiosity, suspicion, fear,
+disgust, as the case may be, as if something strange had befallen him,
+as if he had had an initiation into a mystery, and had come into
+communion with dreadful influences, as if he were now one of a
+confederacy which claimed him, absorbed him, stripped him of his
+personality, reduced him to a mere organ or instrument of a whole; a
+religion which men hate as proselytizing, anti-social, revolutionary, as
+dividing families, separating chief friends, corrupting the maxims of
+government, making a mock at law, dissolving the empire, the enemy of
+human nature, and a "conspirator against its rights and privileges"; a
+religion which they consider the champion and instrument of darkness,
+and a pollution calling down upon the land the anger of heaven; a
+religion which they associate with intrigue and conspiracy, which they
+speak about in whispers, which they detect by anticipation in whatever
+goes wrong, and to which they impute whatever is unaccountable; a
+religion, the very name of which they cast out as evil, and use simply
+as a bad epithet, and which from the impulse of self-preservation they
+would persecute if they could&mdash;if there be such a religion now in the
+world, it is not unlike Christianity as that same world viewed it when
+first it came forth from its divine Author.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p>
+<h2>BURNING OF ROME UNDER NERO</h2>
+
+<h4>A.D. 64</h4>
+
+<h3>
+SIENKIEWICZ&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;TACITUS</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Nero when a youth was placed under charge of the philosopher
+Seneca, who carefully attended to his education. During Nero's
+nonage he was persevering in his studies and made great progress in
+Greek. By a subterfuge of his mother's he was proclaimed emperor in
+the place of Britannicus, the real heir to the throne. In the early
+part of his reign public affairs were wisely conducted, but the
+private life of Nero was given up to vice and profligacy. His love
+for Popp&aelig;a led him into the crime of matricide, for she, wishing to
+share the imperial throne, and knowing it was impossible while his
+mother, Agrippina, lived, induced him to authorize her
+assassination. Strange that Seneca and Burrhus should have approved
+of this, yet Tacitus admits that such was the case. In the eighth
+year of his reign Nero divorced his wife, Octavia, and married
+Popp&aelig;a.</p>
+
+<p>Nero was an accomplished musician and sang verses composed by
+himself. He eagerly sought the plaudits of the multitude by
+reciting his compositions in public. Historians are divided in
+opinion as to whether Nero was the cause of the burning of Rome.
+During the conflagration, to court popularity he ordered temporary
+shelters to be provided for the houseless; yet the people did not
+acclaim this deed, as it was reported that Nero, at "the very time
+Rome was in flames," sang the destruction of Troy in his private
+theatre, likening the present disaster to that ancient catastrophe.
+In order to divert the masses from what they believed the true
+origin of the fire, Nero charged it upon the Christians, many
+hundreds of whom were sacrificed to his fury. He was the last of
+the C&aelig;sars, and died by his own hand amid universal execrations, in
+June, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 68, four years after the destruction of Rome.</p></div>
+
+
+<h4>HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ</h4>
+
+<p>The fire began at the Circus Maximus, in that section which touches the
+Palatine and C&aelig;lian hill; it rushed on with inconceivable rapidity and
+fastened upon the whole centre of Rome. Since the time of Brennus never
+had the city witnessed such an awful catastrophe.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A freedman of C&aelig;sar's, Phaon by name, ran panting into Nero's presence,
+shrieking: "Rome is in flames! the conflagration is great."</p>
+
+<p>All C&aelig;sar's guests arose from their recumbent attitude. "Ye gods! I
+shall see a burning city; now can I finish the <i>Troyade</i>," exclaimed
+Nero, placing his lute aside. "If I go at once, can I view the fire?"</p>
+
+<p>"My lord, the whole city is as a sea of flame; the smoke is
+suffocatingly heavy and is destroying the people. The inhabitants faint
+away or rashly cast themselves into the fire, maddened with terror. All
+Rome perishes." And Nero raised his hands and cried, "Woe, woe to thee,
+thou sacred city of Priam!"</p>
+
+<p>Fires were frequent enough in Rome; during these conflagrations violence
+and robbery were rampant, particularly so in those sections of the city
+inhabited by needy half-barbarian peoples, a folk comprising rabble from
+every part of the world. The fear of servile rebellion was like a
+nightmare, which had stifled Rome for many years. It was believed that
+hundreds of thousands of those people were thinking of the times of
+Spartacus, and merely waiting for a favorable moment to seize arms
+against their oppressors and Rome. Now the moment had come! Perhaps war
+and slaughter were raging in the city together with fire.</p>
+
+<p>It was possible even that the pr&aelig;torians had hurled themselves on the
+city and were slaughtering at command of C&aelig;sar. And that moment the hair
+rose on Vinicius' head from terror. He recalled all the conversations
+about burning cities which for some time had been repeated at C&aelig;sar's
+court with wonderful persistence; well he recalled C&aelig;sar's complaints
+that he was forced to describe a burning city without having seen an
+actual fire; his contemptuous answer to Tigellinus, who offered to burn
+Antium or an artificial wooden city; finally, his complaints against
+Rome, and the pestilential alleys of the Subura.</p>
+
+<p>Yes; truly C&aelig;sar has commanded the burning of the city! Only he could
+give such a command, as Tigellinus alone could accomplish it. But if
+Rome is burning at command of C&aelig;sar, who can be sure that the population
+will not be slaughtered at his command? The monster is capable of just
+such a deed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> Conflagration, a servile revolt, and slaughter! What a
+horrible chaos, what a letting loose of destructive elements and horrid,
+universal frenzy!</p>
+
+<p>The night had paled long since, the dawn had passed into light, and on
+all the nearer summits golden, rosy gleams were shining, which might
+come either from burning Rome or the rising daylight. Vinicius ran to
+the hill, the summit was reached, and then a terrible sight struck his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>All the lower region was covered with smoke, forming, as it were, one
+gigantic cloud lying close to the earth. In this cloud towns, aqueducts,
+villas, trees, disappeared; but farther beyond this gray, ghastly plain
+the city was burning on the hills. The conflagration had not the form of
+a pillar of fire, as happens when a single building is burning, even
+when of the greatest size. That was a long belt, rather, shaped like the
+belt of dawn. Above this belt rose a wave of smoke, in places entirely
+black, in places looking rose-colored, in places like blood, in places
+turning in on itself, in some places inflated, in others squeezed and
+squirming, like a serpent which is unwinding and extending.</p>
+
+<p>That monstrous wave seemed at times to cover even the belt of fire,
+which became then as narrow as a ribbon; but later this ribbon
+illuminated the smoke from beneath, changing its lower rolls into waves
+of flame. The two extended from one side of the sky to the other, hiding
+its lower part, as at times a stretch of forest hides the horizon. The
+Sabine hills were not visible in the least.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed at the first glance of the eye that not only the city was
+burning, but the whole world, and that no living being could save itself
+from that ocean of flame and smoke. The wind blew with increasing
+strength from the region of the fire, bringing the smell of burnt things
+and of smoke, which began to hide even nearer objects. Clear daylight
+had come, and the sun lighted up the summits surrounding the Alban Lake.</p>
+
+<p>But the bright golden rays of the morning appeared reddish and sickly
+through the haze. Vinicius, while descending toward Albanum, entered
+smoke which was denser, less and less transparent. The town itself was
+buried in it thoroughly. The alarmed citizens had moved out to the
+street. It was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> terror to think of what might be in Rome, when it was
+difficult to breathe in Albanum.</p>
+
+<p>He met increasing numbers of people, who had deserted the city and were
+going to the Alban hills; they had escaped the fire and wished to go
+beyond the line of smoke. Before he had reached Ustrinum he had to
+slacken his pace because of the throng. Besides pedestrians with bundles
+on their backs he met horses with packs, mules and vehicles laden with
+effects, and finally litters in which slaves were bearing the wealthier
+citizens. The town of Ustrinum was so thronged with fugitives from Rome
+that it was difficult to push through the crowd. On the market square,
+under temple porticos, and on the streets were swarms of fugitives.</p>
+
+<p>Here and there people were erecting tents under which whole families
+were to find shelter. Others settled down under the naked sky, shouting,
+calling on the gods, or cursing the Fates. In the general terror it was
+difficult to inquire about anything. New crowds of men, women, and
+children arrived from the direction of Rome every moment; these
+increased the disorder and outcry. Some, gone astray in the throng,
+sought desperately those whom they had lost; others fought for a camping
+place.</p>
+
+<p>Half-crazy shepherds from the Campania crowded to the town to hear news,
+or find profit in plunder made easy by the uproar. Here and there crowds
+of slaves of every nationality and gladiators fell to robbing houses and
+villas in the town, and to fighting with the soldiers who appeared in
+defence of the citizens.</p>
+
+<p>Junius, a friend of Vinicius, said, after a moment's hesitation, in a
+low voice: "I know that thou wilt not betray me, so I will tell thee
+that this is no common fire. People were not permitted to save the
+Circus. When houses began to burn in every direction, I myself heard
+thousands of voices exclaiming, 'Death to those who save!' Certain
+people ran through the city and hurled burning torches into buildings.</p>
+
+<p>"On the other hand, people are revolting and crying that the city is
+burning at command. I can say nothing more. Woe to the city, woe to us
+all and to me! The tongue of man cannot tell what is happening there.
+People are perishing in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> flames or slaying one another in the throng.
+This is the end of Rome!"</p>
+
+<p>Vinicius, nearing the walls, found it easier to reach Rome than
+penetrate to the middle of the city. It was difficult to push along the
+Appian Way, because of the throng of people. Houses, cemeteries, fields,
+gardens, and temples, lying on both sides of it, were turned into
+camping places. In the temple of Mars, which stood near the Porta Appia,
+the crowd had thrown down the doors, so as to find a refuge within
+during night hours. In the cemeteries the larger monuments were seized,
+and battles fought in defence of them, which were carried to bloodshed.
+Ustrinum with its disorder gave barely a slight foretaste of that which
+was happening beneath the walls of the capital.</p>
+
+<p>All regard for the dignity of law, for family ties, for difference of
+position, had ceased. Gladiators drunk with wine seized in the Emporium,
+gathered in crowds and ran with wild shouts through the neighboring
+squares, trampling, scattering, and robbing the people. A multitude of
+barbarian slaves, exposed for sale in the city, escaped from the booths.
+For them the burning and ruin of Rome were at once the end of slavery
+and the hour of revenge; so that when the permanent inhabitants, who had
+lost all they owned in the fire, stretched their hands to the gods in
+despair, calling for rescue, these slaves with howls of delight
+scattered the crowds, dragged clothing from people's backs, and bore
+away the younger women. They were joined by other slaves serving in the
+city from of old, wretches who had nothing on their bodies save woollen
+girdles around their hips, dreadful figures from the alleys, who were
+hardly ever seen on the streets in the daytime, and whose existence in
+Rome it was difficult to suspect.</p>
+
+<p>Men of this wild and unrestrained crowd&mdash;Asiatics, Africans, Greeks,
+Thracians, Germans, Britons&mdash;howling in every language of the earth,
+raged, thinking that the hour had come in which they were free to reward
+themselves for years of misery and suffering. In the midst of that
+surging throng of humanity, in the glitter of day and of fire, shone the
+helmets of pr&aelig;torians, under whose protection the more peaceable
+population had taken refuge, and who in hand-to-hand battle had to meet
+the raging multitude in many places. Vinicius had seen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> captured cities,
+but never had his eyes beheld a spectacle in which despair, tears, pain,
+groans, wild delight, madness, rage, and license were mingled together
+in such immeasurable chaos. Above this heaving, mad human multitude
+roared the fire, surging up to the hill-tops of the greatest city on
+earth, sending into the whirling throng its fiery breath, and covering
+it with smoke, through which it was impossible to see the blue sky.</p>
+
+<p>The young tribune with supreme effort, and exposing his life every
+moment, forced his way at last to the Appian Gate; but there he saw that
+he could not reach the city through the division of the Porta Capena,
+not merely because of the throng, but also because of the terrible heat
+from which the whole atmosphere was quivering inside the gate. Besides,
+the bridge at the Porta Trigenia, opposite the temple of the Bona Dea,
+did not exist yet, hence those who wished to go beyond the Tiber had to
+pass through to the Pons Sublicius&mdash;that is, to pass around the Aventine
+through a part of the city covered now with one sea of flame. That was
+an impossibility. Vinicius understood that he must return toward
+Ustrinum, turn from the Appian Way, cross the river below the city, and
+go to the Via Portuensis, which led straight to the Trans-Tiber.</p>
+
+<p>That was not easy because of the increasing disorder on the Appian Way.
+At the fountain of Mercury, however, he saw a centurion who was known to
+him. This man, at the head of a few tens of soldiers, was defending the
+precinct of the temple; he commanded him to follow. Recognizing a
+tribune and an Augustian, the centurion did not dare to disobey the
+order.</p>
+
+<p>He and his men were followed by curses and a shower of stones; but to
+these he gave no heed, caring only to reach freer spaces at the
+earliest. Still he advanced with the greatest effort. People who had
+encamped would not move, and heaped loud curses on C&aelig;sar and the
+pr&aelig;torians. The throng assumed in places a threatening aspect. Thousands
+of voices accused Nero of burning the city. He and Popp&aelig;a were
+threatened with death. Shouts of "Buffoon, actor, matricide!" were heard
+round about. Some shouted to drag him to the Tiber; others that Rome had
+shown patience enough. It was clear that were a leader found these
+threats could be changed into open rebellion which might break out any
+moment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the rage and despair of the crowd turned against the
+pr&aelig;torians, who for another reason could not make their way out of the
+crowd: the road was blocked by piles of goods, borne from the fire
+previously, boxes, barrels of provisions, furniture the most costly,
+vessels, infants' cradles, beds, carts, hand-packs. Here and there they
+fought hand-to-hand; but the pr&aelig;torians conquered the weaponless
+multitude easily. After they had ridden with difficulty across the Vi&aelig;
+Latina, Numitia, Ardea, Lavinia, and Ostia, and passed around villas,
+gardens, cemeteries, and temples, Vinicius reached at last a village
+called Vicus Alexandri, beyond which he crossed the Tiber. There was
+more open space at this spot and less smoke. From fugitives, of whom
+there was no lack even there, he learned that only certain alleys of the
+Trans-Tiber were burning, but that surely nothing could resist the fury
+of the conflagration, since people were spreading the fire purposely,
+and permitted no one to quench it, declaring that they acted at command.</p>
+
+<p>The young tribune had not the least doubt then that C&aelig;sar had given
+command to burn Rome; and the vengeance which people demanded seemed to
+him just and proper. What more could Mithradates or any of Rome's most
+inveterate enemies have done? The measure had been exceeded; his madness
+had grown to be too enormous, and the existence of people too difficult
+because of him. All believed that Nero's hour had struck, that those
+ruins into which the city was falling should and must overwhelm the
+monstrous buffoon together with all those crimes of his. Should a man be
+found of courage sufficient to stand at the head of the despairing
+people, that might happen in a few hours. Here vengeful and daring
+thoughts began to fly through his head. But if he should do that?</p>
+
+<p>The family of Vinicius, which till recent times counted a whole series
+of consuls, was known throughout Rome. The crowds needed only a name.
+Once, when four hundred slaves of the prefect Pedanius Secundus were
+sentenced, Rome reached the verge of rebellion and civil war. What would
+happen to-day in view of a dreadful calamity surpassing almost
+everything which Rome had undergone in the course of eight centuries?
+Whoever calls the <i>quirites</i> to arms, thought Vinicius,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> will overthrow
+Nero undoubtedly, and clothe himself in purple.</p>
+
+<p>The Trans-Tiber was full of smoke, and crowds of fugitives made it more
+difficult to reach the interior of the place, since people, having more
+time there, had saved greater quantities of goods. The main street
+itself was in many parts filled completely, and around the Naumachia
+Augusta great heaps were piled up. Narrow alleys, in which smoke had
+collected more densely, were simply impassable. The inhabitants were
+fleeing in thousands. On the way Vinicius saw wonderful sights. More
+than once two rivers of people, flowing in opposite directions, met in a
+narrow passage, stopped each other, men fought hand-to-hand, struck and
+trampled one another. Families lost one another in the uproar; mothers
+called on their children despairingly. The young tribune's hair stood on
+end at thought of what must happen nearer the fire.</p>
+
+<p>Amid shouts and howls it was difficult to inquire about anything or
+understand what was said. At times new columns of smoke from beyond the
+river rolled toward them, smoke black and so heavy that it moved near
+the ground, hiding houses, people, and every object, just as night does.
+The fervor of a July day, increased by the heat of the burning parts of
+the city, became unendurable. Smoke pained the eyes; breath failed in
+men's breasts. Even the inhabitants who, hoping that the fire would not
+cross the river, had remained in their houses so far, began to leave
+them, and the throng increased hourly. The pr&aelig;torians accompanying
+Vinicius were in the rear. In the crush some one wounded his horse with
+a hammer; the beast threw up its bloody head, reared, and refused
+obedience. The crowd recognized in Vinicius an Augustian by his rich
+tunic, and at once cries were raised round about, "Death to Nero and his
+incendiaries!" This was a moment of terrible danger; hundreds of hands
+were stretched toward Vinicius; but his frightened horse bore him away,
+trampling people as he went, and the next moment a new wave of black
+smoke rolled in and filled the street with darkness. Vinicius, seeing
+that he could not ride past, sprang to the earth and rushed forward on
+foot, slipping along walls, and at times waiting till the fleeing
+multitude passed him. He said to himself in spirit that these were vain
+efforts.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At times he stopped and rubbed his eyes. Tearing off the edge of his
+tunic, he covered his nose and mouth with it and ran on. As he
+approached the river the heat increased terribly. Vinicius, knowing that
+the fire had begun at the Circus Maximus, thought at first that that
+heat came from its cinders and from the Forum Boarium and the Velabrum,
+which, situated near by, must be also in flames. But the heat was
+growing unendurable. One old man on crutches and fleeing, the last whom
+Vinicius noticed, cried: "Go not near the bridge of Cestius! The whole
+island is on fire!" It was, indeed, impossible to be deceived any
+longer. At the turn toward the Vicus Jud&aelig;orum the young tribune saw
+flames amid clouds of smoke. Not only the island was burning, but the
+Trans-Tiber and the other end of the street on which he ran.</p>
+
+<p>The thunder of the flames was more terrible than the roar of wild
+beasts, and the hour had come now in which he must think of his own
+safety, for the river of fire was flowing nearer and nearer from the
+direction of the island, and rolls of smoke covered the alley almost
+completely. The taper which he carried was quenched from the current of
+air. Vinicius rushed to the street, and ran at full speed toward the Via
+Portuensis, whence he had come; the fire seemed to pursue him with
+burning breath, now surrounding him with fresh clouds of smoke, now
+covering him with sparks, which fell on his hair, neck, and clothing.
+The tunic began to smoulder on him in places; he cared not, but ran
+forward lest he might be stifled from smoke. He had the taste of soot
+and burning in his mouth; his throat and lungs were as if on fire. The
+blood rushed to his head, and at moments all things, even the smoke
+itself, seemed red to him.</p>
+
+<p>Then he thought: "This is living fire! Better throw myself upon the
+ground and quickly perish." The running tortured him more and more. His
+head, neck, and shoulders were streaming with sweat, which scalded like
+boiling water.</p>
+
+<p>But he ran on as if drunk, staggering from one side of the street to the
+other. Meanwhile something changed in that monstrous conflagration which
+had embraced the giant city. Everything which till then had only
+glimmered, burst forth visibly into one sea of flame; the wind had
+ceased to bring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> smoke. That smoke which had collected in the streets
+was borne away by a mad whirl of heated air. That whirl drove with it
+millions of sparks, so that Vinicius was running in a fiery cloud, as it
+were. But he was able to see before him all the better, and in a moment,
+almost when he was ready to fall, he saw the end of the street. That
+sight gave him fresh strength. Passing the corner, he found himself in a
+street which led to the Via Portuensis and the Codetan Field. The sparks
+ceased to drive him. He understood that if he could run to the Via
+Portuensis he was safe, even were he to faint on it.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the street he saw again a cloud, as it seemed, which
+stopped the exit. "If that is smoke," thought he, "I cannot pass." He
+ran with the remnant of his strength. On the way he threw off his tunic,
+which, on fire from the sparks, was burning him like the shirt of
+Nessus, having only a <i>capitium</i> around his head and before his mouth.
+When he had run farther, he saw that what he had taken for smoke was
+dust, from which rose a multitude of cries and voices.</p>
+
+<p>"The rabble are plundering houses," thought Vinicius. But he ran toward
+the voices. In any case people were there; they might assist him. In
+this hope he shouted for aid with all his might before he reached them.
+But this was his last effort. It grew redder still in his eyes, breath
+failed his lungs, strength failed his bones; he fell.</p>
+
+<p>They heard him, however, or rather saw him. Two men ran with gourds full
+of water. Vinicius, who had fallen from exhaustion, but had not lost
+consciousness, seized a gourd with both hands and emptied one-half of
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," said he; "place me on my feet; I can walk on alone."</p>
+
+<p>The other laborer poured water on his head; the two not only placed him
+on his feet, but raised him from the ground and carried him to the
+others, who surrounded him and asked if he had suffered seriously. This
+tenderness astonished Vinicius.</p>
+
+<p>"People, who are ye?" asked he.</p>
+
+<p>"We are breaking down houses, so that the fire may not reach the Via
+Portuensis," answered one of the laborers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ye came to my aid when I had fallen. Thanks to you."</p>
+
+<p>"We are not permitted to refuse aid," answered a number of voices.</p>
+
+<p>Vinicius, who from early morning had seen brutal crowds slaying and
+robbing, looked with more attention on the faces around him and said:</p>
+
+<p>"May Christ reward you."</p>
+
+<p>"Praise to his name!" exclaimed a whole chorus of voices.</p>
+
+<p>It was evening, but one could see as in daylight, for the conflagration
+had increased. It seemed that not single parts of the city were burning,
+but the whole city through the length and the breadth of it. The sky was
+red as far as the eye could see it, and that night in the world was a
+red night.</p>
+
+<p>The light from the burning city filled the sky as far as human eye could
+reach. The moon rose large and full from behind the mountains, and,
+inflamed at once by the glare, took on the color of heated brass. It
+seemed to look with amazement on the world-ruling city which was
+perishing. In the rose-colored abysses of heaven rose-colored stars were
+glittering; but in distinction from usual nights the earth was brighter
+than the heavens. Rome, like a giant pile, illuminated the whole
+Campania.</p>
+
+<p>In the bloody light were seen distant mountains, towns, villas, temples,
+monuments, and the aqueducts stretching toward the city from all the
+adjacent hills; on the aqueducts were swarms of people who had gathered
+there for safety or to gaze at the burning. Meanwhile the dreadful
+element was embracing new divisions of the city. It was impossible to
+doubt that criminal hands were spreading the fire, since new
+conflagrations were breaking out all the time in places remote from the
+principal fire.</p>
+
+<p>From the heights on which Rome was founded the flames flowed like waves
+of the sea into the valleys densely occupied by houses&mdash;houses of five
+and six stories, full of shops, booths, movable wooden amphitheatres,
+built to accommodate various spectacles; and finally storehouses of
+wood, olives, grain, nuts, pine cones, the kernels of which nourished
+the more needy population, and clothing, which through C&aelig;sar's favor was
+distributed from time to time among the rabble huddled into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> narrow
+alleys. In those places the fire, finding abundance of inflammable
+materials, became almost a series of explosions, and took possession of
+whole streets with unheard-of rapidity. People encamping outside the
+city or standing on the aqueducts knew from the color of the flame what
+was burning. The furious power of the wind carried forth from the fiery
+gulf thousands and millions of burning shells of walnuts and almonds,
+which, shooting suddenly into the sky, like countless flocks of bright
+butterflies, burst with a crackling, or, driven by the wind, fell in
+other parts of the city, on aqueducts and fields beyond Rome.</p>
+
+<p>All thought of rescue seemed out of place; confusion increased every
+moment, for on one side the population of the city was fleeing through
+every gate to places outside; on the other the fire had lured in
+thousands of people from the neighborhood, such as dwellers in small
+towns, peasants, and half-wild shepherds of the Campania brought in by
+hope of plunder. The shout, "Rome is perishing!" did not leave the lips
+of the crowd; the ruin of the city seemed at that time to end every rule
+and loosen all bonds which hitherto had joined people in a single
+integrity. The mob, in which slaves were more numerous, cared nothing
+for the lordship of Rome. Destruction of the city could only free them;
+hence here and there they assumed a threatening attitude.</p>
+
+<p>Violence and robbery were extending. It seemed that only the spectacle
+of the perishing city arrested attention, and restrained for the moment
+an outburst of slaughter, which would begin as soon as the city was
+turned into ruins. Hundreds of thousands of slaves, forgetting that
+Rome, besides temples and walls, possessed some tens of legions in all
+parts of the world, appeared merely waiting for a watchword and a
+leader. People began to mention the name of Spartacus; but Spartacus was
+not alive. Meanwhile citizens assembled and armed themselves each with
+what he could. The most monstrous reports were current at all the gates.
+Some declared that Vulcan, commanded by Jupiter, was destroying the city
+with fire from beneath the earth; others that Vesta was taking vengeance
+for Rubria. People with these convictions did not care to save anything,
+but, besieging the temples, implored mercy of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> gods. It was repeated
+most generally, however, that C&aelig;sar had given command to burn Rome, so
+as to free himself from odors which rose from the Subura, and build a
+new city under the name of Neronia. Rage seized the populace at thought
+of this; and if, as Vinicius believed, a leader had taken advantage of
+that outburst of hatred, Nero's hour would have struck whole years
+before it did.</p>
+
+<p>It was said also that C&aelig;sar had gone mad, that he would command
+pr&aelig;torians and gladiators to fall upon the people and make a general
+slaughter. Others swore by the gods that wild beasts had been let out of
+all the <i>vivaria</i> at Bronze-beard's command. Men had seen on the streets
+lions with burning manes, and mad elephants and bisons, trampling down
+people in crowds. There was even some truth in this; for in certain
+places elephants, at sight of the approaching fire, had burst the
+vivaria, and, gaining their freedom, rushed away from the fire in wild
+fright, destroying everything before them like a tempest. Public report
+estimated at tens of thousands the number of persons who had perished in
+the conflagration. In truth a great number had perished. There were
+people who, losing all their property, or those dearest their hearts,
+threw themselves willingly into the flames from despair. Others were
+suffocated by smoke. In the middle of the city, between the Capitol on
+one side, and the Quirinal, the Viminal, and the Esquiline on the other,
+as also between the Palatine and the C&aelig;lian hill, where the streets were
+most densely occupied, the fire began in so many places at once that
+whole crowds of people, while fleeing in one direction, struck
+unexpectedly on a new wall of fire in front of them, and died a dreadful
+death in a deluge of flame.</p>
+
+<p>In terror, in distraction and bewilderment, people knew not where to
+flee. The streets were obstructed with goods and in many narrow places
+were simply closed. Those who took refuge in those markets and squares
+of the city where the Flavian Amphitheatre stood afterward, near the
+temple of the Earth, near the Portico of Silvia, and higher up, at the
+temples of Juno and Lucinia, between the Clivus Virbius and the old
+Esquiline gate, perished from heat, surrounded by a sea of fire. In
+places not reached by the flames were found afterward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> hundreds of
+bodies burned to a crisp, though here and there unfortunates tore up
+flat stones and half buried themselves in defence against the heat.
+Hardly a family inhabiting the centre of the city survived in full;
+hence along the walls, at the gates, on all roads were heard howls of
+despairing women, calling on the dear names of those who had perished in
+the throng or the fire.</p>
+
+<p>And so, while some were imploring the gods, others blasphemed them
+because of this awful catastrophe. Old men were seen coming from the
+temple of Jupiter Liberator, stretching forth their hands and crying,
+"If thou be a liberator, save thy altars and the city!" But despair
+turned mainly against the old Roman gods, who, in the minds of the
+populace, were bound to watch over the city more carefully than others.
+They had proved themselves powerless; hence were insulted. On the other
+hand, it happened on the Via Asinaria that when a company of Egyptian
+priests appeared conducting a statue of Isis, which they had saved from
+the temple near the Porta C&aelig;limontana, a crowd of people rushed among
+the priests, attached themselves to the chariot, which they drew to the
+Appian gate, and seizing the statue placed it in the temple of Mars,
+overwhelming the priests of that deity who dared to resist them.</p>
+
+<p>In other places people invoked Serapis, Baal, or Jehovah, whose
+adherents, swarming out of the alleys in the neighborhood of the Subura
+and the Trans-Tiber, filled with shouts and uproar the fields near the
+walls. In their cries were heard tones as if of triumph; when,
+therefore, some of the citizens joined the chorus and glorified "the
+Lord of the World," others, indignant at this glad shouting, strove to
+repress it by violence. Here and there hymns were heard, sung by men in
+the bloom of life, by old men, by women and children&mdash;hymns wonderful
+and solemn, whose meaning they understood not, but in which were
+repeated from moment to moment the words "Behold the Judge cometh in the
+day of wrath and disaster." Thus this deluge of restless and sleepless
+people encircled the burning city, like a tempest-driven sea. But
+neither despair nor blasphemy nor hymn helped in any way.</p>
+
+<p>The destruction seemed as irresistible, perfect, and pitiless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> as
+Predestination itself. Around Pompey's Amphitheatre stores of hemp
+caught fire, and ropes used in circuses, arenas, and every kind of
+machine at the games, and with them the adjoining buildings containing
+barrels of pitch with which ropes were smeared. In a few hours all that
+part of the city beyond which lay the Campus Martius was so lighted by
+bright yellow flames that for a time it seemed to the spectators, only
+half conscious from terror, that in the general ruin the order of night
+and day had been lost, and that they were looking at sunshine. But later
+a monstrous bloody gleam extinguished all other colors of flame. From
+the sea of fire shot up to the heated sky gigantic fountains, and
+pillars of flame spreading at their summits into fiery branches and
+feathers; then the wind bore them away, turned them into golden threads,
+into hair, into sparks, and swept them on over the Campania toward the
+Alban hills. The night became brighter; the air itself seemed
+penetrated, not only with light, but with flame. The Tiber flowed on as
+living fire. The hapless city was turned into one pandemonium. The
+conflagration seized more and more space, took hills by storm, flooded
+level places, drowned valleys, raged, roared, and thundered.</p>
+
+<p>The city burned on. The Circus Maximus had fallen in ruins. Entire
+streets and alleys in parts which began to burn first were falling in
+turn. After every fall pillars of flame rose for a time to the very sky.
+The wind had changed, and blew now with mighty force from the sea,
+bearing toward the C&aelig;lian, the Esquiline, and the Viminal rivers of
+flame, brands, and cinders. Still the authorities provided for rescue.
+At command of Tigellinus, who had hastened from Antium the third day
+before, houses on the Esquiline were torn down so that the fire,
+reaching empty spaces, died of itself. That was, however, undertaken
+solely to save a remnant of the city; to save that which was burning was
+not to be thought of. There was need also to guard against further
+results of the ruin. Incalculable wealth had perished in Rome; all the
+property of its citizens had vanished; hundreds of thousands of people
+were wandering in utter want outside the walls. Hunger had begun to
+pinch this throng the second day, for the immense stores of provisions
+in the city had burned with it. In the universal disorder and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> in the
+destruction of authority no one had thought of furnishing new supplies.
+Only after the arrival of Tigellinus were proper orders sent to Ostia;
+but meanwhile the people had grown more threatening.</p>
+
+<p>Besides flour, as much baked bread as possible was brought at his
+command, not only from Ostia, but from all towns and neighboring
+villages. When the first instalment came at night to the Emporium, the
+people broke the chief gate toward the Aventine, seized all supplies in
+the twinkle of an eye, and caused terrible disturbance. In the light of
+the conflagration they fought for loaves, and trampled many of them into
+the earth. Flour from torn bags whitened like snow the whole space from
+the granary to the arches of Drusus and Germanicus. The uproar continued
+till soldiers seized the building and dispersed the crowd with arrows
+and missiles.</p>
+
+<p>Never since the invasion by the Gauls under Brennus had Rome beheld such
+disaster. People in despair compared the two conflagrations. But in the
+time of Brennus the Capitol remained. Now the Capitol was encircled by a
+dreadful wreath of flame. The marbles, it is true, were not blazing; but
+at night, when the wind swept the flames aside for a moment, rows of
+columns in the lofty sanctuary of Jove were visible, red as glowing
+coals. In the days of Brennus, moreover, Rome had a disciplined integral
+people, attached to the city and its altars; but now crowds of a
+many-tongued populace roamed nomad-like around the walls of burning
+Rome, people composed for the greater part of slaves and freedmen,
+excited, disorderly, and ready, under the pressure of want, to turn
+against authority and the city.</p>
+
+<p>But the very immensity of the fire which terrified every heart disarmed
+the crowd in a certain measure. After fire might come famine and
+disease; and to complete the misfortune the terrible heat of July had
+appeared. It was impossible to breathe air inflamed both by fire and the
+sun. Night brought no relief; on the contrary, it presented a hell.
+During daylight an awful and ominous spectacle met the eye. In the
+centre a giant city on heights was turned into a roaring volcano; round
+about as far as the Alban hills was one boundless camp, formed of sheds,
+tents, huts, vehicles, bales, packs, stands, fires, and all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> covered
+with smoke and dust, lighted by sun rays reddened by passing through
+smoke&mdash;everything filled with roars, shouts, threats, hatred, and
+terror, a monstrous swarm of men, women, and children. Mingled with
+<i>quirites</i> were Greeks, shaggy men from the North with blue eyes,
+Africans, and Asiatics; among citizens were slaves, freedmen,
+gladiators, merchants, mechanics, servants, and soldiers&mdash;a real sea of
+people, flowing around the island of fire.</p>
+
+<p>Various reports moved this sea as wind does a real one. These reports
+were favorable and unfavorable. People told of immense supplies of wheat
+and clothing to be brought to the Emporium and distributed gratis. It
+was said, too, that provinces in Asia and Africa would be stripped of
+their wealth at C&aelig;sar's command, and the treasures thus gained be given
+to the inhabitants of Rome, so that each man might build his own
+dwelling.</p>
+
+<p>But it was noised about also that water in the aqueducts had been
+poisoned; that Nero intended to annihilate the city, destroy the
+inhabitants to the last person, then move to Greece or to Egypt, and
+rule the world from a new place. Each report ran with lightning speed,
+and each found belief among the rabble, causing outbursts of hope,
+anger, terror, or rage. Finally a kind of fever mastered those nomadic
+thousands. The belief of Christians that the end of the world by fire
+was at hand spread even among adherents of the gods and extended daily.
+People fell into torpor or madness. In clouds lighted by the burning,
+gods were seen gazing down on the ruin; hands were stretched toward
+those gods then to implore pity or send them curses.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile soldiers, aided by a certain number of inhabitants, continued
+to tear down houses on the Esquiline and the C&aelig;lian, as also in the
+Trans-Tiber; these divisions were saved therefore in considerable part.
+But in the city itself were destroyed incalculable treasures accumulated
+through centuries of conquest&mdash;priceless works of art, splendid temples,
+the most precious monuments of Rome's past and Rome's glory. They
+foresaw that of all Rome there would remain barely a few parts on the
+edges, and that hundreds of thousands of people would be without a roof.
+Some spread reports that the soldiers were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> tearing down houses, not to
+stop the fire, but to prevent any part of the city from being saved.
+Tigellinus sent courier after courier to Antium, imploring C&aelig;sar in each
+letter to come and calm the despairing people with his presence. But
+Nero moved only when fire had seized the <i>domus transitoria</i> and he
+hurried so as not to miss the moment in which the conflagration should
+be at its highest.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile fire had reached the Via Nomentana, but turned from it at once
+with a change of wind toward the Via Lata and the Tiber. It surrounded
+the Capitol, spread along the Forum Boarium, destroyed everything which
+it had spared before, and approached the Palatine a second time.</p>
+
+<p>Tigellinus, assembling all the pr&aelig;torian forces, despatched courier
+after courier to C&aelig;sar with an announcement that he would lose nothing
+of the grandeur of the spectacle, for the fire had increased.</p>
+
+<p>But Nero, who was on the road, wished to come at night, so as to sate
+himself all the better with a view of the perishing capital. Therefore
+he halted, in the neighborhood of Aqua Albana, and, summoning to his
+tent the tragedian Aliturus, decided with his aid on posture, look, and
+expression; learned fitting gestures, disputing with the actor
+stubbornly whether at the words, "O sacred city, which seemed more
+enduring than Ida," he was to raise both hands, or, holding in one the
+<i>forminga</i>, drop it by his side, and raise only the other. This question
+seemed to him then more important than all others. Starting at last
+about nightfall, he took counsel of Petronius also whether to the lines
+describing the catastrophe he might add a few magnificent blasphemies
+against the gods, and whether, considered from the standpoint of art,
+they would not have rushed spontaneously from the mouth of a man in such
+a position, a man who was losing his birthplace.</p>
+
+<p>At length he approached the walls about midnight with his numerous
+court, composed of whole detachments of nobles, senators, knights,
+freedmen, slaves, women, and children. Sixteen thousand pr&aelig;torians,
+arranged in line of battle along the road, guarded the peace and safety
+of his entrance, and held the excited populace at a proper distance. The
+people cursed, shouted, and hissed on seeing the retinue, but dared not
+attack<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> it. In many places, however, applause was given by the rabble,
+which, owning nothing, had lost nothing in the fire, and which hoped for
+a more bountiful distribution than usual of wheat, olives, clothing, and
+money. Finally, shouts, hissing, and applause were drowned in the blare
+of horns and trumpets, which Tigellinus had caused to be sounded.</p>
+
+<p>Nero, on arriving at the Ostian gate, halted, and said: "Houseless ruler
+of a houseless people, where shall I lay my unfortunate head for the
+night?"</p>
+
+<p>After he had passed the Clivus Delphini, he ascended the Appian aqueduct
+on steps prepared purposely. After him followed the Augustians and a
+choir of singers, bearing <i>cithar&aelig;</i>, lutes, and other musical
+instruments.</p>
+
+<p>And all held the breath in their breasts, waiting to learn if he would
+say some great words, which for their own safety they ought to remember.
+But he stood solemn, silent, in a purple mantle and a wreath of golden
+laurels, gazing at the raging might of the flames.</p>
+
+<p>When Terpnos gave him a golden lute, he raised his eyes to the sky,
+filled with the conflagration, as if he were waiting for inspiration.
+The people pointed at him from afar as he stood in the bloody gleam. In
+the distance fiery serpents were hissing. The ancient and most sacred
+edifices were in flames; the temple of Hercules, reared by Evander, was
+burning; the temple of Jupiter Stator was burning, the temple of Luna,
+built by Servius Tullius, the house of Numa Pompilius, the sanctuary of
+Vesta with the <i>penates</i> of the Roman people; through waving flames the
+Capitol appeared at intervals; the past and the spirit of Rome were
+burning. But C&aelig;sar was there with a lute in his hand and a theatrical
+expression on his face, not thinking of his perishing country, but of
+his posture and the prophetic words with which he might describe best
+the greatness of the catastrophe, rouse most admiration, and receive the
+warmest plaudits.</p>
+
+<p>He detested that city, he detested its inhabitants, he loved only his
+own songs and verses; hence he rejoiced in heart that at last he saw a
+tragedy like that which he was writing. The poet was happy, the
+declaimer felt inspired, the seeker for emotions was delighted at the
+awful sight, and thought with rapture<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> that even the destruction of Troy
+was as nothing if compared with the destruction of that giant city. What
+more could he desire? There was world-ruling Rome in flames, and he,
+standing on the arches of the aqueduct with a golden lute, conspicuous,
+purple, admired, magnificent, and poetic. Down below, somewhere in the
+darkness, the people are muttering and storming; let them mutter! Ages
+will elapse, thousands of years will pass, but mankind will remember and
+glorify the poet who that night sang the fall and the burning of Troy.
+What was Homer compared with him? What Apollo himself with his
+hollowed-out lute?</p>
+
+<p>Here he raised his hands, and, striking the strings, with an exaggerated
+theatrical gesture pronounced the words of Priam:</p>
+
+<p>"O nest of my fathers, O dear cradle!" His voice in the open air, with
+the roar of the conflagration, and the distant murmur of crowding
+thousands, seemed marvellously weak, uncertain, and low, and the sound
+of the accompaniment like the buzzing of insects. But senators,
+dignitaries, and Augustians, assembled on the aqueduct, bowed their
+heads and listened in silent rapture. He sang long, and his motive was
+ever sadder. At moments, when he stopped to catch breath, the chorus of
+singers repeated the last verse; then Nero cast the tragic <i>syrma</i> from
+his shoulder with a gesture learned from Aliturus, struck the lute, and
+sang on. When he had finished the lines composed, he improvised, using
+grandiose comparisons in the spectacle unfolded before him. His face
+began to change. He was not moved, it is true, by the destruction of his
+country's capital; but he was delighted and moved with the pathos of his
+own words to such a degree that his eyes filled with tears on a sudden.</p>
+
+<p>At last he dropped the lute to his feet with a clatter, and, wrapping
+himself in the syrma, stood as if petrified, like one of those statues
+of Niobe which ornamented the courtyard of the Palatine. Soon a storm of
+applause broke the silence. But in the distance this was answered by the
+howling of multitudes. No one doubted then that C&aelig;sar had given command
+to burn the city, so as to afford himself a spectacle and sing a song at
+it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h4>TACITUS</h4>
+
+<p>There followed a dreadful disaster, whether fortuitously or by the
+wicked contrivance of the prince is not determined, for both are
+asserted by historians; but of all the calamities which ever befell this
+city from the rage of fire, this was the most terrible and severe. It
+broke out in that part of the Circus which is contiguous to mounts
+Palatine and C&aelig;lius, where, by reason of shops in which were kept such
+goods as minister aliment to fire, the moment it commenced it acquired
+strength, and, being accelerated by the wind, it spread at once through
+the whole extent of the Circus: for neither were the houses secured by
+enclosures nor the temples environed with walls, nor was there any other
+obstacle to intercept its progress; but the flame, spreading every way
+impetuously, invaded first the lower regions of the city, then mounted
+to the higher; then again ravaging the lower, it baffled every effort to
+extinguish it, by the rapidity of its destructive course, and from the
+liability of the city to conflagration, in consequence of the narrow and
+intricate alleys, and the irregularity of the streets in ancient Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Add to this the wailings of terrified women, the infirm condition of the
+aged, and the helplessness of childhood; such as strove to provide for
+themselves and those who labored to assist others; these dragging the
+feeble, those waiting for them; some hurrying, others lingering;
+altogether created a scene of universal confusion and embarrassment: and
+while they looked back upon the danger in their rear, they often found
+themselves beset before and on their sides; or, if they had escaped into
+the quarters adjoining, these, too, were already seized by the devouring
+flames; even the parts which they believed remote and exempt were found
+to be in the same distress. At last, not knowing what to shun or where
+to seek sanctuary, they crowded the streets and lay along in the open
+fields. Some, from the loss of their whole substance, even the means of
+their daily sustenance, others, from affection for their relations whom
+they had not been able to snatch from the flames, suffered themselves to
+perish in them, though they had opportunity to escape. Neither dared any
+man offer to check the fire, so repeated were the menaces of many who
+forbade to extinguish it;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> and because others openly threw firebrands,
+with loud declarations "that they had one who authorized them"; whether
+they did it that they might plunder with the less restraint or in
+consequence of orders given.</p>
+
+<p>Nero, who was at that juncture sojourning at Antium, did not return to
+the city till the fire approached that quarter of his house which
+connected the palace with the gardens of M&aelig;cenas; nor could it, however,
+be prevented from devouring the house and palace and everything around.
+But for the relief of the people, thus destitute and driven from their
+dwellings, he opened the field of Mars and the monumental edifices
+erected by Agrippa, and even his own gardens. He likewise reared
+temporary houses for the reception of the forlorn multitude, and from
+Ostia and the neighboring cities were brought, up the river, household
+necessaries, and the price of grain was reduced to three sesterces the
+measure. All which proceedings, though of a popular character, were
+thrown away, because a rumor had become universally current "that at the
+very time when the city was in flames, Nero, going on the stage of his
+private theatre, sang <i>The Destruction of Troy</i>, assimilating the
+present disaster to that catastrophe of ancient times."</p>
+
+<p>At length, on the sixth day, the conflagration was stayed at the foot of
+Esquili&aelig;, by pulling down an immense quantity of buildings, so that an
+open space, and, as it were, void air, might check the raging element by
+breaking the continuity. But ere the consternation had subsided the fire
+broke out afresh, with no little violence, but in regions more spacious,
+and therefore with less destruction of human life; but more extensive
+havoc was made of the temples and the porticoes dedicated to amusement.
+This conflagration, too, was the subject of more censorious remark, as
+it arose in the &AElig;milian possessions of Tigellinus, and Nero seemed to
+aim at the glory of building a new city and calling it by his own name;
+for, of the fourteen sections into which Rome is divided, four were
+still standing entire, three were levelled with the ground, and in the
+seven others there remained only here and there a few remnants of
+houses, shattered and half consumed.</p>
+
+<p>It were no very easy task to recount the number of tenements and temples
+which were lost; but the following, most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> venerable for antiquity and
+sanctity, were consumed: that dedicated by Servius Tullius to the Moon;
+the temple and great altar consecrated by Evander the Arcadian to
+Hercules while present; the chapel vowed by Romulus to Jupiter Stator;
+the palace of Numa with the temple of Vesta, and in it the tutelar gods
+of Rome. Moreover, the treasures accumulated by so many victories, the
+beautiful productions of Greek artists, ancient writings of authors
+celebrated for genius, and till then preserved entire, were consumed;
+and though great was the beauty of the city, in its renovated form, the
+older inhabitants remembered many decorations of the ancient which could
+not be replaced in the modern city. There were some who remarked that
+the commencement of this fire showed itself on the fourteenth before the
+calends of July, the day on which the Senones set fire to the captured
+city. Others carried their investigation so far as to determine that an
+equal number of years, months, and days intervened between the two
+fires.</p>
+
+<p>To proceed: Nero appropriated to his own purposes the ruins of his
+country,<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> and founded upon them a palace; in which the old-fashioned,
+and, in those luxurious times, common ornaments of gold and precious
+stones, were not so much the objects of attraction as lands and lakes;
+in one part, woods like vast deserts; in another part, open spaces and
+expansive prospects. The projectors and superintendents of this plan
+were Severus and Celer, men of such ingenuity and daring enterprise as
+to attempt to conquer by art the obstacles of nature and fool away the
+treasures of the prince. They had even undertaken to sink a navigable
+canal from the lake Avernus to the mouth of the Tiber, over an arid
+shore or through opposing mountains; nor indeed does there occur
+anything of a humid nature for supplying water except the Pomptine
+marshes; the rest is either craggy rock or a parched soil; and had it
+even been possible to break through these obstructions, the toil had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+been intolerable and disproportioned to the object. Nero, however, who
+longed to achieve things that exceeded credibility, exerted all his
+might to perforate the mountains adjoining to Avernus, and to this day
+there remain traces of his abortive project.</p>
+
+<p>But the rest of the old site not occupied by his palace was laid out,
+not as after the Gallic fire without discrimination and regularity, but
+with the lines of streets measured out, broad spaces left for transit,
+the height of the buildings limited, open areas left, and porticoes
+added to protect the front of the clustered dwellings: these porticoes
+Nero engaged to rear at his own expense, and then to deliver to each
+proprietor the areas about them cleared. He, moreover, proposed rewards
+proportioned to every man's rank and private substance, and fixed a day
+within which, if their houses, single and clustered, were finished, they
+should receive them. He appointed the marshes of Ostia for a receptacle
+of the rubbish, and that the vessels which had conveyed grain up the
+Tiber should return laden with rubbish; that the buildings themselves
+should be raised a certain portion of their height without beams, and
+arched with stone from the quarries of Gabii or Alba, that stone being
+proof against fire; that over the water springs, which had been
+improperly intercepted by private individuals, overseers should be
+placed, to provide for their flowing in greater abundance, and in a
+greater number of places, for the supply of the public; that every
+housekeeper should have in his yard means for extinguishing fire,
+neither should there be party walls, but every house should be enclosed
+by its own walls.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p>
+
+<p>These regulations, which were favorably received, in consideration of
+their utility, were also a source of beauty to the new city; yet some
+there were who believed that the ancient form was more conducive to
+health, as from the narrowness of the streets and the height of the
+buildings the rays of the sun were more excluded; whereas now, the
+spacious breadth of the streets, without any shade to protect it, was
+more intensely heated in warm weather.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the provisions made by human counsels. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> gods were next
+addressed with expiations, and recourse had to the sibyl's books. By
+admonition from them to Vulcan, Ceres, and Proserpina, supplicatory
+sacrifices were made, and Juno propitiated by the matrons, first in the
+Capitol, then upon the nearest shore, where, by water drawn from the
+sea, the temple and image of the goddess were besprinkled; the ceremony
+of placing the goddess in her sacred chair, and her vigil, were
+celebrated by ladies who had husbands. But not all the relief that could
+come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor
+all the atonements which could be presented to the gods availed to
+relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the
+conflagration. Hence, to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the
+guilt and punished with the most exquisite tortures the persons commonly
+called Christians, who were hated for their enormities.</p>
+
+<p>Christus, the founder of that name, was put to death as a criminal by
+Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius; but the
+pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again, not only
+through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of
+Rome also, whither all things horrible and disgraceful flow from all
+quarters as to a common receptacle and where they are encouraged.
+Accordingly first those were seized who confessed they were Christians;
+next on their information a vast multitude were convicted, not so much
+on the charge of burning the city as of hating the human race. And in
+their deaths they were also made the subjects of sport, for they were
+covered with the hides of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs, or
+nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and when day declined, burned to
+serve for nocturnal lights. Nero offered his own gardens for that
+spectacle, and exhibited a Circensian game, indiscriminately mingling
+with the common people in the habit of a charioteer, or else standing in
+his chariot. Whence a feeling of compassion arose toward the sufferers,
+though guilty and deserving to be made examples of by capital
+punishment, because they seemed not to be cut off for the public good,
+but victims to the ferocity of one man.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time, in order to supply money all Italy was pillaged, the
+provinces ruined, both the people in alliance with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> us and the states
+which are called free. Even the gods were not exempt from plunder on
+this occasion, their temples in the city being despoiled, and all the
+gold conveyed away which the Roman people, in every age, either in
+gratitude for triumphs or in fulfilment of vows, had consecrated, in
+times of prosperity, or in seasons of dismay. Through Greece and Asia,
+indeed, the gifts and oblations and even the statues of the deities were
+carried off.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> According to Suetonius, Nero turned the public calamity to
+his own private advantage. He promised to remove the bodies that lay
+amid the ruins, and to clear the ground at his own expense. By that
+artifice he secured all the remaining property of the unhappy sufferers
+for his own use. To add to his ill-gotten store, he levied contributions
+in the provinces, and by those means collected an immense sum.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> By a law of the Twelve Tables, it was provided that a
+space of something more than two feet was to be left between all
+new-built houses.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS UNDER NERO</h2>
+
+<h4>A.D. 64-68</h4>
+
+<h3>FREDERIC WILLIAM FARRAR</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Down to the reign of Nero Christians in the Roman Empire were
+regarded by the ruling powers merely as a Jewish sect, harmless and
+guilty of nothing which could call for the interference of the
+State with their ways of life or of worship. They were therefore
+unmolested. But during the reign of the infamous Emperor in whom
+they saw antichrist and the actual embodiment of the symbolic
+monstrosities of the Apocalypse, the Christians began to be
+recognized as a separate people, and from milder persecutions at
+first, under cover of legal procedure, they were soon subjected to
+outrages, tortures, and deaths than which history has none more
+revolting and pitiful to record. In Kaulbach's great painting of
+Nero's persecution there is enough of portrayal and suggestion to
+add a terrible vividness to the ordinary historian's word-pictures.
+The Emperor, surrounded by his boon companions, stands on his
+garden terrace to receive divine honors, while a group of suffering
+Christians&mdash;among them St. Peter, crucified head down, and St.
+Paul, passionately protesting against the diabolical work&mdash;move to
+compassion a company of elderly men and a body of German soldiers
+who look upon the horrible spectacle of martyrdom.</p>
+
+<p>This, the first persecution of the Christians, reached its
+culminating point of ferocity in <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 64, after Nero had been
+accused of kindling, or conniving at the work of those who did
+kindle, the great fire in Rome. In order to divert attention, even
+if he could not turn suspicion, from himself, having charged the
+Christians with causing the conflagration, he ordered the
+atrocities which added a still darker stain to his personal and
+imperial record of shameless crime and savage inhumanity. First
+such as confessed themselves to be Christians were dealt with, and
+from these information was extorted on which vast numbers were
+convicted, "not so much on the charge of burning the city as of
+hating the human race."</p>
+
+<p>Nero's character and acts have been depicted by many writers and in
+famous works of art, but not even the pencil of Kaulbach can make
+more keen the realization of those scenes enacted in this
+persecution<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> than the thrilling narration of Farrar, which for
+picturesque eloquence, fired with dramatic intensity, has seldom
+been surpassed in English literature.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Nero was so secure in his absolutism, he had hitherto found it so
+impossible to shock the feelings of the people or to exhaust the
+terrified adulation of the senate, that he was usually indifferent to
+the pasquinades which were constantly holding up his name to execration
+and contempt. But now<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> he felt that he had gone too far, and that his
+power would be seriously imperilled if he did not succeed in diverting
+the suspicions of the populace. He was perfectly aware that when the
+people in the streets cursed those who set fire to the city they meant
+to curse <i>him</i>. If he did not take some immediate step, he felt that he
+might perish, as Gaius had perished before him, by the dagger of the
+assassin.</p>
+
+<p>It is at this point of his career that Nero becomes a prominent figure
+in the history of the Church. It was this phase of cruelty which seemed
+to throw a blood-red light over his whole character and led men to look
+on him as the very incarnation of the world-power in its most demoniac
+aspect, as worse than the Antiochus Epiphanes of Daniel's Apocalypse, as
+the Man of Sin whom&mdash;in language figurative indeed, yet awfully
+true&mdash;the Lord should slay with the breath of his mouth and destroy with
+the brightness of his coming, for Nero endeavored to fix the odious
+crime of having destroyed the capital of the world upon the most
+innocent and faithful of his subjects&mdash;upon the only subjects who
+offered heartfelt prayers on his behalf&mdash;the Roman Christians. They were
+the defenceless victims of this horrible charge, for though they were
+the most harmless, they were also the most hated and the most slandered
+of living men.</p>
+
+<p>Why he should have thought of singling out the Christians has always
+been a curious problem, for at this point St. Luke ends the Acts of the
+Apostles, perhaps purposely dropping the curtain, because it would have
+been perilous and useless to narrate the horrors in which the hitherto
+neutral or friendly Roman government began to play so disgraceful a
+part. Neither Tacitus, nor Suetonius, nor the Apocalypse, helps us to
+solve this particular problem. The Christians had filled no large<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> space
+in the eye of the world. Until the days of Domitian we do not hear of a
+single noble or distinguished person who had joined their ranks. That
+the Pudens and Claudia of Rom. xvi. were the Pudens and Claudia of
+Martial's <i>Epigrams</i> seems to me to be a baseless dream. If the "foreign
+superstition" with which Pomponia Gr&aelig;cina, wife of Aulus Plautius, the
+conqueror of Britain, was charged, and of which she was acquitted, was
+indeed, as has been suspected, the Christian religion, at any rate the
+name of Christianity was not alluded to by the ancient writers who had
+mentioned the circumstance. Even if Rom. xvi. was addressed to Rome, and
+not, as I believe, to Ephesus, "they of the household of Narcissus which
+were in the Lord" were unknown slaves, as also were "they of C&aelig;sar's
+household."</p>
+
+<p>The slaves and artisans, Jewish and Gentile, who formed the Christian
+community at Rome, had never in any way come into collision with the
+Roman government. They must have been the victims rather than the
+exciters of the messianic tumults&mdash;for such they are conjectured to have
+been&mdash;which led to the expulsion of the Jews from Rome by the futile
+edict of Claudius. Nay, so obedient and docile were they required to be
+by the very principles on which their morality was based, so far were
+they removed from the fierce independence of the Jewish zealots, that,
+in writing to them a few years earlier, the greatest of their leaders
+had urged upon them a payment of tribute and a submission to the higher
+powers, not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake, because the
+earthly ruler, in his office of repressing evil works, is a minister of
+God. That the Christians were entirely innocent of the crime charged
+against them was well known both at the time and afterward. But how was
+it that Nero sought popularity and partly averted the deep rage which
+was rankling in many hearts against himself, by torturing men and women,
+on whose agonies he thought that the populace would gaze not only with a
+stolid indifference, but even with fierce satisfaction?</p>
+
+<p>Gibbon has conjectured that the Christians were confounded with the
+Jews, and that the detestation universally felt for the latter fell with
+double force upon the former. Christians suffered even more than the
+Jews because of the calumnies so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> assiduously circulated against them,
+and from what appeared to the ancients to be the revolting absurdity of
+their peculiar tenets. "Nero," says Tacitus, "exposed to accusation, and
+tortured with the most exquisite penalties, a set of men detested for
+their enormities, whom the common people called 'Christians.' Christus,
+the founder of this sect, was executed during the reign of Tiberius, by
+the procurator Pontius Pilate, and the deadly superstition, suppressed
+for a time, began to burst out once more, not only throughout Judea,
+where the evil had its root, but even in the city, whither from every
+quarter all things horrible or shameful are drifted, and find their
+votaries."</p>
+
+<p>The lordly disdain which prevented Tacitus from making any inquiry into
+the real views and character of the Christians is shown by the fact that
+he catches up the most baseless allegations against them. He talks of
+their doctrines as savage and shameful when they breathed the very
+spirit of peace and purity. He charges them with being animated by a
+hatred of their kind when their central tenet was a universal charity.
+The masses, he says, called them "Christians"; and while he almost
+apologizes for staining his page with so vulgar an appellation,<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> he
+merely mentions in passing that, though innocent of the charge of being
+turbulent incendiaries, on which they were tortured to death, they were
+yet a set of guilty and infamous sectaries, to be classed with the
+lowest dregs of Roman criminals.</p>
+
+<p>But the haughty historian throws no light on one difficulty&mdash;namely, the
+circumstances which led to the <i>Christians</i> being thus singled out. The
+Jews were in no way involved in Nero's persecution. To persecute the
+Jews at Rome would not have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> been an easy matter. They were sufficiently
+numerous to be formidable, and had overawed Cicero in the zenith of his
+fame. Besides this, the Jewish religion was recognized, tolerated,
+licensed. Throughout the length and breadth of the empire no man,
+however much he and his race might be detested and despised, could have
+been burned or tortured for the mere fact of being a Jew. We hear of no
+Jewish martyrdoms or Jewish persecutions till we come to the times of
+the Jewish War, and then chiefly in Palestine itself. It is clear that a
+shedding of blood&mdash;in fact, some form or other of human sacrifice&mdash;was
+imperatively demanded by popular feeling as an expiation of the ruinous
+crime which had plunged so many thousands into the depths of misery. In
+vain had the sibylline books been once more consulted, and in vain had
+public prayer been offered, in accordance with their directions to
+Vulcan and the goddesses of Earth and Hades. In vain had the Roman
+matrons walked in procession in dark robes, and with their long hair
+unbound, to propitiate the insulted majesty of Juno, and to sprinkle
+with sea-water her ancient statue. In vain had largesses been lavished
+upon the people, and propitiatory sacrifices offered to the gods. In
+vain had public banquets been celebrated in honor of various deities. A
+crime had been committed, and Romans had perished unavenged. Blood cried
+for blood before the sullen suspicion against Nero could be averted or
+the indignation of heaven appeased.</p>
+
+<p>Nero had always hated, persecuted, and exiled the philosophers, and no
+doubt, so far as he knew anything of the Christians&mdash;so far as he saw
+among his own countless slaves any who had embraced this superstition,
+which the <i>&eacute;lite</i> of Rome described as not only new, but "execrable" and
+"malefic"&mdash;he would hate their gravity and purity, and feel for them
+that raging envy which is the tribute that virtue receives from vice.
+Moreover, St. Paul, in all probability, had recently stood before his
+tribunal, and though he had been acquitted on the special charges of
+turbulence and profanation, respecting which he had appealed to C&aelig;sar,
+yet during the judicial inquiry Nero could hardly have failed to hear
+from the emissaries of the Sanhedrim many fierce slanders of a sect
+which was everywhere spoken against. The Jews were by far the deadliest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
+enemies of the Christians, and two persons of Jewish proclivities were
+at this time in close proximity to the person of the Emperor. One was
+the pantomimist Aliturus, the other was Popp&aelig;a, the harlot-empress.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a>
+The Jews were in communication with these powerful favorites, and had
+even promised Nero that if his enemies ever prevailed at Rome he should
+have the kingdom of Jerusalem.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is not even impossible that there may have been a third dark and evil
+influence at work to undermine the Christians, for about this very time
+the unscrupulous Pharisee Flavius Josephus had availed himself of the
+intrigues of the palace to secure the liberation of some Jewish priests.
+If, as seems certain, the Jews had it in their power during the reign of
+Nero more or less to shape the whisper of the throne, does not
+historical induction drive us to conclude with some confidence that the
+suggestion of the Christians as scapegoats and victims came from them?
+St. Clement says in his Epistle that the Christians suffered <i>through
+jealousy</i>. <i>Whose</i> jealousy? Who can tell what dark secrets lie veiled
+under that suggestive word? Was Acte a Christian, and was Popp&aelig;a jealous
+of her? That suggestion seems at once inadequate and improbable,
+especially as Acte was not hurt. But there <i>was</i> a deadly jealousy at
+work against the new religion.</p>
+
+<p>To the pagans, Christianity was but a religious
+extravagance&mdash;contemptible, indeed, but otherwise insignificant. To the
+Jews, on the other hand, it was an object of hatred, which never stopped
+short of bloodshed when it possessed or could usurp the power, and
+which, though long suppressed by circumstances,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> displayed itself in all
+the intensity of its virulence during the brief spasm of the
+dictatorship of Barcochebas. Christianity was hateful to the Jews on
+<i>every</i> ground. It nullified their law. It liberated all Gentiles from
+the heavy yoke of that law, without thereby putting them on a lower
+level. It even tended to render those who were born Jews indifferent to
+the institutions of Mosaism. It was, as it were, a fatal revolt and
+schism from within, more dangerous than any assault from without. And,
+worse than all, it was by the Gentiles confounded with the Judaism which
+was its bitterest antagonist. While it sheltered its existence under the
+mantle of Judaism, as a <i>religio licita</i>, it drew down upon the religion
+from whose bosom it sprang all the scorn and hatred which were attached
+by the world to its own special tenets, for however much the Greeks and
+Romans despised the Jews, they despised still more the belief that the
+Lord and Saviour of the world was a crucified malefactor who had risen
+from the dead.</p>
+
+<p>I see in the proselytism of Popp&aelig;a, guided by Jewish malice, the only
+adequate explanation of the first Christian persecution. Hers was the
+jealousy which had goaded Nero to matricide; hers not improbably was the
+instigated fanaticism of a proselyte which urged him to imbrue his hands
+in martyr blood. And she had her reward. A woman of whom Tacitus has not
+a word of good to say and who seems to have been repulsive even to a
+Suetonius, is handed down by the renegade Pharisee as "a devout
+woman"&mdash;as a worshipper of God!</p>
+
+<p>And, indeed, when once the Christians were pointed out to the popular
+vengeance, many reasons would be adduced to prove their connection with
+the conflagration. Temples had perished&mdash;and were they not notorious
+enemies of the temples? Did not popular rumor charge them with nocturnal
+orgies and Thyest&aelig;an feasts? Suspicions of incendiarism were sometimes
+brought against Jews; but the Jews were not in the habit of talking, as
+these sectaries were, about a fire which should consume the world, and
+rejoicing in the prospect of that fiery consummation.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> Nay, more,
+when pagans had bewailed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> destruction of the city and the loss of
+the ancient monuments of Rome, had not these pernicious people used
+ambiguous language, as though they joyously recognized in these events
+the signs of a coming end? Even when they tried to suppress all outward
+tokens of exultation, had they not listened to the fears and
+lamentations of their fellow-citizens with some sparkle in the eyes, and
+had they not answered with something of triumph in their tones? There
+was a satanic plausibility which dictated the selection of these
+particular victims. Because they hated the wickedness of the world, with
+its ruthless games and hideous idolatries, they were accused of hatred
+of the whole human race.</p>
+
+<p>The charge of <i>incivisme</i>, so fatal in this reign of terror, was
+sufficient to ruin a body of men who scorned the sacrifices of
+heathendom and turned away with abhorrence from its banquets and
+gayeties. The cultivated classes looked down upon the Christians with a
+disdain which would hardly even mention them without an apology. The
+<i>canaille</i> of pagan cities insulted them with obscene inscriptions and
+blasphemous pictures on the very walls of the places where they met.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a>
+Nay, they were popularly known by nicknames, like <i>Sarmenticii</i> and
+<i>Semaxii</i>&mdash;untranslatable terms of opprobrium derived from the fagots
+with which they were burned and the stakes to which they were chained.
+Even the heroic courage which they displayed was described as being
+sheer obstinacy and stupid fanaticism.</p>
+
+<p>But in the method chosen for the punishment of these saintly innocents
+Nero gave one more proof of the close connection between effeminate
+&aelig;stheticism and sanguinary callousness. As in old days, "on that
+opprobrious hill," the temple of Chemosh had stood close by that of
+Moloch, so now we find the <i>spoliarium</i> beside the <i>fornices</i>&mdash;Lust hard
+by Hate. The <i>carnificina</i> of Tiberius, at Capre&aelig;, adjoined the
+<i>sellari&aelig;</i>. History has given many proofs that no man is more
+systematically<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> heartless than a corrupted debauchee. Like people, like
+prince. In the then condition of Rome, Nero well knew that a nation,
+"cruel, by their sports to blood inured," would be most likely to forget
+their miseries and condone their suspicions by mixing games and gayety
+with spectacles of refined and atrocious cruelty, of which, for eighteen
+centuries, the most passing record has sufficed to make men's blood run
+cold.</p>
+
+<p>Tacitus tells us that "those who confessed were first seized, and then
+on their evidence <i>a huge multitude</i><a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> were convicted, not so much on
+the charge of incendiarism as for their hatred to mankind." Compressed
+and obscure as the sentence is, Tacitus clearly means to imply by the
+"confession" to which he alludes the confession of Christianity, and
+though he is not sufficiently generous to acquit the Christians
+absolutely of all complicity in the great crime, he distinctly says that
+they were made the scapegoats of a general indignation. The phrase&mdash;"a
+huge multitude"&mdash;is one of the few existing indications of the number of
+martyrs in the first persecution, and of the number of Christians in the
+Roman Church. When the historian says that they were convicted on the
+charge of "hatred against mankind" he shows how completely he confounds
+them with the Jews, against whom he elsewhere brings the accusation of
+"hostile feelings toward all except themselves."</p>
+
+<p>Then the historian adds one casual but frightful sentence&mdash;a sentence
+which flings a dreadful light on the cruelty of Nero and the Roman mob.
+He adds: "And various forms of mockery were added to enhance their dying
+agonies. Covered with the skins of wild beasts, they were doomed to die
+by the mangling of dogs, or by being nailed to crosses, or to be set on
+fire and burned after twilight by way of nightly illumination. Nero
+offered his own garden for this show, and gave a chariot race, mingling
+with the mob in the dress of a charioteer, or actually driving about
+among them. Hence, guilty as the victims were, and deserving of the
+worst punishments, a feeling of compassion toward them began to rise, as
+men felt that they were being immolated not for any advantage to the
+Commonwealth, but to glut the savagery of a single man."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p>
+<p>Imagine that awful scene, once witnessed by the silent obelisk in the
+square before St. Peter's at Rome! Imagine it, that we may realize how
+vast is the change which Christianity has wrought in the feelings of
+mankind! There, where the vast dome now rises, were once the gardens of
+Nero. They were thronged with gay crowds, among whom the Emperor moved
+in his frivolous degradation&mdash;and on every side were men dying slowly on
+their cross of shame. Along the paths of those gardens on the autumn
+nights were ghastly torches, blackening the ground beneath them with
+streams of sulphurous pitch, and each of those living torches was a
+martyr in his shirt of fire. And in the amphitheatre hard by, in sight
+of twenty thousand spectators, famished dogs were tearing to pieces some
+of the best and purest of men and women, hideously disguised in the
+skins of bears or wolves. Thus did Nero baptize in the blood of martyrs
+the city which was to be for ages the capital of the world!</p>
+
+<p>The specific atrocity of such spectacles&mdash;unknown to the earlier ages
+which they called barbarous&mdash;was due to the cold-blooded selfishness,
+the hideous realism of a refined, delicate, &aelig;sthetic age. To please
+these "lisping hawthorn buds," these debauched and sanguinary dandies,
+art, forsooth, must know nothing of morality; must accept and rejoice in
+a "healthy animalism"; must estimate life by the number of its few
+wildest pulsations; must reckon that life is worthless without the most
+thrilling experiences of horror or delight! Comedy must be actual shame,
+and tragedy genuine bloodshed. When the play of Afranius, called <i>The
+Conflagration</i>, was put on the stage, a house must be really burned and
+its furniture really plundered. In the mime called <i>Laureolus</i> an actor
+must really be crucified and mangled by a bear, and really fling himself
+down and deluge the stage with blood. When the heroism of Mucius Sc&aelig;vola
+was represented, a real criminal must thrust his hand without a groan
+into the flame and stand motionless while it is being burned. Prometheus
+must be really chained to his rock, and Dirce in very fact be tossed and
+gored by the wild bull; and Orpheus be torn to pieces by a real bear;
+and Icarus must really fly, even though he fall and be dashed to death;
+and Hercules must ascend the funeral pyre and there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> be veritably burned
+alive; and slaves and criminals must play their parts heroically in gold
+and purple till the flames envelop them.</p>
+
+<p>It was the ultimate romance of a degraded and brutalized society. The
+Roman people, "victors once, now vile and base," could now only be
+amused by sanguinary melodrama. Fables must be made realities, and the
+criminal must gracefully transform his supreme agonies into amusements
+for the multitude by becoming a gladiator or a tragedian. Such were the
+spectacles at which Nero loved to gaze through his emerald eye-glass.
+And worse things than these&mdash;things indescribable, unutterable. Infamous
+mythologies were enacted, in which women must play their part in
+torments of shamefulness more intolerable than death. A St. Peter must
+hang upon the cross in the Pincian gardens, as a real Laureolus upon the
+stage. A Christian boy must be the Icarus, and a Christian man the
+Sc&aelig;vola or the Hercules or the Orpheus of the amphitheatre; and
+Christian women, modest maidens, holy matrons, must be the Danaids or
+the Proserpine or worse, and play their parts as priestesses of Saturn
+and Ceres, and in blood-stained dramas of the dead. No wonder that Nero
+became to Christian imagination the very incarnation of evil; the
+antichrist; the Wild Beast from the abyss; the delegate of the great red
+Dragon, with a diadem and a name of blasphemy upon his brow. No wonder
+that he left a furrow of horror in the hearts of men, and that, ten
+centuries after his death, the church of Sta. Maria del Popolo had to be
+built by Pope Pascal II to exorcise from Christian Rome his restless and
+miserable ghost!</p>
+
+<p>And it struck them with deeper horror to see that the antichrist, so far
+from being abhorred, was generally popular. He was popular because he
+presented to the degraded populace their own image and similitude. The
+frog-like unclean spirits which proceeded, as it were, out of his mouth
+were potent with these dwellers in an atmosphere of pestilence. They had
+lost all love for freedom and nobleness; they cared only for doles and
+excitement. Even when the infamies of a Petronius had been superseded by
+the murderous orgies of Tigellinus, Nero was still everywhere welcomed
+with shouts as a god on earth and saluted on all coins as Apollo, as
+Hercules, as "the savior<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> of the world." The poets still assured him
+that there was no deity in heaven who would not think it an honor to
+concede to him his prerogatives; that if he did not place himself well
+in the centre of Olympus, the equilibrium of the universe would be
+destroyed. Victims were slain along his path, and altars raised for
+him&mdash;for this wretch, whom an honest slave could not but despise and
+loathe&mdash;as though he was too great for mere human honors. Nay, more, he
+found adorers and imitators of his execrable example&mdash;an Otho, a
+Vitellius, a Domitian, a Commodus, a Caracalla, a Heliogabalus&mdash;to
+poison the air of the world. The lusts and hungers and furies of the
+world lamented him, and cherished his memory, and longed for his return.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, though all bad men&mdash;who were the majority&mdash;admired and even
+loved him, he died the death of a dog. Tremendous as was the power of
+imperialism, the Romans often treated their individual emperors as Nero
+himself treated the Syrian goddess, whose image he first worshipped with
+awful veneration and then subjected to the most grotesque indignities,
+for retribution did not linger, and the vengeance fell at once on the
+guilty Emperor and the guilty city.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Careless <i>seems</i> the Great Avenger: History's pages but record<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt false systems and the Word;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own."<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The air was full of prodigies. There were terrible storms; the plague
+wrought fearful ravages. Rumors spread from lip to lip. Men spoke of
+monstrous births; of deaths by lightning under strange circumstances; of
+a brazen statue of Nero melted by the flash; of places struck by the
+brand of heaven in fourteen regions of the city; of sudden darkenings of
+the sun. A hurricane devastated Campania; comets blazed in the heavens;
+earthquakes shook the ground. On all sides were the traces of deep
+uneasiness and superstitious terror. To all these portents, which were
+accepted as true by Christians as well as by pagans, the Christians
+would give a specially terrible significance. They strengthened their
+conviction that the coming of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> the Lord drew nigh. They convinced the
+better sort of pagans that the hour of their deliverance from a tyranny
+so monstrous and so disgraceful was near at hand.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the shocking servility with which alike the senate and the
+people had welcomed him back to the city with shouts of triumph, Nero
+felt that the air of Rome was heavy with curses against his name. He
+withdrew to Naples, and was at supper there on March 19, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 68, the
+anniversary of his mother's murder, when he heard that the first note of
+revolt had been sounded by the brave C. Julius Vindex, prefect of
+Farther Gaul. He was so far from being disturbed by the news that he
+showed a secret joy at the thought that he could now order Gaul to be
+plundered. For eight days he took no notice of the matter. He was only
+roused to send an address to the senate because Vindex wounded his
+vanity by calling him <i>Ahenobarbus</i><a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> and "a bad singer." But when
+messenger after messenger came from the provinces with tidings of
+menace, he hurried back to Rome. At last, when he heard that Virginius
+Rufus had also rebelled in Germany, and Galba in Spain, he became aware
+of the desperate nature of his position.</p>
+
+<p>On receiving this intelligence he fainted away, and remained for some
+time unconscious. He continued, indeed, his grossness and frivolity, but
+the wildest and fiercest schemes chased each other through his
+melodramatic brain. He would slay all the exiles; he would give up all
+the provinces to plunder; he would order all the Gauls in the city to be
+butchered; he would have all the senators invited to banquets, and would
+then poison them; he would have the city set on fire, and the wild
+beasts of the Amphitheatre let loose among the people; he would depose
+both the consuls and become sole consul himself, since legend said that
+only by a consul could Gauls be conquered; he would go with an army to
+the province, and when he got there would do nothing but weep, and when
+he had thus moved the rebels to compassion would next day sing with them
+at a great festival the ode of victory which he must at once compose.
+Not a single manly resolution lent a moment's dignity to his miserable
+fall.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p>
+<p>Sometimes he talked of escaping to Ostia and arming the sailors; at
+others of escaping to Alexandria and earning his bread by his "divine
+voice." Meanwhile he was hourly subjected to the deadliest insults, and
+terrified by dreams and omens so sombre that his faith in the
+astrologers who had promised him the government of the East and the
+kingdom of Jerusalem began to be rudely shaken. When he heard that not a
+single army or general remained faithful to him, he kicked over the
+table at which he was dining, dashed to pieces on the ground two
+favorite goblets embossed with scenes from the Homeric poems, and placed
+in a golden box some poison furnished to him by Locusta.</p>
+
+<p>The last effort which he contemplated was to mount the Rostra, beg
+pardon of the people for his crimes, ask them to try him again, and, at
+the worst, to allow him the prefecture of Egypt. But this design he did
+not dare to carry out, from fear that he would be torn to pieces before
+he reached the Forum. Meanwhile he found that the palace had been
+deserted by his guards, and that his attendants had robbed his chamber
+even of the golden box in which he had stored his poison. Rushing out,
+as though to drown himself in the Tiber, he changed his mind, and begged
+for some quiet hiding-place in which to collect his thoughts. The
+freedman Phaon offered him a lowly villa about four miles from the city.
+Barefooted, and with a faded coat thrown over his tunic, he hid his head
+and face in a kerchief and rode away with only four attendants. On the
+road he heard the tumult of the pr&aelig;torians cursing his name. Amid evil
+omens and serious perils he reached the back of Phaon's villa, and,
+creeping toward it through a muddy reed-bed, was secretly admitted into
+one of its mean slave-chambers by an aperture through which he had to
+crawl on his hands and feet.</p>
+
+<p>There is no need to dwell on the miserable spectacle of his end, perhaps
+the meanest and most pusillanimous which has ever been recorded. The
+poor wretch who, without a pang, had caused so many brave Romans and so
+many innocent Christians to be murdered could not summon up resolution
+to die. He devised every operatic incident of which he could think. When
+even his most degraded slaves urged him to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> have sufficient manliness to
+save himself from the fearful infamies which otherwise awaited him, he
+ordered his grave to be dug, and fragments of marble to be collected for
+its adornment, and water and wood for his funeral pyre, perpetually
+whining, "What an artist to perish!"</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile a courier arrived for Phaon. Nero snatched his despatches out
+of his hand and read that the senate had decided that he should be
+punished in the ancestral fashion as a public enemy. Asking what the
+ancestral fashion was, he was informed that he would be stripped naked
+and scourged to death with rods, with his head thrust into a fork.
+Horrified at this, he seized two daggers, and, after theatrically trying
+their edges, sheathed them again, with the excuse that the fatal moment
+had not yet arrived! Then he bade Sporus begin to sing his funeral song,
+and begged some one to show him how to die. Even his own intense shame
+at his cowardice was an insufficient stimulus, and he whiled away the
+time in vapid epigrams and pompous quotations. The sound of horses'
+hoofs then broke on his ears, and, venting one more Greek quotation, he
+held the dagger to his throat. It was driven home by Epaphroditus, one
+of his literary slaves. At this moment the centurion who came to arrest
+him rushed in. Nero was not yet dead, and under pretence of helping him
+the centurion began to stanch the wound with his cloak. "Too late," he
+said; "is this your fidelity?" So he died; and the bystanders were
+horrified with the way in which his eyes seemed to be starting out of
+his head in a rigid stare. He had begged that his body might be burned
+without posthumous insults, and this was conceded by Icelus, the
+freedman of Galbo.</p>
+
+<p>So died the last of the C&aelig;sars! And as Robespierre was lamented by his
+landlady, so even Nero was tenderly buried by two nurses who had known
+him in the exquisite beauty of his engaging childhood, and by Acte, who
+had inspired his youth with a genuine love.</p>
+
+<p>But his history does not end with his grave. He was to live on in the
+expectation alike of Jews and Christians. The fifth head of the Wild
+Beast of the Revelation was in some sort to reappear as the eighth; the
+head with its diadem and its names of blasphemy had been wounded to
+death, but in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> Apocalyptic sense the deadly wound was to be healed.
+The Roman world could not believe that the heir of the deified Julian
+race could be cut off thus suddenly and obscurely and vanish like foam
+upon the water. The Christians felt sure that it required something more
+than an ordinary death stroke to destroy the antichrist, and to end the
+vitality of the Wild Beast from the Abyss, who had been the first to set
+himself in deadly antagonism against the Redeemer and to wage war upon
+the saints of God.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> In his behavior at the burning of Rome.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> There can be little doubt that the name "Christian"&mdash;so
+curiously hybrid, yet so richly expressive&mdash;was a nickname due to the
+wit of the Antiochenes, which exercised itself quite fearlessly even on
+the Roman emperors. They were not afraid to affix nicknames to
+Caracalla, and to call Julian Cecrops and Victimarius, with keen satire
+of his beard. It is clear that the sacred writers avoided the name,
+because it was employed by their enemies, and by them mingled with terms
+of the vilest opprobrium. It only became familiar when the virtues of
+Christians had shed lustre upon it, and when alike in its true form, and
+in the ignorant mispronunciation "Chrestians," it readily lent itself to
+valuable allegorical meanings.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> According to John of Antioch and the <i>Chronicon Paschale</i>,
+Nero was originally favorable to the Christians, and put Pilate to
+death, for which the Jews plotted his murder. Popp&aelig;a's Judaism is
+inferred from her refusing to be burned, and requesting to be embalmed;
+from her adopting the custom of wearing a veil in the streets; from the
+favor which she showed to Aliturus and Josephus; and from the fact that
+Josephus speaks of her as a religious woman.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Tiberius Alexander, the nephew of Philo, afterward
+procurator of Judea, was a person of influence at Rome; but he was a
+renegade, and would not be likely to hate the Christians. It is,
+however, remarkable that legend attributed the anger of Nero to the
+conversion of his mistress and a favorite slave.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> St. Peter&mdash;apparently thinking of the fire at Rome and its
+consequences&mdash;calls the persecution from which the Christians were
+suffering when he wrote his First Epistle a "conflagration."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Tertullian mentions one of these coarse caricatures&mdash;a
+figure with one foot hoofed, wearing a toga, carrying a book, and with
+long ass's ears, under which was written, "The God of the Christians,
+Onokoites." He says that Christians were actually charged with
+worshipping the head of an ass. The same preposterous calumny, with many
+others, is alluded to by Minucius Felix. The Christians were hence
+called <i>Asinarii</i>. Analogous calumnies were aimed at the Jews.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Tertullian says that "Nero was the first who raged with
+the sword of C&aelig;sar against this sect, which was then specially rising at
+Rome."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> James Russell Lowell: <i>The Present Crisis</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> "Bronze-beard." Ahenobarbus was the name of a plebeian
+family to which Nero belonged.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE GREAT JEWISH REVOLT</h2>
+
+<h3>SIEGE AND DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM</h3>
+
+<h4>A.D. 70</h4>
+
+<h3>JOSEPHUS</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>From <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 66 events of great moment occurred in Palestine. The Jews
+were in the throes of revolt against the Roman Government. At the
+same time the chief factions of the revolutionary party were
+constantly fighting each other. One of these factions was led by
+the famous John of Gischala, another by Simon bar Gioras, and a
+third by Eleazar. These factions of a party which&mdash;since the
+reduction of Judea to a Roman province soon after the death of
+Herod&mdash;had resisted the oppression of the procurators, were now
+stirred to revolt by the exactions of the procurator Gessius
+Florus. The revolutionary party, called the Zealots, gained power,
+and there were many outbreaks in Jerusalem. The counsel of the more
+prudent spirits was disregarded. At last Roman blood was shed. The
+nobility and priesthood played into the hands of the Zealots by
+applying to Florus to put down the revolt. Florus marched against
+Jerusalem and was badly beaten by the Zealots.</p>
+
+<p>Open war henceforth existed. Josephus, a Jew of the lineage of
+Aaron, trained according to the best discipline of his race, and
+who had also been well received at Rome, was placed by his
+countrymen in command of the province of Galilee. Afterward, as a
+historian, he described the events of the war.</p>
+
+<p>Vespasian, who was then Rome's greatest general, soon came at the
+head of sixty thousand Roman soldiers. He attacked Galilee.
+Josephus, with such followers as he could gather, took position on
+an almost inaccessible hill in Jotapata, which the Romans for five
+days stormed in vain, then besieged its brave defenders, afterward
+repeatedly assaulted; and finally, during the night following the
+forty-seventh day of the siege, Titus, serving under his father,
+Vespasian, gained possession of the place. Josephus, with forty of
+the principal citizens, hid in a cave, but their refuge was
+discovered through treachery.</p>
+
+<p>Vespasian was anxious to take Josephus alive. He sent the tribune
+Nicanor, who had been his friend, to the Jewish leader to induce
+him with fair promises to surrender. Josephus was about to give
+himself up, but was prevented by his companions. "We will care for
+the honor of our country," they said. At the same time they offered
+a sword and "a hand that shall use it against thee." Josephus then
+proposed that they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> should all die together, but by the hands of
+one another, instead of suicide. Lots were cast. He who drew the
+first offered his neck to him who stood next and so forward.
+Finally, through marvellous fortune, Josephus and one other alone
+were left, and here the slaughter ended. The two survivors
+surrendered to the Romans. Loud cries for the death of Josephus
+arose, but he was spared by the intercession of Titus. The fall of
+Jotapata led to the subjugation of Galilee.</p>
+
+<p>When captured, Josephus made to Vespasian the prophecy: "Thou shalt
+be emperor&mdash;thou and thy son after thee," a prediction soon to be
+fulfilled, for in <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 69 Vespasian was proclaimed emperor, and the
+next year went to Rome, leaving Titus to carry on the war and
+subdue Jerusalem. Vespasian himself, it is recorded, released
+Josephus, "cutting off his chains," thus relieving him from all
+stain of dishonor.</p>
+
+<p>"The capture of Jerusalem by Titus in this campaign," says Hosmer,
+"is one of the most memorable events in the history of mankind. It
+caused the expulsion of an entire race from its home. The Roman
+valor, skill, and persistence were never more conspicuously
+displayed. No more desperate resistance was ever opposed to the
+eagle-emblemed mistress of the ancient world. There is no event of
+ancient history the details of which are more minutely known. The
+circumstances in all their appalling features are given to us by
+the eye-witness, Josephus, so that we know them as vividly as we do
+the events of the career of Grant."</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The legions had orders to encamp at the distance of six furlongs from
+Jerusalem, at the mount called the Mount of Olives, which lies over
+against the city on the east side, and is parted from it by a deep
+valley, interposed between them, which is named Cedron.</p>
+
+<p>Now, when hitherto the several parties in the city had been dashing one
+against another perpetually, this foreign war, now suddenly come upon
+them after a violent manner, put the first stop to their contentions one
+against another; and as the seditious now saw with astonishment the
+Romans pitching three several camps, they began to think of an awkward
+sort of concord, and said one to another: "What do we here, and what do
+we mean, when we suffer three fortified walls to be built to coop us in,
+that we shall not be able to breathe freely? while the enemy is securely
+building a kind of city in opposition to us, and while we sit still
+within our own walls and become spectators only of what they are doing,
+with our hands idle, and our armor laid by, as if they were about
+somewhat that was for our good and advantage. We are, it seems (so did
+they cry out), only courageous against ourselves, while the Romans are
+likely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> to gain the city without bloodshed by our sedition." Thus did
+they encourage one another when they were gotten together and took their
+armor immediately and ran out upon the Tenth legion and fell upon the
+Romans with great eagerness, and with a prodigious shout, as they were
+fortifying their camp. These Romans were caught in different parties,
+and this in order to perform their several works, and on that account
+had in great measure laid aside their arms, for they thought the Jews
+would not have ventured to make a sally upon them; and had they been
+disposed so to do, they supposed their sedition would have distracted
+them. So they were put into disorder unexpectedly; when some of them
+left their works they were about and immediately marched off, while many
+ran to their arms, but were smitten and slain before they could turn
+back upon the enemy. The Jews became still more and more in number, as
+encouraged by the good success of those that first made the attack; and
+while they had such good fortune, they seemed both to themselves and to
+the enemy to be many more than they really were.</p>
+
+<p>The disorderly way of their fighting at first put the Romans also to a
+stand, who had been constantly used to fight skilfully in good order,
+and with keeping their ranks and obeying the orders that were given
+them, for which reason the Romans were caught unexpectedly and were
+obliged to give way to the assaults that were made upon them. Now, when
+these Romans were overtaken and turned back upon the Jews, they put a
+stop to their career; yet when they did not take care enough of
+themselves through the vehemency of their pursuit, they were wounded by
+them; but as still more and more Jews sallied out of the city, the
+Romans were at length brought into confusion, and put to flight, and ran
+away from their camp. Nay, things looked as though the entire legion
+would have been in danger, unless Titus had been informed of the case
+they were in, and had sent them succors immediately. So he reproached
+them for their cowardice and brought those back that were running away,
+and fell himself upon the Jews on their flank, with those select troops
+that were with him, and slew a considerable number, and wounded more of
+them, and put them all to flight, and made them run away hastily down
+the valley. Now as these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> Jews suffered greatly in the declivity of the
+valley, so when they were gotten over it they turned about and stood
+over against the Romans, having the valley between them, and there
+fought with them. Thus did they continue the fight till noon; but when
+it was already a little after noon, Titus set those that came to the
+assistance of the Romans with him, and those that belonged to the
+cohorts, to prevent the Jews from making any more sallies, and then sent
+the rest of the legion to the upper part of the mountain, to fortify
+their camp.</p>
+
+<p>This march of the Romans seemed to the Jews to be a flight; and as the
+watchman who was placed upon the wall gave a signal by shaking his
+garment, there came out a fresh multitude of Jews, and that with such
+mighty violence that one might compare it to the running of the most
+terrible wild beasts. To say the truth, none of those that opposed them
+could sustain the fury with which they made their attacks; but, as if
+they had been cast out of an engine, they brake the enemies' ranks to
+pieces, who were put to flight, and ran away to the mountain; none but
+Titus himself, and a few others with him, being left in the midst of the
+acclivity. Now these others, who were his friends, despised the danger
+they were in and were ashamed to leave their general, earnestly
+exhorting him to give way to these Jews that are fond of dying, and not
+to run into such dangers before those that ought to stay before him; to
+consider what his fortune was, and not, by supplying the place of a
+common soldier, to venture to turn back upon the enemy so suddenly; and
+this because he was general in the war, and lord of the habitable earth,
+on whose preservation the public affairs do all depend.</p>
+
+<p>These persuasions Titus seemed not so much as to hear, but opposed those
+that ran upon him, and smote them on the face; and when he had forced
+them to go back, he slew them: he also fell upon great numbers as they
+marched down the hill, and thrust them forward; while those men were so
+amazed at his courage and his strength that they could not fly directly
+to the city, but declined from him on both sides, and pressed after
+those that fled up the hill; yet did he still fall upon their flank, and
+put a stop to their fury. In the mean time a disorder and a terror fell
+again upon those that were fortifying their camp at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> the top of the
+hill, upon their seeing those beneath them running away; insomuch that
+the whole legion was dispersed while they thought that the sallies of
+the Jews upon them were plainly insupportable, and that Titus was
+himself put to flight, because they took it for granted that, if he had
+stayed, the rest would never have fled for it. Thus were they
+encompassed on every side by a kind of panic fear, and some dispersed
+themselves one way, and some another, till certain of them saw their
+general in the very midst of an action, and being under great concern
+for him, they loudly proclaimed the danger he was in to the entire
+legion; and now shame made them turn back, and they reproached one
+another that they did worse than run away, by deserting C&aelig;sar. So they
+used their utmost force against the Jews, and declining from the
+straight declivity, they drove them on heaps into the bottom of the
+valley. Then did the Jews turn about and fight them; but as they were
+themselves retiring, and now, because the Romans had the advantage of
+the ground and were above the Jews, they drove them all into the valley.</p>
+
+<p>As now the war abroad ceased for a while, the sedition within was
+revived; and on the feast of unleavened bread, which was now come, it
+being the fourteenth day of the month Xanthicus [Nisan], when it is
+believed the Jews were first freed from the Egyptians, Eleazar and his
+party opened the gates of this [inmost court of the] Temple, and
+admitted such of the people as were desirous to worship God into it. But
+John made use of this festival as a cloak for his treacherous designs,
+and armed the most inconsiderable of his own party, the greater part of
+whom were not purified, with weapons concealed under their garments, and
+sent them with great zeal into the Temple, in order to seize upon it,
+which armed men, when they were gotten in, threw their garments away,
+and presently appeared in their armor. Upon which there was a very great
+disorder and disturbance about the holy house, while the people, who had
+no concern in the sedition, supposed that this assault was made against
+all without distinction, as the Zealots thought it was made against
+themselves only. So these left off guarding the gates any longer and
+leaped down from their battlements before they came to an engagement,
+and fled away into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> subterranean caverns of the Temple, while the
+people that stood trembling at the altar and about the holy house were
+rolled on heaps together and trampled upon, and were beaten both with
+wooden and with iron weapons without mercy. Such also as had differences
+with others slew many persons that were quiet, out of their own private
+enmity and hatred, as if they were opposite to the seditious; and all
+those that had formerly offended any of these plotters were now known,
+and were now led away to the slaughter, and when they had done abundance
+of horrid mischief to the guiltless they granted a truce to the guilty
+and let those go off that came out of the caverns. These followers of
+John also did now seize upon this inner temple, and upon all the warlike
+engines therein, and then ventured to oppose Simon. And thus that
+sedition, which had been divided into three factions, was now reduced to
+two.</p>
+
+<p>But Titus, intending to pitch his camp nearer to the city than Scopus,
+placed as many of his choice horsemen and footmen as he thought
+sufficient opposite to the Jews to prevent their sallying out upon them,
+while he gave orders for the whole army to level the distance as far as
+the wall of the city. So they threw down all the hedges and walls which
+the inhabitants had made about their gardens and groves of trees, and
+cut down all the fruit trees that lay between them and the wall of the
+city, and filled up all the hollow places and the chasms, and demolished
+the rocky precipices with iron instruments; and thereby made all the
+place level from Scopus to Herod's monuments, which adjoined to the pool
+called the Serpent's Pool.</p>
+
+<p>Now at this very time the Jews contrived the following stratagem against
+the Romans. The bolder sort of the seditious went out at the towers,
+called the Women's Towers, as if they had been ejected out of the city
+by those who were for peace, and rambled about as if they were afraid of
+being assaulted by the Romans, and were in fear of one another, while
+those that stood upon the wall and seemed to be of the people's side
+cried out aloud for peace, and entreated they might have security for
+their lives given them, and called for the Romans, promising to open the
+gates to them; and as they cried out after that manner they threw stones
+at their own people, as though they would drive them away from the
+gates. These<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> also pretended that they were excluded by force, and that
+they petitioned those that were within to let them in; and rushing upon
+the Romans perpetually, with violence, they then came back, and seemed
+to be in great disorder. Now the Roman soldiers thought this cunning
+stratagem of theirs was to be believed real, and thinking they had the
+one party under their power, and could punish them as they pleased, and
+hoping that the other party would open their gates to them, set to the
+execution of their designs accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>But for Titus himself, he had this surprising conduct of the Jews in
+suspicion, for whereas he had invited them to come to terms of
+accommodation, by Josephus, but one day before, he could then receive no
+civil answer from them; so he ordered the soldiers to stay where they
+were. However, some of them that were set in the front of the works
+prevented him, and catching up their arms ran to the gates; whereupon
+those that seemed to have been ejected at the first retired; but as soon
+as the soldiers were gotten between the towers on each side of the gate
+the Jews ran out and encompassed them round, and fell upon them behind,
+while that multitude which stood upon the wall threw a heap of stones
+and darts of all kinds at them, insomuch that they slew a considerable
+number, and wounded many more, for it was not easy for the Romans to
+escape, by reason those behind them pressed them forward; besides which,
+the shame they were under for being mistaken, and the fear they were in
+of their commanders, engaged them to persevere in their mistake;
+wherefore they fought with their spears a great while, and received many
+blows from the Jews, though indeed they gave them as many blows again,
+and at last repelled those that had encompassed them about, while the
+Jews pursued them as they retired, and followed them, and threw darts at
+them as far as the monuments of Queen Helena.</p>
+
+<p>Now the warlike men that were in the city, and the multitude of the
+seditious that were with Simon, were ten thousand, besides the Idumeans.
+Those ten thousand had fifty commanders, over whom this Simon was
+supreme. The Idumeans that paid him homage were five thousand, and had
+eight commanders, among whom those of greatest fame were Jacob, the son
+of Sosas, and Simon, the son of Cathlas. John, who had seized<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> upon the
+Temple, had six thousand armed men under twenty commanders; the Zealots
+also that had come over to him and left off their opposition were two
+thousand four hundred, and had the same commander that they had
+formerly, Eleazar, together with Simon, the son of Arinus. Now, while
+these factions fought one against another, the people were their prey on
+both sides, and that part of the people who would not join with them in
+their wicked practices were plundered by both factions.</p>
+
+<p>Simon held the upper city and the great wall as far as Cedron, and as
+much of the old wall as bent from Siloam to the east, and which went
+down to the palace of Monobazus, who was king of the Adiabeni, beyond
+Euphrates; he also held that fountain and the Acra, which was no other
+than the lower city; he also held all that reached to the palace of
+Queen Helena, the mother of Monobazus. But John held the Temple and the
+parts thereto adjoining, for a great way, as also Ophla, and the valley
+called "the Valley of Cedron"; and when the parts that were interposed
+between their possessions were burned by them, they left a space wherein
+they might fight with each other, for this internal sedition did not
+cease even when the Romans were encamped near their very walls. But
+although they had grown wiser at the first onset the Romans made upon
+them, this lasted but awhile, for they returned to their former madness,
+and separated one from another, and fought it out and did everything
+that the besiegers could desire them to do, for they never suffered
+anything that was worse from the Romans than they made each other
+suffer; nor was there any misery endured by the city, after these men's
+actions, that could be esteemed new. But it was most of all unhappy
+before it was overthrown, while those that took it did it a greater
+kindness; for I venture to affirm that the sedition destroyed the city,
+and the Romans destroyed the sedition, which it was a much harder thing
+to do than to destroy the walls; so that we may justly ascribe our
+misfortunes to our own people, and the just vengeance taken on them to
+the Romans; as to which matter let everyone determine by the actions on
+both sides.</p>
+
+<p>Now when affairs within the city were in this posture, Titus went round
+the city on the outside with some chosen horsemen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> and looked about for
+a proper place where he might make an impression upon the walls; but as
+he was in doubt where he could possibly make an attack on any side&mdash;for
+the place was no way accessible where the valleys were, and on the other
+side the first wall appeared too strong to be shaken by the engines&mdash;he
+thereupon thought it best to make his assault upon the monument of John,
+the high-priest, for there it was that the first fortification was
+lower, and the second was not joined to it, the builders neglecting to
+build strong where the new city was not much inhabited. Here also was an
+easy passage to the third wall, through which he thought to take the
+upper city and, through the tower of Antonia, the Temple itself. But at
+this time, as he was going round about the city, one of his friends,
+whose name was Nicanor, was wounded with a dart on his left shoulder, as
+he approached, together with Josephus, too near the wall, and attempted
+to discourse to those that were upon the wall about terms of peace, for
+he was a person known by them.</p>
+
+<p>On this account it was that C&aelig;sar, as soon as he knew their vehemence,
+that they would not bear even such as approached them to persuade them
+to what tended to their own preservation, was provoked to press on the
+siege. He also, at the same time, gave his soldiers leave to set the
+suburbs on fire, and ordered that they should bring timber together, and
+raise banks against the city. And when he had parted his army into three
+parts, in order to set about those works, he placed those that shot
+darts, and the archers in the midst of the banks that were then raising,
+before whom he placed those engines that threw javelins and darts and
+stones, that he might prevent the enemy from sallying out upon their
+works and might hinder those that were upon the wall from being able to
+obstruct them. So the trees were now cut down immediately and the
+suburbs left naked. But now while the timber was being carried to raise
+the banks, and the whole army was earnestly engaged in their works, the
+Jews were not, however, quiet. And it happened that the people of
+Jerusalem, who had been hitherto plundered and murdered, were now of
+good courage, and supposed they should have a breathing time, while the
+others were very busy in opposing their enemies without the city, and
+that they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> should now be avenged on those that had been the authors of
+their miseries, in case the Romans did but get the victory.</p>
+
+<p>However, John stayed behind, out of his fear of Simon, even while his
+own men were earnest in making a sally upon their enemies without. Yet
+did not Simon lie still, for he lay near the place of the siege; he
+brought his engines of war and disposed of them at due distances upon
+the wall, both those which they took from Cestius formerly, and those
+which they got when they seized the garrison that lay in the tower
+Antonia. But though they had these engines in their possession, they had
+so little skill in using them that they were in great measure useless to
+them; but a few there were who had been taught by deserters how to use
+them, which they did use, though after an awkward manner. So they cast
+stones and arrows at those that were making the banks; they also ran out
+upon them by companies and fought with them.</p>
+
+<p>Now those that were at work covered themselves with hurdles spread over
+their banks, and their engines were opposed to them when they made their
+excursions. The engines, that all the legions had ready prepared for
+them, were admirably contrived; but still more extraordinary ones
+belonged to the Tenth legion: those that threw darts and those that
+threw stones were more forcible and larger than the rest, by which they
+not only repelled the excursions of the Jews, but drove those away that
+were upon the walls also. Now the stones that were cast were of the
+weight of a talent, and were carried two furlongs and farther. The blow
+they gave was no way to be sustained, not only by those that stood first
+in the way, but by those that were beyond them for a great space.</p>
+
+<p>As for the Jews, they at first watched the coming of the stone, for it
+was of a white color, and could therefore not only be perceived by the
+great noise it made, but could be seen also before it came, by its
+brightness. Accordingly, the watchmen that sat upon the towers gave them
+notice when the engine was let go, and the stone came from it, and cried
+out aloud, in their own country language, "The son cometh!" so those
+that were in its way stood off, and threw themselves down upon the
+ground; by which means, and by their thus guarding themselves, the stone
+fell down and did them no harm. But the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> Romans contrived how to prevent
+that, by blacking the stone, who then could aim at them with success
+when the stone was not discerned beforehand as it had been till then;
+and so they destroyed many of them at one blow. Yet did not the Jews,
+under all this distress, permit the Romans to raise their banks in
+quiet, but they shrewdly and boldly exerted themselves, and repelled
+them both by night and by day.</p>
+
+<p>And now, upon the finishing the Roman works, the workmen measured the
+distance there was from the wall, and this by lead and a line which they
+threw to it from their banks, for they could not measure it any other
+wise, because the Jews would shoot at them, if they came to measure it
+themselves. And when they found that the engines could reach the wall
+they brought them thither. Then did Titus set his engines, at proper
+distances, so much nearer to the wall that the Jews might not be able to
+repel them, and gave orders they should go to work; and when, thereupon,
+a prodigious noise echoed round about from three places, and that on a
+sudden there was a great noise made by the citizens that were within the
+city, and no less a terror fell upon the seditious themselves. Whereupon
+both sorts, seeing the common danger they were in, contrived to make a
+like defence. So those of different factions cried out one to another
+that they acted entirely as in concert with their enemies, whereas they
+ought, however, notwithstanding God did not grant them a lasting concord
+in their present circumstances, to lay aside their enmities one against
+another and to unite together against the Romans. Accordingly, Simon
+gave those that came from the Temple leave, by proclamation, to go upon
+the wall; John also himself, though he could not believe Simon was in
+earnest, gave them the same leave.</p>
+
+<p>So on both sides they laid aside their hatred and their peculiar
+quarrels, and formed themselves into one body. They then ran round the
+walls, and having a vast number of torches with them threw them at the
+machines, and shot darts perpetually upon those that impelled those
+engines which battered the wall&mdash;nay, the bolder sort leaped out by
+troops upon the hurdles that covered the machines, and pulled them to
+pieces, and fell upon those that belonged to them, and beat them, not so
+much by any skill they had, as principally by the boldness of their
+attacks.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>However, Titus himself still sent assistance to those that were the
+hardest beset, and placed both horsemen and archers on the several sides
+of the engines, and thereby beat off those that brought the fire to
+them. He also thereby repelled those that shot stones or darts from the
+towers, and then set the engines to work in good earnest; yet did not
+the wall yield to these blows, excepting where the battering ram of the
+Fifteenth legion moved the corner of a tower, while the wall itself
+continued unhurt, for the wall was not presently in the same danger with
+the tower, which was extant far above it; nor could the fall of that
+part of the tower easily break down any part of the wall itself together
+with it.</p>
+
+<p>And now the Jews intermitted their sallies for a while, but when they
+observed the Romans dispersed all abroad at their works, and in their
+several camps&mdash;for they thought the Jews had retired out of weariness
+and fear&mdash;they all at once made a sally at the tower Hippicus, through
+an obscure gate, and at the same time brought fire to burn the works,
+and went boldly up to the Romans, and to their very fortifications
+themselves, where, at the cry they made, those that were near them came
+presently to their assistance, and those farther off came running after
+them. And here the boldness of the Jews was too hard for the good order
+of the Romans, and as they beat those whom they first fell upon, so they
+pressed upon those that were now gotten together. So this fight about
+the machines was very hot, while the one side tried hard to set them on
+fire, and the other side to prevent it. On both sides there was a
+confused cry made, and many of those in the forefront of the battle were
+slain.</p>
+
+<p>However, the Jews were now too hard for the Romans by the furious
+assaults they made like madmen, and the fire caught hold of the works,
+and both all those works, and the engines themselves, had been in danger
+of being burned, had not many of those select soldiers that came from
+Alexandria opposed themselves to prevent it, and had they not behaved
+themselves with greater courage than they themselves supposed they could
+have done, for they outdid those in this fight that had greater
+reputation than themselves. This was the state of things till C&aelig;sar took
+the stoutest of his horsemen and attacked the enemy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> while he himself
+slew twelve of those that were in the forefront of the Jews, which death
+of these men, when the rest of the multitude saw, they gave way, and he
+pursued them, and drove them all into the city, and saved the works from
+the fire. Now it happened at this fight that a certain Jew was taken
+alive who, by Titus' order, was crucified before the wall, to see
+whether the rest of them would be affrighted and abate of their
+obstinacy. But after the Jews were retired, John,<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> who was commander
+of the Idumeans, and was talking to a certain soldier of his
+acquaintance before the wall, was wounded by a dart shot at him by an
+Arabian, and died immediately, leaving the greatest lamentation to the
+Jews, and sorrow to the seditious, for he was a man of great eminence,
+both for his actions and his conduct also.</p>
+
+<p>Now, on the next night, a surprising disturbance fell upon the Romans;
+for whereas Titus had given orders for the erection of three towers of
+fifty cubits high, that, by setting men upon them at every bank, he
+might from thence drive those away who were upon the wall, it so
+happened that one of these towers fell down about midnight, and as its
+fall made a very great noise, fear fell upon the army, and they,
+supposing that the enemy was coming to attack them, ran all to their
+arms. Whereupon a disturbance and a tumult arose among the legions, and
+as nobody could tell what had happened, they went on after a
+disconsolate manner; and seeing no enemy appear, they were afraid one of
+another, and every one demanded of his neighbor the watchword with great
+earnestness as though the Jews had invaded their camp. And now were they
+like people under a panic fear, until Titus was informed of what had
+happened, and gave orders that all should be acquainted with it; and
+then, though with some difficulty, they got clear of the disturbance
+they had been under.</p>
+
+<p>Now these towers were very troublesome to the Jews, who otherwise
+opposed the Romans very courageously, for they shot at them out of their
+lighter engines from those towers, as they did also by those that threw
+darts, and the archers, and those that flung stones. For neither could
+the Jews reach those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> that were over them, by reason of their height;
+and it was not practicable to take them, nor to overturn them, they were
+so heavy, nor to set them on fire, because they were covered with plates
+of iron. So they retired out of the reach of the darts, and did no
+longer endeavor to hinder the impression of their rams, which, by
+continually beating upon the wall, did gradually prevail against it; so
+that the wall already gave way to the Nico, for by that name did the
+Jews themselves call the greatest of their engines, because it conquered
+all things. And now they were for a long while grown weary of fighting
+and of keeping guards, and were retired to lodge in the night-time at a
+distance from the wall. It was on other accounts also thought by them to
+be superfluous to guard the wall, there being besides that two other
+fortifications still remaining, and they being slothful, and their
+counsels having been ill-concerted on all occasions; so a great many
+grew lazy and retired. Then the Romans mounted the breach, where Nico
+had made one, and all the Jews left the guarding that wall and retreated
+to the second wall; so those that had gotten over that wall opened the
+gates and received all the army within it. And thus did the Romans get
+possession of this first wall, on the fifteenth day of the siege, which
+was the seventh day of the month Artemisius (Jyar), when they demolished
+a great part of it, as well as they did of the northern parts of the
+city, which had been demolished also by Cestius formerly.</p>
+
+<p>And now Titus pitched his camp within the city, at that place which was
+called "the Camp of the Assyrians," having seized upon all that lay as
+far as Cedron, but took care to be out of the reach of the Jews' darts.
+He then presently began his attacks, upon which the Jews divided
+themselves into several bodies, and courageously defended that wall,
+while John<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> and his faction did it from the tower of Antonia, and
+from the northern cloister of the Temple, and fought the Romans before
+the monuments of King Alexander; and Simon's army also took for their
+share the spot of ground that was near John's monument,<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> and
+fortified it as far as to that gate where water<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> was brought in to the
+tower Hippicus. However, the Jews made violent sallies, and that
+frequently also, and in bodies together out of the gates, and there
+fought the Romans; and when they were pursued all together to the wall,
+they were beaten in those fights, as wanting the skill of the Romans.
+But when they fought them from the walls they were too hard for them;
+the Romans being encouraged by their power, joined to their skill, as
+were the Jews by their boldness, which was nourished by the fear they
+were in, and that hardiness which is natural to our nation under
+calamities; they were also encouraged still by the hope of deliverance,
+as were the Romans by their hopes of subduing them in a little time.</p>
+
+<p>Nor did either side grow weary; but attacks and fightings upon the wall,
+and perpetual sallies out in bodies, were there all the day long; nor
+were there any sort of warlike engagements that were not then put in
+use. And the night itself had much ado to part them, when they began to
+fight in the morning&mdash;nay, the night itself was passed without sleep on
+both sides, and was more uneasy than the day to them, while the one was
+afraid lest the wall should be taken, and the other lest the Jews should
+make sallies upon their camps; both sides also lay in their armor during
+the night-time, and thereby were ready at the first appearance of light
+to go to the battle. Now among the Jews the ambition was who should
+undergo the first dangers, and thereby gratify their commanders. Above
+all, they had a great veneration and dread of Simon; and to that degree
+was he regarded by every one of those that were under him, that at his
+command they were very ready to kill themselves with their own hands.</p>
+
+<p>What made the Romans so courageous was their usual custom of conquering
+and disuse of being defeated, their constant wars, and perpetual warlike
+exercises, and the grandeur of their dominion. And what was now their
+chief encouragement&mdash;Titus, who was present everywhere with them
+all&mdash;for it appeared a terrible thing to grow weary while C&aelig;sar was
+there, and fought bravely as well as they did&mdash;was himself at once an
+eye-witness of such as behaved themselves valiantly, and he was to
+reward them also. It was, besides, esteemed an advantage at present to
+have anyone's valor known by C&aelig;sar; on which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> account many of them
+appeared to have more alacrity than strength to answer it. And now, as
+the Jews were about this time standing in array before the wall, and
+that in a strong body, and while both parties were throwing their darts
+at each other, Longinus, one of the equestrian order, leaped out of the
+army of the Romans, and leaped into the very midst of the army of the
+Jews; and as they dispersed themselves upon this attack, he slew two of
+their men of the greatest courage; one of them he struck in his mouth as
+he was coming to meet him, the other was slain by him by that very dart
+which he drew out of the body of the other, with which he ran this man
+through his side as he was running away from him; and when he had done
+this, he first of all ran out of the midst of his enemies to his own
+side.</p>
+
+<p>So this man signalized himself for his valor, and many there were who
+were ambitious of gaining the like reputation. And now the Jews were
+unconcerned at what they suffered themselves from the Romans, and were
+only solicitous about what mischief they could do them; and death itself
+seemed a small matter to them, if at the same time they could but kill
+any one of their enemies. But Titus took care to secure his own soldiers
+from harm, as well as to have them overcome their enemies. He also said
+that inconsiderate violence was madness, and that this alone was the
+true courage that was joined with good conduct. He therefore commanded
+his men to take care, when they fought their enemies, that they received
+no harm from them at the same time, and thereby show themselves to be
+truly valiant men.</p>
+
+<p>And now Titus brought one of his engines to the middle tower of the
+north part of the wall, in which a certain crafty Jew, whose name was
+Castor, lay in ambush, with ten others like himself, the rest being fled
+away by reason of the archers. These men lay still for a while, as in
+great fear, under their breastplates; but when the tower was shaken,
+they arose, and Castor did then stretch out his hand, as a petitioner,
+and called for C&aelig;sar, and by his voice moved his compassion, and begged
+of him to have mercy upon them; and Titus, in the innocency of his
+heart, believing him to be in earnest, and hoping that the Jews did now
+repent, stopped the working of the battering ram,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> and forbade them to
+shoot at the petitioners, and bid Castor say what he had a mind to say
+to him. He said that he would come down, if he would give him his right
+hand for his security.</p>
+
+<p>To which Titus replied that he was well pleased with such his agreeable
+conduct, and would be well pleased if all the Jews would be of his mind,
+and that he was ready to give the like security to the city. Now five of
+the ten dissembled with him, and pretended to beg for mercy, while the
+rest cried out aloud that they would never be slaves to the Romans,
+while it was in their power to die in a state of freedom. Now while
+these men were quarrelling for a long while the attack was delayed;
+Castor also sent to Simon, and told him that they might take some time
+for consultation about what was to be done, because he would elude the
+power of the Romans for a considerable time. And at the same time that
+he sent thus to him, he appeared openly to exhort those that were
+obstinate to accept of Titus' hand for their security; but they seemed
+very angry at it, and brandished their naked swords upon the
+breastworks, and struck themselves upon their breast, and fell down as
+if they had been slain. Hereupon Titus, and those with him, were amazed
+at the courage of the men; and as they were not able to see exactly what
+was done, they admired at their great fortitude and pitied their
+calamity.</p>
+
+<p>During this interval a certain person shot a dart at Castor, and wounded
+him in his nose; whereupon he presently pulled out the dart, and showed
+it to Titus, and complained that this was unfair treatment; so C&aelig;sar
+reproved him that shot the dart, and sent Josephus, who then stood by
+him, to give his right hand to Castor. But Josephus said that he would
+not go to him, because these pretended petitioners meant nothing that
+was good; he also restrained those friends of his who were zealous to go
+to him. But still there was one Eneas, a deserter, who said he would go
+to him. Castor also called to them, that somebody should come and
+receive the money which he had with him; this made Eneas the more
+earnestly to run to him with his bosom open. Then did Castor take up a
+great stone and threw it at him, which missed him, because he guarded
+himself against it; but still it wounded another soldier that was coming
+to him. When C&aelig;sar understood that this was a delusion,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> he perceived
+that mercy in war is a pernicious thing, because such cunning tricks
+have less place under the exercise of greater severity. So he caused the
+engine to work more strongly than before, on account of his anger at the
+deceit put upon him. But Castor and his companions set the tower on fire
+when it began to give way, and leaped through the flame into a hidden
+vault that was under it, which made the Romans further suppose that they
+were men of great courage, as having cast themselves into the fire.</p>
+
+<p>Now C&aelig;sar took this wall there on the fifth day after he had taken the
+first; and when the Jews had fled from him he entered into it with a
+thousand armed men, and those of his choice troops, and this at a place
+where were the merchants of wool, the braziers, and the market for
+cloth, and where the narrow streets led obliquely to the wall.
+Wherefore, if Titus had either demolished a larger part of the wall
+immediately, or had come in, and, according to the law of war, had laid
+waste what was left, his victory would not, I suppose, have been mixed
+with any loss to himself. But now, out of the hope he had that he should
+make the Jews ashamed of their obstinacy by not being willing, when he
+was able, to afflict them more than he needed to do, he did not widen
+the breach of the wall, in order to make a safer retreat upon occasion,
+for he did not think they would lay snares for him that did them such a
+kindness. When therefore, he came in, he did not permit his soldiers to
+kill any of those they caught, nor to set fire to their houses
+neither&mdash;nay, he gave leave to the seditious, if they had a mind, to
+fight without any harm to the people, and promised to restore the
+people's effects to them, for he was very desirous to preserve the city
+for his own sake, and the Temple for the sake of the city.</p>
+
+<p>As to the people, he had them of a long time ready to comply with his
+proposals; but as to the fighting men, this humanity of his seemed a
+mark of his weakness, and they imagined that he made these proposals
+because he was not able to take the rest of the city. They also
+threatened death to the people, if they should any one of them say a
+word about a surrender. They, moreover, cut the throats of such as
+talked of a peace, and then attacked those Romans that were come within
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> wall. Some of them they met in the narrow streets, and some they
+fought against from their houses, while they made a sudden sally out at
+the upper gates, and assaulted such Romans as were beyond the wall, till
+those that guarded the wall were so affrighted that they leaped down
+from their towers and retired to their several camps: upon which a great
+noise was made by the Romans that were within, because they were
+encompassed round on every side by their enemies; as also by them that
+were without, because they were in fear for those that were left in the
+city. Thus did the Jews grow more numerous perpetually, and had great
+advantages over the Romans, by their full knowledge of those narrow
+lanes; and they wounded a great many of them, and fell upon them, and
+drove them out of the city.</p>
+
+<p>Now these Romans were at present forced to make the best resistance they
+could, for they were not able, in great numbers, to get out at the
+breach in the wall, it was so narrow. It is also probable that all those
+that were gotten within had been cut to pieces, if Titus had not sent
+them succors, for he ordered the archers to stand at the upper ends of
+these narrow lanes, and he stood himself where was the greatest
+multitude of his enemies, and with his darts he put a stop to them; as
+with him did Domitius Sabinus also, a valiant man, and one that in this
+battle appeared so to be. Thus did C&aelig;sar continue to shoot darts at the
+Jews continually and to hinder them from coming upon his men, and this
+until all his soldiers had retreated out of the city.</p>
+
+<p>And thus were the Romans driven out, after they had possessed themselves
+of the second wall. Whereupon the fighting men that were in the city
+were lifted up in their minds and were elevated upon this their good
+success, and began to think that the Romans would never venture to come
+into the city any more; and that if they kept within it themselves they
+should not be any more conquered, for God had blinded their minds for
+the transgressions they had been guilty of, nor could they see how much
+greater forces the Romans had than those that were now expelled, no more
+than they could discern how a famine was creeping upon them, for
+hitherto they had fed themselves out of the public miseries and drank
+the blood of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> city. But now poverty had for a long time seized upon
+the better part, and a great many had died already for want of
+necessaries, although the seditious indeed supposed the destruction of
+the people to be an easement to themselves, for they desired that none
+others might be preserved but such as were against a peace with the
+Romans, and were resolved to live in opposition to them, and they were
+pleased when the multitude of those of a contrary opinion were consumed,
+as being then freed from a heavy burden. And this was their disposition
+of mind with regard to those that were within the city, while they
+covered themselves with their armor, and prevented the Romans, when they
+were trying to get into the city again, and made a wall of their own
+bodies over against that part of the wall that was cast down.</p>
+
+<p>Thus did they valiantly defend themselves for three days; but on the
+fourth day they could not support themselves against the vehement
+assaults of Titus, but were compelled by force to fly whither they had
+fled before; so he quietly possessed himself again of that wall and
+demolished it entirely. And when he had put a garrison into the towers
+that were on the south parts of the city, he contrived how he might
+assault the third wall.</p>
+
+<p>A resolution was now taken by Titus to relax the siege for a little
+while, and to afford the seditious an interval for consideration, and to
+see whether the demolishing of their second wall would not make them a
+little more compliant, or whether they were not somewhat afraid of a
+famine, because the spoils they had gotten by rapine would not be
+sufficient for them long; so he made use of this relaxation in order to
+compass his own designs. Accordingly, as the usual appointed time when
+he must distribute subsistence money to the soldiers was now come, he
+gave orders that the commanders should put the army into battle array,
+in the face of the enemy, and then give every one of the soldiers his
+pay.</p>
+
+<p>The Romans spent four days in bringing this subsistence money to the
+several legions. But on the fifth day, when no signs of peace appeared
+to come from the Jews, Titus divided his legions and began to raise
+banks, both at the tower of Antonia and at John's monument. Now his
+designs were to take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> the upper city at that monument, and the Temple at
+the tower of Antonia, for if the Temple were not taken, it would be
+dangerous to keep the city itself; so at each of these parts he raised
+him banks, each legion raising one. As for those that wrought at John's
+monument, the Idumeans, and those that were in arms with Simon, made
+sallies upon them, and put some stop to them; while John's party, and
+the multitude of Zealots with them, did the like to those that were
+before the tower of Antonia.</p>
+
+<p>These Jews were now too hard for the Romans, not only in direct
+fighting, because they stood upon the higher ground, but because they
+had now learned to use their own engines, for their continual use of
+them one day after another did by degrees improve their skill about
+them, for of one sort of engines for darts they had three hundred, and
+forty for stones; by the means of which they made it more tedious for
+the Romans to raise their banks. But then Titus, knowing that the city
+would be either saved or destroyed for himself, did not only proceed
+earnestly in the siege, but did not omit to have the Jews exhorted to
+repentance; so he mixed good counsel with his works for the siege. And
+being sensible that exhortations are frequently more effectual than
+arms, he persuaded them to surrender the city, now in a manner already
+taken, and thereby to save themselves, and sent Josephus to speak to
+them in their own language, for he imagined they might yield to the
+persuasion of a countryman of their own.</p>
+
+<p>As Josephus was speaking thus with a loud voice, the seditious would
+neither yield to what he said, nor did they deem it safe for them to
+alter their conduct; but as for the people, they had a great inclination
+to desert to the Romans. Accordingly, some of them sold what they had,
+and even the most precious things that had been laid up as treasures by
+them, for a very small matter, and swallowed down pieces of gold, that
+they might not be found out by the robbers; and when they had escaped to
+the Romans, went to stool, and had wherewithal to provide plentifully
+for themselves, for Titus let a great number of them go away into the
+country, whither they pleased. And the main reasons why they were so
+ready to desert were these: That now they should be freed from those
+miseries which they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> had endured in that city, and yet should not be in
+slavery to the Romans. However John and Simon, with their factions, did
+more carefully watch these men's going out than they did the coming in
+of the Romans; and if any one did but afford the least shadow of
+suspicion of such an intention, his throat was cut immediately.</p>
+
+<p>But as for the richer sort, it proved all one to them whether they
+stayed in the city or attempted to get out of it, for they were equally
+destroyed in both cases, for every such person was put to death under
+this pretence, that they were going to desert, but in reality that the
+robbers might get what they had. The madness of the seditious did also
+increase together with their famine, and both those miseries were every
+day inflamed more and more, for there was no corn which anywhere
+appeared publicly, but the robbers came running into and searched men's
+private houses; and then, if they found any, they tormented them,
+because they had denied they had any; and if they found none, they
+tormented them worse, because they supposed they had more carefully
+concealed it. The indication they made use of whether they had any or
+not was taken from the bodies of these miserable wretches, which, if
+they were in good case, they supposed they were in no want at all of
+food; but if they were wasted away, they walked off without searching
+any further; nor did they think it proper to kill such as these, because
+they saw they would very soon die of themselves for want of food. Many
+there were indeed who sold what they had for one measure. It was of
+wheat, if they were of the richer sort; but of barley, if they were
+poorer. When these had so done, they shut themselves up in the inmost
+rooms of their houses, and ate the corn they had gotten. Some did it
+without grinding it, by reason of the extremity of the want they were
+in, and others baked bread of it, according as necessity and fear
+dictated to them. A table was nowhere laid for a distinct meal, but they
+snatched the bread out of the fire, half-baked, and ate it very hastily.</p>
+
+<p>It was now a miserable case, and a sight that would justly bring tears
+into our eyes, how men stood as to their food, while the more powerful
+had more than enough, and the weaker were lamenting [for want of it].
+But the famine was too hard for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> all other passions, and it is
+destructive to nothing so much as to modesty, for what was otherwise
+worthy of reverence was in this case despised; insomuch that children
+pulled the very morsels that their fathers were eating out of their very
+mouths, and what was still more to be pitied, so did the mothers do as
+to their infants; and when those that were most dear were perishing
+under their hands, they were not ashamed to take from them the very last
+drops that might preserve their lives; and while they ate after this
+manner, yet were they not concealed in so doing; but the seditious
+everywhere came upon them immediately and snatched away from them what
+they had gotten from others, for when they saw any house shut up this
+was to them a signal that the people within had gotten some food;
+whereupon they broke open the doors and ran in and took pieces of what
+they were eating almost up out of their very throats, and this by force;
+the old men who held their food fast were beaten; and if the women hid
+what they had within their hands, their hair was torn for so doing; nor
+was there any commiseration shown either to the aged or to the infants,
+but they lifted up children from the ground as they hung upon the
+morsels they had gotten and shook them down upon the floor. But still
+they were more barbarously cruel to those that had prevented their
+coming in, and had actually swallowed down what they were going to seize
+upon, as if they had been unjustly defrauded of their right.</p>
+
+<p>They also invented terrible methods of torments to discover where any
+food was, and they were these: to stop up the passages of the privy
+parts of the miserable wretches, and to drive sharp stakes up their
+fundaments; and a man was forced to bear what it is terrible even to
+hear, in order to make him confess that he had but one loaf of bread, or
+that he might discover a handful of barley meal that was concealed; and
+this was done when these tormentors were not themselves hungry, for the
+thing had been less barbarous had necessity forced them to it; but this
+was done to keep their madness in exercise, and as making preparation of
+provisions for themselves for the following days. These men went also to
+meet those that had crept out of the city by night, as far as the Roman
+guards, to gather some plants and herbs that grew wild; and when those
+people<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> thought they had got clear of the enemy, they snatched from them
+what they had brought with them, even while they had frequently
+entreated them, and that by calling upon the tremendous name of God, to
+give them back some part of what they had brought, though these would
+not give them the least crumb, and they were to be well contented that
+they were only spoiled and not slain at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to go distinctly over every instance of these men's
+iniquity. I shall therefore speak my mind here at once briefly: That
+neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries, nor did any age
+ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, from
+the beginning of the world. Finally, they brought the Hebrew nation into
+contempt, that they might themselves appear comparatively less impious
+with regard to strangers. They confessed what was true, that they were
+the slaves, the scum, and the spurious and abortive offspring of our
+nation, while they overthrew the city themselves, and forced the Romans,
+whether they would or no, to gain a melancholy reputation, by acting
+gloriously against them, and did almost draw that fire upon the Temple
+which they seemed to think came too slowly; and indeed when they saw
+that Temple burning from the upper city, they were neither troubled at
+it nor did they shed any tears on that account, while yet these passions
+were discovered among the Romans themselves.</p>
+
+<p>So now Titus' banks were advanced a great way, notwithstanding his
+soldiers had been very much distressed from the wall. He then sent a
+party of horsemen and ordered they should lay ambushes for those that
+went out into the valleys to gather food. Some of these were indeed
+fighting men, who were not contented with what they got by rapine; but
+the greater part of them were poor people, who were deterred from
+deserting by the concern they were under for their own relations, for
+they could not hope to escape away, together with their wives and
+children, without the knowledge of the seditious; nor could they think
+of leaving these relations to be slain by the robbers on their account;
+nay, the severity of the famine made them bold in thus going out; so
+nothing remained but that, when they were concealed from the robbers,
+they should be taken by the enemy; and when they were going to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> be taken
+they were forced to defend themselves for fear of being punished; as
+after they had fought they thought it too late to make any supplications
+for mercy; so they were first whipped and then tormented with all sorts
+of tortures before they died, and were then crucified before the wall of
+the city. This miserable procedure made Titus greatly to pity them,
+while they caught every day five hundred Jews; nay, some days they
+caught more; yet it did not appear to be safe for him to let those that
+were taken by force go their way, and to set a guard over so many he saw
+would be to make such as guarded them useless to him. The main reason
+why he did not forbid that cruelty was this: that he hoped the Jews
+might perhaps yield at that sight, out of fear lest they might
+themselves afterward be liable to the same cruel treatment. So the
+soldiers, out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those
+they caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the
+crosses, by way of jest, when their multitude was so great that room was
+wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the bodies.</p>
+
+<p>But so far were the seditious from repenting at this sad sight that, on
+the contrary, they made the rest of the multitude believe otherwise, for
+they brought the relations of those that had deserted upon the wall,
+with such of the populace as were very eager to go over upon the
+security offered them, and showed them what miseries those underwent who
+fled to the Romans; and told them that those who were caught were
+supplicants to them, and not such as were taken prisoners. This sight
+kept many of those within the city who were so eager to desert, till the
+truth was known; yet did some of them run away immediately as unto
+certain punishment, esteeming death from their enemies to be a quiet
+departure, if compared with that by famine. So Titus commanded that the
+hands of many of those that were caught should be cut off, that they
+might not be thought deserters, and might be credited on account of the
+calamity they were under, and sent them in to John and Simon, with this
+exhortation, that they would now at length leave off (their madness),
+and not force him to destroy the city, whereby they would have those
+advantages of repentance, even in their utmost distress, that they would
+preserve their own lives, and so find a city of their own, and that
+Temple<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> which was their peculiar. He then went round about the banks
+that were cast up, and hastened them, in order to show that his words
+should in no long time be followed by his deeds. In answer to which the
+seditious cast reproaches upon C&aelig;sar himself, and upon his father also,
+and cried out, with a loud voice, that they contemned death, and did
+well in preferring it before slavery; that they would do all the
+mischief to the Romans they could while they had breath in them; and
+that for their own city, since they were, as he said, to be destroyed,
+they had no concern about it, and that the world itself was a better
+temple to God than this. That yet this Temple would be preserved by Him
+that inhabited therein, whom they still had for their assistant in this
+war, and did therefore laugh at all his threatenings, which would come
+to nothing, because the conclusion of the whole depended upon God only.
+These words were mixed with reproaches, and with them they made a mighty
+clamor.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time Antiochus Epiphanes came to the city, having with him a
+considerable number of other armed men, and a band called the Macedonian
+band about him, all of the same age, tall, and just past their
+childhood, armed, and instructed after the Macedonian manner, whence it
+was that they took that name. Antiochus with his Macedonians made a
+sudden assault upon the wall; and, indeed, for his own part, his
+strength and skill were so great that he guarded himself from the Jewish
+darts, and yet shot his darts at them, while yet the young men with him
+were almost all sorely galled, for they had so great a regard to the
+promises that had been made of their courage, that they would needs
+persevere in their fighting, and at length many of them retired, but not
+till they were wounded; and then they perceived that true Macedonians,
+if they were to be conquerors, must have Alexander's good fortune also.</p>
+
+<p>Now as the Romans began to raise their banks on the twelfth day of the
+month Artemisius [Jyar], so had they much ado to finish them by the
+twenty-ninth day of the same month, after they had labored hard for
+seventeen days continually, for there were now four great banks raised,
+one of which was at the tower Antonia. This was raised by the Fifth
+legion, over against the middle of that pool which was called Struthius.
+Another was cast up by the Twelfth legion at the distance of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> about
+twenty cubits from the other. But the labors of the Tenth legion, which
+lay a great way off these, were on the north quarter, and at the pool
+called Amygdalon; as was that of the Fifteenth legion about thirty
+cubits from it, and at the high-priest's monument. And now, when the
+engines were brought, John had from within undermined the space that was
+over against the tower of Antonia, as far as the banks themselves, and
+had supported the ground over the mine with beams laid across one
+another, whereby the Roman works stood upon an uncertain foundation.</p>
+
+<p>Then did he order such materials to be brought in as were daubed over
+with pitch and bitumen, and set them on fire; and as the cross-beams
+that supported the banks were burning, the ditch yielded on the sudden,
+and the banks were shaken down, and fell into the ditch with a
+prodigious noise. Now at the first, there arose a very thick smoke and
+dust, as the fire was choked with the fall of the bank; but as the
+suffocated materials were now gradually consumed, a plain flame brake
+out; on which sudden appearance of the flame a consternation fell upon
+the Romans, and the shrewdness of the contrivance discouraged them; and
+indeed this accident coming upon them at a time when they thought they
+had already gained their point, cooled their hopes for the time to come.
+They also thought it would be to no purpose to take the pains to
+extinguish the fire, since if it were extinguished the banks were
+swallowed up already [and become useless to them].</p>
+
+<p>Two days after this Simon and his party made an attempt to destroy the
+other banks, for the Romans had brought their engines to bear there, and
+began already to make the wall shake. And here one Tephtheus, of Garsis,
+a city of Galilee, and Megassarus, one who was derived from some of
+Queen Mariamne's servants, and with them one from Adiabene, he was the
+son of Nabateus, and called by the name of Chagiras, from the
+ill-fortune he had, the word signifying "a lame man," snatched some
+torches and ran suddenly upon the engines. Nor were there during this
+war any men that ever sallied out of the city who were their superiors,
+either in their boldness or in the terror they struck into their
+enemies, for they ran out upon the Romans, not as if they were enemies,
+but friends,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> without fear or delay; nor did they leave their enemies
+till they had rushed violently through the midst of them, and set their
+machines on fire. And though they had darts thrown at them on every side
+and were on every side assaulted with their enemies' swords, yet did
+they not withdraw themselves out of the dangers they were in till the
+fire had caught hold of the instruments; but when the flame went up the
+Romans came running from their camp to save their engines.</p>
+
+<p>Then did the Jews hinder their succors from the wall, and fought with
+those that endeavored to quench the fire, without any regard to the
+danger their bodies were in. So the Romans pulled the engines out of the
+fire, while the hurdles that covered them were on fire; but the Jews
+caught hold of the battering rams through the flame itself and held them
+fast, although the iron upon them was become red hot; and now the fire
+spread itself from the engines to the banks, and prevented those that
+came to defend them; and all this while the Romans were encompassed
+round about with the flame; and, despairing of saving their works from
+it, they retired to their camp. Then did the Jews become still more and
+more in number by the coming of those that were within the city to their
+assistance; and as they were very bold upon the good success they had
+had, their violent assaults were almost irresistible&mdash;nay, they
+proceeded as far as the fortifications of the enemies' camp, and fought
+with their guards.</p>
+
+<p>Now there stood a body of soldiers in array before that camp, which
+succeeded one another by turns in their armor; and as to those, the law
+of the Romans was terrible, that he who left his post there, let the
+occasion be whatsoever it might be, he was to die for it; so that body
+of soldiers, preferring rather to die in fighting courageously than as a
+punishment for their cowardice, stood firm; and at the necessity these
+men were in of standing to it, many of the others that had run away, out
+of shame, turned back again; and when they had set the engines against
+the wall they put the multitude from coming more of them out of the city
+(which they could the more easily do) because they had made no provision
+for preserving or guarding their bodies at this time; for the Jews
+fought now hand-to-hand with all that came in their way, and, without
+any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> caution, fell against the points of their enemies' spears, and
+attacked them bodies against bodies, for they were now too hard for the
+Romans, not so much by their other warlike actions, as by these
+courageous assaults they made upon them; and the Romans gave way more to
+their boldness than they did to the sense of the harm they had received
+from them.</p>
+
+<p>And now Titus was come from the tower of Antonia, whither he was gone to
+look out for a place for raising other banks, and reproached the
+soldiers greatly for permitting their own walls to be in danger, when
+they had taken the walls of their enemies, and sustained the fortune of
+men besieged, while the Jews were allowed to sally out against them,
+though they were already in a sort of prison. He then went round about
+the enemy with some chosen troops and fell upon their flank himself; so
+the Jews, who had been before assaulted in their faces, wheeled about to
+Titus and continued the fight.</p>
+
+<p>The armies also were now mixed one among another, and the dust that was
+raised so far hindered them from seeing one another, and the noise that
+was made so far hindered them from hearing one another, that neither
+side could discern an enemy from a friend. However, the Jews did not
+flinch, though not so much from their real strength as from their
+despair of deliverance. The Romans also would not yield, by reason of
+the regard they had to glory and to their reputation in war, and because
+C&aelig;sar himself went into the danger before them; insomuch that I cannot
+but think the Romans would in the conclusion have now taken even the
+whole multitude of the Jews, so very angry were they at them, had these
+not prevented the upshot of the battle, and retired into the city.
+However, seeing the banks of the Romans were demolished, these Romans
+were very much cast down upon the loss of what had cost them so long
+pains, and this in one hour's time. And many indeed despaired of taking
+the city with their usual engines of war only.</p>
+
+<p>And now did Titus consult with his commanders what was to be done. Those
+that were of the warmest tempers thought he should bring the whole army
+against the city and storm the wall. The opinion of Titus was, that if
+they aimed at quickness joined with security they must build a wall
+round about the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> whole city, and he gave orders that the army should be
+distributed to their several shares of this work. Titus began the wall
+from the camp of the Assyrians, where his own camp was pitched, and drew
+it down to the lower parts of Cenopolis; thence it went along the valley
+of Cedron to the Mount of Olives; it then bent toward the south, and
+encompassed the mountain as far as the rock called Peristereon, and that
+other hill which lies next it, and is over the valley which reaches to
+Siloam; whence it bended again to the west, and went down to the valley
+of the Fountain, beyond which it went up again at the monument of
+Ananus, the high-priest, and encompassing that mountain where Pompey had
+formerly pitched his camp, it returned back to the north side of the
+city, and was carried on as far as a certain village called "The House
+of the Erebinthi"; after which it encompassed Herod's monument, and
+there, on the east, was joined to Titus' own camp, where it began.</p>
+
+<p>Now the length of this wall was forty furlongs, one only abated. Now at
+this wall without were erected thirteen places to keep garrison in,
+whose circumferences, put together, amounted to ten furlongs; the whole
+was completed in three days; so that what would naturally have required
+some months was done in so short an interval as is incredible. When
+Titus had therefore encompassed the city with this wall and put
+garrisons into proper places, he went round the wall, at the first watch
+of the night, and observed how the guard was kept; the second watch he
+allotted to Alexander; the commanders of legions took the third watch.
+They also cast lots among themselves who should be upon the watch in the
+night-time, and who should go all night long round the spaces that were
+interposed between the garrisons.</p>
+
+<p>So all hope of escaping was now cut off from the Jews, together with
+their liberty of going out of the city. Then did the famine widen its
+progress and devoured the people by whole houses and families; the upper
+rooms were full of women and children that were dying by famine, and the
+lanes of the city were full of the dead bodies of the aged; the children
+also and the young men wandered about the market-places like shadows,
+all swelled with the famine, and fell down dead, wheresoever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> their
+misery seized them. As for burying them, those that were sick themselves
+were not able to do it; and those that were hearty and well were
+deterred from doing it by the great multitude of those dead bodies, and
+by the uncertainty there was how soon they should die themselves, for
+many died as they were burying others, and many went to their coffins
+before that fatal hour was come. Nor was there any lamentations made
+under these calamities, nor were heard any mournful complaints; but the
+famine confounded all natural passions, for those who were just going to
+die looked upon those that were gone to rest before them with dry eyes
+and open mouths.</p>
+
+<p>A deep silence also, and a kind of deadly night, had seized upon the
+city; while yet the robbers were still more terrible than these miseries
+were themselves, for they brake open those houses which were no other
+than graves of dead bodies, and plundered them of what they had; and
+carrying off the coverings of their bodies went out laughing, and tried
+the points of their swords in their dead bodies; and, in order to prove
+what metal they were made of, they thrust some of those through that
+still lay alive upon the ground; but for those that entreated them to
+lend them their right hand and their sword to despatch them, they were
+too proud to grant their requests, and left them to be consumed by the
+famine. Now every one of these died with their eyes fixed upon the
+Temple, and left the seditious alive behind them. Now the seditious at
+first gave orders that the dead should be buried out of the public
+treasury, as not enduring the stench of their dead bodies. But
+afterward, when they could not do that, they had them cast down from the
+walls into the valleys beneath.</p>
+
+<p>However, when Titus, in going his rounds along those valleys, saw them
+full of dead bodies, and the thick putrefaction running about them, he
+gave a groan; and, spreading out his hands to heaven, called God to
+witness that this was not his doing; and such was the sad case of the
+city itself. But the Romans were very joyful, since none of the
+seditious could now make sallies out of the city, because they were
+themselves disconsolate, and the famine already touched them also. These
+Romans besides had great plenty of corn and other necessaries<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> out of
+Syria and out of the neighboring provinces; many of whom would stand
+near to the wall of the city and show the people what great quantities
+of provisions they had and so make the enemy more sensible of their
+famine, by the great plenty, even to satiety, which they had themselves.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time Josephus, as he was going round the city, had his head
+wounded by a stone that was thrown at him; upon which he fell down as
+giddy. Josephus soon recovered of his wound and came out and cried out
+aloud, that it would not be long ere they should be punished for this
+wound they had given him. He also made a fresh exhortation to the people
+to come out upon the security that would be given them. This sight of
+Josephus encouraged the people greatly and brought a great consternation
+upon the seditious.</p>
+
+<p>Hereupon some of the deserters, having no other way, leaped down from
+the wall immediately, while others of them went out of the city with
+stones, as if they would fight them; but thereupon they fled away to the
+Romans. But here a worse fate accompanied these than what they had found
+within the city; and they met with a quicker despatch from the too great
+abundance they had among the Romans than they could have done from the
+famine among the Jews, for when they came first to the Romans they were
+puffed up by the famine and swelled like men in a dropsy; after which
+they all on the sudden overfilled those bodies that were before empty,
+and so burst asunder, excepting such only as were skilful enough to
+restrain their appetites, and by degrees took in their food into bodies
+unaccustomed thereto.</p>
+
+<p>Yet did another plague seize upon those that were thus preserved, for
+there was found among the Syrian deserters a certain person who was
+caught gathering pieces of gold out of the excrements of the Jews'
+bellies, for the deserters used to swallow such pieces of gold, as we
+told you before, when they came out, and for these did the seditious
+search them all; for there was a great quantity of gold in the city,
+insomuch that as much was now sold [in the Roman camp] for twelve Attic
+[drachmas] as was sold before for twenty-five. But when this contrivance
+was discovered in one instance, the fame of it filled their several
+camps, that the deserters came to them full of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> gold. So the multitude
+of the Arabians, with the Syrians, cut up those that came as
+supplicants, and searched their bellies. Nor does it seem to me that any
+misery befell the Jews that was more terrible than this, since in one
+night's time about two thousand of these deserters were thus dissected.</p>
+
+<p>When Titus came to the knowledge of this wicked practice, he threatened
+that he would put such men to death if any of them were discovered to be
+so insolent as to do so again. Moreover, he gave it in charge to the
+legions, that they should make a search after such as were suspected,
+and should bring them to him. But it appeared that the love of money was
+too great for all their dread of punishment, and a vehement desire of
+gain is natural to men, and no passion is so venturesome as
+covetousness. Otherwise such passions have certain bounds and are
+subordinate to fear. But in reality it was God who condemned the whole
+nation and turned every course that was taken for their preservation to
+their destruction. This, therefore, which was forbidden by C&aelig;sar under
+such a threatening, was ventured upon privately against the deserters,
+and these barbarians would go out still and meet those that ran away
+before any saw them, and looking about them to see that no Roman spied
+them, they dissected them and pulled this polluted money out of their
+bowels, which money was still found in a few of them, while yet a great
+many were destroyed by the bare hope there was of thus getting by them,
+which miserable treatment made many that were deserting to return back
+again into the city.</p>
+
+<p>And, indeed, why do I relate these particular calamities? while Manneus,
+the son of Lazarus, came running to Titus at this very time and told him
+that there had been carried out through that one gate, which was
+intrusted to his care, no fewer than a hundred and fifteen thousand
+eight hundred and eighty dead bodies in the interval between the
+fourteenth day of the month Xanthicus (Nisan), when the Romans pitched
+their camp by the city, and the first day of the month Panemus (Tamuz).
+This was itself a prodigious multitude; and though this man was not
+himself set as a governor at that gate, yet was he appointed to pay the
+public stipend for carrying these bodies out, and so was obliged of
+necessity to number them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> while the rest were buried by their
+relations, though all their burial was but this, to bring them away and
+cast them out of the city.</p>
+
+<p>After this man there ran away to Titus many of the eminent citizens and
+told him the entire number of the poor that were dead, and that no fewer
+than six hundred thousand were thrown out at the gates, though still the
+number of the rest could not be discovered; and they told him further
+that when they were no longer able to carry out the dead bodies of the
+poor they laid their corpses on heaps in very large houses and shut them
+up therein; as also that a medimno of wheat was sold for a talent; and
+that when, a while afterward, it was not possible to gather herbs, by
+reason the city was all walled about, some persons were driven to that
+terrible distress as to search the common sewers and old dunghills of
+cattle, and to eat the dung which they got there, and what they of old
+could not endure so much as to see they now used for food. When the
+Romans barely heard all this they commiserated their case; while the
+seditious, who saw it also, did not repent, but suffered the same
+distress to come upon themselves, for they were blinded by that fate
+which was already coming upon the city, and upon themselves also.</p>
+
+<p>And now the Romans, although they were greatly distressed in getting
+together their materials, raised their banks in one-and-twenty days,
+after they had cut down all the trees that were in the country that
+adjoined to the city, and that for ninety furlongs round about. And when
+the banks were finished, they afforded a foundation for fear both to the
+Romans and to the Jews, for the Jews expected that the city would be
+taken unless they could burn those banks, as did the Romans expect that,
+if these were once burned down they should never be able to take it, for
+there was a mighty scarcity of materials, and the bodies of the soldiers
+began to fail with such hard labors, as did their souls faint with so
+many instances of ill-success.</p>
+
+<p>The Romans had an advantage, in that their engines for sieges co&ouml;perated
+with them in throwing darts and stones as far as the Jews, when they
+were coming out of the city; whereby the man that fell became an
+impediment to him that was next<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> to him, as did the danger of going
+farther make them less zealous in their attempts; and for those that had
+run under the darts some of them were terrified by the good order and
+closeness of the enemies' ranks before they came to a close fight, and
+others were pricked with their spears and turned back again. At length
+they reproached one another for their cowardice, and retired without
+doing anything. This attack was made upon the first day of the month
+Panemus (Tamuz).</p>
+
+<p>So when the Jews were retreated the Romans brought their engines,
+although they had all the while stones thrown at them from the tower of
+Antonia, and were assaulted by fire and sword, and by all sorts of
+darts, which necessity afforded the Jews to make use of, for although
+these had great dependence on their own wall, and a contempt of the
+Roman engines, yet did they endeavor to hinder the Romans from bringing
+them. Now these Romans struggled hard, on the contrary, to bring them,
+as deeming that this zeal of the Jews was in order to avoid any
+impression to be made on the tower of Antonia, because its wall was but
+weak and its foundations rotten. However, that tower did not yield to
+the blows given it from the engines; yet did the Romans bear the
+impressions made by the enemies' darts which were perpetually cast at
+them, and did not give way to any of those dangers that came upon them
+from above, and so they brought their engines to bear. But then, as they
+were beneath the other, and were sadly wounded by the stones thrown down
+upon them, some of them threw their shields over their bodies, and
+partly with their hands and partly with their bodies and partly with
+crows they undermined its foundations, and with great pains they removed
+four of its stones. Then night came upon both sides, and put an end to
+this struggle for the present. However, that night the wall was so
+shaken by the battering rams in that place where John had used his
+stratagem before, and had undermined their banks, that the ground then
+gave way and the wall fell down suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>When this accident had unexpectedly happened, the minds of both parties
+were variously affected, for though one would expect that the Jews would
+be discouraged, because this fall of their wall was unexpected by them,
+and they had made no provision<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> in that case, yet did they pull up their
+courage, because the tower of Antonia itself was still standing; as was
+the unexpected joy of the Romans at this fall of the wall soon quenched
+by the sight they had of another wall, which John and his party had
+built within it.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the fifth day of the month Panemus (Tamuz), twelve of those men
+that were on the forefront and kept watch upon the banks got together
+and called to them the standard-bearer of the Fifth legion, and two
+others of a troop of horsemen, and one trumpeter; these went without
+noise, about the ninth hour of the night, through the ruins, to the
+tower of Antonia; and when they had cut the throats of the first guards
+of the place, as they were asleep, they got possession of the wall and
+ordered the trumpeter to sound his trumpet. Upon which the rest of the
+guard got up on the sudden and ran away before anybody could see how
+many they were that were gotten up, for partly from the fear they were
+in and partly from the sound of the trumpet which they heard they
+imagined a great number of the enemy were gotten up. But as soon as
+C&aelig;sar heard the signal he ordered the army to put on their armor
+immediately, and came thither with his commanders, and first of all
+ascended, as did the chosen men that were with him. And as the Jews were
+flying away to the Temple they fell into that mine which John had dug
+under the Roman banks. Then did the seditious of both the bodies of the
+Jewish army, as well that belonging to John as that belonging to Simon,
+drive them away; and indeed were no way wanting as to the highest degree
+of force and alacrity; for they esteemed themselves entirely ruined if
+once the Romans got into the Temple, as did the Romans look upon the
+same thing as the beginning of their entire conquest.</p>
+
+<p>So a terrible battle was fought at the entrance of the Temple, while the
+Romans were forcing their way, in order to get possession of that
+Temple, and the Jews were driving them back to the tower of Antonia; in
+which battle the darts were on both sides useless, as well as the
+spears, and both sides drew their swords and fought it out hand-to-hand.
+Now during this struggle the positions of the men were undistinguished
+on both sides, and they fought at random, the men being intermixed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> one
+with another and confounded, by reason of the narrowness of the place;
+while the noise that was made fell on the ear after an indistinct
+manner, because it was so very loud. Great slaughter was now made on
+both sides, and the combatants trod upon the bodies and the armor of
+those that were dead, and dashed them to pieces. Accordingly, to which
+side soever the battle inclined, those that had the advantage exhorted
+one another to go on, as did those that were beaten make great
+lamentation. But still there was no room for flight nor for pursuit, but
+disorderly revolutions and retreats, while the armies were intermixed
+one with another; but those that were in the first ranks were under the
+necessity of killing or being killed, without any way for escaping, for
+those on both sides that came behind forced those before them to go on,
+without leaving any space between the armies.</p>
+
+<p>At length the Jews' violent zeal was too hard for the Romans' skill, and
+the battle already inclined entirely that way; for the fight had lasted
+from the ninth hour of the night till the seventh hour of the day, while
+the Jews came on in crowds, and had the danger the Temple was in for
+their motive; the Romans having no more here than a part of their army,
+for those legions, on which the soldiers on that side depended, were not
+come up to them. So it was at present thought sufficient by the Romans
+to take possession of the tower of Antonia.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time the rest of the Roman army had, in seven days' time,
+overthrown [some] foundations of the tower of Antonia, and had made a
+ready and broad way to the Temple. Then did the legions come near the
+first court and began to raise their banks. The one bank was over
+against the northwest corner of the inner temple; another was at that
+northern edifice which was between the two gates; and of the other two,
+one was at the western cloister of the outer court of the Temple; the
+other against its northern cloister. However these works were thus far
+advanced by the Romans, not without great pains and difficulty, and
+particularly by being obliged to bring their materials from the distance
+of a hundred furlongs.</p>
+
+<p>They had further difficulties also upon them; sometimes by their
+over-great security they were in that they should overcome the Jewish
+snares laid for them, and by that boldness of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> the Jews which their
+despair of escaping had inspired them withal.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time the Jews were so distressed by the fights they had been
+in, as the war advanced higher and higher, and creeping up to the holy
+house itself, that they, as it were, cut off those limbs of their body
+which were infected, in order to prevent the distemper's spreading
+further, for they set the northwest cloister, which was joined to the
+tower of Antonia, on fire, and after that brake off about twenty cubits
+of that cloister, and thereby made a beginning in burning the sanctuary;
+two days after which, or on the twenty-fourth day of the forenamed month
+[Panemus or Tamuz], the Romans set fire to the cloister that joined to
+the other, when the fire went fifteen cubits farther. The Jews, in like
+manner, cut off its roof; nor did they entirely leave off what they were
+about till the tower of Antonia was parted from the Temple, even when it
+was in their power to have stopped the fire&mdash;nay, they lay still while
+the Temple was first set on fire, and deemed this spreading of the fire
+to be for their own advantage. However, the armies were still fighting
+one against another about the Temple, and the war was managed by
+continual sallies of particular parties against one another.</p>
+
+<p>Now of those that perished by famine in the city the number was
+prodigious, and the miseries they underwent were unspeakable, for if so
+much as the shadow of any kind of food did anywhere appear a war was
+commenced presently, and the dearest friends fell a-fighting one with
+another about it, snatching from each other the most miserable supports
+of life. Nor would men believe that those who were dying had no food,
+but the robbers would search them when they were expiring, lest anyone
+should have concealed food in his bosom and counterfeited dying; nay,
+these robbers gaped for want, and ran about stumbling and staggering
+along like mad dogs, and reeling against the doors of the houses like
+drunken men; they would also, in the great distress they were in, rush
+into the very same houses two or three times in one and the same day.
+Moreover, their hunger was so intolerable that it obliged them to chew
+everything, while they gathered such things as the most sordid animals
+would not touch, and endured to eat them;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> nor did they at length
+abstain from girdles and shoes; and the very leather which belonged to
+their shields they pulled off and gnawed; the very wisps of old hay
+became food to some; and some gathered up fibres and sold a very small
+weight of them for four Attic [drachmas].</p>
+
+<p>But why do I describe the shameless impudence that the famine brought on
+men in their eating inanimate things, while I am going to relate a
+matter of fact, the like to which no history relates, either among the
+Greeks or barbarians? It is horrible to speak of it and incredible when
+heard. I had indeed willingly omitted this calamity of ours, that I
+might not seem to deliver what is so portentous to posterity, but that I
+have innumerable witnesses to it in my own age; and besides, my country
+would have had little reason to thank me for suppressing the miseries
+that she underwent at this time.</p>
+
+<p>There was a certain woman that dwelt beyond Jordan, her name was Mary;
+her father was Eleazar, of the village Bethezob, which signifies "the
+House of Hyssop." She was eminent for her family and her wealth, and had
+fled away to Jerusalem with the rest of the multitude, and was with them
+besieged therein at this time. The other effects of this woman had been
+already seized upon, such I mean as she had brought with her out of
+Perea, and removed to the city. What she had treasured up besides, as
+also what food she had contrived to save, had been also carried off by
+the rapacious guards, who came every day running into her house for that
+purpose. This put the poor woman into a very great passion, and by the
+frequent reproaches and imprecations she cast at these rapacious
+villains she had provoked them to anger against her; but none of them,
+either out of the indignation she had raised against herself, or out of
+commiseration of her case, would take away her life; and if she found
+any food, she perceived her labors were for others, and not for herself;
+and it was now become impossible for her any way to find any more food,
+while the famine pierced through her very bowels and marrow, when also
+her passion was fired to a degree beyond the famine itself; nor did she
+consult with anything but with her passion and the necessity she was in.
+She then attempted a most unnatural thing; and snatching up her son, who
+was a child sucking at her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> breast, she said: "O thou miserable infant!
+for whom shall I preserve thee in this war, this famine, and this
+sedition? As to the war with the Romans, if they preserve our lives we
+must be slaves. This famine also will destroy us even before that
+slavery comes upon us. Yet are these seditious rogues more terrible than
+both the other. Come on: be thou my food, and be thou a fury to these
+seditious varlets, and a by-word to the world, which is all that is now
+wanting to complete the calamities of us Jews."</p>
+
+<p>As soon as she had said this she slew her son, and then roasted him, and
+eat the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed. Upon
+this the seditious came in presently, and smelling the horrid scent of
+this food, they threatened her that they would cut her throat
+immediately if she did not show them what food she had gotten ready. She
+replied that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them, and
+withal uncovered what was left of her son. Hereupon they were seized
+with a horror and amazement of mind, and stood astonished at the sight,
+when she said to them: "This is mine own son, and what hath been done
+was mine own doing! Come, eat of this food, for I have eaten of it
+myself! Do not you pretend to be either more tender than a woman or more
+compassionate than a mother; but if you be so scrupulous and do
+abominate this my sacrifice, as I have eaten the one half, let the rest
+be reserved for me also." After which those men went out trembling,
+being never so much affrighted at anything as they were at this, and
+with some difficulty they left the rest of that meat to the mother. Upon
+which the whole city was full of this horrid action immediately; and
+while everybody laid this miserable case before their own eyes, they
+trembled, as if this unheard-of action had been done by themselves. So
+those that were thus distressed by the famine were very desirous to die,
+and those already dead were esteemed happy, because they had not lived
+long enough either to hear or to see such miseries.</p>
+
+<p>This sad instance was quickly told to the Romans, some of whom could not
+believe it, and others pitied the distress which the Jews were under;
+but there were many of them who were hereby induced to a more bitter
+hatred than ordinary against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> our nation. But for C&aelig;sar, he excused
+himself before God as to this matter, and said that he had proposed
+peace and liberty to the Jews, as well as an oblivion of all their
+former insolent practices; but that they, instead of concord, had chosen
+sedition; instead of peace, war; and before satiety and abundance, a
+famine. That they had begun with their own hands to burn down that
+Temple which we have preserved hitherto, and that therefore they
+deserved to eat such food as this was. That, however, this horrid action
+of eating an own child ought to be covered with the overthrow of their
+very country itself, and men ought not to leave such a city upon the
+habitable earth to be seen by the sun wherein mothers are thus fed,
+although such food be fitter for the fathers than for the mothers to eat
+of, since it is they that continue still in a state of war against us,
+after they have undergone such miseries as these. And at the same time
+that he said this, he reflected on the desperate condition these men
+must be in; nor could he expect that such men could be recovered to
+sobriety of mind after they had endured those very sufferings, for the
+avoiding whereof it only was probable they might have repented.</p>
+
+<p>And now two of the legions had completed their banks on the eighth day
+of the month Lous [Ab]. Whereupon Titus gave orders that the battering
+rams should be brought and set over against the western edifice of the
+inner temple; for before these were brought, the firmest of all the
+other engines had battered the wall for six days together without
+ceasing, without making any impression upon it; but the vast largeness
+and strong connection of the stones were superior to that engine and to
+the other battering rams also. Other Romans did indeed undermine the
+foundations of the northern gate, and after a world of pains removed the
+outermost stones, yet was the gate still upheld by the inner stones, and
+stood still unhurt; till the workmen, despairing of all such attempts by
+engines and crows, brought their ladders to the cloisters.</p>
+
+<p>Now the Jews did not interrupt them in so doing; but when they were
+gotten up, they fell upon them and fought with them; some of them they
+thrust down and threw them backward headlong; others of them they met
+and slew; they also beat many of those that went down the ladders again,
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> slew them with their swords before they could bring their shields
+to protect them; nay, some of the ladders they threw down from above
+when they were full of armed men. A great slaughter was made of the Jews
+also at the same time, while those that bare the ensigns fought hard for
+them, as deeming it a terrible thing, and what would tend to their great
+shame, if they permitted them to be stolen away. Yet did the Jews at
+length get possession of these engines, and destroyed those that had
+gone up the ladders, while the rest were so intimidated by what those
+suffered who were slain that they retired; although none of the Romans
+died without having done good service before his death. Of the
+seditious, those that had fought bravely in the former battles did the
+like now, as besides them did Eleazar, the brother's son of Simon the
+tyrant. But when Titus perceived that his endeavors to spare a foreign
+temple turned to the damage of his soldiers and made them be killed, he
+gave order to set the gates on fire.</p>
+
+<p>But then, on the next day, Titus commanded part of his army to quench
+the fire and to make a road for the more easy marching up of the
+legions, while he himself gathered the commanders together. Titus
+proposed to these that they should give him their advice what should be
+done about the holy house. Now some of these thought it would be the
+best way to act according to the rules of war [and demolish it], because
+the Jews would never leave off rebelling while that house was standing;
+at which house it was that they used to get all together. Others of them
+were of opinion that in case the Jews would leave it, and none of them
+would lay their arms up in it, he might save it; but that in case they
+got upon it and fought any more, he might burn it; because it must then
+be looked upon not as a holy house, but as a citadel; and that the
+impiety of burning it would then belong to those that forced this to be
+done, and not to them.</p>
+
+<p>But Titus said that "although the Jews should get upon that holy house
+and fight us thence, yet ought we not to revenge ourselves on things
+that are inanimate, instead of the men themselves"? and that he was not
+in any case for burning down so vast a work as that was, because this
+would be a mischief to the Romans themselves, as it would be an
+ornament<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> to their government while it continued. So Fronto and
+Alexander and Cerealis grew bold upon that declaration, and agreed to
+the opinion of Titus. Then was this assembly dissolved, when Titus had
+given orders to the commanders that the rest of their forces should lie
+still; but that they should make use of such as were most courageous in
+this attack. So he commanded that the chosen men that were taken out of
+the cohorts should make their way through the ruins and quench the fire.</p>
+
+<p>Now it is true that on this day the Jews were so weary and under such
+consternation that they refrained from any attacks. But on the next day
+they gathered their whole force together, and ran upon those that
+guarded the outward court of the Temple very boldly, through the east
+gate, and this about the second hour of the day. These guards received
+their attack with great bravery, and by covering themselves with their
+shields before, as if it were with a wall, drew their squadron close
+together; yet was it evident that they could not abide there very long,
+but would be overborne by the multitude of those that sallied out upon
+them, and by the heat of their passion. However, C&aelig;sar seeing, from the
+tower of Antonia, that this squadron was likely to give way, sent some
+chosen horsemen to support them. Hereupon the Jews found themselves not
+able to sustain their onset, and, upon the slaughter of those in the
+forefront, many of the rest were put to flight. But as the Romans were
+going off, the Jews turned upon them and fought them; and as those
+Romans came back upon them, they retreated again, until about the fifth
+hour of the day they were overborne, and shut themselves up in the inner
+[court of the] Temple.</p>
+
+<p>So Titus retired into the tower of Antonia and resolved to storm the
+Temple the next day, early in the morning, with his whole army, and to
+encamp round about the holy house. But as for that house, God had, for
+certain, long ago doomed it to the fire; and now that fatal day was
+come, according to the revolution of ages. It was the tenth day of the
+month Lous [Ab] upon which it was formerly burned by the king of
+Babylon; although these flames took their rise from the Jews themselves,
+and were occasioned by them, for upon Titus' retiring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> the seditious lay
+still for a little while, and then attacked the Romans again when those
+that guarded the holy house fought with those that quenched the fire
+that was burning the inner [court of the] Temple; but these Romans put
+the Jews to flight and proceeded as far as the holy house itself. At
+which time one of the soldiers, without staying for any orders and
+without any concern or dread upon him at so great an undertaking and
+being hurried on by a certain divine fury, snatched somewhat out of the
+materials that were on fire, and being lifted up by another soldier he
+set fire to a golden window through which there was a passage to the
+rooms that were round about the holy house on the north side of it.</p>
+
+<p>As the flames went upward the Jews made a great clamor such as so mighty
+an affliction required and ran together to prevent it; and now they
+spared not their lives any longer nor suffered anything to restrain
+their force, since that holy house was perishing for whose sake it was
+that they kept such a guard about it.</p>
+
+<p>And now C&aelig;sar was no way able to restrain the enthusiastic fury of the
+soldiers, and the fire proceeded on more and more. He went into the holy
+place of the Temple with his commanders and saw it, with what was in it,
+which he found to be far superior to what the relations of foreigners
+contained, and not inferior to what we ourselves boasted of and believed
+about it. But as the flame had not as yet reached to its inward parts,
+but was still consuming the rooms that were about the holy house, and
+Titus supposing what the fact was, that the house itself might yet be
+saved, came in haste and endeavored to persuade the soldiers to quench
+the fire, and gave order to Liberalius the centurion, and one of those
+spearmen that were about him, to beat the soldiers that were refractory
+with their staves and to restrain them; yet were their passions too hard
+for the regards they had for C&aelig;sar, and the dread they had of him who
+forbade them, as was their hatred of the Jews, and a certain vehement
+inclination to fight them, too hard for them also. Moreover, the hope of
+plunder induced many to go on, as having this opinion, that all the
+places within were full of money, and as seeing that all round about it
+was made of gold. And besides, one of those that went into the place
+prevented C&aelig;sar,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> when he ran so hastily out to restrain the soldiers,
+and threw the fire upon the hinges of the gate, in the dark; whereby the
+flame burst out from within the holy house itself immediately, when the
+commanders retired, and C&aelig;sar with them, and when nobody any longer
+forbade those that were without to set fire to it. And thus was the holy
+house burned down without C&aelig;sar's approbation.</p>
+
+<p>While the holy house was on fire everything was plundered that came to
+hand, and ten thousand of those that were caught were slain; nor was
+there a commiseration of any age, or any reverence of gravity, but
+children, and old men, and profane persons, and priests were all slain
+in the same manner; so that this war went round all sorts of men, and
+brought them to destruction, and as well those that made supplication
+for their lives as those that defended themselves by fighting. The flame
+was also carried a long way, and made an echo, together with the groans
+of those that were slain; and because this hill was high, and the works
+at the Temple were very great, one would have thought the whole city had
+been on fire. Nor can one imagine anything either greater or more
+terrible than this noise, for there was at once a shout of the Roman
+legions, who were marching all together, and a sad clamor of the
+seditious, who were now surrounded with fire and sword.</p>
+
+<p>The people also that were left above were beaten back upon the enemy,
+and under a great consternation, and made sad moans at the calamity they
+were under; the multitude also that was in the city joined in this
+outcry with those that were upon the hill. And besides, many of those
+that were worn away by the famine and their mouths almost closed, when
+they saw the fire of the holy house they exerted their utmost strength
+and brake out into groans and outcries again. Perea did also return the
+echo, as well as the mountains round about [the city], and augmented the
+force of the entire noise. Yet was the misery itself more terrible than
+this disorder, for one would have thought that the hill itself, on which
+the Temple stood, was seething hot, as full of fire on every part of it,
+that the blood was larger in quantity than the fire, and those that were
+slain more in number than those that slew them, for the ground did
+nowhere appear visible for the dead bodies that lay on it; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> the
+soldiers went over heaps of those bodies, as they ran upon such as fled
+from them.</p>
+
+<p>And now it was that the multitude of the robbers were thrust out [of the
+inner court of the Temple] by the Romans, and had much ado to get into
+the outward court, and from thence into the city, while the remainder of
+the populace fled into the cloister of that outer court. As for the
+priests, some of them plucked up from the holy house the spikes that
+were upon it, with their bases, which were made of lead, and shot them
+at the Romans instead of darts. But then as they gained nothing by so
+doing, and as the fire burst out upon them, they retired to the wall
+that was eight cubits broad, and there they tarried.</p>
+
+<p>And now the Romans, judging that it was in vain to spare what was round
+about the holy house, burned all those places, as also the remains of
+the cloisters and the gates, two excepted: the one on the east side and
+the other on the south; both which, however, they burned afterward. They
+also burned down the treasury chambers, in which was an immense quantity
+of money and an immense number of garments and other precious goods
+there reposited; and, to speak all in a few words, there it was that the
+entire riches of the Jews were heaped up together, while the rich people
+had there built themselves chambers (to contain such furniture). The
+soldiers also came to the rest of the cloisters that were in the outer
+(court of the) Temple, whither the women and children, and a great mixed
+multitude of the people, fled, in number about six thousand. But before
+C&aelig;sar had determined anything about these people, or given the
+commanders any orders relating to them, the soldiers were in such a rage
+that they set that cloister on fire; by which means it came to pass that
+some of these were destroyed by throwing themselves down headlong, and
+some were burned in the cloisters themselves. Nor did any one of them
+escape with his life.</p>
+
+<p>And now the Romans, upon the flight of the seditious into the city, and
+upon the burning of the holy house itself and of all the buildings round
+about it, brought their ensigns to the Temple and set them over against
+its eastern gate; and there did they offer sacrifices to them, and there
+did they make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> Titus imperator with the greatest acclamations of joy.
+And now all the soldiers had such vast quantities of the spoils which
+they had gotten by plunder that in Syria a pound weight of gold was sold
+for half its former value.</p>
+
+<p>But as for the tyrants themselves and those that were with them, when
+they found that they were encompassed on every side, and, as it were,
+walled round, without any method of escaping, they desired to treat with
+Titus by word of mouth. Accordingly, such was the kindness of his nature
+and his desire of preserving the city from destruction, joined to the
+advice of his friends, who now thought the robbers were come to a
+temper, that he placed himself on the western side of the outer (court
+of the) Temple, for there were gates on that side above the Xystus, and
+a bridge that connected the upper city to the Temple. This bridge it was
+that lay between the tyrants and C&aelig;sar, and parted them; while the
+multitude stood on each side; those of the Jewish nation about Simon and
+John, with great hopes of pardon; and the Romans about C&aelig;sar, in great
+expectation how Titus would receive their supplication.</p>
+
+<p>So Titus charged his soldiers to restrain their rage and to let their
+darts alone, and appointed an interpreter between them, which was a sign
+that he was the conqueror, and first began the discourse, and said: "I
+hope you, sirs, are now satiated with the miseries of your country, who
+have not had any just notions either of our great power or of your own
+great weakness, but have, like madmen, after a violent and inconsiderate
+manner, made such attempts as have brought your people, your city, and
+your holy house to destruction. You have been the men that have never
+left off rebelling since Pompey first conquered you, and have since that
+time made open war with the Romans.... And now, vile wretches, do you
+desire to treat with me by word of mouth? To what purpose is it that you
+would save such a holy house as this was which is now destroyed? What
+preservation can you now desire after the destruction of your Temple?
+Yet do you stand still at this very time in your armor; nor can you
+bring yourselves so much as to pretend to be supplicants even in this
+your utmost extremity. O miserable creatures! what is it you depend on?
+Are not your people dead? is not your holy house gone? is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> not your city
+in my power? and are not your own very lives in my hands? And do you
+still deem it a part of valor to die? However, I will not imitate your
+madness. If you throw down your arms and deliver up your bodies to me, I
+grant you your lives; and I will act like a mild master of a family;
+what cannot be healed shall be punished, and the rest I will preserve
+for my own use."</p>
+
+<p>To that offer of Titus they made this reply: That they could not accept
+of it, because they had sworn never to do so; but they desired they
+might have leave to go through the wall that had been made about them,
+with their wives and children; for that they would go into the desert
+and leave the city to him.</p>
+
+<p>At this Titus had great indignation, that when they were in the case of
+men already taken captives, they should pretend to make their own terms
+with him, as if they had been conquerors. So he ordered this
+proclamation to be made to them: That they should no more come out to
+him as deserters, nor hope for any further security, for that he would
+henceforth spare nobody, but fight them with his whole army; and that
+they must save themselves as well as they could, for that he would from
+henceforth treat them according to the laws of war. So he gave orders to
+the soldiers both to burn and to plunder the city; who did nothing
+indeed that day; but on the next day they set fire to the repository of
+the archives, to Acra, to the council house, and to the place called
+Ophlas; at which time the fire proceeded as far as the palace of Queen
+Helena, which was in the middle of Acra; the lanes also were burned
+down, as were also those houses that were full of the dead bodies of
+such as were destroyed by famine.</p>
+
+<p>On the same day it was that the sons and brethren of Izates the King,
+together with many others of the eminent men of the populace, got
+together there, and besought C&aelig;sar to give them his right hand for their
+security. Upon which, though he was very angry at all that were now
+remaining, yet did he not lay aside his old moderation, but received
+these men. At that time, indeed, he kept them all in custody, but still
+bound the King's sons and kinsmen, and led them with him to Rome, in
+order to make them hostages for their country's fidelity to the Romans.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And now the seditious rushed into the royal palace, into which many had
+put their effects, because it was so strong, and drove the Romans away
+from it. They also slew all the people that had crowded into it, who
+were in number about eight thousand four hundred, and plundered them of
+what they had.</p>
+
+<p>On the next day the Romans drove the robbers out of the lower city and
+set all on fire as far as Siloam. These soldiers were indeed glad to see
+the city destroyed. But they missed the plunder, because the seditious
+had carried off all their effects, and were retired into the upper city,
+for they did not yet at all repent of the mischiefs they had done, but
+were insolent, as if they had done well; for, as they saw the city on
+fire, they appeared cheerful, and put on joyful countenances, in
+expectation, as they said, of death to end their miseries. Accordingly,
+as the people were now slain, the holy house was burned down, and the
+city was on fire, there was nothing further left for the enemy to do.
+Yet did not Josephus grow weary, even in this utmost extremity, to beg
+of them to spare what was left of the city; he spake largely to them
+about their barbarity and impiety, and gave them his advice in order to
+their escape, though he gained nothing thereby more than to be laughed
+at by them; and as they could not think of surrendering themselves up,
+because of the oath they had taken, nor were strong enough to fight with
+the Romans any longer upon the square, as being surrounded on all sides,
+and a kind of prisoners already, yet were they so accustomed to kill
+people that they could not restrain their right hands from acting
+accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>So they dispersed themselves before the city and laid themselves in
+ambush among its ruins, to catch those that attempted to desert to the
+Romans. Accordingly, many such deserters were caught by them and were
+all slain, for these were too weak, by reason of their want of food, to
+fly away from them; so their dead bodies were thrown to the dogs. Now
+every other sort of death was thought more tolerable than the famine,
+insomuch that, though the Jews despaired now of mercy, yet would they
+fly to the Romans, and would themselves, even of their own accord, fall
+among the murderous rebels also. Nor was there any place in the city
+that had no dead bodies in it,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> but what was entirely covered with those
+that were killed either by the famine or the rebellion; and all was full
+of the dead bodies of such as had perished, either by that sedition or
+by the famine.</p>
+
+<p>So now the last hope which supported the tyrants and that crew of
+robbers who were with them was in the caves and caverns underground;
+whither, if they could once fly, they did not expect to be searched for;
+but endeavored that, after the whole city should be destroyed and the
+Romans gone away, they might come out again and escape from them. This
+was no better than a dream of theirs, for they were not able to lie hid
+either from God or from the Romans. However, they depended on these
+underground subterfuges, and set more places on fire than did the Romans
+themselves; and those that fled out of their houses thus set on fire
+into the ditches they killed without mercy, and pillaged them also; and
+if they discovered food belonging to anyone they seized upon it and
+swallowed it down, together with their blood also&mdash;nay, they were now
+come to fight one with another about their plunder; and I cannot but
+think that, had not their destruction prevented it, their barbarity
+would have made them taste of even the dead bodies themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Now when C&aelig;sar perceived that the upper city was so steep that it could
+not possibly be taken without raising banks against it, he distributed
+the several parts of that work among his army, and this on the twentieth
+day of the month Lous [Ab].</p>
+
+<p>It was at this time that the commanders of the Idumeans got together
+privately and took counsel about surrendering up themselves to the
+Romans. Accordingly, they sent five men to Titus and entreated him to
+give them his right hand for their security. So Titus, thinking that the
+tyrants would yield, if the Idumeans, upon whom a great part of the war
+depended, were once withdrawn from them, after some reluctancy and delay
+complied with them, and gave them security for their lives, and sent the
+five men back. But as these Idumeans were preparing to march out, Simon
+perceived it, and immediately slew the five men that had gone to Titus,
+and took their commanders and put them in prison, of whom the most
+eminent was Jacob, the son of Sosas; but as for the multitude of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> the
+Idumeans, who did not at all know what to do, now their commanders were
+taken from them, he had them watched, and secured the walls by a more
+numerous garrison. Yet could not that garrison resist those that were
+deserting, for although a great number of them were slain, yet were the
+deserters many more in number. These were all received by the Romans,
+because Titus himself grew negligent as to his former orders for killing
+them, and because the very soldiers grew weary of killing them, and
+because they hoped to get some money by sparing them, for they left only
+the populace, and sold the rest of the multitude, with their wives and
+children, and every one of them at a very low price, and that because
+such as were sold were very many, and the buyers were few; and although
+Titus had made proclamation beforehand that no deserter should come
+alone by himself, that so they might bring out their families with them,
+yet did he receive such as these also.</p>
+
+<p>However, he set over them such as were to distinguish some from others,
+in order to see if any of them deserved to be punished. And indeed the
+number of those that were sold was immense; but of the populace above
+forty thousand were saved, whom C&aelig;sar let go whither every one of them
+pleased.</p>
+
+<p>But now at this time it was that one of the priests, the son of
+Thebuthus, whose name was Jesus, upon his having security given him, by
+the oath of C&aelig;sar, that he should be preserved upon condition that he
+should deliver to him certain of the precious things that had been
+deposited in the Temple, came out of it and delivered him from the wall
+of the holy house two candlesticks, like to those that lay in the holy
+house, with tables, and cisterns, and vials, all made of solid gold and
+very heavy. He also delivered to him the veils and the garments, with
+the precious stones, and a great number of other precious vessels that
+belonged to their sacred worship.</p>
+
+<p>The treasurer of the Temple also, whose name was Phineas, was seized on,
+and showed Titus the coats and girdles of the priests, with a great
+quantity of purple and scarlet, which were there deposited for the uses
+of the veil, as also a great deal of cinnamon and cassia, with a large
+quantity of other sweet spices, which used to be mixed together and
+offered as incense to God<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> every day. A great many other treasures were
+also delivered to him, with sacred ornaments of the Temple not a few,
+which things thus delivered to Titus obtained of him for this man the
+same pardon that he had allowed to such as deserted of their own accord.</p>
+
+<p>And now were the banks finished on the seventh day of the month Gorpieus
+(Elul) in eighteen days' time, when the Romans brought their machines
+against the wall. But for the seditious, some of them, as despairing of
+saving the city, retired from the wall to the citadel. Others of them
+went down into the subterranean vaults, though still a great many of
+them defended themselves against those that brought the engines for the
+battery; yet did the Romans overcome them by their number and by their
+strength; and, what was the principal thing of all, by going cheerfully
+about their work, while the Jews were quite dejected and become weak.
+Now as soon as a part of the wall was battered down, and certain of the
+towers yielded to the impression of the battering rams, those that
+opposed themselves fled away, and such a terror fell upon the tyrants as
+was much greater than the occasion required, for before the enemy got
+over the breach they were quite stunned, and were immediately for flying
+away. And now one might see these men, who had hitherto been so insolent
+and arrogant in their wicked practices, to be cast down and to tremble,
+insomuch that it would pity one's heart to observe the change that was
+made in those vile persons.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, they ran with great violence upon the Roman wall that
+encompassed them, in order to force away those that guarded it, and to
+break through it and get away. But when they saw that those who had
+formerly been faithful to them had gone away&mdash;as indeed they were fled
+whithersoever the great distress they were in persuaded them to flee&mdash;as
+also when those that came running before the rest told them that the
+western wall was entirely overthrown, while others said the Romans were
+gotten in, and others that they were near and looking out for them,
+which were only the dictates of their fear, which imposed upon their
+sight, they fell upon their face and greatly lamented their own mad
+conduct; and their nerves were so terribly loosed that they could not
+flee away. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> here one may chiefly reflect on the power of God
+exercised upon these wicked wretches, and on the good fortune of the
+Romans, for these tyrants did now wholly deprive themselves of the
+security they had in their own power, and came down from those very
+towers of their own accord, wherein they could have never been taken by
+force, nor indeed by any other way than by famine. And thus did the
+Romans, when they had taken such great pains about weaker walls, get by
+good fortune what they could never have gotten by their engines, for
+three of these towers were too strong for all mechanical engines
+whatsoever.</p>
+
+<p>So they now left these towers of themselves, or rather they were ejected
+out of them by God himself, and fled immediately to that valley which
+was under Siloam, where they again recovered themselves out of the dread
+they were in for a while, and ran violently against that part of the
+Roman wall which lay on that side; but as their courage was too much
+depressed to make their attacks with sufficient force, and their power
+was now broken with fear and affliction, they were repulsed by the
+guards, and dispersing themselves at distances from each other, went
+down into the subterranean caverns.</p>
+
+<p>So the Romans being now become masters of the walls, they both placed
+their ensigns upon the towers and made joyful acclamations for the
+victory they had gained, as having found the end of this war much
+lighter than its beginning, for when they had gotten upon the last wall,
+without any bloodshed, they could hardly believe what they found to be
+true; but seeing nobody to oppose them, they stood in doubt what such an
+unusual solitude could mean. But when they went in numbers into the
+lanes of the city with their swords drawn they slew those whom they
+overtook without mercy, and set fire to the houses whither the Jews were
+fled, and burned every soul in them, and laid waste a great many of the
+rest; and when they were come to the houses to plunder them they found
+in them entire families of dead men; and the upper rooms full of
+corpses, that is, of such as died by the famine. They stood in horror at
+this sight, and went out without touching anything.</p>
+
+<p>Although they had this commiseration for such as were destroyed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> in that
+manner, yet had they not the same for those that were still alive, but
+they ran every one through whom they met, and obstructed the very lanes
+with their dead bodies, and made the whole city run with blood, to such
+a degree indeed that the fire of many of the houses was quenched with
+these men's blood. And truly so it happened, that though the slayers
+left off at the evening, yet did the fire greatly prevail in the night;
+and as all was burning, came that eighth day of the month Gorpieus
+[Elul] upon Jerusalem, a city that had been liable to so many miseries
+during this siege, that, had it always enjoyed as much happiness from
+its first foundation, it would certainly have been the envy of the
+world. Nor did it on any other account so much deserve these sore
+misfortunes as by producing such a generation of men as were the
+occasion of this its overthrow.</p>
+
+<p>Now when Titus was come into this (upper) city, he admired not only some
+other places of strength in it, but particularly those strong towers
+which the tyrants in their mad conduct had relinquished, for when he saw
+their solid altitude, and the largeness of their several stones, and the
+exactness of their joints, as also how great was their breadth and how
+extensive their length, he expressed himself after the manner following:
+"We have certainly had God for our assistant in this war, and it was no
+other than God who ejected the Jews out of these fortifications, for
+what could the hands of men or any machines do toward overthrowing these
+towers?" At which time he had many such discourses to his friends; he
+also let such go free as had been bound by the tyrants, and were left in
+the prisons. To conclude, when he entirely demolished the rest of the
+city and overthrew its walls, he left these towers as a monument of his
+good fortune, which had proved his auxiliaries, and enabled him to take
+what could not otherwise have been taken by him.</p>
+
+<p>And now, since his soldiers were already quite tired with killing men,
+and yet there appeared to be a vast multitude still remaining alive,
+C&aelig;sar gave orders that they should kill none but those that were in arms
+and opposed them, but should take the rest alive. But, together with
+those whom they had orders to slay, they slew the aged and the infirm;
+but for those that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> were in their flourishing age and who might be
+useful to them they drove them together into the Temple and shut them up
+within the walls of the court of the women, over which C&aelig;sar set one of
+his freedmen, as also Fronto, one of his own friends, which last was to
+determine everyone's fate, according to his merits.</p>
+
+<p>So this Fronto slew all those that had been seditious and robbers, who
+were impeached one by another; but of the young men he chose out the
+tallest and most beautiful and reserved them for the triumph, and as for
+the rest of the multitude that were above seventeen years old he put
+them into bonds and sent them to the Egyptian mines. Titus also sent a
+great number into the provinces as a present to them, that they might be
+destroyed upon their theatres by the sword and by the wild beasts; but
+those that were under seventeen years of age were sold for slaves. Now
+during the days wherein Fronto was distinguishing these men there
+perished, for want of food, eleven thousand, some of whom did not taste
+any food, through the hatred their guards bore to them, and others would
+not take in any when it was given them. The multitude also was so very
+great that they were in want even of corn for their sustenance.</p>
+
+<p>Now the number of those that were carried captive during this whole war
+was collected to be ninety-seven thousand; as was the number of those
+that perished during the whole siege eleven hundred thousand, the
+greater part of whom was indeed of the same nation [with the citizens of
+Jerusalem], but not belonging to the city itself. They were come up from
+all the country to the feast of unleavened bread and were on a sudden
+shut up by an army, which, at the very first, occasioned so great a
+straitness among them that there came a pestilential destruction upon
+them, and soon afterward such a famine as destroyed them more suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>That this city could contain so many people in it is manifest by that
+number of them which was taken under Cestius, who, being desirous of
+informing Nero of the power of the city, who otherwise was disposed to
+contemn that nation, entreated the high-priests, if the thing were
+possible, to take the number of their whole multitude. So these
+high-priests, upon the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> coming of that feast which is called the
+Passover, when they slay their sacrifices, from the ninth hour till the
+eleventh, but so that a company not less than ten belong to every
+sacrifice (for it is not lawful for them to feast singly by themselves),
+and many of them were twenty in a company, found the number of
+sacrifices was two hundred and fifty-six thousand five hundred, which,
+upon the allowance of no more than ten that feast together, amounts to
+two millions seven hundred thousand and two hundred persons that were
+pure and holy; for as to those that have the leprosy, or the
+gonorrh&oelig;a, or women that have their monthly courses, or such as are
+otherwise polluted, it is not lawful for them to be partakers of this
+sacrifice; nor indeed for any foreigners neither, who come hither to
+worship.</p>
+
+<p>Now this vast multitude is indeed collected out of remote places, but
+the entire nation was now shut up by fate as in prison, and the Roman
+army encompassed the city when it was crowded with inhabitants.
+Accordingly, the multitude of those that therein perished exceeded all
+the destructions that either men or God ever brought upon the world;
+for, to speak only of what was publicly known, the Romans slew some of
+them, some they carried captives, and others they made a search for
+underground, and when they found where they were they broke up the
+ground and slew all they met with. There were also found slain there
+above two thousand persons, partly by their own hands and partly by one
+another, but chiefly destroyed by the famine; but then the ill-savor of
+the dead bodies was most offensive to those that lighted upon them,
+insomuch that some were obliged to get away immediately, while others
+were so greedy of gain that they would go in among the dead bodies that
+lay on heaps and tread upon them, for a great deal of treasure was found
+in these caverns, and the hope of gain made every way of getting it to
+be esteemed lawful.</p>
+
+<p>Many also of those that had been put in prison by the tyrants were now
+brought out, for they did not leave off their barbarous cruelty at the
+very last; yet did God avenge himself upon upon them both in a manner
+agreeable to justice. As for John, he wanted food, together with his
+brethren, in these caverns, and begged that the Romans would now give<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>
+him their right hand for his security, which he had often proudly
+rejected before; but for Simon, he struggled hard with the distress he
+was in, till he was forced to surrender himself. So he was reserved for
+the triumph, and to be then slain, as was John condemned to perpetual
+imprisonment. And now the Romans set fire to the extreme parts of the
+city, and burned them down, and entirely demolished its walls.</p>
+
+<p>And thus was Jerusalem taken, in the second year of the reign of
+Vespasian, on the eighth day of the month Gorpieus (Elul). It had been
+taken five times before, though this was the second time of its
+desolation, for Shishak, the king of Egypt, and after him Antiochus, and
+after him Pompey, and after them Sosius and Herod, took the city, but
+still preserved it; but before all these the king of Babylon conquered
+it and made it desolate, one thousand four hundred and sixty-eight years
+and six months after it was built.</p>
+
+<p>But he who first built it was a potent man among the Canaanites, and is
+in our own tongue called (Melchisedek), the righteous king, for such he
+really was. On which account he was (there) the first priest of God, and
+first built a temple (there), and called the city Jerusalem, which was
+formerly called Salem. However, David, the king of the Jews, ejected the
+Canaanites, and settled his own people therein.</p>
+
+<p>It was demolished entirely by the Babylonians, four hundred and
+seventy-seven years and six months after him. And from King David, who
+was the first of the Jews who reigned therein, to this destruction under
+Titus, were one thousand one hundred and seventy-nine years; but from
+its first building till this last destruction were two thousand one
+hundred and seventy-seven years; yet hath not its great antiquity, nor
+its vast riches, nor the diffusion of its nation over all the habitable
+earth, nor the greatness of the veneration paid to it on a religious
+account, been sufficient to preserve it from being destroyed. And thus
+ended the siege of Jerusalem.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Not to be confounded with John of Gischala, leader of one
+of the three factions.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> John of Gischala.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Probably that of John Hyrcanus I, a Maccab&aelig;an, prince of
+Judea, <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> 135-105.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p>
+<h2>DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII</h2>
+
+<h4>A.D. 79</h4>
+
+<h3>
+PLINY&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;LYTTON
+</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Among the historic calamities of the world none has gathered about
+itself more of human interest, whether in connection with the study
+of ancient cities and customs or in the calling forth of sympathy
+through the magical treatment of imaginative literature, than the
+destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum by the eruption of Mount
+Vesuvius, which occurred at the beginning of the reign of Titus.
+The eruption was accompanied by an earthquake, and the combination
+of natural commotions caused the complete ruin and burial of the
+two cities.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most vivid descriptions of the catastrophe is that given
+in the account of Dion Cassius. Among those who perished in the
+disaster was the elder Pliny, the celebrated naturalist; and the
+most famous narrative of the eruption is that here given of Pliny
+the Younger, nephew of the other, in the two letters which he wrote
+to Tacitus in order to supply that historian with accurate details.</p>
+
+<p>Lytton's well-known <i>Last Days of Pompeii</i>, although a work of
+imagination, deals with this subject in a manner which almost
+simulates the realistic tale of an actual observer; and his
+account, linking the calamity itself with the revelations of the
+earlier explorers of the buried city, after so many centuries had
+passed, well deserves a place in connection with the story of the
+older and more circumstantial writer.</p>
+
+<p>One of the earliest important discoveries at Pompeii, made in 1771,
+was that of the "Villa of Diomedes," named from the tomb of Marcus
+Arrius Diomedes across the street. Since then every decade has seen
+some progress in the work of excavation, and among other buildings
+brought to light are the "House of Pansa," the "House of the Tragic
+Poet," the "House of Sallustius," the "Castor and Pollux," a double
+house, and the "House of the Vettii"&mdash;the last, a recent discovery,
+being left with all its furnishings as found. Many interesting
+objects have been discovered lately, and a complete picture can now
+be presented of a small Italian city and its life in the first
+century <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> Valuable finds are wall paintings, illustrative of
+decorative art; floor mosaics, etc., which may be seen in the Royal
+Museum of Naples. Another of the most recent discoveries is that of
+the temple of Venus Pompeiana in the southern corner of the city;
+others are the remains of persons who, carrying valuables, perished
+in a wayside inn where they had sought refuge. At the present time
+about one-half of the city has been excavated, and the circuit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> of
+the walls has been found to be about two miles. The uncovering of
+the whole city will probably require many years. Excavations now
+being made in the adjacent country promise results as interesting
+as those already obtained within the city limits.</p></div>
+
+
+<h4>PLINY</h4>
+
+<p>Your request that I would send you an account of my uncle's death, in
+order to transmit a more exact relation of it to posterity, deserves my
+acknowledgments; for, if this accident shall be celebrated by your pen,
+the glory of it, I am well assured, will be rendered forever
+illustrious. And notwithstanding he perished by a misfortune, which as
+it involved at the same time a most beautiful country in ruins, and
+destroyed so many populous cities, seems to promise him an everlasting
+remembrance; notwithstanding he has himself composed many and lasting
+works; yet I am persuaded, the mentioning of him in your immortal
+writings will greatly contribute to render his name immortal.</p>
+
+<p>Happy I esteem those to be to whom by provision of the gods has been
+granted the ability either to do such actions as are worthy of being
+related or to relate them in a manner worthy of being read; but
+peculiarly happy are they who are blessed with both these uncommon
+talents: in the number of which my uncle, as his own writings and your
+history will evidently prove, may justly be ranked. It is with extreme
+willingness, therefore, that I execute your commands; and should indeed
+have claimed the task if you had not enjoined it. He was at that time
+with the fleet under his command at Misenum.</p>
+
+<p>On the 24th of August, about one in the afternoon, my mother desired him
+to observe a cloud which appeared of a very unusual size and shape. He
+had just taken a turn in the sun,<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> and, after bathing himself in cold
+water, and making a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> light luncheon, gone back to his books: he
+immediately arose and went out upon a rising ground from whence he might
+get a better sight of this very uncommon appearance. A cloud, from which
+mountain was uncertain at this distance (but it was found afterward to
+come from Mount Vesuvius<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a>) was ascending, the appearance of which I
+cannot give you a more exact description of than by likening it to that
+of a pine tree, for it shot up to a great height in the form of a very
+tall trunk, which spread itself out at the top into a sort of branches;
+occasioned, I imagine, either by a sudden gust of air that impelled it,
+the force of which decreased as it advanced upward, or the cloud itself,
+being pressed back again by its own weight, expanded in the manner I
+have mentioned; it appeared sometimes bright and sometimes dark and
+spotted, according as it was either more or less impregnated with earth
+and cinders.</p>
+
+<p>This phenomenon seemed to a man of such learning and research as my
+uncle extraordinary and worth further looking into. He ordered a light
+vessel to be got ready, and gave me leave, if I liked, to accompany him.
+I said I had rather go on with my work; and it so happened he had
+himself given me something to write out. As he was coming out of the
+house, he received a note from Rectina, the wife of Bassus, who was in
+the utmost alarm at the imminent danger which threatened her; for her
+villa lying at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, there was no way of escape
+but by sea; she earnestly entreated him therefore to come to her
+assistance.</p>
+
+<p>He accordingly changed his first intention, and what he had begun from a
+philosophical, he now carried out in a noble and generous, spirit. He
+ordered the galleys to put to sea, and went himself on board with an
+intention of assisting not only Rectina, but the several other towns
+which lay thickly strewn along that beautiful coast. Hastening then to
+the place from whence others fled with the utmost terror, he steered his
+course direct to the point of danger, and with so much calmness and
+presence of mind as to be able to make and dictate his observations upon
+the motion and all the phenomena of that dreadful scene. He was now so
+close to the mountain that the cinders, which grew thicker and hotter
+the nearer he approached, fell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> into the ships, together with
+pumice-stones and black pieces of burning rock: they were in danger too
+not only of being aground by the sudden retreat of the sea, but also
+from the vast fragments which rolled down from the mountain and
+obstructed all the shore. Here he stopped to consider whether he should
+turn back again; to which the pilot advising him, "Fortune," said he,
+"favors the brave; steer to where Pomponianus is." Pomponianus was then
+at Stabi&aelig;, separated by a bay, which the sea, after several insensible
+windings, forms with the shore. He had already sent his baggage on
+board; for though he was not at that time in actual danger, yet being
+within sight of it, and indeed extremely near, if it should in the least
+increase, he was determined to put to sea as soon as the wind, which was
+blowing dead in-shore, should go down. It was favorable, however, for
+carrying my uncle to Pomponianus, whom he found in the greatest
+consternation: he embraced him tenderly, encouraging and urging him to
+keep up his spirits, and, the more effectually to soothe his fears by
+seeming unconcerned himself, ordered a bath to be got ready, and then,
+after having bathed, sat down to supper with great cheerfulness, or at
+least&mdash;what is just as heroic&mdash;with every appearance of it.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile broad flames shone out in several places from Mount Vesuvius,
+which the darkness of the night contributed to render still brighter and
+clearer. But my uncle, in order to soothe the apprehensions of his
+friend, assured him it was only the burning of the villages, which the
+country people had abandoned to the flames. After this he retired to
+rest, and it is most certain he was so little disquieted as to fall into
+a sound sleep, for his breathing, which, on account of his corpulence,
+was rather heavy and sonorous, was heard by the attendants outside.</p>
+
+<p>The court which led to his apartment being now almost filled with stones
+and ashes, if he had continued there any time longer, it would have been
+impossible for him to have made his way out. So he was awoke and got up,
+and went to Pomponianus and the rest of his company, who were feeling
+too anxious to think of going to bed. They consulted together whether it
+would be most prudent to trust to the houses&mdash;which now rocked from side
+to side with frequent and violent concussions as though shaken from
+their very foundations&mdash;or fly to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> the open fields, where the calcined
+stones and cinders, though light indeed, yet fell in large showers and
+threatened destruction. In this choice of dangers they resolved for the
+fields: a resolution which, while the rest of the company were hurried
+into by their fears, my uncle embraced upon cool and deliberate
+consideration. They went out then, having pillows tied upon their heads
+with napkins; and this was their whole defence against the storm of
+stones that fell round them.</p>
+
+<p>It was now day everywhere else, but <i>there</i> a deeper darkness prevailed
+than in the thickest night; which, however, was in some degree
+alleviated by torches and other lights of various kinds. They thought
+proper to go farther down upon the shore to see if they might safely put
+out to sea, but found the waves still running extremely high and
+boisterous. There my uncle, laying himself down upon a sail-cloth, which
+was spread for him, called twice for some cold water, which he drank,
+when immediately the flames, preceded by a strong whiff of sulphur,
+dispersed the rest of the party, and obliged him to rise. He raised
+himself up with the assistance of two of his servants, and instantly
+fell down dead; suffocated, as I conjecture, by some gross and noxious
+vapor, having always had a weak throat, which was often inflamed.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as it was light again, which was not till the third day after
+this melancholy accident, his body was found entire, and without any
+marks of violence upon it, in the dress in which he fell, and looking
+more like a man asleep than dead. During all this time my mother and I,
+who were at Misenum&mdash;but this has no connection with your history, and
+you did not desire any particulars besides those of my uncle's death, so
+I will end here, only adding that I have faithfully related to you what
+I was either an eye-witness of myself or received immediately after the
+accident happened, and before there was time to vary the truth. You will
+pick out of this narrative whatever is most important: for a letter is
+one thing, a history another; it is one thing writing to a friend,
+another thing writing to the public. Farewell.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The letter which, in compliance with your request, I wrote to you
+concerning the death of my uncle has raised, it seems,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> your curiosity
+to know what terrors and dangers attended me while I continued at
+Misenum; for there, I think, my account broke off:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Though my shock'd soul recoils, my tongue shall tell."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>My uncle having left us, I spent such time as was left on my studies&mdash;it
+was on their account indeed that I had stopped behind&mdash;till it was time
+for my bath. After which I went to supper, and then fell into a short
+and uneasy sleep. There had been noticed for many days before, a
+trembling of the earth, which did not alarm us much, as this is quite an
+ordinary occurrence in Campania; but it was so particularly violent that
+night that it not only shook but actually overturned, as it would seem,
+everything about us.</p>
+
+<p>My mother rushed into my chamber, where she found me rising in order to
+awaken her. We sat down in the open court of the house, which occupied a
+small space between the buildings and the sea. As I was at that time but
+eighteen years of age, I know not whether I should call my behavior, in
+this dangerous juncture, courage or folly; but I took up Livy, and
+amused myself with turning over that author, and even making extracts
+from him, as if I had been perfectly at my leisure. Just then, a friend
+of my uncle's, who had lately come to him from Spain, joined us, and
+observing me sitting by my mother with a book in my hand, reproved her
+for her calmness, and me at the same time for my careless security:
+nevertheless I went on with my author.</p>
+
+<p>Though it was now morning, the light was still exceedingly faint and
+doubtful; the buildings all around us tottered, and though we stood upon
+open ground, yet, as the place was narrow and confined, there was no
+remaining without imminent danger: we therefore resolved to quit the
+town. A panic-stricken crowd followed us, and&mdash;as to a mind distracted
+with terror every suggestion seems more prudent than its own&mdash;pressed on
+us in dense array to drive us forward as we came out. Being at a
+convenient distance from the houses, we stood still, in the midst of a
+most dangerous and dreadful scene.</p>
+
+<p>The chariots, which we had ordered to be drawn out, were so agitated
+backward and forward, though upon the most level<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> ground, that we could
+not keep them steady, even by supporting them with large stones. The sea
+seemed to roll back upon itself, and to be driven from its banks by the
+convulsive motion of the earth; it is certain at least the shore was
+considerably enlarged, and several sea animals were left upon it. On the
+other side, a black and dreadful cloud, broken with rapid, zig-zag
+flashes, revealed behind it variously shaped masses of flame: these last
+were like sheet lightning, but much larger. Upon this our Spanish
+friend, whom I mentioned above, addressing himself to my mother and me
+with great energy and urgency: "If your brother," he said, "if your
+uncle be safe, he certainly wishes you may be so too; but if he
+perished, it was his desire, no doubt, that you might both survive him:
+why therefore do you delay your escape a moment?"</p>
+
+<p>We could never think of our own safety, we said, while we were uncertain
+of his. Upon this our friend left us, and withdrew from the danger with
+the utmost precipitation. Soon afterward, the cloud began to descend and
+cover the sea. It had already surrounded and concealed the island of
+Capre&aelig;<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> and the promontory of Misenum.</p>
+
+<p>My mother now besought, urged, even commanded me to make my escape at
+any rate, which, as I was young, I might easily do; as for herself, she
+said, her age and corpulency rendered all attempts of that sort
+impossible; however, she would willingly meet death if she could have
+the satisfaction of seeing that she was not the occasion of mine. But I
+absolutely refused to leave her, and, taking her by the hand, compelled
+her to go with me. She complied with great reluctance, and not without
+many reproaches to herself for retarding my flight. The ashes now began
+to fall upon us, though in no great quantity. I looked back; a dense,
+dark mist seemed to be following us, spreading itself over the country
+like a cloud. "Let us turn out of the high-road," I said, "while we can
+still see, for fear that, should we fall in the road, we should be
+pressed to death in the dark by the crowds that are following us."</p>
+
+<p>We had scarcely sat down when night came upon us, not such as we have
+when the sky is cloudy, or when there is no moon, but that of a room
+when it is shut up and all the lights<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> put out. You might hear the
+shrieks of women, the screams of children, and the shouts of men; some
+calling for their children, others for their parents, others for their
+husbands, and seeking to recognize each other by the voices that
+replied; one lamenting his own fate, another that of his family; some
+wishing to die, from the very fear of dying; some lifting their hands to
+the gods; but the greater part convinced that there were now no gods at
+all, and that the final endless night of which we have heard had come
+upon the world.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> Among these there were some who augmented the real
+terrors by others imaginary or wilfully invented. I remember some who
+declared that one part of Misenum had fallen, that another was on fire;
+it was false, but they found people to believe them. It now grew rather
+lighter, which we imagined to be rather the forerunner of an approaching
+burst of flames&mdash;as in truth it was&mdash;than the return of day: however,
+the fire fell at a distance from us: then again we were immersed in
+thick darkness, and a heavy shower of ashes rained upon us, which we
+were obliged every now and then to stand up to shake off, otherwise we
+should have been crushed and buried in the heap.</p>
+
+<p>I might boast that, during all this scene of horror, not a sigh or
+expression of fear escaped me, had not my support been grounded in that
+miserable, though mighty, consolation, that all mankind were involved in
+the same calamity, and that I was perishing with the world itself. At
+last this dreadful darkness was dissipated by degrees, like a cloud or
+smoke; the real day returned, and even the sun shone out, though with a
+lurid light, like when an eclipse is coming on. Every object that
+presented itself to our eyes&mdash;which were extremely weakened&mdash;seemed
+changed, being covered deep with ashes as if with snow.</p>
+
+<p>We returned to Misenum, where we refreshed ourselves as well as we
+could, and passed an anxious night between hope and fear; though,
+indeed, with a much larger share of the latter; for the earthquake still
+continued, while many frenzied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> persons ran up and down, heightening
+their own and their friends' calamities by terrible predictions.
+However, my mother and I, notwithstanding the danger we had passed and
+that which still threatened us, had no thoughts of leaving the place
+till we could receive some news of my uncle.</p>
+
+<p>And now you will read this narrative without any view of inserting it in
+your history, of which it is not in the least worthy; and indeed you
+must put it down to your own request if it should appear not worth even
+the trouble of a letter. Farewell.</p>
+
+
+<h4>LORD EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON</h4>
+
+<p>The Amphitheatre at Pompeii was crowded to the doors. A lion was at
+large in the arena, and the populace surged toward an Egyptian priest,
+Arbaces, demanding that he be thrown down to be devoured. As the mob
+rolled around him, intent on his death, Arbaces noted a strange and
+awful apparition. His craft made him courageous; he stretched forth his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Behold!" he shouted with a voice of thunder, which stilled the roar of
+the crowd; "behold how the gods protect the guiltless! The fires of the
+avenging Orcus burst forth against the false witness of my accusers!"</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of the crowd followed the gesture of the Egyptian, and beheld,
+with ineffable dismay, a vast vapor shooting from the summit of
+Vesuvius, in the form of a gigantic pine tree; the trunk, blackness&mdash;the
+branches, fire!&mdash;a fire that shifted and wavered in its hues with every
+moment, now fiercely luminous, now of a dull and dying red, that again
+blazed terrifically forth with intolerable glare!</p>
+
+<p>There was a dead, heart-sunken silence&mdash;through which there suddenly
+broke the roar of the lion, which was echoed back from within the
+building by the sharper and fiercer yells of its fellow-beast. Dread
+seers were they of the burden of the atmosphere, and wild prophets of
+the wrath to come!</p>
+
+<p>Then there arose on high the universal shrieks of women; the men stared
+at each other, but were dumb. At that moment they felt the earth shake
+beneath their feet; the walls of the theatre trembled, and beyond, in
+the distance, they heard the crash of falling roofs; an instant more and
+the mountain-cloud<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> seemed to roll toward them, dark and rapid, like a
+torrent; at the same time it cast forth from its bosom a shower of ashes
+mixed with vast fragments of burning stone. Over the crushing
+vines&mdash;over the desolate streets&mdash;over the Amphitheatre itself&mdash;far and
+wide&mdash;with many a mighty splash in the agitated sea&mdash;fell that awful
+shower!</p>
+
+<p>No longer thought the crowd of justice or of Arbaces; safety for
+themselves was their sole thought. Each turned to fly&mdash;each dashing,
+pressing, crushing, against the other. Trampling recklessly over the
+fallen&mdash;amid groans and oaths and prayers and sudden shrieks, the
+enormous crowd vomited itself forth through the numerous passages.
+Whither should they fly? Some, anticipating a second earthquake,
+hastened to their homes to load themselves with their more costly goods,
+and escape while it was yet time; others, dreading the showers of ashes
+that now fell fast, torrent upon torrent, over the streets, rushed under
+the roofs of the nearest houses or temples or sheds&mdash;shelter of any
+kind&mdash;for protection from the terrors of the open air. But darker and
+larger and mightier spread the cloud above them. It was a sudden and
+more ghastly Night rushing upon the realm of Noon!</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the streets were already thinned; the crowd had hastened to
+disperse itself under shelter; the ashes began to fill up the lower
+parts of the town; but, here and there, you heard the steps of fugitives
+cranching them warily, or saw their pale and haggard faces by the blue
+glare of the lightning or the more unsteady glare of torches, by which
+they endeavored to steer their steps. But ever and anon the boiling
+water, or the straggling ashes, mysterious and gusty winds, rising and
+dying in a breath, extinguished these wandering lights, and with them
+the last living hope of those who bore them.</p>
+
+<p>Amid the other horrors, the mighty mountain now cast up columns of
+boiling water. Blent and kneaded with the half-burning ashes, the
+streams fell like seething mud over the streets in frequent intervals.
+And full, where the priests of Isis had now cowered around the altars,
+on which they had vainly sought to kindle fires and pour incense, one of
+the fiercest of those deadly torrents, mingled with immense fragments<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>
+of scoria, had poured its rage. Over the bended forms of the priests it
+dashed: that cry had been of death&mdash;that silence had been of eternity!
+The ashes&mdash;the pitchy stream&mdash;sprinkled the altars, covered the
+pavement, and half concealed the quivering corpses of the priests!</p>
+
+<p>In proportion as the blackness gathered did the lightnings around
+Vesuvius increase in their vivid and scorching glare. Nor was their
+horrible beauty confined to the usual hues of fire; no rainbow ever
+rivalled their varying and prodigal dyes. Now brightly blue as the most
+azure depth of a southern sky&mdash;now of a livid and snakelike green,
+darting restlessly to and fro as the folds of an enormous serpent&mdash;now
+of a lurid and intolerable crimson, gushing forth through the columns of
+smoke, far and wide, and lighting up the whole city from arch to
+arch&mdash;then suddenly dying into a sickly paleness, like the ghost of
+their own life!</p>
+
+<p>In the pauses of the showers you heard the rumbling of the earth beneath
+and the groaning waves of the tortured sea; or, lower still, and audible
+but to the watch of intensest fear, the grinding and hissing murmur of
+the escaping gases through the chasms of the distant mountain. Sometimes
+the cloud appeared to break from its solid mass, and, by the lightning,
+to assume quaint and vast mimicries of human or of monster shapes,
+striding across the gloom, hurtling one upon the other, and vanishing
+swiftly into the turbulent abyss of shade; so that to the eyes and
+fancies of the affrighted wanderers the unsubstantial vapors were as the
+bodily forms of gigantic foes&mdash;the agents of terror and of death.</p>
+
+<p>The ashes in many places were already knee-deep; and the boiling showers
+which came from the steaming breath of the volcano forced their way into
+the houses, bearing with them a strong and suffocating vapor. In some
+places immense fragments of rock, hurled upon the house roofs, bore down
+along the streets masses of confused ruin, which yet more and more, with
+every hour, obstructed the way; and, as the day advanced, the motion of
+the earth was more sensibly felt&mdash;the footing seemed to slide and
+creep&mdash;nor could chariot or litter be kept steady, even on the most
+level ground.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the huger stones, striking against each other as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> they fell,
+broke into countless fragments, emitting sparks of fire, which caught
+whatever was combustible within their reach; and along the plains beyond
+the city the darkness was now terribly relieved, for several houses, and
+even vineyards, had been set on flames; and at various intervals the
+fires rose sullenly and fiercely against the solid gloom. To add to this
+partial relief of the darkness, the citizens had, here and there, in the
+more public places, as the porticoes of temples and the entrances to the
+forum, endeavored to place rows of torches; but these rarely continued
+long; the showers and the winds extinguished them, and the sudden
+darkness into which their sudden birth was converted had something in it
+doubly terrible and doubly impressing on the impotence of human hopes,
+the lesson of despair.</p>
+
+<p>Frequently, by the momentary light of these torches, parties of
+fugitives encountered each other, some hurrying toward the sea, others
+flying from the sea back to the land; for the ocean had retreated
+rapidly from the shore&mdash;an utter darkness lay over it, and upon its
+groaning and tossing waves the storm of cinders and rock fell without
+the protection which the streets and roofs afforded to the land.
+Wild&mdash;haggard&mdash;ghastly with supernatural fears, these groups encountered
+each other, but without the leisure to speak, to consult, to advise; for
+the showers fell now frequently, though not continuously, extinguishing
+the lights, which showed to each band the death-like faces of the other,
+and hurrying all to seek refuge beneath the nearest shelter.</p>
+
+<p>The whole elements of civilization were broken up. Ever and anon, by the
+flickering lights, you saw the thief hastening by the most solemn
+authorities of the law, laden with and fearfully chuckling over the
+produce of his sudden gains. If, in the darkness, wife was separated
+from husband, or parent from child, vain was the hope of reunion. Each
+hurried blindly and confusedly on. Nothing in all the various and
+complicated machinery of social life was left save the primal law of
+self-preservation!</p>
+
+<p>In parts, where the ashes lay dry and uncommixed with the boiling
+torrents, cast upward from the mountain at capricious intervals, the
+surface of the earth presented a leprous and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> ghastly white. In other
+places cinder and rock lay matted in heaps, from beneath which emerged
+the half-hid limbs of some crushed and mangled fugitive.</p>
+
+<p>The groans of the dying were broken by wild shrieks of women's
+terror&mdash;now near, now distant&mdash;which, when heard in the utter darkness,
+were rendered doubly appalling by the crushing sense of helplessness and
+the uncertainty of the perils around; and clear and distinct through all
+were the mighty and various noises from the fatal mountain; its rushing
+winds; its whirling torrents; and, from time to time, the burst and roar
+of some more fiery and fierce explosion. And ever as the winds swept
+howling along the street, they bore sharp streams of burning dust, and
+such sickening and poisonous vapors as took away, for the instant,
+breath and consciousness, followed by a rapid revulsion of the arrested
+blood, and a tingling sensation of agony trembling through every nerve
+and fibre of the frame.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly all became lighted with an intense and lurid glow. Bright and
+gigantic through the darkness, which closed around it like the walls of
+hell, the mountain shone&mdash;a pile of fire! Its summit seemed riven in
+two; or rather, above its surface there seemed to rise two monster
+shapes, each confronting each, as demons contending for a world. These
+were of one deep blood-red hue of fire, which lighted up the whole
+atmosphere far and wide; but <i>below</i>, the nether part of the mountain
+was still dark and shrouded, save in three places, adown which flowed,
+serpentine and irregular, rivers of molten lava. Darkly red through the
+profound gloom of their banks they flowed slowly on, as toward the
+devoted city. Over the broadest there seemed to spring a cragged and
+stupendous arch, from which, as from the jaws of hell, gushed the
+sources of the sudden Phlegethon. And through the still air was heard
+the rattling of the fragments of rock, hurtling one upon another as they
+were borne down the fiery cataracts&mdash;darkening, for one instant, the
+spot where they fell, and suffused the next, in the burnished hues of
+the flood in which they floated!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Nearly seventeen centuries had rolled away when the city of Pompeii was
+disinterred from its silent tomb,<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> all vivid with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> undimmed hues; its
+walls fresh as if painted yesterday&mdash;not a hue faded on the rich mosaic
+of its floors&mdash;in its forum the half-finished columns as left by the
+workman's hand&mdash;in its gardens the sacrificial tripod&mdash;in its halls the
+chest of treasure&mdash;in its baths the <i>strigil</i>&mdash;in its theatres the
+counter of admission&mdash;in its saloons the furniture and the lamp&mdash;in its
+<i>triclinia</i> the fragments of the last feast&mdash;in its <i>cubicula</i> the
+perfumes and the rouge of faded beauty&mdash;and everywhere the bones and
+skeletons of those who once moved the springs of that minute yet
+gorgeous machine of luxury and of life!</p>
+
+<p>In the house of Diomed, in the subterranean vaults, twenty skeletons
+(one of a babe) were discovered in one spot by the door, covered by a
+fine ashen dust, that had evidently been wafted slowly through the
+apertures, until it had filled the whole space. There were jewels and
+coins, candelabra for unavailing light, and wine hardened in the
+<i>amphor&aelig;</i> for the prolongation of agonized life. The sand, consolidated
+by damps, had taken the forms of the skeletons as in a cast; and the
+traveller may yet see the impression of a female neck and bosom of young
+and round proportions. It seems to the inquirer as if the air had been
+gradually changed into a sulphurous vapor; the inmates of the vaults had
+rushed to the door, to find it closed and blocked up by the scoria
+without, and, in their attempts to force it, had been suffocated with
+the atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>In the garden was found a skeleton with a key by its bony hand, and near
+it a bag of coins. This is believed to have been the master of the
+house, who had probably sought to escape by the garden, and been
+destroyed either by the vapors or some fragment of stone. Beside some
+silver vases lay another skeleton, probably that of a slave.</p>
+
+<p>Various theories as to the exact mode by which Pompeii was destroyed
+have been invented by the ingenious; I have adopted that which is the
+most generally received, and which, upon inspecting the strata, appears
+the only one admissible by common sense; namely, a destruction by
+showers of ashes and boiling water, mingled with frequent irruptions of
+large stones, and aided by partial convulsions of the earth.
+Herculaneum, on the contrary, appears to have received not only the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+showers of ashes, but also inundations from molten lava; and the streams
+referred to must be considered as destined for that city rather than for
+Pompeii. Volcanic lightnings were evidently among the engines of ruin at
+Pompeii. Papyrus, and other of the more inflammable materials, are found
+in a burned state. Some substances in metal are partially melted; and a
+bronze statue is completely shivered, as by lightning. Upon the
+whole&mdash;excepting only the inevitable poetic license of shortening the
+time which the destruction occupied&mdash;I believe my description of that
+awful event is very little assisted by invention, and will be found not
+the less accurate for its appearance in a romance.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> The Romans used to lie or walk naked in the sun, after
+anointing their bodies with oil, which was esteemed as greatly
+contributing to health, and therefore daily practised by them. This
+custom, however, of anointing themselves, is inveighed against by the
+satirists as in the number of their luxurious indulgences; but since we
+find the elder Pliny here, and the amiable Spurinna in a former letter,
+practising this method, we cannot suppose the thing itself was esteemed
+unmanly, but only when it was attended with some particular
+circumstances of an over-refined delicacy.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> About six miles distant from Naples.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> An island near Naples, now called Capri.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> The Stoic and Epicurean philosophers held that the world
+was to be destroyed by fire, and all things fall again into original
+chaos; not excepting even the national gods themselves from the
+destruction of this general conflagration.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Destroyed <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 79; first discovered <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1750.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE JEWS' LAST STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM: THEIR FINAL DISPERSION</h2>
+
+<h4>A.D. 132</h4>
+
+<h3>CHARLES MERIVALE</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The successful revolt of the Maccabees against the bloody
+persecutions of the Assyrian king Antiochus Epiphanes, about <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>
+164, inaugurated a glorious epoch in Jewish history. From that time
+the Jews enjoyed their freedom under the dynasty of their
+priest-kings till, <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> 63, the Romans under Pompey took possession
+of Jerusalem. A period of Roman tyranny and oppression followed. In
+<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 66-70 a great revolt of the Jews occurred. The Romans burned
+Jerusalem to the ground. Josephus says the number killed in this
+revolt was one million one hundred thousand, and the number of
+prisoners ninety-seven thousand. Of those who survived, "all above
+seventeen years old were sent to Egypt to work in the mines, or
+distributed among the provinces to be exhibited as gladiators in
+the public theatres and in the combats against wild beasts."</p>
+
+<p>About fifty years later, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>, 116, a tremendous uprising occurred
+among the Jews of the eastern Mediterranean, in which many lives
+were lost. It was quickly suppressed by the emperor Trajan, and the
+punishments were similar in cruelty to those which followed the
+previous insurrection.</p>
+
+<p>But this dauntless people were not yet conquered. When the emperor
+Hadrian, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>, 130, arrived at Jerusalem on his tour of the empire,
+he resolved that the holy city of the Jews should be rebuilt as a
+Roman colony, and its name changed to &AElig;lia Capitolina; and the Jews
+were forbidden to sojourn in the new city. By this and other
+measures the spark of revolt was once more kindled among the
+religious and patriotic spirits of the Jewish nation. The Jews in
+Palestine flew to arms, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>, 132, encouraged by the prayers, the
+vows, and the material support of their compatriots in Rome,
+Byzantium, Alexandria, and Babylon. The Jewish war-cry echoed
+around the civilized world.</p>
+
+<p>A fitting leader for the insurrectionists soon appeared in the
+person of Simon Barcochebas. Julius Severus, who was in Britain
+ordering the affairs of that distant province, was summoned to the
+East to quell the disturbance, which had swollen to the dimensions
+of a revolution and threatened to abolish Roman authority in
+Palestine. The conflict which ensued lasted from <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 132 to 135,
+and was very bitterly contested on both sides. It was not before
+the Hebrew leader fell amid thousands of his followers that the
+Jewish forces were defeated. We are told that in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> this last
+revolution the Romans took fifty fortresses, nine hundred and
+eighty-five villages were occupied, and that the people killed
+numbered five hundred and eighty thousand. The Jews were dispersed
+to every quarter of the known world and remain so to this day. The
+new city of Hadrian continued to exist, but did not prosper; and
+the Jews were prohibited under penalty of death from ever setting
+foot in Jerusalem.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The thread of imperial life could hardly snap without a jar which would
+be felt throughout the whole extent of the empire. Trajan, like
+Alexander, had been cut off suddenly in the Far East, and, like
+Alexander, he had left no avowed successor. Several of his generals
+abroad might advance nearly equal claims to the sword of Trajan; some of
+the senators at home might deem themselves not unworthy of the purple of
+Nerva.</p>
+
+<p>On every side there was an army or faction ready to devote itself to the
+service of its favorite or its champion.</p>
+
+<p>The provinces lately annexed were at the same time in a state of ominous
+agitation; along one half of the frontiers Britons, Germans, and
+Sarmatians were mustering their forces for invasion; a virulent
+insurrection was still glowing throughout a large portion of the empire.
+Nevertheless, the compact body of the Roman Commonwealth was still held
+firmly together by its inherent self-attraction. There was no tendency
+to split in pieces, as in the ill-cemented masses of the Macedonian
+conquest; and the presence of mind of a clever woman was well employed
+in effecting the peaceful transfer of power and relieving the State from
+the stress of disruption.</p>
+
+<p>Of the accession of Publius &AElig;lius Hadrianus, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>, 117, to the empire;
+of the means by which it was effected; of the character and reputation
+he brought with him to the throne; of the first measures of his reign,
+by which he renounced the latest conquests of his predecessor, while he
+put forth all his power to retain the realms bequeathed him from an
+earlier period&mdash;is matter for another story.</p>
+
+<p>But let us turn to a review of eastern affairs; to the great Jewish
+insurrection, and the important consequences which followed from it.
+Trajan was surely fortunate in the moment of his death. Vexed, as he
+doubtless was, by the frustration of his grand designs for incorporating
+the Parthian monarchy with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> the Roman, and fulfilling the idea of
+universal empire which had flitted through the mind of Pompius or
+Julius, but had been deliberately rejected by Augustus and Vespasian,
+his proud spirit would have been broken indeed had he lived to witness
+the difficulties in which Rome was plunged at his death, the spread of
+the Jewish revolt in Asia and Palestine, the aggressions of the Moors,
+the Scythians, and the Britons at the most distant points of his
+dominions.</p>
+
+<p>The momentary success of the insurgents of Cyprus and Cyrene had
+prompted a general assurance that the conquering race was no longer
+invincible, and the last great triumphs of its legions were followed by
+a rebound of fortune still more momentous.</p>
+
+<p>The first act of the new reign was the formal relinquishment of the new
+provinces beyond the Euphrates. The Parthian tottered back with feeble
+step to his accustomed frontiers. Arabia was left unmolested; India was
+no longer menaced. Armenia found herself once more suspended between two
+rival empires, of which the one was too weak to seize, the other too
+weak to retain her.</p>
+
+<p>All the forces of Rome in the East were now set free to complete the
+suppression of the Jewish disturbances. The flames of insurrection which
+had broken out in so many remote quarters were concentrated, and burned
+more fiercely than ever in the ancient centre of the Jewish nationality.</p>
+
+<p>Martius Turbo, appointed to command in Palestine, was equally amazed at
+the fanaticism and the numbers of people whose faith had been mocked,
+whose hopes frustrated, whose young men had been decimated, whose old
+men, women, and children had been enslaved and exiled. Under the
+teaching of the doctors of Tiberia faith had been cherished and hope had
+revived. Despised and unmolested for fifty years, a new generation had
+risen from the soil of their ancestors, recruited by the multitudes who
+flocked homeward, year by year, with an unextinguishable love of
+country, and re&euml;nforced by the fugitives from many scenes of
+persecution, all animated with a growing conviction that the last
+struggle of their race was at hand, to be contested on the site of their
+old historic triumphs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is not perhaps wholly fanciful to imagine that the Jewish leaders,
+after the fall of their city and Temple and the great dispersion of
+their people, deliberately invented new means for maintaining their
+cherished nationality. Their conquerors, as they might observe, were
+scattered like themselves over the face of the globe and abode wherever
+they conquered; but the laws, the manners, and the traditions of Rome
+were preserved almost intact amid alien races by the consciousness that
+there existed a visible centre of their nation, the source, as it were,
+to which they might repair to draw the waters of political life. But the
+dispersions of the Jews seemed the more irremediable as the destruction
+of their central home was complete.</p>
+
+<p>To preserve the existence of their nation one other way presented
+itself. In their sacred books they retained a common bond of law and
+doctrine, such as no other people could boast. In these venerated
+records they possessed, whether on the Tiber or the Euphrates, an elixir
+of unrivalled virtue. With a sudden revulsion of feeling the popular
+orators and captains betook themselves to the study of law, its history
+and antiquities, its actual text and its inner meaning. The schools of
+Tiberias resounded with debate on the rival principles of
+interpretation, the ancient and the modern, the stricter and the laxer,
+known respectively by the names of their teachers, Schammai and Hillel.</p>
+
+<p>The doctors decided in favor of the more accommodating system, by which
+the stern exclusiveness of the original letter was extenuated, and the
+law of the rude tribes of Palestine moulded to the varied taste and
+temper of a cosmopolitan society, while the text itself was embalmed in
+the <i>Masora</i>, an elaborate system of punctuation and notation, to every
+particle of which, to insure its uncorrupted preservation, a mystical
+significance was attached. By this curious contrivance the letter of the
+Law, the charter of Judaism, was sanctified forever, while its spirit
+was remodelled to the exigencies of the present or the future, till it
+would have been no longer recognized by its authors, or even by very
+recent disciples. To this new learning of traditions and glosses the
+ardent youth of the nation devoted itself with a fanaticism not less
+vehement than that which had fought and bled half a century before. The
+name<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> of the rabbi Akiba is preserved as a type of the hierophant of
+restored Judaism.</p>
+
+<p>The stories depicting him are best expounded as myths and figures. He
+reached, it was said, the age of a hundred and twenty years, the period
+assigned in the sacred records to his prototype, the law-giver Moses.</p>
+
+<p>Like David, in his youth he kept sheep on the mountains; like Jacob, he
+served a master, a rich citizen of Jerusalem, for Jerusalem in his youth
+was still standing. His master's daughter cast the eyes of affection
+upon him and offered him a secret marriage; but this damsel was no other
+than Jerusalem itself, so often imaged to the mind of the Jewish people
+by the figure of a maiden, a wife, or a widow.</p>
+
+<p>This mystic bride required him to repair to the schools, acquire
+knowledge and wisdom, surround himself with disciples; and such, as we
+have seen, was the actual policy of the new defenders of Judaism.</p>
+
+<p>The damsel was rebuked by her indignant father; but when, after the
+lapse of twelve years, Akiba returned to claim his bride, with twelve
+thousand scholars at his heels, he heard her replying that, long as he
+had been absent, she only wished him to prolong his stay twice over, so
+as to double his knowledge; whereupon he returned patiently to his
+studies, and frequented the schools twelve years longer. Twice twelve
+years thus passed, he returned once more with twice twelve thousand
+disciples, and then his wife received him joyfully, and, covered as she
+was with rags, an outcast and a beggar, he presented her to his
+astonished followers as the being to whom he owed his wisdom, his fame,
+and his fortune.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the legends with which the new learning was consecrated to the
+defence of Jewish nationality.</p>
+
+<p>The concentration of the Roman forces on the soil of Palestine seems to
+have repressed for a season all overt attempts at insurrection.</p>
+
+<p>The Jewish leaders restrained their followers from action as long as it
+was possible to feed their spirit with hopes only. It was not till about
+the fourteenth year of Hadrian's reign that the final revolt broke out.</p>
+
+<p>When the Jews of Palestine launched forth upon the war,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> the doctor
+Akiba gave place to the warrior Barcochebas. This gallant warrior, the
+last of the national heroes, received or assumed his title, "the Son of
+the Star," given successively to several leaders of the Jewish people,
+in token of the fanatic expectations of divine deliverance by which his
+countrymen did not yet cease to be animated. Many were the legends which
+declared this champion's claims to the leadership of the national cause.
+His size and strength were vaunted as more than human. "It was the arm
+of God, not of man," said Hadrian when he saw at last the corpse
+encircled by a serpent, "that could alone strike down the giant." Flame
+and smoke were seen to issue from his lips in speaking, a portent which
+was rationalized centuries later into a mere conjurer's artifice. The
+concourse of the Jewish nation at his summons was symbolized, with a
+curious reference to the prevalent idea of Israel as a school and the
+Law as a master, by the story that at Bethar, the appointed rendezvous
+and last stronghold of the national defence, were four hundred
+academies, each ruled by four hundred teachers, each teacher boasting a
+class of four hundred pupils.</p>
+
+<p>Akiba, now at the extreme point of his protracted existence, like Samuel
+of old, nominated the new David to the chiefship of the people. He
+girded Barcochebas with the sword of Jehovah, placed the staff of
+command in his hand, and held himself the stirrup by which he vaulted
+into the saddle.</p>
+
+<p>The last revolt of the Jewish people was precipitated apparently by the
+increased severity of the measures which the rebellion under Trajan had
+drawn down. They complained that Hadrian had enrolled himself as a
+proselyte of the Law, and were doubly incensed against him as a
+persecutor and a renegade.</p>
+
+<p>This assertion, indeed, may have no foundation. On the other hand, it is
+not unlikely that this prince, a curious explorer of religions of
+opinions, had sought initiation into some of the mysteries of the Jewish
+faith and ritual.</p>
+
+<p>But however this may be, he gave them mortal offence by perceiving the
+clear distinction between Judaism and Christianity, and by forbidding
+the Jews to sojourn in the town which he was again raising on the ruins
+of Jerusalem, while he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> allowed free access to their rivals. He is said
+to have even prohibited the rite of circumcision by which they jealously
+maintained their separation from the nations of the West.</p>
+
+<p>At last, when they rose in arms, he sent his best generals against them.
+Tinnius Rufus was long baffled and often defeated; but Julius Severus,
+following the tactics of Vespasian, constantly refused the battle they
+offered him, and reduced their strongholds in succession by superior
+discipline and resources. Barcochebas struggled with the obstinacy of
+despair. Every excess of cruelty was committed on both sides, and it is
+well, perhaps, that the details of this mortal spasm are almost wholly
+lost to us.</p>
+
+<p>The later Christian writers, while they allude with unseemly exultation
+to the overthrow of one inveterate enemy by another who proved himself
+in the end not less inveterate, affirmed that the barbarities of the
+Jewish leader were mainly directed against themselves.</p>
+
+<p>On such interested assertions we shall place little reliance. In the
+counter-narration of the Jews even the name of Christian is
+contemptuously disregarded. It relates, however, how at the storming of
+Bethar, when Barcochebas perished in the field, ten of the most learned
+of the rabbis were taken and put cruelly to death, while Akiba, reserved
+to expire last, and torn in pieces with hot pincers, continued to attest
+the great principle of the Jewish doctrine, still exclaiming in his
+death throes, <i>Jehovah Erhad</i>! ("God is one").</p>
+
+<p>The Jews who fell in these their latest combats are counted by hundreds
+of thousands, and we may conclude that the suppression of the revolt was
+followed by sanguinary proscriptions, by wholesale captivity and general
+banishment. The dispersion of the unhappy race, particularly in the
+West, was now complete and final. The sacred soil of Jerusalem was
+occupied by a Roman colony, which received the name of &AElig;lia Capitolina,
+with reference to the Emperor who founded it, and to the supreme God of
+the pagan mythology, installed on the desecrated summits of Zion and
+Moriah.</p>
+
+<p>The fane of Jupiter was erected on the site of the holy Temple, and a
+shrine of Venus planted, we are assured, on the very spot hallowed to
+Christians by our Lord's crucifixion. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> Hadrian had no purpose of
+insulting the disciples of Jesus, and this desecration, if the tradition
+be true, was probably accidental. A Jewish legend affirms that the
+figure of a swine was sculptured, in bitter mockery, over a gate of the
+new city. The Jews have retorted with equal scorn that the effigy of the
+unclean animal, which represented to their minds every low and bestial
+appetite, was a fitting emblem of the colony and its founder, of the
+lewd worship of its gods, and the vile propensities of its Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>The fancy of later Christian writers that Hadrian regarded their
+coreligionists with special consideration seems founded on
+misconception. We hear, indeed, of the graciousness with which he
+allowed them, among other sectarians, to defend their usages and expound
+their doctrines in his presence; and doubtless his curiosity, if no
+worthier feeling, was moved by the fact, which he fully appreciated, of
+the interest they excited in certain quarters of the empire. But there
+is no evidence that his favor extended further than to the recognition
+of their independence of the Jews, from whom they now formally separated
+themselves, and the discouragement of the local persecutions to which
+they were occasionally subjected.</p>
+
+<p>So far the bigoted hostility of their enemies was overruled at last in
+their favor.</p>
+
+<p>In another way they learned to profit by the example of their rivals.
+From the recent policy of the Jews they might understand the advantage
+to a scattered community, without a local centre or a political status,
+of erecting in a volume of sacred records their acknowledged standard of
+faith and practice.</p>
+
+<p>The scriptures of the New Testament, like the <i>Nuschua</i> of the Jewish
+rabbis, took the place of the holy of holies as the tabernacle of their
+God and the pledge of their union with him.</p>
+
+<p>The canon of their sacred books, however casual its apparent formation,
+was indeed a providential development. The habitual references of
+bishops and doctors to the words of their Founder, and the writings of
+the first disciples, guided them to the proper sources of their faith
+and taught them justly to discriminate the genuine from the spurious.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Meagre as are the remains of Christian literature of the second century,
+they tend to confirm our assurance that the scriptures of the new
+dispensation were known and recognized as divine at that early period,
+and that the Church of Christ, the future mistress of the world, was
+already become a great social fact, an empire within the empire.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p>
+<h2>MARTYRDOM OF POLYCARP AND JUSTIN MARTYR</h2>
+
+<h3>POLYCARP'S EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS</h3>
+
+<h4>A.D. 155</h4>
+
+<h3>
+H. COX&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;POLYCARP
+</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The Roman emperor Antoninus Pius, who died <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 161, had been
+tolerant to the new Judaic sect known as Christians. Under his mild
+<i>regime</i>, although he did not encourage them, the faithful had
+greatly multiplied. The Christians had become a body great enough
+to be reckoned with in a political sense. The populace were
+generally hostile to them as "enemies of the gods." More than one
+of the apostolic fathers had suffered martyrdom, among them
+Ignatius, a disciple of St. John and bishop of Antioch, who is said
+to have been thrown to the lions in the Circus about <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 107. But
+the account of the martyrdom of Polycarp is probably the first
+authentic description we have.</p>
+
+<p>Polycarp was born about <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 60, probably of Christian parents. He
+bridges the little-known period between the age of his master, the
+apostle John, and that of his own disciple, Iren&aelig;us. During the
+earlier half of the second century he was bishop of Smyrna. Ephesus
+had become the new hope of the faith, and in that city Polycarp had
+received his education and "lived in familiar intercourse with many
+who had seen Christ." He was also intimate with Papias and
+Ignatius. The only writing of Polycarp extant is the Epistle to the
+Philippians, which follows. It is of great value for questions of
+the canon, the origin of the Church, and the Ignatian epistles. Of
+the authenticity of Polycarp's epistle Rev. Father W. O'B. Pardow,
+S.J., says, "There are long and learned controversies about some of
+these [apocryphal] books." Of that in question he says: "Probably
+authentic; not inspired." Archbishop Wake was fully convinced of
+its genuineness, and his translation has been here used.</p>
+
+<p>Justin, surnamed "the Martyr," was born at Sichen, Samaria, about
+<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 100. After his conversion to Christianity he wandered about
+arguing for the truth of the new faith. He was of a bold,
+aggressive nature, and scorned to temporize in things spiritual.
+His language and mode of address were borrowed from the Stoics, but
+were the "true utterance of his own manly soul. 'You can kill us;
+you cannot harm us,'" was his answer when condemned for being a
+Christian. The words proceeded from a believer ready and destined
+to give his life for the faith.</p>
+
+<p>Truly did the blood of the martyrs prove the seed of the Church.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians, hereto annexed, is taken
+from a rare work which contains the uncanonical books of the period
+of Christ's infancy and the early days of the Church, entitled <i>The
+Apocryphal Books of the New Testament</i>. The laity have little
+knowledge of it, but it is well known by the clergy.</p></div>
+
+
+<h4>HOMERSHAM COX</h4>
+
+<p>Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, was undoubtedly a companion of the apostle
+John, and received instruction from other apostles. "About this time,"
+says Eusebius, referring to the commencement of the second century,
+"flourished Polycarp in Asia, an intimate disciple of the apostles, who
+received the episcopate of the Church of Smyrna at the hands of
+eye-witnesses and servants of the Lord."</p>
+
+<p>The lengthened life of the apostle John, who attained to an extreme old
+age, connects the fathers of the second century with the immediate
+followers of Christ. Polycarp must have been a contemporary of St. John
+for about twenty years.</p>
+
+<p>A letter of Iren&aelig;us, who was a pupil of Polycarp, has been preserved,
+which gives a graphic and remarkably interesting account of the familiar
+intercourse of Polycarp with the apostle. The letter is addressed by
+Iren&aelig;us to a friend named Florinus, with whom he remonstrates for
+holding erroneous doctrines:</p>
+
+<p>"These doctrines, O Florinus, to say the least, are not of a sound
+understanding. These doctrines are inconsistent with the Church, and
+calculated to thrust those that follow them into the greatest impiety;
+these doctrines not even the heretics out of the Church ever attempted
+to assert; these doctrines were never delivered to thee by the
+presbyters before us, those who also were the immediate disciples of the
+apostles.</p>
+
+<p>"For I saw thee when I was yet a boy in Lower Asia with Polycarp moving
+in great splendor at court, and endeavoring by all means to gain his
+esteem. I remember the events of those times much better than those of
+more recent occurrence, as the studies of our youth growing with our
+minds unite with them so firmly that I can tell also the very place
+where the blessed Polycarp was accustomed to sit and discourse, and also
+his entrances, his walks, his manner of life, the form of his body, his
+conversations with the people and familiar intercourse with John, as he
+was accustomed to tell, as also his familiarity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> with those that had
+seen the Lord; also concerning his miracles, his doctrine; all these
+were told by Polycarp in consistency with the Holy Scriptures, and he
+had received them from the eye-witnesses of the doctrine of salvation.</p>
+
+<p>"These things, by the mercy of God and the opportunity then afforded me,
+I attentively heard, noting them down, not on paper, but in my heart;
+and these same facts I am always in the habit, by the grace of God, of
+recalling faithfully to mind; and I can bear witness in the sight of God
+that, if that blessed and apostolic presbyter had heard any such thing
+as this, he would have exclaimed and stopped his ears, and, according to
+his custom, would have said: 'O good God! unto what things hast thou
+reserved me, that I should tolerate these things?' He would have fled
+from the place in which he had sat or stood hearing doctrines like
+these.</p>
+
+<p>"From his epistles also, which he wrote to the neighboring churches in
+order to confirm them, or to some of the brethren in order to admonish
+or exhort them, the same thing may be clearly shown."</p>
+
+<p>In another place Iren&aelig;us states that Polycarp was appointed bishop of
+Smyrna by the apostles themselves:</p>
+
+<p>"Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with
+many who had seen Christ, but was also by apostles in Asia appointed
+bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for
+he lived a very long time; and when a very old man, gloriously and most
+nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught
+those things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the
+Church has handed down, and which alone are true."</p>
+
+<p>Of the numerous letters which Polycarp as bishop of Smyrna wrote to the
+neighboring churches only one is extant. It is addressed by "Polycarp
+and the presbyters with him to the Church of God sojourning at
+Philippi," and probably was written about the middle of the second
+century. In this epistle he praises the Philippians for their firm
+Christian faith, and exhorts them to adhere to the doctrine which St.
+Paul had taught them by word of mouth and by his epistle. After various
+exhortations to presbyters, deacons, and other members of the Church,
+Polycarp refers to the martyrdom of Ignatius, but apparently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> was
+ignorant of the circumstances attending it, for the epistle concludes
+with a request for information respecting him.</p>
+
+<p>The martyrdom of Polycarp himself is described in an epistle addressed
+by the Church of Smyrna, of which he was bishop, to the Church of
+Philomelium, a city of the neighboring province of Phrygia. There are
+probably some interpolations; but, excepting these, the document can
+hardly be of much later date than the death of the martyr. There are
+several reasons for this conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, the general tenor shows that it is intended to give
+information of events which had recently happened; secondly, a
+postscript states that a copy of it belonged to Iren&aelig;us, a disciple of
+Polycarp; and thirdly, a large part of it is transcribed by Eusebius,
+who treats it as an authentic document.</p>
+
+<p>The date of the death of Polycarp is well ascertained to be <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 167, in
+the reign of Marcus Aurelius. For some time previously there had been a
+cruel persecution of the Christians at Smyrna, in which both the Gentile
+and Jewish inhabitants took part. Against Polycarp especially, as the
+chief minister of the Christian Church, their hostility was directed.
+After several Christians had been tortured and thrown to the lions, the
+multitude clamored for the death of the bishop.</p>
+
+<p>Yielding to the urgent entreaties of those around him Polycarp quitted
+the city; but he was pursued and brought back. The proconsul, who had
+reluctantly allowed him to be arrested, was anxious to save him.</p>
+
+<p>"When he was led forward, a great tumult arose among those that heard he
+was taken. At length, as he advanced, the proconsul asked him whether he
+was Polycarp, and, he answering that he was, he urged him to deny
+Christ, saying, 'Have a regard for your age,' and adding similar
+expressions such as are usual for them to employ.</p>
+
+<p>"'Swear,' he said, 'by the genius of C&aelig;sar. Repent. Say, "Away with
+those that deny the gods."'</p>
+
+<p>"But Polycarp, with a countenance grave and serious, and contemplating
+the whole multitude that were collected in the stadium, beckoned with
+his hand to them, and with a sigh looked up to heaven and said, 'Away
+with the atheists.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The governor continued to urge him again, saying: 'Swear, and I will
+dismiss you. Revile Christ.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Revile Christ!' Polycarp replied. 'Eighty-and-six years have I served
+him and he never did me wrong; and how can I now blaspheme my King who
+has saved me?'"</p>
+
+<p>The governor continued to urge him, and in vain threatened him with the
+wild beasts. At length a herald was ordered to proclaim in the midst of
+the stadium that "Polycarp confesses he is a Christian." Thereupon the
+multitude cried out, "This is that teacher of Asia, the father of the
+Christians, the destroyer of our gods," and demanded that he should be
+burned alive; and the governor gave sentence accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>According to the horrid custom of the times the executioners were about
+to fasten his hands to the stake by spikes, when he begged that he might
+be bound merely, saying that He who gave him strength to bear the flames
+would also give him strength to remain unmoved on the pyre.</p>
+
+<p>This last request was granted; and being bound to the stake, he uttered
+this beautiful prayer:</p>
+
+<p>"Father of thy well-beloved and blessed Son, Jesus Christ, through whom
+we have received the knowledge of thee, the God of angels and powers and
+all creation, and of all the family of the righteous that live before
+thee, I bless thee that thou hast thought me worthy of the present day
+and hour, to have a share in the number of the martyrs and in the cross
+of Christ unto the resurrection of eternal life, both of the soul and
+body, in the incorruptible felicity of the Holy Spirit, among whom may I
+be received in thy sight this day as a rich and acceptable sacrifice, as
+thou, the faithful and true God, hast prepared, hast revealed, and
+fulfilled. Wherefore, on this account and for all things, I praise thee,
+I bless thee, I glorify thee through the eternal High Priest, Jesus
+Christ, thy well-beloved Son, through whom glory be to thee with him in
+the Holy Ghost, both now and evermore. Amen."</p>
+
+<p>The flames did not immediately seize upon his body; so one of the
+executioners&mdash;in mercy perhaps&mdash;plunged a sword into his body, and so
+ended his sufferings. The centurion then placed the body in the midst of
+the fire and burned it, "according to the custom of the Gentiles."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Thus at last, taking up his bones, valued more than precious stones,
+more tried than gold, we deposited them where they should be. There
+also, as far as we can, the Lord will grant us to celebrate the natal
+day of his martyrdom in joy and gladness, both in commemoration of those
+who finished their contest before, and to prepare those that shall be
+hereafter."</p>
+
+<p>There is something wonderfully touching in this reference to the "natal
+day of his martyrdom." Those who wrote it thought that the day on which
+Polycarp was pierced by the sword was not the day of his death, but the
+birthday of a new and happier life.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Justin, who from the manner of his death is often called Justin Martyr,
+was a native of Samaria. He was of Roman parentage, and was born early
+in the second century, and therefore must have been contemporary with
+many persons who had seen some of the apostles.</p>
+
+<p>Justin, who was addicted to philosophical pursuits, has given in one of
+his works a very curious account of his studies and search after
+religious truth. First, he thought to find it in the Stoic philosophy:</p>
+
+<p>"I surrendered myself to a certain Stoic, and, having spent a
+considerable time with him, when I had not acquired any further
+knowledge of God&mdash;for he did not know it himself, and said such
+instruction was unnecessary&mdash;I left him and betook myself to another,
+who was called a Peripatetic, and, as he fancied, shrewd. And this man,
+after having entertained me for a few days, requested me to settle the
+fee, in order that our intercourse might not be unprofitable. Him, too,
+for this reason I abandoned, believing him to be no philosopher at all."</p>
+
+<p>Disgusted with the mercenary spirit of the Peripatetic, the inquirer
+next determined to make a trial of Pythagorean philosophy. But the
+celebrated Pythagorean teacher whom he consulted wished him to learn
+music, astronomy, and geometry. Those kinds of knowledge, however, were
+not what Justin wanted, and besides he thought that they would take up
+too much time. So he next resolved to make a trial of Platonism; and
+this time he was more successful.</p>
+
+<p>"In my helpless condition it occurred to me to have a meeting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> with the
+Platonists, for their fame was great. I thereupon spent as much of my
+time as possible with one who had lately settled in our city&mdash;a
+sagacious man holding a high position among the Platonists&mdash;and I
+progressed and made the greatest improvements daily. And the perception
+of immaterial things quite overpowered me, and the contemplation of
+ideas furnished my mind with wings, so that in a little while I supposed
+that I had become wise; and such was my folly that I expected forthwith
+to look upon God, for this is the end of Plato's philosophy."</p>
+
+<p>Justin then proceeds to give a remarkably interesting and graphic
+account of his conversion to Christianity:</p>
+
+<p>"And while I was thus disposed, when I wished to be filled with great
+quietness and to shun the path of men, I used to go into a certain field
+not far from the sea. And when I was near that spot one day where I
+purposed to be by myself, a certain old man of dignified appearance,
+exhibiting meek and venerable manners, followed me at a little distance.
+And when I turned around on him, having halted, I fixed my eyes rather
+keenly upon him."</p>
+
+<p>Justin gets into conversation with the old man and says that he delights
+in solitary spots, where his attention is not distracted and where his
+converse with himself is uninterrupted, and proceeds to a fervid
+laudation of philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>"'Does philosophy, then, make happiness?' said he, interrupting.
+'Assuredly,' said I, 'and it alone.' 'What, then, is philosophy?' he
+said, 'and what is happiness? Pray tell me, unless something hinders you
+from saying.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Philosophy,' said I, 'is a knowledge of that which really exists and a
+clear perception of truth, and happiness is the reward of such knowledge
+and wisdom.' 'But what do you call God?' said he. 'That which always
+maintains the same nature and is the cause of all other things&mdash;that,
+indeed, is God.' So I answered him, and he listened with pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>The conversation, which is too long to be fully transcribed, turns on
+the attributes of the soul. Justin discourses on that topic after the
+manner of the Platonists. The old man, on the other hand, urges him to
+study the prophets of the Old Testament, for they predicted the coming
+of Christ, and their prophecies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> have been fulfilled. "'They,' said he,
+'both glorified the Creator, the God and Father of all, and proclaimed
+his Son the Christ sent by him. But,' he added, 'pray that, above all
+things, the gates of light may be opened to you, for these things cannot
+be perceived or understood by all, but only by him to whom God and his
+Christ have imparted wisdom.'</p>
+
+<p>"When he had spoken these and many other things which there is no time
+for mentioning at present, he went away, bidding me attend to them, and
+I have not seen him since. But straightway a flame was kindled in my
+soul, and a love of the prophets and of those men who are friends of
+Christ possessed me; and whilst revolving his words in my mind I found
+this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable. Thus and for this
+reason I am a philosopher. Moreover, I would that all, making a
+resolution similar to my own, would regard the words of the Saviour, for
+they possess a terrible power in themselves, and are sufficient to
+inspire those who turn aside from the path of rectitude with awe, while
+the sweetest rest is afforded to those who diligently observe them."</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Dialogue</i> from which these passages are taken is a real or
+imaginary disputation with Trypho, a learned Jew at Ephesus, respecting
+the principles of Christianity, and contains an elaborate demonstration
+that Christ is the Messiah of the Old Testament. The controversy is
+carried on with courtesy on both sides, and each disputant is equally
+earnest in his attempt to convert the other.</p>
+
+<p>Justin was a very copious writer. The two most important of his writings
+now remaining are the two <i>Apologies</i>. These are certainly the two
+earliest of the numerous ancient pleas for toleration of Christianity
+now extant. The first <i>Apologia</i> is addressed to the emperor Antoninus
+Pius and the Roman senate and the "whole people of the Romans"; and the
+purport of it may be inferred from the commencement, in which Justin
+says that he presents this "address and petition in behalf of all
+nations who are unjustly hated and wantonly abused, myself being one of
+them."</p>
+
+<p>The second <i>Apologia</i> was addressed to the Roman senate, probably in the
+reign of Antoninus Marcus Aurelius, and successor of Antoninus Pius. In
+this work Justin appeals indignantly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> to the Roman senate against the
+unjust conduct of one Urbicus, who at Rome had condemned several persons
+to death simply because they professed to be Christians. This Urbicus
+seems to have held the office of prefect of the city&mdash;a magistrate from
+whom there was no appeal except to the prince himself, or, as this
+<i>Apologia</i> would suggest, to the senate.</p>
+
+<p>The two <i>Apologies</i> contain the most vehement invectives against the
+whole system of heathen idolatry, and accuse Jupiter and the other gods
+whom the Romans revered of ineffable vices.</p>
+
+<p>Of course the man who could thus tell the Roman senate and people that
+all that they held sacred was unspeakably and hideously wicked could
+expect but one fate. Justin threw down the gauntlet, and the constituted
+authorities very quietly took it up, with a result which, as the human
+power was all with them, it was not difficult to foresee.</p>
+
+<p>Some time in the reign of Aurelius, but in what year is not known,
+Justin and several other Christians were accused before Rusticus,
+prefect of Rome, of disobedience to certain decrees then in force, by
+which Christians who refused to sacrifice to the gods were liable to be
+put to death. It is difficult to reconcile the passing of these decrees
+with the known character of Aurelius, who is universally described as a
+humane, as a benevolent king. The probable explanation is that, like his
+predecessor Trajan, he was actuated by motives of state policy, and
+regarded Christianity as rebellion against the authority of the State.</p>
+
+<p>Eusebius has given an account of the martyrdom of Justin upon the
+authority of Tatian, who was a disciple of the martyr. This account
+substantially agrees with the very ancient <i>Martyrdom of Justin</i>, which
+concludes thus:</p>
+
+<p>"The prefect says to Justin: 'Hearken, you who are called learned and
+think that you know true doctrines: if you are scourged and beheaded, do
+you believe that you will ascend into heaven?'</p>
+
+<p>"Justin said, 'I hope that if I endure these things I shall have this
+gift, for I know that to all who have thus lived there abides the divine
+favor until the completion of the world.'</p>
+
+<p>"Rusticus, the prefect, said, 'Do you suppose that you will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> ascend into
+heaven to receive such a recompense?' Justin said, 'I do not suppose it,
+but I know and am fully persuaded of it.'</p>
+
+<p>"Thus also said the other Christians, 'Do what you will, for we are
+Christians and do not sacrifice to idols.'</p>
+
+<p>"Rusticus, the prefect, pronounced sentence, saying, 'Let those who have
+refused to sacrifice to the gods and to yield to the command of the
+Emperor be scourged and led away to suffer decapitation according to the
+law.'</p>
+
+<p>"The holy martyrs, having glorified God and having gone forth to the
+accustomed place, were beheaded, and perfected their testimony in the
+confession of the Saviour. And some of the faithful, having secretly
+removed their bodies, laid them in a suitable place, the grace of our
+Lord Jesus Christ having wrought along with them, to whom be glory
+forever and ever. Amen."</p>
+
+
+<h4>THE EPISTLE OF POLYCARP TO THE PHILIPPIANS</h4>
+
+<p>Polycarp, and the presbyters that are with him, to the Church of God
+which is at Philippi: mercy unto you and peace from God Almighty and the
+Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour, be multiplied. I rejoiced greatly with
+you in our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye received the images of a true
+love, and accompanied, as it is behooved you, those who were in bonds,
+becoming saints; which are the crowns of such as are truly chosen by God
+and our Lord: as also that the root of the faith which was preached from
+ancient times remains firm in you to this day; and brings forth fruit to
+our Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered himself to be brought even to the
+death for our sins. Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of
+death; whom, having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him
+not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.</p>
+
+<p>Into which many desire to enter; knowing that by grace ye are saved; not
+by works, but by the will of God through Jesus Christ. Wherefore girding
+up the loins of your minds, serve the Lord with fear and in truth;
+laying aside all empty and vain speech, and the error of many; believing
+in him that raised up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and hath
+given him glory and a throne at his right hand. To whom all things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> are
+made subject, both that are in heaven and that are in earth; whom every
+living creature shall worship; who shall come to be the judge of the
+quick and dead: whose blood God shall require of them that believe in
+him.</p>
+
+<p>But he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also raise up us in
+like manner, if we do his will and walk according to his commandments;
+and love those things which he loved; abstaining from all
+unrighteousness, inordinate affection, and love of money; from evil
+speaking; false witness; not rendering evil for evil, or railing for
+railing, or striking for striking, or cursing for cursing. But
+remembering what the Lord has taught us, saying, Judge not, and ye shall
+not be judged; forgive and ye shall be forgiven; be merciful, and ye
+shall obtain mercy; for with the same measure that ye mete withal, it
+shall be measured to you again. And again, that blessed are the poor and
+they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake; for theirs is the
+kingdom of God.</p>
+
+<p>These things, my brethren, I took not the liberty of myself to write
+unto you concerning righteousness, but you yourselves before encouraged
+me to it. For neither can I, nor any other such as I am, come up to the
+wisdom of the blessed and renowned Paul: who, being himself in person
+with those who then lived, did with all exactness and soundness teach
+the word of truth; and being gone from you wrote an epistle to you. Into
+which, if you look, you will be able to edify yourselves in the faith
+that has been delivered unto you; which is the mother of us all; being
+followed with hope, and led on by a general love, both toward God and
+toward Christ and toward our neighbor.</p>
+
+<p>For if any man has these things he has fulfilled the law of
+righteousness: for he that has charity is far from all sin. But the love
+of money is the root of all evil. Knowing therefore that as we brought
+nothing into this world, so neither may we carry anything out; let us
+arm ourselves with the armor of righteousness. And teach ourselves first
+to walk according to the commandments of the Lord; and then your wives
+to walk likewise according to the faith that is given to them; in
+charity, and in purity; loving their own husbands with all sincerity,
+and all others alike with all temperance; and to bring up their children
+in the instruction and fear of the Lord. The widows<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> likewise teach that
+they be sober as to what concerns the faith of the Lord: praying always
+for all men; being far from all detraction, evil speaking, false
+witness; from covetousness, and from all evil. Knowing that they are the
+altars of God, who sees all blemishes, and from whom nothing is hid; who
+searches out the very reasonings, and thoughts, and secrets of our
+hearts.</p>
+
+<p>Knowing, therefore, that God is not mocked, we ought to walk worthy both
+of his command and of his glory. Also the deacons must be blameless
+before him, as the ministers of God in Christ, and not of men. Not false
+accusers; not double-tongued; not lovers of money; but moderate in all
+things, compassionate, careful; walking according to the truth of the
+Lord, who was the servant of all. Whom if we please in this present
+world we shall also be made partakers of that which is to come,
+according as he has promised to us, that he will raise us from the dead;
+and that if we shall walk worthy of him, we shall also reign together
+with him, if we believe.</p>
+
+<p>In like manner the younger men must be unblamable in all things; above
+all, taking care of their purity, and to restrain themselves from all
+evil. For it is good to be cut off from the lusts that are in the world,
+because every such lust warreth against the Spirit; and neither
+fornicators, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
+shall inherit the kingdom of God; nor they who do such things as are
+foolish and unreasonable. Wherefore ye must needs abstain from all these
+things, being subject to the priests and deacons, as unto God and
+Christ. The virgins admonish to walk in a spotless and pure conscience.
+And let the elders be compassionate and merciful toward all; turning
+them from their errors; seeking out those that are weak; not forgetting
+the widows, the fatherless, and the poor; but always providing what is
+good both in the sight of God and man. Abstaining from all wrath,
+respect of persons, and unrighteous judgment; and especially being free
+from all covetousness. Not easy to believe anything against any; not
+severe in judgment; knowing that we are all debtors in point of sin.</p>
+
+<p>If, therefore, we pray to the Lord that he would forgive us, we ought
+also to forgive others; for we are all in the sight of our Lord and God;
+and must all stand before the judgment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> seat of Christ; and shall every
+one give an account of himself. Let us, therefore, serve him in fear,
+and with all reverence as both himself hath commanded, and as the
+apostles who have preached the gospel unto us, and the prophets who have
+foretold the coming of our Lord have taught us. Being zealous of what is
+good; abstaining from all offence, and from false brethren; and from
+those who bear the name of Christ in hypocrisy; who deceive vain men.</p>
+
+<p>For whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh,
+he is antichrist; and whoever does not confess his suffering upon the
+cross is from the devil. And whosoever perverts the oracles of the Lord
+to his own lusts, and says that there shall neither be any resurrection,
+nor judgment, he is the first-born of Satan. Wherefore, leaving the
+vanity of many and their false doctrines, let us return to the word that
+was delivered to us from the beginning. Watching unto prayer, and
+persevering in fasting. With supplication beseeching the all-seeing God
+not to lead us into temptation; as the Lord hath said, The spirit is
+truly willing, but the flesh is weak. Let us, therefore, without ceasing
+hold steadfastly to him who is our hope, and the earnest of our
+righteousness, even Jesus Christ; who his own self bare our sins in his
+own body on the tree; who did no sin, neither was guile found in his
+mouth. But suffered all for us that we might live through him. Let us,
+therefore, imitate his patience; and if we suffer for his name, let us
+glorify him; for this example he has given us by himself, and so have we
+believed.</p>
+
+<p>Wherefore I exhort all of you that ye obey the word of righteousness,
+and exercise all patience; which ye have seen set forth before our eyes,
+not only in the blessed Ignatius and Zosimus and Rufus, but in others
+among ourselves; and in Paul himself, and the rest of the apostles.
+Being confident of this, that all these have not run in vain, but in
+faith and righteousness, and are gone to the place that was due to them
+from the Lord, with whom they also suffered; for they loved not this
+present world, but him who died, and was raised again by God for us.
+Stand, therefore, in these things and follow the example of the Lord;
+being firm and immutable in the faith, lovers of the brotherhood, lovers
+of one another, companions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> together in the truth, being kind and gentle
+toward each other, despising none. When it is in your power to do good,
+defer it not, for charity delivered from death. Be all of you subject
+one to another, having your conversation honest among the Gentiles; that
+by your good works both ye yourselves may receive praise and the Lord
+may not be blasphemed through you. But woe be to him by whom the name of
+the Lord is blasphemed. Therefore teach all men sobriety; in which do ye
+also exercise yourselves.</p>
+
+<p>I am greatly afflicted for Valens, who was once a presbyter among you;
+that he should so little understand the place that was given to him in
+the Church. Wherefore I admonish you that ye abstain from covetousness,
+and that ye be chaste, and true of speech. Keep yourselves from all
+evil; for he that in these things cannot govern himself, how shall he be
+able to prescribe them to another? If a man does not keep himself from
+covetousness he shall be polluted with idolatry and be judged as if he
+were a Gentile. But who of you are ignorant of the judgment of God? Do
+we not know that the saints shall judge the world, as Paul teaches? But
+I have neither perceived nor heard anything of this kind in you, among
+whom the blessed Paul labored, and who are named in the beginning of his
+epistle. For he glories of you in all the churches who then only knew
+God; for we did not then know him. Wherefore, my brethren, I am
+exceedingly sorry both for him and for his wife; to whom God grant a
+true repentance.</p>
+
+<p>And be ye also moderate upon this occasion, and look not upon such as
+enemies, but call them back as suffering and erring members, that ye may
+save your whole body; for by so doing ye shall edify your own selves.
+For I trust that ye are well exercised in the Holy Scriptures, and that
+nothing is hid from you; but at present it is not granted unto me to
+practise that which is written, Be angry and sin not; and again, Let not
+the sun go down upon your wrath. Blessed be he that believeth and
+remembereth these things, which also I trust you do.</p>
+
+<p>Now the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and he himself who is
+our everlasting high-priest, the Son of God, even Jesus Christ, build
+you up in faith and in truth and in all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> meekness and lenity; in
+patience and long-suffering, in forbearance and chastity. And grant unto
+you a lot and portion among his saints; and us with you, and to all that
+are under the heavens, who shall believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, and
+in his Father who raised him from the dead. Pray for all the saints;
+pray also for kings, and all that are in authority; and for those who
+persecute you, and hate you, and for the enemies of the cross; that your
+fruit may be manifest in all, and that ye may be perfect in Christ. Ye
+wrote to me, both ye and also Ignatius, that if anyone went from hence
+into Syria he should bring your letters with him, which also I will take
+care of, as soon as I shall have a convenient opportunity, either by
+myself or him whom I shall send upon your account. The Epistles of
+Ignatius, which he wrote unto us, together with what others of his have
+come to our hands, we have sent to you, according to your order, which
+are subjoined to this epistle. By which we may be greatly profited; for
+they treat of faith and patience, and of all things that pertain to
+edification in the Lord Jesus. What you know certainly of Ignatius and
+those that are with him signify to us.</p>
+
+<p>These things have I written unto you by Crescens, whom by this present
+epistle I have recommended to you, and do now again commend. For he has
+had his conversation without blame among us, and I suppose also with
+you. Ye will also have regard unto his sister when she shall come unto
+you. Be ye safe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in favor with all yours.
+Amen.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS IN GAUL</h2>
+
+<h4>A.D. 177</h4>
+
+<h3>FRAN&Ccedil;OIS P. G. GUIZOT</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>That the persecutions of Christians under the Roman Empire should
+have been inaugurated by a Nero is not a subject of wonder in view
+of that Emperor's character as depicted in history through all ages
+since his own. But it is difficult to understand how an emperor
+like Trajan&mdash;an enlightened and humane ruler&mdash;if he was powerless
+to prevent, could have brought himself to give countenance to a
+policy at once so intolerant and cruel, and in the end to prove so
+short-sighted. A great cause prospers by persecution. The
+martyr-spirit is strengthened by blows and fagots. History has well
+proved the truth of that saying of the Church Fathers, tersely
+given by St. Jerome: <i>Est sanguis martyrium seminarium Ecclesiarum</i>
+("The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church").</p>
+
+<p>Still more incomprehensible to modern students is the fact that
+Marcus Aurelius, the imperial philosopher and benevolent man,
+should also be stained with the infamy of the persecutions. The
+charges brought against him as a cruel persecutor of the Christians
+have given rise to much dispute among historical scholars. Among
+modern Christian writers of favorable disposition toward Marcus, F.
+W. Farrar has perhaps as clearly as any set forth the views that
+explain his conduct and vindicate his reputation for humanity:
+"That he shared the profound dislike with which Christians were
+regarded is very probable. That he was a cold-blooded and virulent
+persecutor is utterly unlike his whole character. The deep
+calamities in which during his whole reign the empire was involved
+caused widespread distress, and roused into peculiar fury the
+feelings of the provincials against men whose atheism (for such
+they considered it to be) had kindled the anger of the gods.
+Marcus, when appealed to, simply let the existing law take its
+course." In like manner the purely official or legal view of human
+affairs often leads the most kindly and conscientious of men to
+pursue or acquiesce in policies against which, in different
+situations, their moral nature would rebel.</p>
+
+<p>There were many reasons which led the populace to hate Christians,
+whom, first of all, they regarded as being unpatriotic. While among
+Romans it was considered the highest honor to possess the
+privileges of Roman citizenship, the Christians announced that they
+were citizens of heaven. They shrank from public office and
+military service.</p>
+
+<p>Again, the ancient religion of Rome was an adjunct of state dignity
+and ceremonial. It was hallowed by a thousand traditional and
+patriotic associations. The Christians regarded its rites and its
+popular assemblies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> with contempt and abhorrence. The Romans viewed
+the secret meetings of the Christians with suspicion, and accused
+them of abominable excesses and crime. They were known to have
+representatives in every important city of Gaul, Spain, Italy, and
+Asia; and the more their communities grew, the more the Roman
+populace raged against them. Only such considerations appear to
+mitigate the historical judgments against Aurelius for marring the
+splendor of his reign by persecutions. The tragedies enacted in the
+churches of Lyons and Vienne, as described in the following pages,
+form one of the most melancholy records of history.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>When Christianity began to penetrate into Gaul, it encountered there two
+religions very different one from the other, and infinitely more
+different from the Christian religion; these were Druidism and
+paganism&mdash;hostile one to the other, but with a hostility political only,
+and unconnected with those really religious questions that Christianity
+was coming to raise.</p>
+
+<p>Druidism, considered as a religion, was a mass of confusion, wherein the
+instinctive notions of the human race concerning the origin and destiny
+of the world and of mankind were mingled with the oriental dreams of
+metempsychosis&mdash;that pretended transmigration, at successive periods, of
+immortal souls into divers creatures. This confusion was worse
+confounded by traditions borrowed from the mythologies of the East and
+the North, by shadowy remnants of a symbolical worship paid to the
+material forces of nature, and by barbaric practices, such as human
+sacrifices, in honor of the gods or of the dead.</p>
+
+<p>People who are without the scientific development of language and the
+art of writing do not attain to systematic and productive religious
+creeds. There is nothing to show that, from the first appearance of the
+Gauls in history to their struggle with victorious Rome, the religious
+influence of Druidism had caused any notable progress to be made in
+Gallic manners and civilization. A general and strong, but vague and
+incoherent, belief in the immortality of the soul was its noblest
+characteristic. But with the religious elements, at the same time coarse
+and mystical, were united two facts of importance: the Druids formed a
+veritable ecclesiastical corporation, which had, throughout Gallic
+society, fixed attributes, special manners and customs, an existence at
+the same time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> distinct and national; and in the wars with Rome this
+corporation became the most faithful representatives and the most
+persistent defenders of Gallic independence and nationality.</p>
+
+<p>The Druids were far more a clergy than Druidism was a religion; but it
+was an organized and a patriotic clergy. It was especially on this
+account that they exercised in Gaul an influence which was still
+existent, particularly in Northwestern Gaul, at the time when
+Christianity reached the Gallic provinces of the South and Centre.</p>
+
+<p>The Gr&aelig;co-Roman paganism was, at this time, far more powerful than
+Druidism in Gaul, and yet more lukewarm and destitute of all religious
+vitality. It was the religion of the conquerors and of the State, and
+was invested, in that quality, with real power; but, beyond that, it had
+but the power derived from popular customs and superstitions. As a
+religious creed, the Latin paganism was at bottom empty, indifferent,
+and inclined to tolerate all religions in the State, provided only that
+they, in their turn, were indifferent at any rate toward itself, and
+that they did not come troubling the State, either by disobeying her
+rulers or by attacking her old deities, dead and buried beneath their
+own still standing altars.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the two religions with which in Gaul nascent Christianity had
+to contend. Compared with them it was, to all appearance, very small and
+very weak; but it was provided with the most efficient weapons for
+fighting and beating them, for it had exactly the moral forces which
+they lacked. Christianity, instead of being, like Druidism, a religion
+exclusively national and hostile to all that was foreign, proclaimed a
+universal religion, free from all local and national partiality,
+addressing itself to all men in the name of the same God, and offering
+to all the same salvation. It is one of the strangest and most
+significant facts in history that the religion most universally <i>human</i>,
+most dissociated from every consideration but that of the rights and
+well-being of the human race in its entirety&mdash;that such a religion, be
+it repeated, should have come forth from the womb of the most exclusive,
+most rigorously and obstinately national religion that ever appeared in
+the world, that is, Judaism. Such, nevertheless, was the birth of
+Christianity; and this wonderful contrast between the essence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> and the
+earthly origin of Christianity was without doubt one of its most
+powerful attractions and most efficacious means of success.</p>
+
+<p>Against paganism Christianity was armed with moral forces not a whit
+less great. Confronting mythological traditions and poetical or
+philosophical allegories, appeared a religion truly religious, concerned
+solely with the relations of mankind to God and with their eternal
+future. To the pagan indifference of the Roman world the Christians
+opposed the profound conviction of their faith, and not only their
+firmness in defending it against all powers and all dangers, but also
+their ardent passion for propagating it without any motive but the
+yearning to make their fellows share in its benefits and its hopes. They
+confronted, nay, they welcomed martyrdom, at one time to maintain their
+own Christianity, at another to make others Christians around them;
+propagandism was for them a duty almost as imperative as fidelity.</p>
+
+<p>And it was not in memory of old and obsolete mythologies, but in the
+name of recent deeds and persons, in obedience to laws proceeding from
+God, One and Universal, in fulfilment and continuation of a contemporary
+and superhuman history&mdash;that of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of
+Man&mdash;that the Christians of the first two centuries labored to convert
+to their faith the whole Roman world. Marcus Aurelius was contemptuously
+astonished at what he called the obstinacy of the Christians; he knew
+not from what source these nameless heroes drew a strength superior to
+his own, though he was at the same time emperor and sage. It is
+impossible to assign with exactness the date of the first footprints and
+first labors of Christianity in Gaul. It was not, however, from Italy,
+nor in the Latin tongue and through Latin writers, but from the East and
+through the Greeks, that it first came and began to spread. Marseilles
+and the different Greek colonies, originally from Asia Minor and settled
+upon the shores of the Mediterranean or along the Rhone, mark the route
+and were the places whither the first Christian missionaries carried
+their teaching: on this point the letters of the apostles and the
+writings of the first two generations of their disciples are clear and
+abiding proof.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the West of the empire, especially in Italy, the Christians at their
+first appearance were confounded with the Jews, and comprehended under
+the same name. "The emperor Claudius," says Suetonius, "drove from Rome
+(<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 52) the Jews who, at the instigation of Christus, were in
+continual commotion." After the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span>
+70), the Jews, Christian or not, dispersed throughout the empire; but
+the Christians were not slow to signalize themselves by their religious
+fervor, and to come forward everywhere under their own true name.</p>
+
+<p>Lyons became the chief centre of Christian preaching and association in
+Gaul. As early as the first half of the second century there existed
+there a Christian congregation, regularly organized as a church, and
+already sufficiently important to be in intimate and frequent
+communication with the Christian churches of the East and West. There is
+a tradition, generally admitted, that St. Pothinus, the first bishop of
+Lyons, was sent thither from the East by the bishop of Smyrna, St.
+Polycarp, himself a disciple of St. John. One thing is certain, that the
+Christian Church of Lyons produced Gaul's first martyrs, among whom was
+the bishop, St. Pothinus.</p>
+
+<p>It was under Marcus Aurelius, the most philosophical and most
+conscientious of the emperors, that there was enacted for the first time
+in Gaul, against nascent Christianity, that scene of tyranny and
+barbarity which was to be renewed so often and during so many centuries
+in the midst of Christendom itself. In the eastern provinces of the
+empire and in Italy the Christians had already been several times
+persecuted, now with cold-blooded cruelty, now with some slight
+hesitation and irresolution. Nero had caused them to be burned in the
+streets of Rome, accusing them of the conflagration himself had kindled,
+and, a few months before his fall, St. Peter and St. Paul had undergone
+martyrdom at Rome. Domitian had persecuted and put to death Christians
+even in his own family, and though invested with the honors of the
+consulate.</p>
+
+<p>Righteous Trajan, when consulted by Pliny the Younger on the conduct he
+should adopt in Bithynia toward the Christians, had answered: "It is
+impossible, in this sort of matter, to establish any certain general
+rule; there must be no quest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> set on foot against them, and no unsigned
+indictment must be accepted; but if they be accused and convicted, they
+must be punished." To be punished, it sufficed that they were convicted
+of being Christians; and it was Trajan himself who condemned St.
+Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, to be brought to Rome and thrown to the
+beasts, for the simple reason that he was highly Christian. Marcus
+Aurelius, not only by virtue of his philosophical conscientiousness, but
+by reason of an incident in his history, seemed bound to be further than
+any other from persecuting the Christians.</p>
+
+<p>During one of his campaigns on the Danube, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 174, his army was
+suffering cruelly from fatigue and thirst; and at the very moment when
+they were on the point of engaging in a great battle against the
+barbarians, the rain fell in abundance, refreshed the Roman soldiers,
+and conduced to their victory. There was in the Roman army a legion, the
+Twelfth, called the <i>Melitine</i> or the <i>Thundering</i>, which bore on its
+roll many Christian soldiers. They gave thanks for the rain and the
+victory to the one omnipotent God who had heard their prayers, while the
+pagans rendered like honor to Jupiter, the Rain-giver and the Thunderer.
+The report about these Christians got spread abroad and gained credit in
+the empire, so much so that there was attributed to Marcus Aurelius a
+letter, in which by reason, no doubt, of this incident, he forbade
+persecution of the Christians.</p>
+
+<p>Tertullian, a contemporary witness, speaks of this letter in perfect
+confidence; and the Christian writers of the following century did not
+hesitate to regard it as authentic. Nowadays, a strict examination of
+its existing text does not allow such a character to be attributed to
+it. At any rate the persecutions of the Christians were not forbidden,
+for in the year 177, that is, only three years after the victory of
+Marcus Aurelius over the Germans, there took place, undoubtedly by his
+orders, the persecution which caused at Lyons the first Gallic
+martyrdom. This was the fourth, or, according to others, the fifth great
+imperial persecution of the Christians.</p>
+
+<p>Most tales of the martyrs were written long after the event, and came to
+be nothing more than legends laden with details often utterly puerile or
+devoid of proof. The martyrs of Lyons<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> in the second century wrote, so
+to speak, their own history; for it was their comrades, eye-witnesses of
+their sufferings and their virtue, who gave an account of them in a long
+letter addressed to their friends in Asia Minor, and written with
+passionate sympathy and pious prolixity, but bearing all the
+characteristics of truth. It seems desirable to submit for perusal that
+document, which has been preserved almost entire in the <i>Ecclesiastical
+History</i> of Eusebius, bishop of C&aelig;sarea in the third century, and which
+will exhibit, better than any modern representations, the state of facts
+and of souls in the midst of the imperial persecutions, and the mighty
+faith, devotion, and courage with which the early Christians faced the
+most cruel trials:</p>
+
+<p>"The servants of Christ, dwelling at Vienne and Lyons in Gaul, to the
+brethren settled in Asia and Phrygia, who have the same faith and hope
+of redemption that we have, peace, grace, and glory from God the Father
+and Jesus Christ our Lord!</p>
+
+<p>"None can tell to you in speech or fully set forth to you in writing the
+weight of our misery, the madness and rage of the Gentiles against the
+saints, and all that hath been suffered by the blessed martyrs. Our
+enemy doth rush upon us with all the fury of his powers, and already
+giveth us a foretaste and the first-fruits of all the license with which
+he doth intend to set upon us. He hath omitted nothing for the training
+of his agents against us, and he doth exercise them in a sort of
+preparatory work against the servants of the Lord. Not only are we
+driven from the public buildings, from the baths, and from the Forum,
+but it is forbidden to all our people to appear publicly in any place
+whatsoever.</p>
+
+<p>"The grace of God hath striven for us against the devil: at the same
+time that it hath sustained the weak, it hath opposed to the Evil One,
+as it were, pillars of strength&mdash;men strong and valiant, ready to draw
+on themselves all his attacks. They have had to bear all manner of
+insult; they have deemed but a small matter that which others find hard
+and terrible; and they have thought only of going to Christ, proving by
+their example that the sufferings of this world are not worthy to be put
+in the balance with the glory which is to be manifested in us.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> They
+have endured, in the first place, all the outrages that could be heaped
+upon them by the multitude, outcries, blows, thefts, spoliation,
+stoning, imprisonment, all that the fury of the people could devise
+against hated enemies. Then, dragged to the Forum by the military
+tribune and the magistrates of the city, they have been questioned
+before the people and cast into prison until the coming of the governor.
+He, from the moment our people appeared before him, committed all manner
+of violence against them.</p>
+
+<p>"Then stood forth one of our brethren, Vettius Epagathus, full of love
+toward God and his neighbor, living a life so pure and strict that,
+young as he was, men held him to be the equal of the aged Zacharias. He
+could not bear that judgment so unjust should go forth against us, and,
+moved with indignation, he asked leave to defend his brethren, and to
+prove that there was in them no kind of irreligion or impiety. Those
+present at the tribunal, among whom he was known and celebrated, cried
+out against him, and the governor himself, enraged at so just a demand,
+asked him no more than this question, 'Art thou a Christian?'
+Straightway with a loud voice he declared himself a Christian, and was
+placed among the number of the martyrs.</p>
+
+<p>"Afterward, the rest began to be examined and classed. The first, firm
+and well prepared, made hearty and solemn confession of their faith.
+Others, ill prepared and with little firmness, showed that they lacked
+strength for such a fight. About ten of them fell away, which caused us
+incredible pain and mourning. Their example broke down the courage of
+others, who, not being yet in bonds, though they had already had much to
+suffer, kept close to the martyrs, and withdrew not out of their sight.
+Then were we all stricken with dread for the issue of the trial: not
+that we had great fear of the torments inflicted, but because,
+prophesying the result according to the degree of courage of the
+accused, we feared much falling away. They took, day by day, those of
+our brethren who were worthy to replace the weak; so that all the best
+of the two churches, those whose care and zeal had founded them, were
+taken and confined.</p>
+
+<p>"They took, likewise, some of our slaves, for the governor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> had ordered
+that they should be all summoned to attend in public; and they, fearing
+the torments they saw the saints undergo, and instigated by the
+soldiers, accused us falsely of odious deeds, such as the banquet of
+Thyestes, the incest of &#338;dipus, and other crimes which must not be
+named or even thought of, and which we cannot bring ourselves to believe
+that men were ever guilty of. These reports having once spread among the
+people, even those persons who had hitherto by reason, perhaps, of
+relationship, shown moderation toward us, burst forth into bitter
+indignation against our people. Thus was fulfilled that which had been
+prophesied by the Lord: 'The time cometh when whosoever shall kill you
+shall think that he doeth God service.' Since that day the holy martyrs
+have suffered tortures that no words can express.</p>
+
+<p>"The fury of the multitude, of the governor, and of the soldiers fell
+chiefly upon Sanctus, a deacon of Vienne; upon Maturus, a neophyte
+still, but already a valiant champion of Christ; upon Attalus also, born
+at Pergamus, but who hath ever been one of the pillars of our Church;
+upon Blandina, lastly, in whom Christ hath made it appear that persons
+who seem vile and despised of men are just those whom God holds in the
+highest honor by reason of the excellent love they bear him, which is
+manifested in their firm virtue and not in vain show. All of us, and
+even Blandina's mistress here below, who fought valiantly with the other
+martyrs, feared that this poor slave, so weak of body, would not be in a
+condition to freely confess her faith; but she was sustained by such
+vigor of soul that the executioners, who from morn till eve put her to
+all manner of torture, failed in their efforts, and declared themselves
+beaten, not knowing what further punishment to inflict, and marvelling
+that she still lived, with her body pierced through and through, and
+torn piecemeal by so many tortures, of which a single one should have
+sufficed to kill her. But that blessed saint, like a valiant athlete,
+took fresh courage and strength from the confession of her faith; all
+feeling of pain vanished, and ease returned to her at the mere utterance
+of the words, 'I am a Christian, and no evil is wrought among us.'</p>
+
+<p>"As for Sanctus, the executioners hoped that in the midst of the
+tortures inflicted upon him&mdash;the most atrocious which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> man could
+devise&mdash;they would hear him say something unseemly or unlawful; but so
+firmly did he resist them, that, without even saying his name, or that
+of his nation or city, or whether he was bond or free, he only replied
+in the Roman tongue, to all questions, 'I am a Christian.' Therein was,
+for him, his name, his country, his condition, his whole being; and
+never could the Gentiles wrest from him another word. The fury of the
+governor and the executioners was redoubled against him; and, not
+knowing how to torment him further, they applied to his most tender
+members bars of red-hot iron. His members burned; but he, upright and
+immovable, persisted in his profession of faith, as if living waters
+from the bosom of Christ flowed over him and refreshed him. Some days
+after, these infidels began again to torture him, believing that if they
+inflicted upon his blistering wounds the same agonies, they would
+triumph over him, who seemed unable to bear the mere touch of their
+hands; and they hoped, also, that the sight of his torturing alive would
+terrify his comrades. But, contrary to general expectation, the body of
+Sanctus, rising suddenly up, stood erect and firm amid these repeated
+torments, and recovered its old appearance and the use of its members,
+as if, by divine grace, this second laceration of his flesh had caused
+healing rather than suffering.</p>
+
+<p>"When the tyrants had thus expended and exhausted their tortures against
+the firmness of the martyrs sustained by Christ, the devil devised other
+contrivances. They were cast into the darkest and most unendurable place
+in their prison; their feet were dragged out and compressed to the
+utmost tension of the muscles; the jailers, as if instigated by a demon,
+tried every sort of torture, insomuch that several of them, for whom God
+willed such an end, died of suffocation in prison. Others, who had been
+tortured in such a manner that it was thought impossible they should
+long survive, deprived as they were of every remedy and aid from men,
+but supported nevertheless by the grace of God, remained sound and
+strong in body as in soul, and comforted and reanimated their brethren.</p>
+
+<p>"The blessed Pothinus, who held at that time the bishopric of Lyons,
+being upward of ninety, and so weak in body that he could hardly
+breathe, was himself brought before the tribunal,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> so worn with old age
+and sickness that he seemed nigh to extinction; but he still possessed
+his soul, wherewith to subserve the triumph of Christ. Being brought by
+the soldiers before the tribunal, whither he was accompanied by all the
+magistrates of the city and the whole populace, that pursued him with
+hootings, he offered, as if he had been the very Christ, the most
+glorious testimony. At a question from the governor, who asked what the
+God of the Christians was, he answered, 'If thou be worthy, thou shalt
+know.' He was immediately raised up, without any respect or humanity,
+and blows were showered upon him; those who happened to be nearest to
+him assaulted him grievously with foot and fist, without the slightest
+regard for his age; those who were farther off cast at him whatever was
+to their hand; they would all have thought themselves guilty of the
+greatest default if they had not done their best, each on his own score,
+to insult him brutally. They believed they were avenging the wrongs of
+their gods. Pothinus, still breathing, was cast again into prison, and
+two days after yielded up his spirit.</p>
+
+<p>"Then were manifested a singular dispensation of God and the
+immeasurable compassion of Jesus Christ: an example rare among brethren,
+but in accord with the intentions and the justice of the Lord. All those
+who, at their first arrest, had denied their faith, were themselves cast
+into prison and given over to the same sufferings as the other martyrs,
+for their denial did not serve them at all. Those who had made
+profession of being what they really were&mdash;that is, Christians&mdash;were
+imprisoned without being accused of other crimes. The former, on the
+contrary, were confined as homicides and wretches, thus suffering double
+punishment. The one sort found repose in the honorable joys of
+martyrdom, in the hope of promised blessedness, in the love of Christ,
+and in the spirit of God the Father; the other were a prey to the
+reproaches of conscience. It was easy to distinguish the one from the
+other by their looks. The one walked joyously, bearing on their faces a
+majesty mingled with sweetness, and their very bonds seemed unto them an
+ornament, even as the broidery that decks a bride; the other, with
+downcast eyes and humble and dejected air, were an object of contempt to
+the Gentiles themselves,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> who regarded them as cowards who had forfeited
+the glorious and saving name of Christians. And so they who were present
+at this double spectacle were thereby signally strengthened, and whoever
+among them chanced to be arrested confessed the faith without doubt or
+hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>"Things having come to this pass, different kinds of death were
+inflicted on the martyrs, and they offered to God a crown of divers
+flowers. It was but right that the most valiant champions, those who had
+sustained a double assault and gained a signal victory, should receive a
+splendid crown of immortality. The neophyte Maturus and the deacon
+Sanctus, Blandina and Attalus, then, were led into the amphitheatre, and
+thrown to the beasts, as a sight to please the inhumanity of the
+Gentiles. Maturus and Sanctus there underwent all kinds of tortures, as
+if they had hitherto suffered nothing; or, rather, like athletes who had
+already been several times victorious, and were contending for the crown
+of crowns, they braved the stripes with which they were beaten, the
+bites of the beasts that dragged them to and fro, and all that was
+demanded by the outcries of an insensate mob, so much the more furious
+because it could by no means overcome the firmness of the martyrs or
+extort from Sanctus any other speech than that which, on the first day,
+he had uttered&mdash;'I am a Christian.' After this fearful contest, as life
+was not extinct, their throats were at last cut, when they alone had
+thus been offered as a spectacle to the public instead of the variety
+displayed in the combat of gladiators.</p>
+
+<p>"Blandina, in her turn, tied to a stake, was given to the beasts; she
+was seen hanging, as it were, on a sort of cross, calling upon God with
+trustful fervor, and the brethren present were reminded, in the person
+of a sister, of Him who had been crucified for their salvation. As none
+of the beasts would touch the body of Blandina, she was released from
+the stake, taken back to prison, and reserved for another occasion.</p>
+
+<p>"Attalus, whose execution, seeing that he was a man of mark, was
+furiously demanded by the people, came forward ready to brave
+everything, as a man deriving confidence from the memory of his life,
+for he had courageously trained himself to discipline, and had always
+among us borne witness for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> truth. He was led all round the
+Amphitheatre, preceded by a board bearing this inscription in Latin:
+'This is Attalus the Christian.' The people pursued him with the most
+furious hootings; but the governor, having learned that he was a Roman
+citizen, had him taken back to prison with the rest. Having subsequently
+written to C&aelig;sar, he waited for his decision as to those who were thus
+detained.</p>
+
+<p>"This delay was neither useless nor unprofitable, for then shone forth
+the boundless compassion of Christ. Those of the brethren who had been
+but dead members of the Church were recalled to life by the pains and
+help of the living; the martyrs obtained grace for those who had fallen
+away; and great was the joy in the Church, at the same time virgin and
+mother, for she once more found living those whom she had given up for
+dead. Thus revived and strengthened by the goodness of God, who willeth
+not the death of the sinner, but rather inviteth him to repentance, they
+presented themselves before the tribunal, to be questioned afresh by the
+governor. C&aelig;sar had replied that they who confessed themselves to be
+Christians should be put to the sword, and they who denied sent away
+safe and sound. When the time for the great market had fully come, there
+assembled a numerous multitude from every nation and every province. The
+governor had the blessed martyrs brought up before his judgment-seat,
+showing them before the people with all the pomp of a theatre. He
+questioned them afresh; and those who were discovered to be Roman
+citizens were beheaded, the rest were thrown to the beasts.</p>
+
+<p>"Great glory was gained for Christ by means of those who had at first
+denied their faith, and who now confessed it contrary to the expectation
+of the Gentiles. Those who, having been privately questioned, declared
+themselves Christians were added to the number of the martyrs. Those in
+whom appeared no vestige of faith and no fear of God, remained without
+the pale of the Church. When they were dealing with those who had been
+reunited to it, one Alexander, a Phrygian by nation, a physician by
+profession, who had for many years been dwelling in Gaul, a man well
+known to all for his love of God and open preaching of the faith, took
+his place in the hall of judgment, exhorting by signs all who filled it
+to confess their faith,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> even as if he had been called in to deliver
+them of it. The multitude, enraged to see that those who had at first
+denied turned round and proclaimed their faith, cried out against
+Alexander, whom they accused of the conversion.</p>
+
+<p>"The governor forthwith asked him what he was, and at the answer, 'I am
+a Christian,' condemned him to the beasts. On the morrow Alexander was
+again brought up, together with Attalus, whom the governor, to please
+the people, had once more condemned to the beasts. After they had both
+suffered in the Amphitheatre all the torments that could be devised,
+they were put to the sword. Alexander uttered not a complaint, not a
+word; he had the air of one who was talking inwardly with God. Attalus,
+seated on an iron seat, and waiting for the fire to consume his body,
+said, in Latin, to the people: 'See what ye are doing; it is in truth
+devouring men; as for us, we devour not men, and we do no evil at all.'
+He was asked what was the name of God: 'God,' said he, 'is not like us
+mortals; he hath no name.'</p>
+
+<p>"After all these martyrs, on the last day of the shows, Blandina was
+again brought up, together with a young lad, named Ponticus, about
+fifteen years old. They had been brought up every day before that they
+might see the tortures of their brethren. When they were called upon to
+swear by the altars of the Gentiles, they remained firm in their faith,
+making no account of those pretended gods, and so great was the fury of
+the multitude against them that no pity was shown for the age of the
+child or the sex of the woman. Tortures were heaped upon them; they were
+made to pass through every kind of torment, but the desired end was not
+gained.</p>
+
+<p>"Supported by the exhortations of his sister, who was seen and heard by
+the Gentiles, Ponticus, after having endured all magnanimously, gave up
+the ghost. Blandina, last of all&mdash;like a noble mother that hath roused
+the courage of her sons for the fight, and sent them forth to conquer
+for their king&mdash;passed once more through all the tortures they had
+suffered, anxious to go and rejoin them, and rejoicing at each step
+toward death. At length, after she had undergone fire, the talons of
+beasts, and agonizing aspersion, she was wrapped in a network and thrown
+to a bull that tossed her in the air; she was already<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> unconscious of
+all that befell her, and seemed altogether taken up with watching for
+the blessings that Christ had in store for her. Even the Gentiles
+allowed that never a woman had suffered so much or so long.</p>
+
+<p>"Still their fury and their cruelty toward the saints were not appeased.
+They devised another way of raging against them; they cast to the dogs
+the bodies of those who had died of suffocation in prison, and watched
+night and day that none of our brethren might come and bury them. As for
+what remained of the martyrs' half-mangled or devoured corpses, they
+left them exposed under a guard of soldiers, coming to look on them with
+insulting eyes, and saying: 'Where is now their God? Of what use to them
+was this religion for which they laid down their lives?' We were
+overcome with grief that we were not able to bury these poor corpses;
+nor the darkness of night, nor gold, nor prayers could help us to
+succeed therein. After being thus exposed for six days in the open air,
+given over to all manner of outrage, the corpses of the martyrs were at
+last burned, reduced to ashes, and cast hither and thither by the
+infidels upon the waters of the Rhone, that there might be left no trace
+of them on earth. They acted as if they had been more mighty than God,
+and could rob our brethren of their resurrection: ''Tis in that hope,'
+said they, 'that these folk bring among us a new and strange religion,
+that they set at naught the most painful torments, and that they go
+joyfully to face death: let us see if they will rise again, if their God
+will come to their aid and will be able to tear them from our hands.'"</p>
+
+<p>It is not without a painful effort that, even after so many centuries,
+we can resign ourselves to be witnesses, in imagination only, of such a
+spectacle. We can scarce believe that among men of the same period and
+the same city so much ferocity could be displayed in opposition to so
+much courage, the passion for barbarity against the passion for virtue.
+Nevertheless, such is history; and it should be represented as it really
+was: first of all, for truth's sake; then for the due appreciation of
+virtue and all it costs of effort and sacrifice; and, lastly, for the
+purpose of showing what obstacles have to be surmounted, what struggles
+endured, and what sufferings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> borne, when the question is the
+accomplishment of great moral and social reforms. Marcus Aurelius was,
+without any doubt, a virtuous ruler, and one who had it in his heart to
+be just and humane; but he was an absolute ruler, that is to say, one
+fed entirely on his own ideas, very ill-informed about the facts on
+which he had to decide, and without a free public to warn him of the
+errors of his ideas or the practical results of his decrees. He ordered
+the persecution of the Christians without knowing what the Christians
+were or what the persecution would be, and this conscientious
+philosopher let loose at Lyons, against the most conscientious of
+subjects, the zealous servility of his agents, and the atrocious
+passions of the mob.</p>
+
+<p>The persecution of the Christians did not stop at Lyons or with Marcus
+Aurelius; it became, during the third century, the common practice of
+the emperors in all parts of the empire: from <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 202 to 312, under the
+reigns of Septimius Severus, Maximinus the First, Decius, Valerian,
+Aurelian, Diocletian, Maximian, and Galerius, there are reckoned six
+great general persecutions, without counting others more circumscribed
+or less severe. The emperors Alexander Severus, Philip the Arabian, and
+Constantius Chlorus were almost the only exceptions to this cruel
+system; and nearly always, wherever it was in force, the pagan mob, in
+its brutality or fanatical superstition, added to imperial rigor its own
+atrocious and cynical excesses.</p>
+
+<p>But Christian zeal was superior in perseverance and efficacy to pagan
+persecution. St. Pothinus the Martyr was succeeded as bishop at Lyons by
+St. Iren&aelig;us, the most learned, most judicious, and most illustrious of
+the early heads of the Church in Gaul. Originally from Asia Minor,
+probably from Smyrna, he had migrated to Gaul, at what particular date
+is not known, and had settled as a simple priest in the diocese of
+Lyons, where it was not long before he exercised vast influence, as well
+on the spot as also during certain missions intrusted to him, and among
+them one, they say, to the pope, St. Eleutherius, at Rome.</p>
+
+<p>While bishop of Lyons, from <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 177 to 202, he employed the
+five-and-twenty years in propagating the Christian faith in Gaul, and in
+defending, by his writings, the Christian doctrines<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> against the discord
+to which they had already been subjected in the East, and which was
+beginning to penetrate the West.</p>
+
+<p>In 202, during the persecution instituted by Septimius Severus, St.
+Iren&aelig;us crowned by martyrdom his active and influential life. It was in
+his episcopate that there began what may be called the swarm of
+Christian missionaries who, toward the end of the second and during the
+third century, spread over the whole of Gaul, preaching the faith and
+forming churches. Some went from Lyons at the instigation of St.
+Iren&aelig;us; others from Rome, especially under the pontificate of Pope St.
+Fabian, himself martyred in 249; St. Felix and St. Fortunatus to
+Valence, St. Ferr&eacute;ol to Besan&ccedil;on, St. Marcellus to Ch&acirc;lons-sur-Sa&ocirc;ne,
+St. Benignus to Dijon, St. Trophimus to Arles, St. Paul to Narbonne, St.
+Saturninus to Toulouse, St. Martial to Limoges, St. And&eacute;ol and St.
+Privatus to the C&eacute;vennes, St. Austremoine to Clermont-Ferrand, St.
+Galian to Tours, St. Denis to Paris, and so many others that their names
+are scarcely known beyond the pages of erudite historians, or the very
+spots where they preached, struggled, and conquered, often at the price
+of their lives.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the founders of the faith and of the Christian Church in
+France. At the commencement of the fourth century their work was, if not
+accomplished, at any rate triumphant; and when, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 312, Constantine
+declared himself a Christian, he confirmed the fact of the conquest of
+the Roman world, and of Gaul in particular, by Christianity. No doubt
+the majority of the inhabitants were not as yet Christians; but it was
+clear that the Christians were in the ascendant and had command of the
+future.</p>
+
+<p>Of the two grand elements which were to meet together on the ruins of
+Roman society, for the formation of modern society, the moral element,
+the Christian religion, had already taken possession of souls; the
+devastated territory awaited the coming of new peoples, known to history
+under the general name of Germans, whom the Romans called the
+Barbarians.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p>
+<h2>BEGINNING OF ROME'S DECLINE: COMMODUS</h2>
+
+<h4>A.D. 180</h4>
+
+<h3>EDWARD GIBBON</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>That a ruler of such noble character as the Roman philosopher
+Marcus Aurelius should have had for his son and successor a man
+like Commodus is one of the strange contrasts of history. The
+succession of Commodus, marking as it does the beginning of the
+decline of the great empire, may be regarded as one of the most
+critical moments in the existence of Rome. How folly and cruelty,
+shameless vice and unbridled ferocity, may be associated in the
+same character has often been illustrated in the careers of the
+world's rulers, and nowhere more conspicuously than in some of the
+Roman emperors; and in the case of Commodus the combination of
+these qualities led to acts which involved not only the Emperor
+himself, but also the empire over which he ruled, in fatal
+consequences.</p>
+
+<p>This vast empire, composed of many different peoples, was under the
+rule and subject to the caprice of one man. The form of the
+government imposed practically no checks on his power. With such
+able emperors as Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and Marcus Aurelius the
+State was safe; but the wise men of Rome had foreseen that a tyrant
+or weak and inexperienced ruler, under this system, might plunge
+the empire into confusion and ruin. Yet they had made no provision
+against such a contingency. In the death of such a ruler and the
+accession of an abler and juster one lay their only hope of
+amelioration.</p>
+
+<p>The course of events during the bloody reign of the degenerate
+Commodus was such as surely to forecast the decline of Roman power
+and supremacy. In the next hundred years there were twenty-three
+emperors, thirteen of whom were murdered by their own soldiers or
+servants&mdash;a tragic period of cruelty, licentiousness, and decay.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world
+during which the condition of the human race was most happy and
+prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from
+the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of
+the Roman Empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of
+virtue and wisdom. The armies were restrained by the firm but gentle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>
+hand of four successive emperors, whose characters and authority
+commanded involuntary respect. The forms of the civil administration
+were carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines,
+who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with considering
+themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws. Such princes
+deserved the honor of restoring the republic, had the Romans of their
+days been capable of enjoying a rational freedom.</p>
+
+<p>The labors of these monarchs were overpaid by the immense reward that
+inseparably waited on their success, by the honest pride of virtue, and
+by the exquisite delight of beholding the general happiness of which
+they were the authors. A just but melancholy reflection imbittered,
+however, the noblest of human enjoyments. They must often have
+recollected the instability of a happiness which depended on the
+character of a single man. The fatal moment was perhaps approaching when
+some licentious youth or some jealous tyrant would abuse, to the
+destruction, that absolute power which they had exerted for the benefit
+of their people. The ideal restraints of the senate and the laws might
+serve to display the virtues, but could never correct the vices, of the
+emperor. The military force was a blind and irresistible instrument of
+oppression, and the corruption of Roman manners would always supply
+flatterers eager to applaud, and ministers prepared to serve, the fear
+or the avarice, the lust or the cruelty, of their masters.</p>
+
+<p>These gloomy apprehensions had been already justified by the experience
+of the Romans. The annals of the emperors exhibit a strong and various
+picture of human nature, which we should vainly seek among the mixed and
+doubtful characters of modern history. In the conduct of those monarchs
+we may trace the utmost lines of vice and virtue; the most exalted
+perfection, and the meanest degeneracy of our own species.</p>
+
+<p>The mildness of Marcus Aurelius, which the rigid discipline of the
+Stoics was unable to eradicate, formed, at the same time, the most
+amiable, and the only defective, part of his character. His excellent
+understanding was often deceived by the unsuspecting goodness of his
+heart. Artful men, who study the passions of princes, and conceal their
+own, approached his person in the disguise of philosophic sanctity, and
+acquired riches and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> honors by affecting to despise them. His excessive
+indulgence to his brother,<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> his wife, and his son exceeded the bounds
+of private virtue, and became a public injury, by the example and
+consequences of their vices.</p>
+
+<p>Faustina, the daughter of Pius and the wife of Marcus, has been as much
+celebrated for her gallantries as for her beauty. The grave simplicity
+of the philosopher was ill-calculated to engage her wanton levity, or to
+fix that unbounded passion for variety which often discovered personal
+merit in the meanest of mankind. The Cupid of the ancients was, in
+general, a very sensual deity; and the amours of an empress, as they
+exact on her side the plainest advances, are seldom susceptible of much
+sentimental delicacy. Marcus was the only man in the empire who seemed
+ignorant or insensible of the irregularities of Faustina, which,
+according to the prejudices of every age, reflected some disgrace on the
+injured husband. He promoted several of her lovers to posts of honor and
+profit, and, during a connection of thirty years, invariably gave her
+proofs of the most tender confidence and of a respect which ended not
+with her life. In his <i>Meditations</i> he thanks the gods, who had bestowed
+on him a wife so faithful, so gentle, and of such a wonderful simplicity
+of manners. The obsequious senate, at his earnest request, declared her
+a goddess. She was represented in her temples with the attributes of
+Juno, Venus, and Ceres; and it was decreed that, on the day of their
+nuptials, the youth of either sex should pay their vows before the altar
+of their chaste patroness.</p>
+
+<p>The monstrous vices of the son have cast a shade on the purity of the
+father's virtues. It has been objected to Marcus that he sacrificed the
+happiness of millions to a fond partiality for a worthless boy; and that
+he chose a successor in his own family rather than in the empire.
+Nothing, however, was neglected by the anxious father, and by the men of
+virtue and learning whom he summoned to his assistance, to expand the
+narrow mind of young Commodus, to correct his growing vices, and to
+render him worthy of the throne for which he was designed. But the power
+of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy
+dispositions where it is almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> superfluous. The distasteful lesson of
+a grave philosopher was, in a moment, obliterated by the whisper of a
+profligate favorite; and Marcus himself blasted the fruits of this
+labored education by admitting his son, at the age of fourteen or
+fifteen, to a full participation of the imperial power. He lived but
+four years afterward; but he lived long enough to repent a rash measure
+which raised the impetuous youth above the restraint of reason and
+authority.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of society are
+produced by the restraints which the necessary but unequal laws of
+property have imposed on the appetites of mankind by confining to a few
+the possession of those objects that are coveted by many. Of all our
+passions and appetites the love of power is of the most imperious and
+unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of
+the multitude. In the tumult of civil discord, the laws of society lose
+their force, and their place is seldom supplied by those of humanity.
+The ardor of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of success,
+the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future dangers all
+contribute to inflame the mind and to silence the voice of pity. From
+such motives almost every page of history has been stained with civil
+blood; but these motives will not account for the unprovoked cruelties
+of Commodus, who had nothing to wish and everything to enjoy.</p>
+
+<p>The beloved son of Marcus succeeded to his father, amid the acclamations
+of the senate and armies; and when he ascended the throne the happy
+youth saw round him neither competitor to remove nor enemies to punish.
+In this calm, elevated station it was surely natural that he should
+prefer the love of mankind to their detestation, the mild glories of his
+five predecessors to the ignominious fate of Nero and Domitian.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Commodus was not, as he has been represented, a tiger born with an
+insatiate thirst of human blood, and capable, from his infancy, of the
+most inhuman actions. Nature had formed him of a weak rather than a
+wicked disposition. His simplicity and timidity rendered him the slave
+of his attendants, who gradually corrupted his mind. His cruelty, which
+at first obeyed the dictates of others, degenerated into habit, and at
+length became the ruling passion of his soul.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Upon the death of his father, Commodus found himself embarrassed with
+the command of a great army, and the conduct of a difficult war against
+the Quadi and Marcomanni. The servile and profligate youths whom Marcus
+had banished soon regained their station and influence about the new
+Emperor. They exaggerated the hardships and dangers of a campaign in the
+wild countries beyond the Danube; and they assured the indolent prince
+that the terror of his name and the arms of his lieutenants would be
+sufficient to complete the conquest of the dismayed barbarians, or to
+impose such conditions as were more advantageous than any conquest. By a
+dexterous application to his sensual appetites they compared the
+tranquillity, the splendor, the refined pleasures of Rome with the
+tumult of a Pannonian camp, which afforded neither leisure nor materials
+for luxury. Commodus listened to the pleasing advice, but while he
+hesitated between his own inclination and the awe which he still
+retained for his father's counsellors, the summer insensibly elapsed,
+and his triumphal entry into the capital was deferred till the autumn.
+His graceful person, popular address, and imagined virtues attracted the
+public favor; the honorable peace which he had recently granted to the
+barbarians diffused a universal joy; his impatience to revisit Rome was
+fondly ascribed to the love of his country; and his dissolute course of
+amusements was faintly condemned in a prince of nineteen years of age.</p>
+
+<p>During the three first years of his reign the forms, and even the
+spirit, of the old administration were maintained by those faithful
+counsellors to whom Marcus had recommended his son, and for whose wisdom
+and integrity Commodus still entertained a reluctant esteem. The young
+prince and his profligate favorites revelled in all the license of
+sovereign power; but his hands were yet unstained with blood; and he had
+even displayed a generosity of sentiment which might perhaps have
+ripened into solid virtue.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> A fatal incident decided his fluctuating
+character.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p>
+<p>One evening, as the Emperor was returning to the palace through a dark
+and narrow portico in the Amphitheatre, an assassin, who waited his
+passage, rushed upon him with a drawn sword, loudly exclaiming, "<i>The
+senate sends you this</i>." The menace prevented the deed; the assassin was
+seized by the guards, and immediately revealed the authors of the
+conspiracy. It had been formed, not in the state, but within the walls
+of the palace. Lucilla, the Emperor's sister, and widow of Lucius Verus,
+impatient of the second rank, and jealous of the reigning empress, had
+armed the murderer against her brother's life. She had not ventured to
+communicate the black design to her second husband, Claudius Pompeianus,
+a senator of distinguished merit and unshaken loyalty; but among the
+crowd of her lovers&mdash;for she imitated the manners of Faustina&mdash;she found
+men of desperate fortunes and wild ambition, who were prepared to serve
+her more violent as well as her tender passions. The conspirators
+experienced the rigor of justice, and the abandoned princess was
+punished, first with exile, and afterward with death.</p>
+
+<p>But the words of the assassin sunk deep into the mind of Commodus, and
+left an indelible impression of fear and hatred against the whole body
+of the senate. Those whom he had dreaded as importunate ministers he now
+suspected as secret enemies. The delators, a race of men discouraged and
+almost extinguished under the former reigns, again became formidable, as
+soon as they discovered that the Emperor was desirous of finding
+disaffection and treason in the senate. That assembly, whom Marcus had
+ever considered as the great council of the nation, was composed of the
+most distinguished of the Romans; and distinction of every kind soon
+became criminal. The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of
+the informers; rigid virtue implied a tacit censure of the
+irregularities of Commodus; important services implied a dangerous
+superiority of merit; and the friendship of the father always insured
+the aversion of the son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof; trial to
+condemnation. The execution of a considerable senator was attended with
+the death of all who might lament or revenge his fate, and when Commodus
+had once tasted human blood he became incapable of pity or remorse.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Of these innocent victims of tyranny none died more lamented than the
+two brothers of the Quintilian family, Maximus and Condianus, whose
+fraternal love has saved their names from oblivion and endeared their
+memory to posterity. Their studies and their occupations, their pursuits
+and their pleasures, were still the same. In the enjoyment of a great
+estate they never admitted the idea of a separate interest: some
+fragments are now extant of a treatise which they composed in common;
+and in every action of life it was observed that their two bodies were
+animated by one soul. The Antonines, who valued their virtues and
+delighted in their union, raised them, in the same year, to the
+consulship; and Marcus afterward intrusted to their joint care the civil
+administration of Greece, and a great military command, in which they
+obtained a signal victory over the Germans. The kind cruelty of Commodus
+united them in death.</p>
+
+<p>The tyrant's rage, after having shed the noblest blood of the senate, at
+length recoiled on the principal instrument of his cruelty. While
+Commodus was immersed in blood and luxury, he devolved the detail of the
+public business on Perennis, a servile and ambitious minister, who had
+obtained his post by the murder of his predecessor, but who possessed a
+considerable share of vigor and ability. By acts of extortion and the
+forfeited estates of the nobles sacrificed to his avarice he had
+accumulated an immense treasure. The pr&aelig;torian guards were under his
+immediate command; and his son, who already discovered a military
+genius, was at the head of the Illyrian legions. Perennis aspired to the
+empire; or what, in the eyes of Commodus, amounted to the same crime, he
+was capable of aspiring to it, had he not been prevented, surprised, and
+put to death.</p>
+
+<p>The fall of a minister is a very trifling incident in the general
+history of the empire; but it was hastened by an extraordinary
+circumstance, which proved how much the nerves of discipline were
+already relaxed. The legions of Britain, discontented with the
+administration of Perennis, formed a deputation of fifteen hundred
+select men, with instructions to march to Rome and lay their complaints
+before the Emperor. These military petitioners, by their own determined
+behavior, by inflaming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> the divisions of the guards, by exaggerating the
+strength of the British army, and by alarming the fears of Commodus,
+exacted and obtained the minister's death, as the only redress of their
+grievances. This presumption of a distant army, and their discovery of
+the weakness of government, were a sure presage of the most dreadful
+convulsions.</p>
+
+<p>The negligence of the public administration was betrayed, soon
+afterward, by a new disorder, which arose from the smallest beginnings.
+A spirit of desertion began to prevail among the troops; and the
+deserters, instead of seeking their safety in flight or concealment,
+infested the highways. Maternus, a private soldier, of a daring boldness
+above his station, collected those bands of robbers into a little army,
+set open the prisons, invited the slaves to assert their freedom, and
+plundered with impunity the rich and defenceless cities of Gaul and
+Spain. The governors of the provinces, who had long been the spectators,
+and perhaps the partners, of his depredations, were at length roused
+from their supine indolence by the threatening commands of the Emperor.
+Maternus found that he was encompassed, and foresaw that he must be
+overpowered. A great effort of despair was his last resource. He ordered
+his followers to disperse, to pass the Alps in small parties and various
+disguises, and to assemble at Rome, during the licentious tumult of the
+festival of Cybele. To murder Commodus, and to ascend the vacant throne,
+were the ambition of no vulgar robber. His measures were so ably
+concerted that his concealed troops already filled the streets of Rome.
+The envy of an accomplice discovered and ruined this singular enterprise
+in the moment when it was ripe for execution.</p>
+
+<p>Suspicious princes often promote the last of mankind from a vain
+persuasion that those who have no dependence, except on their favor,
+will have no attachment, except to the person of their benefactor.
+Cleander, the successor of Perennis, was a Phrygian by birth; of a
+nation over whose stubborn but servile temper blows only could prevail.
+He had been sent from his native country to Rome, in the capacity of a
+slave. As a slave he entered the imperial palace, rendered himself
+useful to his master's passions, and rapidly ascended to the most
+exalted station which a subject could enjoy. His influence over the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>
+mind of Commodus was much greater than that of his predecessor; for
+Cleander was devoid of any ability or virtue which could inspire the
+Emperor with envy or distrust.</p>
+
+<p>Avarice was the reigning passion of his soul and the great principle of
+his administration. The rank of consul, of patrician, of senator, was
+exposed to public sale; and it would have been considered as
+disaffection if anyone had refused to purchase these empty and
+disgraceful honors, with the greatest part of his fortune. In the
+lucrative provincial employments the minister shared with the governor
+the spoils of the people. The execution of the laws was venal and
+arbitrary. A wealthy criminal might obtain not only the reversal of the
+sentence by which he was justly condemned, but might likewise inflict
+whatever punishment he pleased on the accuser, the witnesses, and the
+judge.</p>
+
+<p>By these means Cleander, in the space of three years, had accumulated
+more wealth than had ever yet been possessed by any freedman. Commodus
+was perfectly satisfied with the magnificent presents which the artful
+courtier laid at his feet in the most seasonable moments. To divert the
+public envy, Cleander, under the Emperor's name, erected baths,
+porticoes, and places of exercise for the use of the people. He
+flattered himself that the Romans, dazzled and amused by this apparent
+liberality, would be less affected by the bloody scenes which were daily
+exhibited; that they would forget the death of Byrrhus, a senator to
+whose superior merit the late Emperor had granted one of his daughters;
+and that they would forgive the execution of Arrius Antoninus, the last
+representative of the name and virtues of the Antonines. The former,
+with more integrity than prudence, had attempted to disclose, to his
+brother-in-law, the true character of Cleander. An equitable sentence
+pronounced by the latter, when proconsul of Asia, against a worthless
+creature of the favorite proved fatal to him. After the fall of
+Perennis, the terrors of Commodus had for a short time assumed the
+appearance of a return to virtue. He repealed the most odious of his
+acts, loaded his memory with the public execration, and ascribed to the
+pernicious counsels of that wicked minister all the errors of his
+inexperienced youth. But his repentance lasted only thirty days; and,
+under Cleander's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> tyranny, the administration of Perennis was often
+regretted.</p>
+
+<p>Pestilence and famine contributed to fill up the measure of the
+calamities of Rome. The first could be only imputed to the just
+indignation of the gods; but a monopoly of corn, supported by the riches
+and power of the minister, was considered as the immediate cause of the
+second. The popular discontent, after it had long circulated in
+whispers, broke out in the assembled Circus. The people quitted their
+favorite amusements for the more delicious pleasure of revenge, rushed
+in crowds toward a palace in the suburbs, one of the Emperor's
+retirements, and demanded, with angry clamors, the head of the public
+enemy. Cleander, who commanded the pr&aelig;torian guards, ordered a body of
+cavalry to sally forth and disperse the seditious multitude. The
+multitude fled with precipitation toward the city; several were slain,
+and many more were trampled to death; but when the cavalry entered the
+streets their pursuit was checked by a shower of stones and darts from
+the roofs and windows of the houses.</p>
+
+<p>The foot-guards, who had been long jealous of the prerogatives and
+insolence of the pr&aelig;torian cavalry, embraced the party of the people.
+The tumult became a regular engagement, and threatened a general
+massacre. The pr&aelig;torians at length gave way, oppressed with numbers; and
+the tide of popular fury returned with redoubled violence against the
+gates of the palace, where Commodus lay, dissolved in luxury, and alone
+unconscious of the civil war. It was death to approach his person with
+the unwelcome news. He would have perished in this supine security had
+not two women, his eldest sister Fadilla, and Marcia, the most favored
+of his concubines, ventured to break into his presence. Bathed in tears,
+and with dishevelled hair, they threw themselves at his feet, and, with
+all the pressing eloquence of fear, discovered to the affrighted Emperor
+the crimes of the minister, the rage of the people, and the impending
+ruin which, in a few minutes, would burst over his palace and person.
+Commodus started from his dream of pleasure and commanded that the head
+of Cleander should be thrown out to the people. The desired spectacle
+instantly appeased the tumult; and the son of Marcus might even yet have
+regained the affection and confidence of his subjects.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But every sentiment of virtue and humanity was extinct in the mind of
+Commodus. While he thus abandoned the reins of empire to these unworthy
+favorites, he valued nothing in sovereign power except the unbounded
+license of indulging his sensual appetites. The influence of a polite
+age and the labor of an attentive education had never been able to
+infuse into his rude and brutish mind the least tincture of learning;
+and he was the first of the Roman emperors totally devoid of taste for
+the pleasures of the understanding. Nero himself excelled, or affected
+to excel, in the elegant arts of music and poetry; nor should we despise
+his pursuits, had he not converted the pleasing relaxation of a leisure
+hour into the serious business and ambition of his life. But Commodus,
+from his earliest infancy, discovered an aversion to whatever was
+rational or liberal, and a fond attachment to the amusements of the
+populace; the sports of the Circus and Amphitheatre, the combats of
+gladiators, and the hunting of wild beasts. The masters in every branch
+of learning, whom Marcus provided for his son, were heard with
+inattention and disgust, while the Moors and Parthians, who taught him
+to dart the javelin and to shoot with the bow, found a disciple who
+delighted in his application, and soon equalled the most skilful of his
+instructors in the steadiness of the eye and the dexterity of the hand.</p>
+
+<p>The servile crowd, whose fortune depended on their master's vices,
+applauded these ignoble pursuits. The perfidious voice of flattery
+reminded him that by exploits of the same nature, by the defeat of the
+Nem&aelig;an lion, and the slaughter of the wild boar of Erymanthus, the
+Grecian Hercules had acquired a place among the gods and an immortal
+memory among men. They only forgot to observe that in the first ages of
+society, when the fiercer animals often dispute with man the possession
+of an unsettled country, a successful war against those savages is one
+of the most innocent and beneficial labors of heroism. In the civilized
+state of the Roman Empire the wild beasts had long since retired from
+the face of man and the neighborhood of populous cities. To surprise
+them in their solitary haunts and to transport them to Rome that they
+might be slain in pomp by the hand of an emperor was an enterprise
+equally ridiculous for the prince and oppressive for the people.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ignorant of these distinctions, Commodus eagerly embraced the glorious
+resemblance and styled himself (as we still read on his medals) the
+Roman Hercules. The club and the lion's hide were placed by the side of
+the throne, among the ensigns of sovereignty, and statues were erected
+in which Commodus was represented in the character and with the
+attributes of the god whose valor and dexterity he endeavored to emulate
+in the daily course of his ferocious amusements.</p>
+
+<p>Elated with these praises, which gradually extinguished the innate sense
+of shame, Commodus resolved to exhibit before the eyes of the Roman
+people those exercises which till then he had decently confined within
+the walls of his palace and to the presence of a few favorites. On the
+appointed day the various motives of flattery, fear, and curiosity
+attracted to the Amphitheatre an innumerable multitude of spectators;
+and some degree of applause was deservedly bestowed on the uncommon
+skill of the imperial performer. Whether he aimed at the head or heart
+of the animal, the wound was alike certain and mortal. With arrows whose
+point was shaped into the form of a crescent Commodus often intercepted
+the rapid career and cut asunder the long, bony neck of the ostrich.</p>
+
+<p>A panther was let loose, and the archer waited till he had leaped upon a
+trembling malefactor. In the same instant the shaft flew, the beast
+dropped dead, and the man remained unhurt. The dens of the Amphitheatre
+disgorged at once a hundred lions: a hundred darts from the unerring
+hand of Commodus laid them dead as they ran raging round the arena.
+Neither the huge bulk of the elephant nor the scaly hide of the
+rhinoceros could defend them from his stroke. &AElig;thiopia and India yielded
+their most extraordinary productions; and several animals were slain in
+the Amphitheatre which had been seen only in the representations of art
+or perhaps of fancy. In all these exhibitions the securest precautions
+were used to protect the person of the Roman Hercules from the desperate
+spring of any savage, who might possibly disregard the dignity of the
+Emperor and the sanctity of the god.</p>
+
+<p>But the meanest of the populace were affected with shame and indignation
+when they beheld their sovereign enter the lists as a gladiator, and
+glory in a profession which the laws and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> manners of the Romans had
+branded with the justest note of infamy.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> He chose the habit and arms
+of the <i>secutor</i>, whose combat with the <i>retiarius</i> formed one of the
+most lively scenes in the bloody sports of the Amphitheatre. The secutor
+was armed with a helmet, sword, and buckler; his naked antagonist had
+only a large net and a trident; with the one he endeavored to entangle,
+with the other to despatch his enemy. If he missed the first throw, he
+was obliged to fly from the pursuit of the secutor till he had prepared
+his net for a second cast.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor fought in this character seven hundred and thirty-five
+several times. These glorious achievements were carefully recorded in
+the public acts of the empire; and that he might omit no circumstance of
+infamy, he received from the common fund of gladiators a stipend so
+exorbitant that it became a new and most ignominious tax upon the Roman
+people. It may be easily supposed that in these engagements the master
+of the world was always successful; in the Amphitheatre his victories
+were not often sanguinary; but when he exercised his skill in the school
+of gladiators or his own palace, his wretched antagonists were
+frequently honored with a mortal wound from the hand of Commodus, and
+obliged to seal their flattery with their blood.</p>
+
+<p>He now disdained the appellation of Hercules. The name of Paulus, a
+celebrated secutor, was the only one which delighted his ear. It was
+inscribed on his colossal statues and repeated in the redoubled
+acclamations of the mournful and applauding senate. Claudius Pompeianus,
+the virtuous husband of Lucilla, was the only senator who asserted the
+honor of his rank. As a father, he permitted his sons to consult their
+safety by attending the Amphitheatre. As a Roman he declared that his
+own life was in the Emperor's hands, but that he would never behold the
+son of Marcus prostituting his person and dignity. Notwithstanding his
+manly resolution, Pompeianus escaped the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> resentment of the tyrant, and,
+with his honor, had the good fortune to preserve his life.</p>
+
+<p>Commodus had now attained the summit of vice and infamy. Amid the
+acclamations of a flattering court he was unable to disguise from
+himself that he had deserved the contempt and hatred of every man of
+sense and virtue in his empire. His ferocious spirit was irritated by
+the consciousness of that hatred, by the envy of every kind of merit, by
+the just apprehension of danger, and by the habit of slaughter which he
+contracted in his daily amusements. History has preserved a long list of
+consular senators sacrificed to his wanton suspicion, which sought out,
+with peculiar anxiety, those unfortunate persons connected, however
+remotely, with the family of the Antonines, without sparing even the
+ministers of his crimes or pleasures.</p>
+
+<p>His cruelty proved at last fatal to himself. He had shed with impunity
+the noblest blood of Rome: he perished as soon as he was dreaded by his
+own domestics. Marcia, his favorite concubine, Eclectus, his
+chamberlain, and L&aelig;tus, his pr&aelig;torian prefect, alarmed by the fate of
+their companions and predecessors, resolved to prevent the destruction
+which every hour hung over their heads, either from the mad caprice of
+the tyrant or the sudden indignation of the people. Marcia seized the
+occasion of presenting a draught of wine to her lover, after he had
+fatigued himself with hunting some wild beasts. Commodus retired to
+sleep; but while he was laboring with the effects of poison and
+drunkenness, a robust youth, by profession a wrestler, entered his
+chamber and strangled him without resistance. The body was secretly
+conveyed out of the palace, before the least suspicion was entertained
+in the city, or even in the court, of the Emperor's death. Such was the
+fate of the son of Marcus, and so easy was it to destroy a hated tyrant,
+who, by the artificial powers of government, had oppressed, during
+thirteen years, so many millions of subjects, each of whom was equal to
+their master in personal strength and personal abilities.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> His brother by adoption, and his colleague, L. Verus.
+Marcus Aurelius had no other brother.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Manilius, the confidential secretary of Avidius Cassius,
+was discovered after he had lain concealed several years. The Emperor
+nobly relieved the public anxiety by refusing to see him, and burning
+his papers without opening them.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> The virtuous and even the wise princes forbade the
+senators and knights to embrace this scandalous profession, under pain
+of infamy, or, what was more dreaded by those profligate wretches, of
+exile. The tyrants allured them to dishonor by threats and rewards. Nero
+once produced in the arena forty senators and sixty knights.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p>
+<h2>EVENTFUL REIGN OF SAPOR I, KING OF PERSIA</h2>
+
+<h4>A.D. 240</h4>
+
+<h3>GEORGE RAWLINSON</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Under Mithradates I the Parthian empire rose to great power, and
+that monarch, about <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> 163, began to make conquests toward the
+west. By <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> 150 he had added to his possessions Media Magna,
+Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria proper, and Persia. The Persians appear
+to have yielded without resistance to his rule, and he governed
+them with a fair degree of moderation, allowing them, as was the
+Parthian policy toward subject peoples, a large measure of
+self-government under their hereditary native kings, the "King of
+Kings" exacting little from them besides regular tribute and the
+required number of men for his armies.</p>
+
+<p>The Parthian empire was in turn overthrown by Ardashir or
+Artaxerxes, who about <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> 226 defeated and killed Ardavan, the
+last Parthian king, and became the chief founder of the Sassanian
+dynasty, which ruled Persia until the Mahometan invasion.</p>
+
+<p>The victories of Artaxerxes had fatal results for the Roman power
+in the East, for the new head of the Persian monarchy was no sooner
+established on his throne than he sent an embassy to the Roman
+Emperor, Alexander Severus, to demand from him the surrender of all
+Asia and the withdrawal of Roman arms and authority to the western
+shores of the &AElig;gean Sea and of the Propontis, as the Sea of Marmora
+was anciently called. From this began a series of wars which
+continued at intervals for four centuries, and which ended only
+with the Mahometan conquests that overwhelmed Roman and Persian
+power alike. The first campaigns of the Romans against Artaxerxes
+were indecisive, but the renewal of the war in the reign of his
+son, Sapor I, was followed by disasters to the Roman arms which
+Rawlinson describes in his most lucid and vigorous manner, together
+with the other feats of this remarkable man.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Artaxerxes appears to have died in <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 240. He was succeeded by his son
+Shahpuhri, or Sapor, the first Sassanian prince of that name. According
+to the Persian historians, the mother of Sapor was a daughter of the
+last Parthian king, Artabanus, whom Artaxerxes had taken to wife after
+his conquest of her father. But the facts known of Sapor throw doubt on
+this story, which has too many parallels in oriental romance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> to claim
+implicit credence. Nothing authentic has come down to us respecting
+Sapor during his father's lifetime, but from the moment that he mounted
+the throne we find him engaged in a series of wars, which show him to
+have been of a most active and energetic character.</p>
+
+<p>Armenia, which Artaxerxes had subjected, attempted, it would seem, to
+regain its independence at the commencement of the reign; but Sapor
+easily crushed the nascent insurrection, and the Armenians made no
+further effort to free themselves till several years after his death.
+Contemporaneously with this revolt in the mountain region of the North a
+danger showed itself in the plains country of the South, where Manizen,
+king of Hatra, or El Hadhr, not only declared himself independent, but
+assumed dominion over the entire tract between the Euphrates and the
+Tigris, the Jezireh of the Arabian geographers.</p>
+
+<p>The strength of Hatra was great, as had been proved by Trajan and
+Severus; its thick walls and valiant inhabitants would probably have
+defied every attempt of the Persian prince to make himself master of it
+by force. He, therefore, resorted to stratagem. Manizen had a daughter
+who cherished ambitious views. On obtaining a promise from Sapor that if
+she gave Hatra into his power he would make her his queen, this
+unnatural child turned against her father, betrayed him into Sapor's
+hands, and thus brought the war to an end. Sapor recovered his lost
+territory; but he did not fulfil his bargain. Instead of marrying the
+traitoress, he handed her over to an executioner, to receive the death
+that she had deserved, though scarcely at his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Encouraged by his success in these two lesser contests, Sapor resolved
+(apparently in <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 241) to resume the bold projects of his father, and
+engage in a great war with Rome. The confusion and troubles which
+afflicted the Roman Empire at this time were such as might well give him
+hopes of obtaining a decided advantage. Alexander, his father's
+adversary, had been murdered in <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 235 by Maximin, who from the
+condition of a Thracian peasant had risen into the higher ranks of the
+army. The upstart had ruled like the savage that he was, and after three
+years of misery the whole Roman world had risen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> against him. Two
+emperors had been proclaimed in Africa. On their fall two others had
+been elected by the senate; a third, a mere boy, had been added at the
+demand of the Roman populace. All the pretenders except the last had met
+with violent deaths; and after the shocks of a year, unparalleled since
+<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 69, the administration of the greatest kingdom in the world was in
+the hands of a youth of fifteen. Sapor, no doubt, thought he saw in this
+condition of things an opportunity that he ought not to miss, and
+rapidly matured his plans lest the favorable moment should pass away.</p>
+
+<p>Crossing the middle Tigris into Mesopotamia, the bands of Sapor first
+attacked the important city of Nisibis. Nisibis, at the time a Roman
+colony, was strongly situated on the outskirts of the mountain range
+which traverses Northern Mesopotamia between the thirty-seventh and
+thirty-eighth parallels. The place was well fortified and well defended;
+it offered a prolonged resistance; but the walls were breached and it
+was forced to yield itself. The advance was then made along the southern
+flank of the mountains by Carrh&aelig; (Harran) and Edessa to the Euphrates,
+which was probably reached in the neighborhood of Birehjik. The hordes
+then poured into Syria, and, spreading themselves over that fertile
+region, surprised and took the metropolis of the Roman East, the rich
+and luxurious city of Antioch. But meantime the Romans had shown a
+spirit which had not been expected from them.</p>
+
+<p>Gordian, young as he was, had quitted Rome and marched through M&oelig;sia
+and Thrace into Asia, accompanied by a formidable army and by at least
+one good general. Timesitheus, whose daughter Gordian had recently
+married, though his life had hitherto been that of a civilian, exhibited
+on his elevation to the dignity of pr&aelig;torian prefect considerable
+military ability. The army, nominally commanded by Gordian, really acted
+under his orders. With it Timesitheus attacked and beat the bands of
+Sapor in a number of engagements, recovered Antioch, crossed the
+Euphrates, retook Carrh&aelig;, defeated the Persian monarch in a pitched
+battle near Resaina (Ras-el-Ain), recovered Nisibis, and once more
+planted the Roman standards on the banks of the Tigris. Sapor hastily
+evacuated most of his conquests, and retired first across the Euphrates,
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> then across the more eastern river, while the Romans advanced as he
+retreated, placed garrisons in the various Mesopotamian towns, and even
+threatened the great city of Ctesiphon.</p>
+
+<p>Gordian was confident that his general would gain further triumphs, and
+wrote to the senate to that effect; but either disease or the arts of a
+rival cut short the career of the victor, and from the time of his death
+the Romans ceased to be successful. The legions had, it would seem,
+invaded Southern Mesopotamia when the pr&aelig;torian prefect who had
+succeeded Timesitheus brought them intentionally into difficulties by
+his mismanagement of the commissariat, and at last retreat was
+determined on.</p>
+
+<p>The young Emperor had almost reached his own frontier, when the
+discontent of the army, fomented by the prefect, Philip, came to a head.
+Gordian was murdered at a place called Zaitha, about twenty miles south
+of Circesium, and was buried where he fell, the soldiers raising a
+tumulus in his honor. His successor, Philip, was glad to make peace on
+any tolerable terms with the Persians; he felt himself insecure upon his
+throne, and was anxious to obtain the senate's sanction of his
+usurpation. He therefore quitted the East in <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 244, having concluded
+a treaty with Sapor by which Armenia seems to have been left to the
+Persians, while Mesopotamia returned to its old condition of a Roman
+province.</p>
+
+<p>The peace made between Philip and Sapor was followed by an interval of
+fourteen years, during which scarcely anything is known of the condition
+of Persia. We may suspect that troubles in the northeast of his empire
+occupied Sapor during this period, for at the end of it we find Bactria,
+which was certainly subject to Persia during the earlier years of the
+monarchy, occupying an independent position, and even assuming an
+attitude of hostility toward the Persian monarch. Bactria had, from a
+remote antiquity, claims to pre&euml;minence among the Aryan nations. She was
+more than once inclined to revolt from the Ach&aelig;menid&aelig;, and during the
+later Parthian period she had enjoyed a sort of semi-independence. It
+would seem that she now succeeded in detaching herself altogether from
+her southern neighbor and becoming a distinct and separate power. To
+strengthen her position she entered into relations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> with Rome, which
+gladly welcomed any adhesions to her cause in this remote region.</p>
+
+<p>Sapor's second war with Rome was, like his first, provoked by himself.
+After concluding his peace with Philip he had seen the Roman world
+governed successively by six weak emperors, of whom four had died
+violent deaths, while at the same time there had been a continued series
+of attacks upon the northern frontiers of the empire by Alamanni, Goths,
+and Franks, who had ravaged at will a number of the finest provinces,
+and threatened the absolute destruction of the great monarchy of the
+West. It was natural that the chief kingdom of Western Asia should note
+these events, and should seek to promote its own interests by taking
+advantage of the circumstances of the time. Sapor, in <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 258,
+determined on a fresh invasion of the Roman provinces, and once more
+entering Mesopotamia carried all before him, became master of Nisibis,
+Carrh&aelig;, and Edessa, and, crossing the Euphrates, surprised Antioch,
+which was wrapped in the enjoyment of theatrical and other
+representations, and only knew its fate on the exclamation of a couple
+of actors that "the Persians were in possession of the town!" The aged
+Emperor, Valerian, hastened to the protection of his more eastern
+territories, and at first gained some successes, retaking Antioch, and
+making that city his head-quarters during his stay in the East.</p>
+
+<p>But after this the tide turned. Valerian intrusted the whole conduct of
+the war to Macrianus, his pr&aelig;torian prefect, whose talents he admired,
+and of whose fidelity he did not entertain a suspicion. Macrianus,
+however, aspired to the empire, and intentionally brought Valerian into
+difficulties in the hope of disgracing or removing him. His tactics were
+successful. The Roman army in Mesopotamia was betrayed into a situation
+whence escape was impossible and where its capitulation was only a
+question of time. A bold attempt made to force a way through the enemy's
+lines failed utterly, after which famine and pestilence began to do
+their work. In vain did the aged Emperor send envoys to propose a peace
+and offer to purchase escape by the payment of an immense sum in gold.
+Sapor, confident of victory, refused the overture, and, waiting
+patiently till his adversary was at the last gasp, invited him to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> a
+conference, and then treacherously seized his person. The army
+surrendered or dispersed. Macrianus, the pr&aelig;torian prefect, shortly
+assumed the title of emperor and marched against Gallienus, the son and
+colleague of Valerian, who had been left to direct affairs in the West.
+But another rival started up in the East. Sapor conceived the idea of
+complicating the Roman affairs by himself putting forward a pretender;
+and an obscure citizen of Antioch, a certain Miriades, or Cyriades, a
+refugee in his camp, was invested with the purple and assumed the title
+of C&aelig;sar.</p>
+
+<p>The blow struck at Edessa laid the whole of Roman Asia open to attack,
+and the Persian monarch was not slow to seize the occasion. His troops
+crossed the Euphrates in force, and, marching on Antioch, once more
+captured that unfortunate town, from which the more prudent citizens had
+withdrawn, but where the bulk of the people, not displeased at the turn
+of affairs, remained and welcomed the conqueror. Miriades was installed
+in power, while Sapor himself, at the head of his irresistible
+squadrons, pressed forward, bursting "like a mountain torrent" into
+Cilicia, and thence into Cappadocia. Tarsus, the birthplace of St. Paul,
+at once a famous seat of learning and a great emporium of commerce,
+fell; Cilicia Campestris was overrun, and the passes of Taurus, deserted
+or weakly defended by the Romans, came into Sapor's hand.</p>
+
+<p>Penetrating through them and entering the campaign country beyond, his
+bands soon began the siege of C&aelig;sarea Mazaca, the greatest city of these
+parts, estimated at this time to have contained a population of four
+hundred thousand souls. Demosthenes, the governor of C&aelig;sarea, defended
+it bravely, and, had force only been used against him, might have
+prevailed; but Sapor found friends within the walls, and by their help
+made himself master of the place, while its bold defender was obliged to
+content himself with escaping by cutting his way through the victorious
+host. All Asia Minor now seemed open to the conqueror; and it is
+difficult to understand why he did not at any rate attempt a permanent
+occupation of the territory which he had so easily overrun. But it seems
+certain that he entertained no such idea.</p>
+
+<p>Devastation and plunder, revenge and gain, not permanent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> conquest, were
+his objects; and hence his course was everywhere marked by ruin and
+carnage, by smoking towns, ravaged fields, and heaps of slain. His
+cruelties have no doubt been exaggerated; but when we hear that he
+filled the ravines and valleys of Cappadocia with dead bodies, and so
+led his cavalry across them; that he depopulated Antioch, killing or
+carrying off into slavery almost the whole population; that he suffered
+his prisoners in many cases to perish of hunger, and that he drove them
+to water once a day like beasts, we may be sure that the guise in which
+he showed himself to the Romans was that of a merciless scourge&mdash;an
+avenger bent on spreading the terror of his name, not of one who really
+sought to enlarge the limits of his empire. During the whole course of
+this plundering expedition, until the retreat began, we hear but of one
+check that the bands of Sapor received. It had been determined to attack
+Emesa, one of the most important of the Syrian towns, where the temple
+of Venus was known to contain a vast treasure. The invaders approached,
+scarcely expecting to be resisted; but the high-priest of the temple,
+having collected a large body of peasants, appeared in his sacerdotal
+robes at the head of a fanatic multitude armed with slings, and
+succeeded in beating off the assailants. Emesa, its temple, and its
+treasure escaped the rapacity of the Persians; and an example of
+resistance was set, which was not perhaps without important
+consequences.</p>
+
+<p>For it seems certain that the return of Sapor across the Euphrates was
+not effected without considerable loss and difficulty. On his advance
+into Syria he had received an embassy from a certain Odenathus, a
+Syrian, or Arab chief, who occupied a position of semi-independence at
+Palmyra, which through the advantages of its situation, had lately
+become a flourishing commercial town. Odenathus sent a long train of
+camels laden with gifts, consisting in part of rare and precious
+merchandise, to the Persian monarch, begging him to accept them, and
+claiming his favorable regard on the ground that he had hitherto
+refrained from all acts of hostility against the Persians. It appears
+that Sapor took offence at the tone of the communication, which was not
+sufficiently humble to please him. Tearing the letter to fragments and
+trampling it beneath his feet he exclaimed:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> "Who is this Odenathus, and
+of what country, that he ventures thus to address his lord? Let him now,
+if he would lighten his punishment, come here and fall prostrate before
+me with his hands tied behind his back. Should he refuse, let him be
+well assured that I will destroy himself, his race, and his land." At
+the same time he ordered his servants to cast the costly presents of the
+Palmyrene prince into the Euphrates.</p>
+
+<p>This arrogant and offensive behavior naturally turned the willing friend
+into an enemy. Odenathus, finding himself forced into a hostile
+position, took arms and watched his opportunity. So long as Sapor
+continued to advance he kept aloof. As soon, however, as the retreat
+commenced, and the Persian army, encumbered with its spoil and captives,
+proceeded to make its way back slowly and painfully to the Euphrates,
+Odenathus, who had collected a large force&mdash;in part from the Syrian
+villages, in part from the wild tribes of Arabia&mdash;made his appearance in
+the field. His light and agile horsemen hovered about the Persian host,
+cut off their stragglers, made prize of much of their spoil, and even
+captured a portion of the seraglio of the great king.</p>
+
+<p>The harassed troops were glad when they had placed the Euphrates between
+themselves and their pursuer, and congratulated each other on their
+escape. So much had they suffered and so little did they feel equal to
+further conflicts that on their march through Mesopotamia they consented
+to purchase the neutrality of the people of Edessa by making over to
+them all the coined money that they had carried off in their Syrian
+raid. After this it would seem that the retreat was unmolested, and
+Sapor succeeded in conveying the greater part of his army, together with
+his illustrious prisoner, to his own country.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to the treatment that Valerian received at the hands of his
+conqueror it is difficult to form a decided opinion. The writers nearest
+to the time speak vaguely and moderately, merely telling us that he grew
+old in his captivity and was kept in the condition of a slave. It is
+reserved for authors of the next generation to inform us that he was
+exposed to the constant gaze of the multitude, fettered, but clad in the
+imperial purple; and that Sapor, whenever he mounted on horseback,
+placed his foot upon his prisoner's neck. Some add that when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> the
+unhappy captive died, about the year <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 265 or 266, his body was
+flayed and the skin inflated and hung up to view in one of the most
+frequented temples of Persia, where it was seen by Roman envoys on their
+visits to the great king's court.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to deny that oriental barbarism may conceivably have
+gone to these lengths; and it is in favor of the truth of the details
+that Roman vanity would naturally have been opposed to their invention.
+But, on the other hand, we have to remember that in the East the person
+of a king is generally regarded as sacred, and that self-interest
+restrains the conquering monarch from dishonoring one of his own class.
+We have also to give due weight to the fact that the earlier authorities
+are silent with respect to any such atrocities, and that they are first
+related half a century after the time when they are said to have
+occurred.</p>
+
+<p>Under these circumstances the scepticism of Gibbon with respect to them
+is perhaps worthy of commendation.</p>
+
+<p>It may be added that oriental monarchs, when they are cruel, do not show
+themselves ashamed of their cruelties, but usually relate them openly in
+their inscriptions or represent them in their bas-reliefs. The remains
+ascribed on good grounds to Sapor do not, however, contain anything
+confirmatory of the stories which we are considering. Valerian is
+represented on them in a humble attitude, but not fettered, and never in
+the posture of extreme degradation commonly associated with his name. He
+bends his knee, as no doubt he would be required to do, on being brought
+into the great king's presence; but otherwise he does not appear to be
+subjected to any indignity. It seems thus to be on the whole most
+probable that the Roman Emperor was not more severely treated than the
+generality of captive princes, and that Sapor has been unjustly taxed
+with abusing the rights of conquest.</p>
+
+<p>The hostile feeling of Odenathus against Sapor did not cease with the
+retreat of the latter across the Euphrates. The Palmyrene prince was
+bent on taking advantage of the general confusion of the times to carve
+out for himself a considerable kingdom, of which Palmyra should be the
+capital. Syria and Palestine, on the one hand, Mesopotamia, on the
+other, were the provinces that lay most conveniently near to him and
+that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> he especially coveted. But Mesopotamia had remained in the
+possession of the Persians as the prize of their victory over Valerian,
+and could only be obtained by wresting it from the hands into which it
+had fallen. Odenathus did not shrink from this contest. It has been,
+with some reason, conjectured that Sapor must have been at this time
+occupied with troubles which had broken out on the eastern side of his
+empire. At any rate, it appears that Odenathus, after a short contest
+with Macrianus and his son, Quietus, turned his arms once more, about
+<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 263, against the Persians, crossed the Euphrates into Mesopotamia,
+took Carrh&aelig; and Nisibis, defeated Sapor and some of his sons in a
+battle, and drove the entire Persian host in confusion to the gates of
+Ctesiphon. He even returned to lay siege to that city; but it was not
+long before effectual relief arrived; from all the provinces flocked in
+contingents for the defence of the western capital; several engagements
+were fought, in some of which Odenathus was defeated; and at last he
+found himself involved in difficulties through his ignorance of the
+localities, and so thought it best to retire. Apparently his retreat was
+undisturbed; he succeeded in carrying off his booty and his prisoners,
+among whom were several satraps, and he retained possession of
+Mesopotamia, which continued to form a part of the Palmyrene kingdom
+until the capture of Zenobia by Aurelian, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 273.</p>
+
+<p>The successes of Odenathus, in <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 263, were followed by a period of
+comparative tranquillity. That ambitious prince seems to have been
+content with ruling from the Tigris to the Mediterranean, and with the
+title of "Augustus," which he received from the Roman emperor Gallienus,
+and "King of Kings," which he assumed upon his coins. He did not press
+further upon Sapor, nor did the Roman Emperor make any serious attempt
+to recover his father's person or revenge his defeat upon the Persians.
+An expedition which he sent out to the East, professedly with this
+object, in the year <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 267, failed utterly, its commander,
+Heraclianus, being signally defeated by Zenobia, the widow and successor
+of Odenathus. Odenathus himself was murdered by a kinsman three or four
+years after his great successes, and though Zenobia ruled his kingdom
+almost with a man's vigor, the removal of his powerful adversary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> must
+have been felt as a relief by the Persian monarch. It is evident, too,
+that from the time of the accession of Zenobia the relations between
+Rome and Palmyra had become unfriendly; the old empire grew jealous of
+the new kingdom which had sprung up upon its borders; and the effect of
+this jealousy, while it lasted, was to secure Persia from any attack on
+the part of either.</p>
+
+<p>It appears that Sapor, relieved from any further necessity of defending
+his empire in arms, employed the remaining years of his life in the
+construction of great works, and especially in the erection and
+ornamentation of a new capital. The ruins of Shapur, which still exist
+near Kazerun, in the province of Fars, commemorate the name and afford
+some indication of the grandeur of the second Persian monarch. Besides
+remains of buildings, they comprise a number of bas-reliefs and rock
+inscriptions, some of which were, beyond a doubt, set up by Sapor I. In
+one of the most remarkable, the Persian monarch is represented on
+horseback, wearing the crown usual upon his coins, and holding by the
+hand a tunicked figure, probably Miriades, whom he is presenting to the
+captured Romans as their sovereign. Foremost to do him homage is the
+kneeling figure of a chieftain, probably Valerian, behind whom are
+arranged in a double line seventeen persons, representing probably the
+different corps of the Roman army. All these persons are on foot, while
+in contrast with them are arranged behind Sapor ten guards on horseback,
+who represent his irresistible cavalry. Another bas-relief at the same
+place gives us a general view of Sapor on his return to Persia with his
+illustrious prisoners. Here fifty-seven guards are ranged behind him,
+while in front are thirty-three tribute bearers having with them an
+elephant and a chariot. In the centre is a group of seven figures,
+comprising: Sapor, who is on horseback in his usual costume; Valerian,
+who is under the horse's feet; Miriades, who stands by Sapor's side;
+three principal tribute bearers in front of the main figure; and a
+<i>Victory</i>, which floats in the sky.</p>
+
+<p>Another important work, assigned by tradition to Sapor I, is the great
+dike at Shuster. This is a dam across the river Karun, formed of cut
+stones, cemented by lime and fastened together by cramps of iron; it is
+twenty feet broad and no less<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> than twelve hundred feet in length. The
+whole is a solid mass except in the centre, where two small arches have
+been constructed for the purpose of allowing a part of the stream to
+flow in its natural bed. The greater portion of the water is directed
+eastward into a canal cut for it; and the town of Shuster is thus
+defended on both sides by a water barrier, whereby the position becomes
+one of great strength. Tradition says that Sapor used his power over
+Valerian to obtain Roman engineers for this work; and the great dam is
+still known as the "Dam of C&aelig;sar" to the inhabitants of the neighboring
+country.</p>
+
+<p>Sapor died, having reigned thirty-one years, from <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 240 to <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 271.
+He was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable princes of the Sassanian
+series. In military talent, indeed, he may not have equalled his father,
+for though he defeated Valerian he had to confess himself inferior to
+Odenathus. But in general governmental ability he is among the foremost
+of the Neo-Persian monarchs, and may compare favorably with almost any
+prince of the series. He baffled Odenathus, when he was not able to
+defeat him, by placing himself behind walls, and by bringing into play
+those advantages which naturally belonged to the position of a monarch
+attacked in his own country. He maintained, if he did not permanently
+advance, the power of Persia in the West, while in the East it is
+probable that he considerably extended the bounds of his dominion.</p>
+
+<p>To the internal administration of his empire he united works of
+usefulness with the construction of memorials which had only a
+sentimental and &aelig;sthetic value. He was a liberal patron of art and is
+thought not to have confined his patronage to the encouragement of
+native talent. On the subject of religion he did not suffer himself to
+be permanently led away by the enthusiasm of a young and bold
+freethinker. He decided to maintain the religious system that had
+descended to him from his ancestors, and turned a deaf ear to
+persuasions that would have led him to revolutionize the religious
+opinion of the East without placing it upon a satisfactory footing. The
+orientals add to these commendable features of character that he was a
+man of remarkable beauty, of great personal courage, and of a noble and
+princely liberality. According to them, "he only desired wealth that he
+might use it for good and great purposes."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE</h2>
+
+<h3>DECLINE OF PAGANISM</h3>
+
+<h4>A.D. 300-337</h4>
+
+<h3>JOHANN LORENZ VON MOSHEIM</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>A new epoch in the history of the Roman Empire began with the
+accession of Diocletian to the throne in <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 284. From that time
+the old names of consul, tribune, etc., belonging to the republic
+lost their significance, and even the senate was practically
+abolished. Thenceforth the empire became an oriental sovereignty.
+In the year 292, having previously associated with himself one
+colleague, Maximianus Herculius, Diocletian created two C&aelig;sars: the
+one, Galerius Maximianus, to act as his subordinate in the East;
+the other, Constantius Chlorus, to divide the government of the
+western provinces with Maximianus Herculius. Each of these emperors
+ruled with vigor in his own territory, defending the frontiers of
+the empire and also suppressing such revolts as broke out within
+its borders.</p>
+
+<p>But these transformations in the empire were preparing the way for
+events of unprecedented nature and importance, and for the rise of
+an emperor destined to play a part in the history of the world
+quite different from that performed by any of his predecessors.
+This was Constantine, in whose character, throughout his life,
+opposing elements seemed to contend for mastery, as was shown in
+his treatment of the perplexing questions that arose during his
+reign concerning Christianity, which was persecuted under
+Diocletian and the old Roman religion. Of his statesmanship and his
+further transformation of the empire, in ways which Diocletian
+could not have foreseen, history has made an impressive record.</p>
+
+<p>But the great events of his reign, which caused it to be regarded
+as the inauguration of a new era, were his conversion to
+Christianity and the acts whereby he secured its toleration and
+then its supremacy in the empire. In the account which follows it
+is clearly shown by what steps these results were attained, and how
+the work of Constantine the Great became the chief agency by which
+Christianity mounted the throne of the C&aelig;sars.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>In the beginning of the fourth century the Roman Empire had four
+sovereigns, of whom two were superior to the others and bore the title
+of Augustus, namely, Diocletian and Maximianus Herculius; the two
+inferior sovereigns, who bore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> the title of C&aelig;sars, were Constantius
+Chlorus and Galerius Maximianus. Under these four emperors the state of
+the Church was peaceful and happy. Diocletian, though superstitious,
+indulged no hatred toward the Christians. Constantius Chlorus, following
+only the dictates of reason in matters of religion, was averse to the
+popular idolatry, and friendly to the Christians. The pagan priests,
+therefore, from well-grounded fears lest Christianity, to their great
+and lasting injury, should spread far and wide its triumphs, endeavored
+to excite Diocletian, whom they knew to be both timid and credulous, by
+means of feigned oracles and other impositions, to engage in persecuting
+the Christians.</p>
+
+<p>These artifices not succeeding very well, they made use of the other
+emperor, Galerius Maximianus, who was son-in-law to Diocletian, in order
+to effect their purpose. This Emperor, who was of a ferocious character
+and ill-informed in everything except the military art, continued to
+work upon his father-in-law, being urged on partly by his own
+inclination, partly by the instigation of his mother, a most
+superstitious woman, and partly by that of the pagan priests, till at
+last, when Diocletian was at Nicomedia, in the year 303, he obtained
+from him an edict by which the temples of the Christians were to be
+demolished, their sacred books committed to the flames, and themselves
+deprived of all their civil rights and honors. This first edict spared
+the lives of the Christians; for Diocletian was averse from slaughter
+and bloodshed. Yet it caused many Christians to be put to death,
+particularly those who refused to deliver up their sacred books to the
+magistrates. Seeing this operation of the law, many Christians, and
+several even of the bishops and clergy, in order to save their lives,
+voluntarily surrendered the sacred books in their possession. But they
+were regarded by their more resolute brethren as guilty of sacrilege.</p>
+
+<p>Not long after the publication of this first edict, there were two
+conflagrations in the palace of Nicomedia; and the enemies of the
+Christians persuaded Diocletian to believe that Christian hands had
+kindled them. He therefore ordered many Christians of Nicomedia to be
+put to the torture and to undergo the penalties due to incendiaries.
+Nearly at the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> time there were insurrections in Armenia and in
+Syria; and as their enemies charged the blame of these also upon the
+Christians, the Emperor by a new edict ordered all bishops and ministers
+of Christ to be thrown into prison; and by a third edict, soon after, he
+ordered that all these prisoners should be compelled by tortures and
+punishments to offer sacrifice to the gods; for he hoped, if the bishops
+and teachers were once brought to submission, the Christian churches
+would follow their example. A great multitude, therefore, of excellent
+men, in every part of the Roman Empire, Gaul only excepted, which was
+subject to Constantius Chlorus, were either punished capitally or
+condemned to the mines.</p>
+
+<p>In the second year of the persecution, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 304, Diocletian published a
+fourth edict, at the instigation of his son-in-law and other enemies of
+the Christians. By this edict the magistrates were directed to compel
+all Christians to offer sacrifices to the gods, and to use tortures for
+that purpose. And as the governors yielded strict obedience to these
+orders, the Christian Church was reduced to the last extremity. Galerius
+Maximianus therefore no longer hesitated to disclose the secret designs
+he had long entertained. He required his father-in-law, Diocletian,
+together with his colleague, Maximianus Herculius, to divest themselves
+of their power, and constituted himself emperor of the East; leaving the
+West to Constantius Chlorus, whose health he knew to be very infirm. He
+also associated with him in the government two assistants of his own
+choosing, namely, Caius Galerius Maximinus, his sister's son, and
+Flavius Severus; excluding altogether Constantine, the son of
+Constantius Chlorus. This revolution in the Roman Government restored
+peace to Christians in the Western provinces, which were under
+Constantius; but in the Eastern provinces the persecution raged with
+greater severity than before.</p>
+
+<p>But divine Providence frustrated the whole plan of Galerius Maximianus.
+For, Constantius Chlorus dying in Britain, in the year 306, the soldiery
+by acclamation made his son Constantine, who afterward by his
+achievements obtained the title of "the Great," Augustus or Emperor; and
+the tyrant Galerius was obliged to submit, and even to approve this
+adverse event. Soon after a civil war broke out. For Maxentius, the
+son-in-law<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> of Galerius Maximianus, being indignant that Galerius should
+prefer Severus before him, and invest him with imperial power, himself
+assumed the purple, and took his father, Maximianus Herculius, for his
+colleague in the empire. In the midst of these commotions Constantine,
+beyond all expectation, made his way to the imperial throne. The western
+Christians, those of Italy and Africa excepted, enjoyed a good degree of
+tranquillity and liberty during these civil wars. But the oriental
+churches experienced various fortune, adverse or tolerable, according to
+the political changes from year to year. At length Galerius Maximianus,
+who had been the author of the heaviest calamities, being brought low by
+a terrific and protracted disease, and finding himself ready to die, in
+the year 311, issued a decree which restored peace to them, after they
+had endured almost unbounded sufferings.</p>
+
+<p>After the death of Galerius Maximianus, Caius Galerius Maximianus and
+Caius Valerius Licinius divided between themselves the provinces which
+had been governed by Galerius. At the same time Maxentius, who held
+Africa and Italy, determined to make war upon Constantine, who governed
+in Spain and Gaul, in order to bring all the West under his authority.
+Constantine anticipated his designs, marched his army into Italy in the
+year 312, and in a battle fought at the Milvian bridge, near Rome,
+routed the army of Maxentius. In the flight the bridge broke down, and
+Maxentius fell into the Tiber and was drowned. After this victory
+Constantine, with his colleague Licinius, immediately gave full liberty
+to the Christians of living according to their own institutions and
+laws; and this liberty was more clearly defined the following year, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>
+313, in a new edict drawn up at Milan. Caius Galerius Maximinus, indeed,
+who reigned in the East, was projecting new calamities for the
+Christians, and menacing the emperors of the West with war; but being
+vanquished by Licinius, he put an end to his own life, in the year 313,
+by swallowing poison, at Tarsus.</p>
+
+<p>About this time Constantine the Great, who was previously a man of no
+religion, is said to have embraced Christianity, being induced thereto
+principally by the miracle of a cross appearing to him in the heavens.
+But this story is liable to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> much doubt. His first edict in favor of the
+Christians, and many other things, sufficiently evince that he was
+indeed at that time well disposed toward the Christians and their
+worship, but that he by no means regarded Christianity as the only true
+and saving religion; on the contrary, it appears that he regarded other
+religions, and among them the old Roman religion, as likewise true and
+useful to mankind; and he therefore wished all religions to be freely
+practised throughout the Roman Empire. But as he advanced in life,
+Constantine made progress in religious knowledge, and gradually came to
+regard Christianity as the only true and saving religion, and to
+consider all others as false and impious. Having learned this, he now
+began to exhort his subjects to embrace Christianity; and at length he
+proclaimed war against the ancient superstitions. At what time this
+change in the views of the Emperor took place, and he began to look upon
+all religions but the Christian as false, cannot be determined. This,
+however, is certain, that the change in his views was first made
+manifest by his laws and edicts in the year 324, after the death of
+Licinius, when Constantine became sole emperor. His purpose, however, of
+abolishing the ancient religion of the Romans, and of tolerating only
+the Christian religion, he did not disclose till a little before his
+death, when he published his edicts for pulling down the pagan temples
+and abolishing the sacrifices.</p>
+
+<p>That the Emperor was sincere, and not a dissembler, in regard to his
+conversion to Christianity, no person can doubt who believes that men's
+actions are an index of their real feelings. It is indeed true that
+Constantine's life was not such as the precepts of Christianity
+required; and it is also true that he remained a catechumen all his
+life, and was received to full membership in the Church, by baptism,
+only a few days before his death, at Nicomedia. But neither of these is
+adequate proof that the Emperor had not a general conviction of the
+truth of the Christian religion, or that he only feigned himself a
+Christian. For in that age many persons deferred baptism till near the
+close of life, that they might pass into the other world altogether pure
+and undefiled with sin; and it is but too notorious that many persons
+who look upon the Christian religion as indubitably true and of divine
+origin, yet do not conform<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> their lives to all its holy precepts. It is
+another question whether worldly motives might not have contributed in
+some degree to induce Constantine to prefer the Christian religion to
+the ancient Roman, and to all other religions, and to recommend the
+observance of it to his subjects. Indeed, it is no improbable conjecture
+that the Emperor had discernment to see that Christianity possessed
+great efficacy, and idolatry none at all, to strengthen public
+authority, and to bind citizens to their duty.</p>
+
+<p>The sign of the cross, which Constantine most solemnly affirmed he saw
+in the heavens, near midday, is a subject involved in the greatest
+obscurities and difficulties. It is, however, an easy thing to refute
+those who regard this prodigy as a cunning fiction of the Emperor, or
+who rank it among fables; and also those who refer the phenomenon to
+natural causes, ingeniously conjecturing that the form of a cross
+appeared in a solar halo, or in the moon; and likewise those who ascribe
+the transaction to the power of God, who intended by a miracle to
+confirm the wavering faith of the Emperor. Now these suppositions being
+rejected, the only conclusion that remains is that Constantine saw, in a
+dream while asleep, the appearance of a cross, with the inscription, <i>In
+hoc signo vinces</i> ("By this sign thou shalt conquer"). Nor is this
+opinion unsupported by competent authorities of good credit.</p>
+
+<p>The happiness anticipated by the Christians from the edicts of
+Constantine and Licinius was a little afterward interrupted by Licinius,
+who waged war against his kinsman Constantine. Being vanquished in the
+year 314, he was quiet for about nine years. But in the year 324 this
+restless man again attacked Constantine, being urged on both by his own
+inclination and by the instigation of the pagan priests. That he might
+secure himself a victory, he attached the pagans to his cause by
+severely oppressing the Christians, and putting not a few of their
+bishops to death. But all his plans failed; for, after several
+unsuccessful battles, he was obliged to throw himself upon the mercy of
+the victor, who, nevertheless, ordered him to be strangled, in the year
+325. After his victory over Licinius, Constantine reigned sole emperor
+till his death; and by his plans, his enactments, his regulations, and
+his munificence he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> endeavored as much as possible to obliterate
+gradually the ancient superstitions and to establish Christian worship
+throughout the Roman Empire. He had undoubtedly learned from the wars
+and the machinations of Licinius that neither himself nor the Roman
+Empire could remain secure while the ancient superstition continued
+prevalent; and therefore, from this time onward, he openly opposed the
+pagan deities and their worship, as being prejudicial to the interests
+of the State.</p>
+
+<p>After the death of Constantine, which happened in the year 337, his
+three surviving sons, Constantine II, Constantius, and Constans, assumed
+the empire, and were all proclaimed emperors by the Roman senate. There
+were still living two brothers of Constantine the Great, namely,
+Constantius Dalmatius and Julius Constans, and they had several sons.
+But nearly all of these were slain by the soldiers at the command of
+Constantine's sons, who feared lest their thirst for power might lead
+them to make insurrections and disturb the Commonwealth. Only Gallus and
+Julian, sons of Julius Constans, escaped the massacre; and the latter of
+these afterward became emperor. Constantine II held Britain, Gaul, and
+Spain, but lost his life, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 340, in a war with his brother Constans,
+who at first governed only Illyricum, Italy, and Africa; but after the
+fall of his brother, Constantine II, he annexed his provinces to his
+empire, and thus became emperor of all the West, until he lost his life,
+<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 350, in the war with Maxentius, a usurper. After the death of
+Constans, Maxentius being subdued, the third brother, Constantius, who
+had before governed Asia, Syria, and Egypt, in the year 353 became sole
+emperor, and governed the whole empire till the year 361, when he died.
+Neither of these brothers possessed the disposition or the discernment
+of their father; yet they all pursued their father's purpose of
+abolishing the ancient superstitions of the Romans and other pagans, and
+of propagating the Christian religion throughout the Roman Empire. The
+thing itself was commendable and excellent; but in the means employed
+there was much that was censurable.</p>
+
+<p>Rhetoricians and philosophers, whose schools were supposed to be so
+profitable to the community, exhausted all their ingenuity, both before
+the days of Constantine the Great and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> afterward, to arrest the progress
+of Christianity. In the beginning of this century Hierocles, the great
+ornament of the Platonic school, composed two books against the
+Christians, in which he had the audacity to compare our Saviour with
+Apollonius Tyan&aelig;us, and for which he was chastised by Eusebius in a
+tract written expressly against him. Lactantius speaks of another
+philosopher who endeavored to convince the Christians they were in
+error; but his name is not mentioned. After the reign of Constantine the
+Great, Julian wrote a large volume against the Christians, and Himerius
+and Libanius in their public declamations, and Eunapius in his lives of
+the philosophers, zealously decried the Christian religion. Yet no one
+of these persons was punished at all for the licentiousness of his
+tongue or of his pen.</p>
+
+<p>How much harm these sophists or philosophers, who were full of the pride
+of imaginary knowledge and of hatred to the Christian name, did to the
+cause of Christianity in this century appears from many examples, and
+especially from the apostasy of Julian, who was seduced by men of this
+stamp. Among those who wished to appear wise, and to take moderate
+ground, many were induced by the arguments and explanations of these men
+to devise a kind of reconciling religion, intermediate between the old
+superstition and Christianity, and to imagine that Christ had enjoined
+the very same thing which had long been represented by the pagan priests
+under the envelope of their ceremonies and fables. Of these views were
+Ammianus Marcellinus, a very prudent and discreet man; Chalcidius, a
+philosopher; Themistius, a very celebrated orator, and others, who
+conceived that both religions were in unison, as to all the more
+important points, if they were rightly understood, and therefore held
+that Christ was neither to be contemned nor to be honored to the
+exclusion of the pagan deities.</p>
+
+<p>As Constantine the Great and his sons and successors took much pains to
+enlarge the Christian Church, it is not strange that many nations,
+before barbarous and uncivilized, became subject to Christ. Many
+circumstances make it probable that the light of Christianity cast some
+of its rays into both Armenias, the Greater and the Less, soon after the
+establishment of the Christian Church. But the Armenian Church first
+received<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> due organization and firm establishment in this century; in
+the beginning of which Gregory, the son of Anax, commonly called "the
+Illuminator," because he dispelled the mists of superstition which
+beclouded the minds of the Athenians, first persuaded some private
+individuals, and afterward Tiridates, the king of the Armenians, as well
+as his nobles, to embrace and observe the Christian religion. He was
+therefore ordained the first bishop of Armenia, by Leontius, bishop of
+Cappadocia, and gradually diffused the principles of Christianity
+throughout that country.</p>
+
+<p>In the European provinces of the Roman Empire there still remained a
+vast number of idolaters; and though the Christian bishops endeavored to
+convert them to Christ, the business went on but slowly. In Gaul, the
+great Martin, bishop of Tours, was not unsuccessful in this work; but
+travelling through the provinces of Gaul, he everywhere persuaded many
+to renounce their idols and embrace Christ, and he destroyed their
+temples and threw down their statues. He therefore merited the title
+"Apostle of the Gauls."</p>
+
+<p>It is very evident that the victories of Constantine the Great, and both
+the fear of punishment and the desire of pleasing the Roman emperors,
+were cogent reasons, in the view of whole nations as well as of
+individuals, for embracing the Christian religion. Yet no person well
+informed in the history of this period will ascribe the extension of
+Christianity wholly to these causes. For it is manifest that the
+untiring zeal of the bishops and other holy men, the pure and devout
+lives which many of the Christians exhibited, the translations of the
+sacred volume, and the excellence of the Christian religion were as
+efficient motives with many persons as the arguments from worldly
+advantage and disadvantage were with some others.</p>
+
+<p>Although the Christian Church within the Roman Empire was involved in no
+severe calamities from the times of Constantine the Great onward, except
+during the commotion of Licinius and the short reign of Julian, yet
+slight tempests sometimes beat upon them in certain places. Athanaric,
+for instance, a king of the Goths, fiercely assailed for a time that
+portion of the Gothic nation which had embraced Christianity. In the
+more remote provinces, also, the adherents to idolatry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> often defended
+their hereditary superstitions with the sword, and murdered the
+Christians, who in propagating their religion were not always as gentle
+or as prudent as they ought to have been. Beyond the limits of the Roman
+Empire, Sapor II, the king of Persia, waged three bloody wars against
+the Christians in his dominions. The first was in the eighteenth year of
+his reign; the second was in the thirtieth year; and the third, which
+was the most cruel and destroyed an immense number of Christians,
+commenced in his thirty-first year, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 330, and lasted forty years, or
+till <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 370. Yet religion was not the ostensible cause of this
+dreadful persecution, but a suspicion of treasonable practices among the
+Christians; for the Magi and the Jews persuaded the King to believe that
+all Christians were in the interests of the Roman Empire.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p>
+<h2>FIRST NICENE COUNCIL</h2>
+
+<h3>RISE AND DECLINE OF ARIANISM</h3>
+
+<h4>A.D. 325</h4>
+
+<h3>
+J. L. VON MOSHEIM&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A. P. STANLEY
+</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Controversies in the Christian Church concerning the mystery of the
+Trinity began in the second century, prior to which the word
+trinity&mdash;a term not found in the Scriptures&mdash;had scarcely been used
+in Christian writings. It was prominently introduced by theologians
+of the second century, who employed new metaphysical methods in
+their attempts to explain the divine nature. The dispute turned
+upon the questions whether Christ was God or man or an intermediate
+being, whether or not he was created, and like inquiries. Arius, a
+deacon of Alexandria, early in the fourth century, held that Christ
+was a created being, though superior to all other created beings.
+The Son, he maintained, is of a nature similar to&mdash;not the same
+as&mdash;that of the Father, to whom the Son is subordinate. This heresy
+obtained such currency in the Church that, in 321, a provincial
+synod at Alexandria excommunicated Arius, who in his learned
+writings had set them forth since 318. Once started among the
+people, the controversy begun in the schools became very bitter,
+and in many of the churches partisans of the heretical view
+equalled in number those of the orthodox. Meanwhile Arius continued
+to publish his doctrines.</p>
+
+<p>The emperor Constantine, having become the patron of Christianity,
+conceived that the controversy might be settled by an assembly of
+the whole Church, and in the year 325 he convoked the first council
+of Nic&aelig;a, which was also the first ecumenical or general council.
+At this council, before which Arius defended his views, over three
+hundred bishops were in attendance, and pronounced in favor of the
+orthodox doctrine&mdash;that of the equality of the Son with the
+Father&mdash;and condemned the Arians to exile and their books to be
+burned. This council also promulgated the Nicene Creed in its early
+form. The chief opponent of the Arians was Athanasius, the "Father
+of Orthodoxy," whose name was given to a modified creed later
+adopted into the Greek, Roman, and English services. The Arian
+heresy, however, continued to spread in the East, and had the
+strong support of Constantine and his son Constantius. The
+controversy was renewed again and again, and for a long time
+Arianism was an important factor in theological and political
+affairs. Some phases of its peculiar doctrine have reappeared in
+various teachings and sects of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> modern times. But the orthodox
+doctrine affirmed at Nic&aelig;a has prevailed in the great branches of
+the Christian Church, and the acceptance of its fundamental
+principle&mdash;that of the Incarnation&mdash;in the post-apostolic age was
+destined to have an incalculable influence upon the development of
+individual and national life, civil as well as religious,
+throughout the world.</p></div>
+
+
+<h4>JOHANN LORENZ VON MOSHEIM</h4>
+
+<p>In the year 317 a storm arose in Egypt which spread its ravages over the
+whole Christian world. The ground of this controversy was the doctrine
+of three persons in the Godhead, which during the three preceding
+centuries had not been in all respects defined. The doctors explained
+this subject in different ways, and gave various representations of the
+difference between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, without offence
+being taken.</p>
+
+<p>Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria&mdash;it is uncertain on what
+occasion&mdash;expressed himself very freely on this subject in a meeting of
+his presbyters, and maintained, among other things, that the Son
+possesses not only the same dignity as the Father, but also the same
+essence. But Arius, one of the presbyters, a man of an acute mind and
+fluent, at first denied the truth of Alexander's positions, on the
+ground that they were allied to the Sabellian errors, which were
+condemned by the Church; and then, going to the opposite extreme, he
+maintained that the Son is totally and essentially distinct from the
+Father; that he was only the first and noblest of those created beings
+whom God the Father formed out of nothing, and the instrument which the
+Father used in creating the material universe, and therefore that he was
+inferior to the Father both in nature and in dignity. No one of the
+ancients has left us a connected and systematic account of the religion
+professed by Arius and his associates.</p>
+
+<p>The opinions of Arius were no sooner divulged than they found very many
+abettors, and among them men of distinguished talents and rank, both in
+Egypt and the neighboring provinces. Alexander, on the other hand,
+accused Arius of blasphemy before two councils assembled at Alexandria,
+and cast him out of the Church. He was not discouraged by this disgrace;
+but retiring to Palestine he wrote various letters to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> men of
+distinction, in which he labored to demonstrate the truth of his
+doctrines, and with so much success that he drew over immense numbers to
+his side, and in particular Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, who was a man
+of vast influence. The emperor Constantine, who considered the
+discussion as relating to a matter of little importance and remote from
+the fundamentals of religion, at first addressed the disputants by
+letter, admonishing them to desist from contention. But when he found
+that nothing was effected by this measure, and that greater commotion
+was daily rising throughout the empire, he in the year 325 summoned that
+famous council of the whole Church which met at Nice in Bithynia, to put
+an end to this controversy. In this council, after various altercations
+and conflicts of the bishops, the doctrine of Arius was condemned,
+Christ was pronounced to be of the same essence with the Father, Arius
+was sent into exile in Illyricum, and his followers were compelled to
+assent to a creed or confession of faith composed by the council.</p>
+
+<p>No part of church history, perhaps, has acquired more celebrity than
+this assembly of bishops at Nice to settle the affairs of the Church;
+and yet it is very singular that scarcely any part of ecclesiastical
+history has been investigated and explained more negligently. The
+ancient writers are not agreed as to the time and year, nor the place,
+nor the number of the judges, nor the president of this council, nor as
+to many other particulars. No written journal of the proceedings of this
+venerable tribunal was kept&mdash;at least none has reached us. How many and
+what canons or ecclesiastical laws were enacted is not agreed on by the
+Eastern and Western Christians. The latter tell us they were only twenty
+in number, but the orientals make them far more numerous. From the
+canons universally received, and from the other monuments of the
+council, it appears not only that Arius was condemned, but that other
+things were decreed, with a view to settle the affairs of the Church. In
+particular, the controversy respecting the time of celebrating Easter,
+which had long perplexed Christians, was terminated; the jurisdiction of
+the greater bishops was defined, and several other matters of a like
+nature were determined.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the passions of men were more efficient than either the decrees of
+the Nicene Council or the authority of the Emperor; for there were those
+who, though they did not fall in with the doctrine of Arius, yet were
+dissatisfied with some things in the decrees and the creed of the
+council, and the Arians left no means untried to free themselves from
+the evils inflicted on them by those decrees. And the issue was
+favorable to their wishes; for in a few years after the Nicene Council
+an Arian presbyter whom Constantia, the Emperor's sister, at her death
+had recommended to the care of her brother, succeeded in persuading
+Constantine the Great that Arius had been wrongfully condemned from
+personal enmity. Accordingly, in the year 330, the Emperor recalled
+Arius from exile, rescinded the decrees passed against his associates
+and friends, and permitted Eusebius of Nicomedia, the principal
+supporter of Arius, and his powerful faction, now thirsting for revenge,
+to persecute the defenders of the Nicene Council. They assailed no one
+more fiercely than Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria. When he could
+in no way be brought to restore Arius to his former honors and
+ecclesiastical standing, Athanasius was first deprived of his office, in
+a council held at Tyre, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 335, and then banished to Gaul, while in
+the same year, by a numerous council held at Jerusalem, Arius and his
+friends were solemnly admitted to the communion of the Church. But by
+none of these proceedings could the Alexandrians be induced to receive
+Arius among their presbyters. Accordingly the Emperor called him to
+Constantinople, in the year 336, and ordered Alexander, the bishop of
+that city, to open the doors of his church to him. But before that could
+take place Arius died at Constantinople in a tragical manner;<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> and
+the Emperor himself closed life shortly after.</p>
+
+<p>After the death of Constantine the Great, one of his sons, Constantius,
+the Emperor of the East, with his wife and his court, was very partial
+to the Arian cause, but Constantine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> and Constans supported in the
+western parts, where they governed, the decisions of the Nicene Council.
+Hence the broils, the commotions, the plots, the injuries had neither
+measure nor bounds, and on both sides councils were assembled to oppose
+councils. Constans died in the year 350, and two years afterward a great
+part of the West, particularly Italy and Rome, came under the dominion
+of his brother Constantius. This revolution was most disastrous to the
+friends of the Nicene Council; for this Emperor, being devoted to the
+Arians, involved the others in numerous evils and calamities, and by
+threats and punishments compelled many of them to apostatize to that
+sect to which he was himself attached. The Nicene party made no
+hesitation to return the same treatment as soon as time, place, and
+opportunity were afforded them, and the history of Christianity under
+Constantius presents the picture of a most stormy period, and of a war
+among brethren which was carried on without religion or justice or
+humanity.</p>
+
+<p>On the death of Constantius, in the year 362, the prosperous days of the
+Arians were at an end. Julian had no partiality for either, and
+therefore patronized neither the Arians nor the orthodox. Jovian
+espoused the orthodox sentiments, and therefore all the West, with no
+small part of the East, rejecting Arian views, reverted to the doctrines
+of the Nicene Council. But the scene was changed under the two brothers
+Valentinian and Valens, who were advanced to the government of the
+Empire in the year 364. Valentinian adhered to the decisions at Nice,
+and therefore in the West the Arian sect, a few churches excepted, was
+wholly extirpated. Valens, on the contrary, took sides with the Arians,
+and hence in the eastern provinces many calamities befell the orthodox.
+But when this Emperor had fallen in a war with the Goths, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 378,
+Gratian&mdash;who succeeded Valentinian in the West, in the year 376, and
+became master of the whole empire in 378&mdash;restored peace to the
+orthodox. After him Theodosius the Great, by depriving the Arians of all
+their churches and enacting severe laws against them, caused the
+decisions of the Nicene Council to triumph everywhere, and none could
+any longer publicly profess Arian doctrines except among the barbarous
+nations, the Goths, the Vandals, and the Burgundians. That there were
+great faults<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> on both sides in this long and violent contest no candid
+person can deny, but which party was guilty of the greatest wrong it is
+difficult to say.</p>
+
+<p>The Arians would have done much more harm to the Church if they had not
+become divided among themselves, after the Nicene Council, and split
+into sects which could not endure each other. Unhappily the Arian
+contests produced, as was very natural, some new sects. Some persons,
+while eager to avoid and to confute the opinions of Arius, fell into
+opinions equally dangerous. Others, after treading in the footsteps of
+Arius, ventured on far beyond him and became still greater errorists.
+The human mind, weak and subject to the control of the senses and the
+imagination, seldom exerts all its energies to comprehend divine
+subjects in such a manner as to be duly guarded against extremes. In the
+former class I would reckon Apollinaris the Younger, bishop of Laodicea,
+though otherwise a man of great merit, and one who in various ways
+rendered important service to the Church. He manfully asserted the
+divinity of Christ against the Arians, but by philosophizing too freely
+and too eagerly he almost set aside the human nature of the Saviour.
+This great man was led astray, not merely by the ardor of debate, but
+likewise by his immoderate attachment to the Platonic doctrine
+concerning a twofold soul, from which if the divines of the age had been
+free they would have formed more wise and more correct judgments on many
+points. The doctrine of Apollinaris met the approbation of many in
+nearly all the eastern provinces, and, being explained in different
+ways, it became a source of new sects. But as it was assailed by the
+laws of the emperors, the decrees of councils, and the writings of
+learned men, it gradually sunk under these united assaults.</p>
+
+<p>At the head of those whom the contests with Arius led into still greater
+errors may undoubtedly be placed Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, who in the
+year 343 advanced opinions concerning God equally remote from those of
+the orthodox and those of the Arians. The temerity of the man was
+chastened not only by the orthodox, in their councils of Antioch in 345,
+of Milan in 347, and of Sirmium, but also by the Arians in a council
+held at Sirmium in 351. He was deprived of his office, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> died in
+exile in the year 372. After him Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople, a
+distinguished semi-Arian teacher, being deprived of his office by the
+Council of Constantinople, in the year 360, in his exile founded the
+sect of the Pneumatomachi. He openly professed that the Holy Spirit is a
+divine energy diffused throughout the universe, and not a person
+distinct from the Father and the Son. This doctrine was embraced by many
+in the Asiatic provinces; but the Council of Constantinople, assembled
+by Theodosius the Great, in the year 381, and which is commonly
+considered as the second ecumenical council, early dissipated by its
+authority this young and immature sect. One hundred and fifty bishops
+present in this council defined fully and perfectly the doctrine of
+three persons and one God, as it is still professed by the great body of
+Christians, which the Nicene Council had only in part performed. They
+also anathematized all the heresies then known.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In the fifth century the Arians, oppressed and persecuted by the
+imperial edicts, took refuge among those barbarous nations who gradually
+overturned the Roman Empire in the West; and found among the Goths,
+Heruli, Suevi, Vandals, and Burgundians a fixed residence and a quiet
+retreat. Being now safe, they treated the orthodox with the same
+violence which the orthodox had employed against them and other
+heretics, and had no hesitation about persecuting the adherents to the
+Nicene doctrines in a variety of ways. The Vandals, who had established
+their kingdom in Africa, surpassed all the rest in cruelty and
+injustice. At first Genseric, their king, and then Huneric, his son,
+demolished the temples of such Christians as maintained the divinity of
+the Saviour, sent their bishops into exile, mutilated many of the more
+firm and decided, and tortured them in various ways; and they expressly
+stated that they were authorized to do so by the example of the
+emperors, who had enacted similar laws against the Donatists in Africa,
+the Arians, and others who dissented from them in religion.</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning of the sixth century the Arians were triumphant in some
+parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe. Not a few of the Asiatic bishops
+favored them. The Vandals in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> Africa, the Goths in Italy, many of the
+Gauls, the Suevi, the Burgundians, and the Spaniards openly espoused
+their interests. The Greeks indeed, who approved of the Nicene Council,
+oppressed and also punished them wherever they were able; but the Arians
+returned the like treatment, especially in Africa and Italy. Yet this
+prosperity of the Arians wholly terminated when, under the auspices of
+Justinian, the Vandals were driven from Africa and the Goths from Italy.
+For the other Arian kings, Sigismund, king of the Burgundians,
+Theodimir, king of the Suevi in Lusitania, and Receared, king of Spain,
+without violence and war, suffered themselves to be led to a
+renunciation of the Arian doctrine, and to efforts for its extirpation
+among their subjects by means of legal enactments and councils. Whether
+reason and arguments or hope and fear had the greater influence in the
+conversion of these kings, it is difficult to say; but it is certain
+that the Arian sect was from this time dispersed and could never after
+recover any strength.</p>
+
+
+<h4>ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY</h4>
+
+<p>The delegates to the council assembled in the first instance in one of
+the chief buildings of Nic&aelig;a, apparently for the purpose of a
+thanksgiving and a religious reunion. Whether it was an actual church
+may be questioned. Christians, no doubt, there had been in Bithynia for
+some generations. Already in the second century Pliny had found them in
+such numbers that the temples were deserted and the sacrifices
+neglected. But it would seem that on this occasion a secular building
+was fitted up as a temporary house of prayer. At least the traditional
+account of the place where their concluding prayers were held exactly
+agrees with Strabo's account of the ancient gymnasium of Nic&aelig;a.</p>
+
+<p>It was a large building, shaped like a basilica, with an apsis at one
+end, planted in the centre of the town, and thus commanding down each of
+the four streets a view of the four gates, and therefore called
+<i>Mesomphalos</i>, the "Navel" of the city. Whether, however, this edifice
+actually was a church or not, its use as such on this occasion served as
+a precedent for most of the later councils. From the time of the Council
+of Chalcedon,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> they have usually been held within the walls of churches.
+But for this the first council, the church, so far as it was a church,
+was only used as the beginning and the end. After these thanksgivings
+were over, the members of the assembly must have been collected
+according to the divisions which shall now be described.</p>
+
+<p>The group which, above the rest, attracts our attention, is the
+deputation from the Church of Egypt. Shrill above all other voices,
+vehement above all other disputants, "brandishing their arguments," as
+it was described by one who knew them well, "like spears, against those
+who sate under the same roof and ate off the same table as themselves,"
+were the combatants from Alexandria, who had brought to its present pass
+the question which the council was called to decide. Foremost in the
+group in dignity, though not in importance or in energy, was the aged
+Alexander, whose imprudent sermon had provoked the quarrel, and whose
+subsequent vacillation had encouraged it. He was the bishop, not indeed
+of the first, but of the most learned, see of Christendom. He was known
+by a title which he alone officially bore in that assembly. He was "the
+Pope." "The Pope of Rome" was a phrase which had not yet emerged in
+history. But "Pope of Alexandria" was a well-known dignity. <i>Papa</i>, that
+strange and universal mixture of familiar endearment and of reverential
+awe, extended in a general sense to all Greek presbyters and all Latin
+bishops, was the special address which, long before the name of
+patriarch or of archbishop, was given to the head of the Alexandrian
+Church.</p>
+
+<p>In the Patriarchal Treasury at Moscow is a very ancient scarf or
+<i>omophorion</i>, said to have been given by the bishop of Nic&aelig;a in the
+seventeenth century to the czar Alexis, and to have been left to the
+Church of Nic&aelig;a by Alexander of Alexandria. It is white, and is rudely
+worked with a representation of the Ascension; possibly an allusion to
+the first Sunday of their meeting. This relic, true or false, is the
+nearest approach we can now make to the bodily presence of the old
+theologian. The shadow of death is already upon him; in a few months he
+will be beyond the reach of controversy.</p>
+
+<p>But close beside the pope Alexander is a small insignificant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> young man,
+of hardly twenty-five years of age, of lively manners and speech, and of
+bright, serene countenance. Though he is but the deacon, the chief
+deacon, or archdeacon, of Alexander, he has closely riveted the
+attention of the assembly by the vehemence of his arguments. He is
+already taking the words out of the bishop's mouth, and briefly acting
+in reality the part he had before, as a child, acted in name, and that
+in a few months he will be called to act both in name and in reality. In
+some of the conventional pictures of the council his humble rank as a
+deacon does not allow of his appearance. But his activity and prominence
+behind the scenes made enemies for him there, who will never leave him
+through life. Anyone who had read his passionate invectives afterward
+may form some notion of what he was when in the thick of his youthful
+battles. That small, insignificant deacon is the great Athanasius.</p>
+
+<p>Next after the pope and deacon of Alexandria we must turn to one of its
+most important presbyters&mdash;the parish priest of its principal church,
+which bore the name of Baucalis, and marked the first beginnings of what
+we should call a parochial system. In appearance he is the very opposite
+of Athanasius. He is sixty years of age, very tall and thin, and
+apparently unable to support his stature; he has an odd way of
+contorting and twisting himself, which his enemies compare to the
+wrigglings of a snake. He would be handsome but for the emaciation and
+deadly pallor of his face, and a downcast look, imparted by a weakness
+of eyesight. At times his veins throb and swell and his limbs tremble,
+as if suffering from some violent internal complaint&mdash;the same, perhaps,
+that will terminate one day in his sudden and frightful death. There is
+a wild look about him, which at first sight is startling. His dress and
+demeanor are those of a rigid ascetic. He wears a long coat with short
+sleeves, and a scarf of only half size, such as was the mark of an
+austere life; and his hair hangs in a tangled mass over his head. He is
+usually silent, but at times breaks out into fierce excitement, such as
+will give the impression of madness. Yet with all this there are a
+sweetness in his voice and a winning, earnest manner which fascinates
+those who come across him. Among the religious ladies of Alexandria<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> he
+is said to have had from the first a following of not less than seven
+hundred. This strange, captivating, moon-struck giant is the heretic
+Arius, or, as his adversaries called him, the madman of Ares or Mars.
+Close beside him was a group of his countrymen, of whom we know little,
+except their fidelity to him through good report and evil: Saras, like
+himself a presbyter, from the Libyan province; Euzoius, a deacon of
+Egypt; Achillas, a reader; Theonas, bishop of Marmarica in the
+Cyrenaica; and Secundus, bishop of Ptolemais in the Delta.</p>
+
+<p>These were the most remarkable deputies from the Church of Alexandria.
+But from the interior of Egypt came characters of quite another stamp;
+not Greeks, nor Grecized Egyptians, but genuine Copts, speaking the
+Greek language not at all, or with great difficulty; living half or the
+whole of their lives in the desert; their very names taken from the
+heathen gods of the times of the ancient Pharaohs. One was Potammon,
+bishop of Heracleopolis, far up the Nile; the other, Paphnutius, bishop
+of the Upper Thebaid. Both are famous for the austerity of their lives.
+Potammon&mdash;that is, "dedicated to Ammon"&mdash;had himself visited the hermit
+Antony; Paphnutius&mdash;that is, "dedicated to his God"&mdash;had been brought up
+in a hermitage. Both, too, had suffered in the persecutions. Each
+presented the frightful spectacle of the right eye dug out with iron.
+Paphnutius, besides, came limping on one leg, his left having been
+hamstrung.</p>
+
+<p>Next in importance must be reckoned the bishop of Syria and of the
+interior of Asia; or, as they are sometimes called in the later
+councils, the <i>Eastern</i> bishops, as distinguished from the Church of
+Egypt. Then, as afterward, there was a rivalry between those branches of
+oriental Christendom; each, from long neighborhood, knowing each, yet
+each tending in an opposite direction till, after the Council of
+Chalcedon, a community of heresy drew them together again. Here, as in
+Egypt, we find two classes of representatives&mdash;scholars from the more
+civilized cities of Syria; wild ascetics from the remoter East. The
+first in dignity was the orthodox Eustathius, who either was, or was on
+the point of being made, bishop of the capital of Syria, the metropolis
+of the Eastern Church, Antioch, then called "the city of God." He had
+suffered in heathen persecutions,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> and was destined to suffer in
+Christian persecutions also. But he was chiefly known for his learning
+and eloquence, which was distinguished by an antique simplicity of
+style. One work alone has come down to us on the "Witch of Endor."</p>
+
+<p>Next in rank and far more illustrious was his chief suffragan, the
+metropolitan of Palestine, the bishop of C&aelig;sarea, Eusebius. We honor him
+as the father of ecclesiastical history, as the chief depositary of the
+traditions which connect the fourth with the first century. But in the
+bishops of Nic&aelig;a his presence awakened feelings of a very different
+kind. He alone of the eastern prelates could tell what was in the mind
+of the Emperor; he was the clerk of the imperial closet; he was the
+interpreter, the chaplain, the confessor of Constantine. And yet he was
+on the wrong side. Two especially, we may be sure, of the Egyptian
+Church, were on the watch for any slip that he might make.
+Athanasius&mdash;whatever may have been the opinions of later times
+respecting the doctrines of Eusebius&mdash;was convinced that he was at heart
+an Arian. Potammon of the one eye had known him formerly in the days of
+persecution, and was ready with that most fatal taunt, which, on a later
+occasion, he threw out against him, that, while he had thus suffered for
+the cause of Christ, Eusebius had escaped by sacrificing to an idol.</p>
+
+<p>If Eusebius was suspected of Arianism, he was supported by most of his
+suffragan bishops in Palestine, of whom Paulinus of Tyre, and
+Patrophilus of Bethshan (Scythopolis) were the most remarkable. One,
+however, a champion of orthodoxy, was distinguished, not in himself, but
+for the see which he occupied&mdash;once the highest in Christendom, in a few
+years about to claim something of its former grandeur, but at the time
+of the council known only as a second-rate Syro-Roman city&mdash;Macarius,
+bishop of &AElig;lia Capitolina, that is, "Jerusalem."</p>
+
+<p>From Neoc&aelig;sarea, a border fortress on the Euphrates, came its confessor
+bishop, Paul, who, like Paphnutius and Potammon, had suffered in the
+persecutions, but more recently under Licinius. His hands were paralyzed
+by the scorching of the muscles of all the fingers with red-hot iron.
+Along with him were the orthodox representatives of four famous
+churches,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> who, according to the Armenian tradition, travelled in
+company. Their leader was the marvel, "the Moses" as he was termed, of
+Mesopotamia, James, or Jacob, bishop of Nisibis. He had lived for years
+as a hermit on the mountains&mdash;in the forests during the summer, in
+caverns during the winter&mdash;browsing on roots and leaves like a wild
+beast, and like a wild beast clothed in a rough goat-hair cloak. This
+dress and manner of life, even after he became bishop, he never laid
+aside; and the mysterious awe which his presence inspired was increased
+by the stories of miraculous powers which, we are told, he exercised in
+a manner as humane and playful as it was grotesque; as when he turned
+the washerwoman's hair white, detected the impostor who pretended to be
+dead, and raised an army of gnats against the Persians. His fame as a
+theologian rests on disputed writings.</p>
+
+<p>The second was Ait-allaha&mdash;"the brought of God," like the Greek
+"Theophorus"&mdash;who had just occupied the see of Edessa, and finished the
+building of the cemetery of his cathedral.</p>
+
+<p>The third was Aristaces, said to be the cousin of Jacob of Bisibis and
+son of Gregory the Illuminator, founder of the Armenian Church. He
+represented both his father and the bishop and Tiridates, the king of
+Armenia; the bishop and King having received a special invitation from
+Constantine, and sent their written professions of faith by the hands of
+Aristaces.</p>
+
+<p>The fourth came from beyond the frontier, the sole representative of the
+more distant East, "John the Persian," who added to his name the more
+sounding title&mdash;here appearing for the first time, but revived in our
+own days as the designation of our own bishops of
+Calcutta&mdash;"Metropolitan of India."</p>
+
+<p>A curious tradition related that this band, including eleven other names
+from the remote East, were the only members of the Nicene Council who
+had not sustained some bodily mutilation or injury.</p>
+
+<p>As this little band advanced westward, they encountered a remarkable
+personage, who stands at the head of the next group which we meet&mdash;the
+prelates of Asia Minor and Greece. This was Leontius of C&aelig;sarea in
+Cappadocia. From his hands,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> it was said, Gregory of Armenia had
+received ordination, and from his successors in the see of C&aelig;sarea had
+desired that every succeeding bishop of Armenia should receive
+ordination likewise. For this reason, it may be, Aristaces and his
+company sought them out. They found Leontius already on his journey, and
+they overtook him at a critical moment. He was on the point of baptizing
+another Gregory, father of a much more celebrated Gregory, the future
+bishop of Nazianzen. A light, it was believed, shone from the water,
+which was only discerned by the sacred travellers.</p>
+
+<p>Leontius was claimed by the Arians, but still more decidedly by the
+orthodox. Others, of the same side, are usually named as from the same
+region, among them Hypatius of Gangra, whose end we shall witness at the
+close of these events, and Hermogenes the deacon, afterward bishop of
+C&aelig;sarea, who acted as secretary of the council.</p>
+
+<p>Eusebius of Nicomedia, afterward of Constantinople, Theognis of Nic&aelig;a,
+Maris of Chalcedon, and Menophantus of Ephesus, were among the most
+resolute defenders of Arius. It is curious to reflect that they
+represent the four sees of the four orthodox councils of the Church. The
+three last named soon vanish away from history. But Eusebius of
+Nicomedia, friend, namesake, perhaps even brother of the bishop of
+C&aelig;sarea, was a personage of high importance both then and afterward. As
+Athanasius was called "the Great" by the orthodox, so was Eusebius by
+the Arians. Even miracles were ascribed to him. Originally bishop of
+Beyruth (Berytus), he had been translated to the see of Nicomedia, then
+the capital of the Eastern Empire. He had been a favorite of the
+Emperor's rival Licinius, and had thus become intimate with Constantia,
+the Emperor's sister, the wife, now the widow of Licinius. Through her
+and through his own distant relationship with the imperial family he
+kept a hold on the court which he never lost, even to the moment when he
+stood by the dying bed of the Emperor, years afterward, and received him
+into the Church. We must not be too hard on the Christianity of
+Eusebius, if we wish to vindicate the baptism of Constantine.</p>
+
+<p>Not far from the great prelate of the capital of the East would be the
+representative of what was now a small Greek<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> town, but in five years
+from that time would supersede altogether the glories of Nicomedia.
+Metrophanes, bishop of Byzantium, was detained by old age and sickness,
+but Alexander, his presbyter, himself seventy years of age, was there
+with a little secretary of the name of Paul, not more than twelve years
+old, one of the readers and collectors of the Byzantine Church.
+Alexander had already corresponded with his namesake on the Arian
+controversy, and was apparently attached firmly to the orthodox side.</p>
+
+<p>Besides their more regular champions the orthodox party of Greece and
+Asia Minor had a few very eccentric allies. One was Acesius, the
+Novatian, "the Puritan," summoned by Constantine from Byzantium with
+Alexander, from the deep respect entertained by the Emperor for his
+ascetic character. He was attended by a boy, Auxanon, who lived to a
+great age afterward as a presbyter in the same sect. This child was then
+living with a hermit, Eutychianus, on the heights of the neighboring
+mountain of the Bithynian Olympus, and he descended from these solitudes
+to attend upon Acesius. From him we have obtained some of the most
+curious details of the council.</p>
+
+<p>Marcellus, Bishop of Ancyra, was among the bishops, the fiercest
+opponent of Arius, and, when the active deacon of Alexandria was not
+present, seems to have borne the brunt of the arguments. Yet, if we may
+judge from his subsequent history, Athanasius could never have been
+quite at ease in leaving the cause in his hands. He was one of those
+awkward theologians who never could attack Arianism without falling into
+Sabellianism; and in later life he was twice deposed from his see for
+heresy, once excommunicated by Athanasius himself; and in the present
+form of the Nicene Creed one clause&mdash;that which asserts that "the
+kingdom of Christ shall have no end"&mdash;is said to have been expressly
+aimed at his exaggerated language.</p>
+
+<p>And now come two, who in the common pictures of the council always
+appear together, of whom the one probably left the deepest impression on
+his contemporaries; and the other, if he were present at all, on the
+subsequent traditions of the council. From the island of Cyprus there
+arrived the simple shepherd Spyridion, a shepherd both before and after
+his elevation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> to the episcopate. Strange stories were told by his
+fellow-islanders to the historian Socrates of the thieves who were
+miraculously caught in attempting to steal his sheep, and of Spyridion's
+good-humored reply when he found them in the morning, and gave them a
+ram, that they might not have sat up all night for nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Another tale, exactly similar to the fantastic Mussulman legends which
+hand about stories of Jerusalem, told how he had gained an answer from
+his dead daughter Irene to tell where a certain deposit was hidden. Two
+less marvellous, but more instructive, stories bring out the simplicity
+of his character. He rebuked a celebrated preacher at Cyprus for
+altering, in a quotation from the gospels, the homely word for "bed"
+into "couch." "What! are you better than He who said 'bed,' that you are
+ashamed to use his words?" On occasion of a way-worn traveller coming to
+him in Lent, finding no other food in the house, he presented him with
+salted pork; and when the stranger declined, saying that he could not as
+a Christian break his fast: "So much the less reason," he said, "have
+you for scruple; to the pure all things are pure."</p>
+
+<p>A characteristic legend attaches to the account of his journey to the
+council. It was his usual practice to travel on foot. But on this
+occasion the length of the journey, as well as the dignity of his
+office, induced him to ride, in company with his deacon, on two mules, a
+white and a chestnut. One night at his arrival at a caravansary where a
+cavalcade of orthodox bishops were already assembled, the mules were
+turned out to pasture, while he retired to his devotions. The bishops
+had conceived an alarm lest the cause of orthodoxy should suffer in the
+council by the ignorance or awkwardness of the Shepherd of Cyprus when
+opposed to the subtleties of the Alexandrian heretic. Accordingly,
+taking advantage of his encounter, they determined to throw a decisive
+impediment in his way. They cut off the heads of his two mules, and
+then, as is the custom in oriental travelling, started on their journey
+before sunrise. Spyridion also rose, but was met by his terrified deacon
+announcing the unexpected disaster. On arriving at the spot the saint
+bade the deacon attach the heads to the dead bodies. He did so, and at a
+sign from the bishop the two mules with their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> restored heads shook
+themselves as if from a deep sleep, and started to their feet. Spyridion
+and the deacon mounted and soon overtook the travellers. As the day
+broke the prelates and the deacon were alike astonished at seeing that
+he, performing the annexation in the dark and in haste, had fixed the
+heads on the wrong shoulders, so that the white mule had now a chestnut
+head, and the chestnut mule had the head of its white companion. Thus
+the miracle was doubly attested, the bishops doubly discomfited, and the
+simplicity of Spyridion doubly exemplified.</p>
+
+<p>Many more stories might be told of him, but, to use the words of an
+ancient writer who has related some of them, "from the claws you can
+make out the lion." Of all the Nicene fathers, it may yet be said that
+in a certain curious sense he is the only one who has survived the decay
+of time. After resting for many years in his native Cyprus his body was
+transferred to Constantinople, where it remained till a short time
+before the fall of the empire. It was thence conveyed to Corfu, where it
+is still preserved. Hence by a strange resuscitation of fame he has
+become the patron saint, one might almost say the divinity, of the
+Ionian Islands. Twice a year in solemn procession he is carried round
+the streets of Corfu. Hundreds of Corfutes bear his name, now abridged
+into the familiar diminutive of "Spiro." The superstitious veneration
+entertained for the old saint is a constant source of quarrel between
+the English residents and the native Ionians. But the historian may be
+pardoned for gazing with a momentary interest on the dead hands, now
+black and withered, that subscribed the Creed of Nic&aelig;a.</p>
+
+<p>Still more famous&mdash;and still more apocryphal, at least in his attendance
+at Nic&aelig;a&mdash;is Nicolas, bishop of Myra. Not mentioned by a single ancient
+historian, he yet figures in the traditional pictures of the council as
+the foremost figure of all. Type as he is of universal benevolence to
+sailors, to thieves, to the victims of thieves, to children&mdash;known by
+his broad red face and flowing white hair&mdash;the traditions of the East
+always represent him as standing in the midst of the assembly, and
+suddenly roused by righteous indignation to assail the heretic Arius
+with a tremendous box on the ear.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One more group of deputies closes the arrivals. The Nicene Council was a
+council of the Eastern Church, and Eastern seemingly were at least three
+hundred and ten of the three hundred and eighteen bishops. But the West
+was not entirely unrepresented. Nicasius from France, Marcus from
+Calabria, Capito from Sicily, Eustorgius from Milan&mdash;where a venerable
+church is still dedicated to his memory&mdash;Domnus of Stridon in Pannonia
+were the less conspicuous deputies of the western provinces.</p>
+
+<p>But there were five men whose presence must have been full of interest
+to their Eastern brethren. Corresponding to John the Persian from the
+Extreme East was Theophilus the Goth from the extreme North. His light
+complexion doubtless made a marked contrast with the tawny hue and dark
+hair of almost all the rest. They rejoiced to think that they had a
+genuine Scythian among them. From all future generations of his Teutonic
+countrymen he may claim attention as the predecessor and teacher of
+Ulphilas, the great missionary of the Gothic nation.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the province of Northern Africa, the earliest cradle of the Latin
+Church, came C&aelig;cilian, bishop of Carthage. A few years ago he had
+himself been convened before the two Western councils of the Lateran and
+of Arles, and had there been acquitted of the charges brought against
+him by the Donatists.</p>
+
+<p>If any of the distant orientals had hoped to catch a sight of the bishop
+of the "Imperial City," they were doomed to disappointment. Doubtless
+had he been there his position as prelate of the capital would have
+been, if not first, at least among the first. But Sylvester was now far
+advanced in years; and in his place came the two presbyters, who,
+according to the arrangement laid down by the Emperor, would have
+accompanied him had he been able to make the journey. In this simple
+deputation later writers have seen&mdash;and perhaps by a gradual process the
+connection might be traced&mdash;the first germ of <i>legati a latere</i>. But it
+must have been a very far-seeing eye which in Victor and Vincentius, the
+two unknown elders, representing their sick old bishop, could have
+detected the predecessors of Pandulf or of Wolsey. With them, however,
+was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> man who, though now long forgotten, was then an object of deeper
+interest to Christendom than any bishop of Rome could at that time have
+been. It was the world-renowned Spaniard, as he is called by Eusebius;
+the magician from Spain, as he is called by Zosimus; Hosius, bishop of
+Cordova. He was the representative of the westernmost of European
+churches; but, as Eusebius of C&aelig;sarea was the chief counsellor of the
+Emperor in the Greek Church, so was Hosius in the Latin, as shown in the
+darkest and most mysterious crisis of Constantine's life.</p>
+
+<p>It was probably by degrees that these different arrivals took place, and
+the lapse of two or three weeks must be supposed for the preparatory
+arrangements before the council was formally opened. This interval was
+occupied by eager discussions on the questions likely to be debated. The
+first assemblage had been, as we have seen, within the walls of a public
+building. But the other preliminary meetings were held, as was natural,
+in the streets or colonnades in the open air. The novelty of the
+occasion had collected many strangers to the spot. Laymen, philosophers,
+heathen as well as Christians, might be seen joining in the arguments on
+either side, orthodox as well as heretical. There were also discussions
+among the orthodox themselves as to the principle on which the debates
+should be conducted. The enumeration of the characters just given shows
+that there were two very different elements in the assembly, such indeed
+as will always constitute the main difficulty in making any general
+statements of theology which shall be satisfactory at once to the few
+and to the many. A large number, perhaps the majority, consisted of
+rough, simple, almost illiterate men, like Spyridion the shepherd,
+Potammon the hermit, Acesius the puritan, who held their faith earnestly
+and sincerely, but without conscious knowledge of the grounds on which
+they maintained it, incapable of arguing themselves, or of entering into
+the arguments of their opponents. These men, when suddenly brought into
+collision with the acutest and most learned disputants of the age,
+naturally took up the position that the safest course was to hold by
+what had been handed down, without any further inquiry or explanation.</p>
+
+<p>A story somewhat variously told is related of an encounter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> of one of
+these simple characters with the more philosophical combatants, which,
+in whatever way it be taken, well illustrates the mixed character of the
+council, and the choice of the courses open before it. As Socrates
+describes the incident, the disputes were running so high, from the mere
+pleasure of argument, that there seemed likely to be no end to the
+controversy, when suddenly a simple-minded layman, who by his sightless
+eye or limping leg bore witness of his zeal for the Christian faith,
+stepped among them and abruptly said, "Christ and the apostles left us
+not a system of logic nor a vain deceit, but a naked truth to be guided
+by faith and good works." "There has," says Bishop Kaye in recording the
+story, "been hardly any age of the Church in which its members have not
+required to be reminded of this lesson." On the present occasion the
+bystanders, at least for the moment, were struck by its happy
+application. The disputants, after hearing this plain word of truth,
+took their differences more good-humoredly and the hubbub of controversy
+subsided.</p>
+
+<p>The tradition grew in later times into the form which it bears in all
+the pictures of the council, and which is commemorated in the services
+of the Greek Church. Aware of his incapacity of argument he took a brick
+and said: "You deny that three can be one. Look at this: it is one, and
+yet it is composed of the three elements of fire, earth, and water." As
+he spoke the brick resolved itself into its component parts; the fire
+flew upward, the clay remained in his hand, and the water fell to the
+ground. The philosopher, or, according to some accounts, Arius himself
+was so confounded as to declare himself converted on the spot.</p>
+
+<p>These tales represent probably the feeling of a large portion of the
+council&mdash;the sound, unprofessional, untheological, lay element which lay
+at the basis of all their weakness and their strength. The historian
+Socrates is very anxious to prove that the assembly was not entirely
+composed of men of this kind, and he points triumphantly to the presence
+of such men as Eusebius of C&aelig;sarea. No proof was necessary. The
+subsequent history of the council itself is a sufficient indication
+that, however small a minority might be the dialecticians and
+theologians, yet they constitute the life and movement of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> whole.
+Socrates dwells with evident pleasure on the circumstance that the
+ultimate decisions were only made after long inquiry, and that
+everything was stirred to the bottom.</p>
+
+<p>We may wish with Bishop Jeremy Taylor and Bishop Kaye that it had been
+otherwise. But there is a point of view in which we may fully sympathize
+with the course that was taken. All the elements which go to make up the
+interest of theology were involved: love of free inquiry, desire of
+precision in philosophical statements, research into Christian
+antiquity, comparison of the texts of Scripture one with another.
+Traditional and episcopal authority was regarded as insufficient for the
+establishment of the faith. The well-known clause of the Twenty-first
+Article does but express the principle of the Nicene Fathers themselves:
+"Things ordained by them as necessary for salvation have neither
+strength nor authority unless it may be declared that they are taken out
+of Holy Scripture." The battle was fought and won by quotations, not
+from tradition, but from the Old and New Testaments. The overruling
+sentiment was that even ancient opinions were not to be received without
+sifting and inquiry. The chief combatant and champion of the faith was
+not the bishop of Antioch or of Rome, nor the pope of Alexandria, but
+the deacon Athanasius. The eager discussions of Nic&aelig;a present the first
+grand precedent for the duty of private judgment, and the free,
+unrestrained exercise of biblical and historical criticism.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Some of the old writers declared that Arius died by the
+falling out of his bowels, as if by a miracle. The matter became a
+subject of much controversy. Mosheim thinks it most probable that Arius
+was poisoned by his enemies. Most recorders of the present day are
+content to say simply that "he died suddenly."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p>
+<h2>FOUNDATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE</h2>
+
+<h4>A.D. 330</h4>
+
+<h3>EDWARD GIBBON</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>On the eastern part of the site of Constantinople stood the ancient
+Greek city of Byzantium, said to have been founded in the seventh
+century <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> From its situation on the Bosporus it enjoyed great
+advantages as a trading centre, and was especially noted for its
+control of the corn supply. There also were fisheries from which
+vast wealth was derived. After the battle of Plat&aelig;a (<span class="smcap">b.c.</span> 479),
+which put an end to the Persian invasion of Greece, Byzantium was
+recolonized. In the later Grecian wars it was many times taken,
+being besieged in the year <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> 339 by Philip of Macedon and
+relieved by Phocion. Soon after this it formed an alliance with
+Alexander the Great; but the city was thenceforth continually
+harassed by enemies, and never regained its former prosperity.
+About the year <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> 277 it was menaced by the Gauls, to whom the
+Byzantines were forced to pay tribute. When those invaders had been
+driven back by the Thracian tribes, these in turn exacted from
+Byzantium like payments, and to increase its revenues the city
+taxed all vessels entering the Euxine. This led, <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> 220, to a war
+with Rhodes, instigated by aggrieved merchants in different parts
+of the world, the result of which was that the Byzantines levied no
+more tribute on ships.</p>
+
+<p>By treaty, <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> 148, Byzantium entered into relations with Rome,
+then engaged in eastern wars, and from that time the Byzantines
+sought Roman favor, and long maintained an alliance with the
+empire. After this, little is told of Byzantium until the war of
+the emperor Septimius Severus with his great rival, Niger, governor
+of Syria. Byzantium adhered to the cause of Niger. Confident in
+their future if he should be victorious, the Byzantines indulged
+dreams of becoming the head of an eastern empire. Their city was
+strongly fortified, they had a powerful fleet, and for three years
+they held out against the Roman besiegers, then, after untold
+sufferings and slaughter, yielded under the distress of famine. "At
+last they were reduced to chewing leather hides soaked in water,
+and finally to the horrible extremity in which the weak become
+literally the prey of the strong." The Romans destroyed the
+magnificent city walls and deprived Byzantium of municipal and
+political liberties.</p>
+
+<p>The fall of Byzantium was accomplished in <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 194-196, and when
+next its site became the scene of historic events a wholly new
+order of things had been inaugurated in the world. After his
+successful war with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> his colleague Licinius, sole ruler of the
+East, Constantine had him put to death in <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 325. Constantine
+then became sole augustus, and in 330 he transferred the capital of
+the empire from Rome to Byzantium, which was henceforth called
+Constantinople.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The unfortunate Licinius was the last rival who opposed the greatness,
+and the last captive who adorned the triumph, of Constantine. After a
+tranquil and prosperous reign, the conqueror bequeathed to his family
+the inheritance of the Roman Empire; a new capital, a new policy, and a
+new religion; and the innovations which he established have been
+embraced and consecrated by succeeding generations.</p>
+
+<p>After the defeat and abdication of Licinius, his victorious rival
+proceeded to lay the foundations of a city destined to reign in future
+times, the mistress of the East, and to survive the empire and religion
+of Constantine. The motives, whether of pride or of policy, which first
+induced Diocletian to withdraw himself from the ancient seat of
+government, had acquired additional weight by the example of his
+successors and the habits of forty years. Rome was insensibly confounded
+with the dependent kingdoms which had once acknowledged her supremacy;
+and the country of the C&aelig;sars was viewed with cold indifference by a
+martial prince, born in the neighborhood of the Danube, educated in the
+courts and armies of Asia, and invested with the purple by the legions
+of Britain. The Italians, who had received Constantine as their
+deliverer, submissively obeyed the edicts which he sometimes
+condescended to address to the senate and people of Rome; but they were
+seldom honored with the presence of their new sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>During the vigor of his age, Constantine, according to the various
+exigencies of peace and war, moved with slow dignity, or with active
+diligence, along the frontiers of his extensive dominions, and was
+always prepared to take the field either against a foreign or a domestic
+enemy. But as he gradually reached the summit of prosperity and the
+decline of life, he began to meditate the design of fixing in a more
+permanent station the strength as well as majesty of the throne. In the
+choice of an advantageous situation, he preferred the confines of Europe
+and Asia; to curb with a powerful arm the barbarians who dwelt between
+the Danube and the Tanais; to watch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> with an eye of jealousy the conduct
+of the Persian monarch, who indignantly supported the yoke of an
+ignominious treaty. With these views, Diocletian had selected and
+embellished the residence of Nicomedia: but the memory of Diocletian was
+justly abhorred by the protector of the Church; and Constantine was not
+insensible to the ambition of founding a city which might perpetuate the
+glory of his own name. During the late operations of the war against
+Licinius, he had sufficient opportunity to contemplate, both as a
+soldier and as a statesman, the incomparable position of Byzantium, and
+to observe how strongly it was guarded by nature against a hostile
+attack, while it was accessible on every side to the benefits of
+commercial intercourse.</p>
+
+<p>Many ages before Constantine, one of the most judicious historians of
+antiquity had described the advantages of a situation, from whence a
+feeble colony of Greeks derived the command of the sea and the honors of
+a flourishing and independent republic.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></p>
+
+<p>The harbor of Constantinople, which may be considered as an arm of the
+Bosporus, obtained, in a very remote period, the denomination of the
+"Golden Horn." The curve which it describes might be compared to the
+horn of a stag, or as it should seem, with more propriety, to that of an
+ox. The epithet of <i>golden</i> was expressive of the riches which every
+wind wafted from the most distant countries into the secure and
+capacious port of Constantinople. The river Lycus, formed by the conflux
+of two little streams, pours into the harbor a perpetual supply of fresh
+water, which serves to cleanse the bottom and to invite the periodical
+shoals of fish to seek their retreat in that convenient recess. As the
+vicissitudes of tides are scarcely felt in those seas, the constant
+depth of the harbor allows goods to be landed on the quays without the
+assistance of boats; and it has been observed that in many places the
+largest vessels may rest their prows against the houses, while their
+sterns are floating in the water. From the mouth of the Lycus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> to that
+of the harbor, this arm of the Bosporus is more than seven miles in
+length. The entrance is about five hundred yards broad, and a strong
+chain could be occasionally thrown across it, to guard the port and city
+from the attack of a hostile navy.</p>
+
+<p>The geographers who, with the most skilful accuracy, have surveyed the
+form and extent of the Hellespont, assign about sixty miles for the
+winding course, and about three miles for the ordinary breadth, of those
+celebrated straits. But the narrowest part of the channel is found to
+the northward of the old Turkish castles between the cities of Sestus
+and Abydus. It was here that the adventurous Leander braved the passage
+of the flood for the possession of his mistress.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> It was here
+likewise, in a place where the distance between the opposite banks
+cannot exceed five hundred paces, that Xerxes imposed a stupendous
+bridge of boats, for the purpose of transporting into Europe a hundred
+and seventy myriads of barbarians. A sea contracted within such narrow
+limits may seem but ill to deserve the singular epithet of <i>broad</i>,
+which Homer, as well as Orpheus, has frequently bestowed on the
+Hellespont. But our ideas of greatness are of a relative nature: the
+traveller, and especially the poet, who sailed along the Hellespont, who
+pursued the windings of the stream, and contemplated the rural scenery,
+which appeared on every side to terminate the prospect, insensibly lost
+the remembrance of the sea: and his fancy painted those celebrated
+straits, with all the attributes of a mighty river flowing with a swift
+current, in the midst of a woody and inland country, and at length,
+through a wide mouth, discharging itself into the &AElig;gean or Archipelago.</p>
+
+<p>Ancient Troy, seated on an eminence at the foot of Mount Ida, overlooked
+the mouth of the Hellespont, which scarcely received an accession of
+waters from the tribute of those immortal rivulets, the Simois and
+Scamander. The Grecian camp had stretched twelve miles along the shore
+from the Sig&aelig;an to the Rh&aelig;tean promontory; and the flanks of the army
+were guarded by the bravest chiefs who fought under the banners of
+Agamemnon.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p>
+<p>The first of those promontories was occupied by Achilles with his
+invincible myrmidons, and the dauntless Ajax pitched his tents on the
+other. After Ajax had fallen a sacrifice to his disappointed pride and
+to the ingratitude of the Greeks, his sepulchre was erected on the
+ground where he had defended the navy against the rage of Jove and of
+Hector; and the citizens of the rising town of Rh&aelig;teum celebrated his
+memory with divine honors. Before Constantine gave a just preference to
+the situation of Byzantium, he had conceived the design of erecting the
+seat of empire on this celebrated spot, from whence the Romans derived
+their fabulous origin. The extensive plain which lies below ancient
+Troy, toward the Rh&aelig;tean promontory and the tomb of Ajax, was first
+chosen for his new capital; and though the undertaking was soon
+relinquished, the stately remains of unfinished walls and towers
+attracted the notice of all who sailed through the straits of the
+Hellespont.</p>
+
+<p>We are at present qualified to view the advantageous position of
+Constantinople; which appears to have been formed by nature for the
+centre and capital of a great monarchy. Situated in the forty-first
+degree of latitude, the imperial city commanded, from her seven hills,
+the opposite shores of Europe and Asia; the climate was healthy and
+temperate, the soil fertile, the harbor secure and capacious; and the
+approach on the side of the Continent was of small extent and easy
+defence. The Bosporus and the Hellespont may be considered as the two
+gates of Constantinople; and the prince who possessed these important
+passages could always shut them against a naval enemy and open them to
+the fleets of commerce. The preservation of the eastern provinces may,
+in some degree, be ascribed to the policy of Constantine, as the
+barbarians of the Euxine, who in the preceding age had poured their
+armaments into the heart of the Mediterranean, soon desisted from the
+exercise of piracy and despaired of forcing this insurmountable barrier.</p>
+
+<p>When the gates of the Hellespont and Bosporus were shut, the capital
+still enjoyed within their spacious enclosure every production which
+could supply the wants or gratify the luxury of its numerous
+inhabitants. The sea-coasts of Thrace and Bithynia, which languish under
+the weight of Turkish oppression,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> still exhibit a rich prospect of
+vineyards, of gardens, and of plentiful harvests; and the Propontis has
+ever been renowned for an inexhaustible store of the most exquisite
+fish, that are taken in their stated seasons, without skill and almost
+without labor. But when the passages of the straits were thrown open for
+trade, they alternately admitted the natural and artificial riches of
+the north and south, of the Euxine, and of the Mediterranean. Whatever
+rude commodities were collected in the forests of Germany and Scythia,
+as far as the sources of the Tanais and the Borysthenes; whatsoever was
+manufactured by the skill of Europe or Asia; the corn of Egypt, and the
+gems and spices of the farthest India, were brought by the varying winds
+into the port of Constantinople, which for many ages attracted the
+commerce of the ancient world.</p>
+
+<p>The prospect of beauty, of safety, and of wealth, united in a single
+spot, was sufficient to justify the choice of Constantine. But as some
+decent mixture of prodigy and fable has, in every age, been supposed to
+reflect a becoming majesty on the origin of great cities, the Emperor
+was desirous of ascribing his resolution, not so much to the uncertain
+counsels of human policy as to the infallible and eternal decrees of
+divine wisdom. In one of his laws he has been careful to instruct
+posterity that, in obedience to the commands of God, he laid the
+everlasting foundations of Constantinople: and though he has not
+condescended to relate in what manner the celestial inspiration was
+communicated to his mind, the defect of his modest silence has been
+liberally supplied by the ingenuity of succeeding writers, who describe
+the nocturnal vision which appeared to the fancy of Constantine, as he
+slept within the walls of Byzantium. The tutelar genius of the city, a
+venerable matron sinking under the weight of years and infirmities, was
+suddenly transformed into a blooming maid, whom his own hands adorned
+with all the symbols of imperial greatness. The monarch awoke,
+interpreted the auspicious omen, and obeyed, without hesitation, the
+will of heaven.</p>
+
+<p>The day which gave birth to a city or colony was celebrated by the
+Romans with such ceremonies as had been ordained by a generous
+superstition; and though Constantine might omit some rites which savored
+too strongly of their pagan origin, yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> he was anxious to leave a deep
+impression of hope and respect on the minds of the spectators. On foot,
+with a lance in his hand, the Emperor himself led the solemn procession,
+and directed the line which was traced as the boundary of the destined
+capital: till the growing circumference was observed with astonishment
+by the assistants, who, at length, ventured to observe that he had
+already exceeded the most ample measure of a great city. "I shall still
+advance," replied Constantine, "till He, the invisible guide who marches
+before me, thinks proper to stop." Without presuming to investigate the
+nature or motives of this extraordinary conductor, we shall content
+ourselves with the more humble task of describing the extent and limits
+of Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p>In the actual state of the city, the palace and gardens of the seraglio
+occupy the eastern promontory, the first of the seven hills, and cover
+about one hundred and fifty acres of our own measure. The seat of
+Turkish jealousy and despotism is erected on the foundations of a
+Grecian republic; but it may be supposed that the Byzantines were
+tempted by the conveniency of the harbor to extend their habitations on
+that side beyond the modern limits of the seraglio. The new walls of
+Constantine stretched from the port to the Propontis across the enlarged
+breadth of the triangle, at a distance of fifteen stadia from the
+ancient fortification; and with the city of Byzantium they enclosed five
+of the seven hills, which, to the eyes of those who approach
+Constantinople, appear to rise above each other in beautiful order.
+About a century after the death of the founder the new buildings,
+extending on one side up the harbor, and on the other along the
+Propontis, already covered the narrow ridge of the sixth and the broad
+summit of the seventh hill.</p>
+
+<p>The necessity of protecting those suburbs from the incessant inroads of
+the barbarians engaged the younger Theodosius to surround his capital
+with an adequate and permanent enclosure of walls. From the eastern
+promontory to the Golden Gate, the extreme length of Constantinople was
+about three Roman miles; the circumference measured between ten and
+eleven; and the surface might be computed as equal to about two thousand
+acres. It is impossible to justify the vain and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> credulous exaggerations
+of modern travellers, who have sometimes stretched the limits of
+Constantinople over the adjacent villages of the European and even of
+the Asiatic coast.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> But the suburbs of Pera and Galata, though
+situate beyond the harbor, may deserve to be considered as a part of the
+city; and this addition may perhaps authorize the measure of a Byzantine
+historian, who assigns sixteen Greek, about fourteen Roman, miles for
+the circumference of his native city. Such an extent may seem not
+unworthy of an imperial residence. Yet Constantinople must yield to
+Babylon and Thebes, to ancient Rome, to London, and even to Paris.</p>
+
+<p>The master of the Roman world, who aspired to erect an eternal monument
+of the glories of his reign, could employ in the prosecution of that
+great work the wealth, the labor, and all that yet remained of the
+genius of obedient millions. Some estimate may be formed of the expense
+bestowed with imperial liberality on the foundation of Constantinople,
+by the allowance of about two million five hundred thousand pounds for
+the construction of the walls, the porticos, and the aqueducts. The
+forests that overshadowed the shores of the Euxine, and the celebrated
+quarries of white marble in the little island of Proconnesus, supplied
+an inexhaustible stock of materials, ready to be conveyed, by the
+convenience of a short water-carriage, to the harbor of Byzantium. A
+multitude of laborers and artificers urged the conclusion of the work
+with incessant toil; but the impatience of Constantine soon discovered
+that, in the decline of the arts, the skill as well as numbers of his
+architects bore a very unequal proportion to the greatness of his
+designs. The magistrates of the most distant provinces were therefore
+directed to institute schools, to appoint professors, and by the hopes
+of rewards and privileges to engage in the study and practice of
+architecture a sufficient number of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> ingenious youths who had received a
+liberal education. The buildings of the new city were executed by such
+artificers as the reign of Constantine could afford; but they were
+decorated by the hands of the most celebrated masters of the age of
+Pericles and Alexander. To revive the genius of Phidias and Lysippus
+surpassed indeed the power of a Roman emperor; but the immortal
+productions which they had bequeathed to posterity were exposed without
+defence to the rapacious vanity of a despot.</p>
+
+<p>By his commands the cities of Greece and Asia were despoiled of their
+most valuable ornaments. The trophies of memorable wars, the objects of
+religious veneration, the most finished statues of the gods and heroes,
+of the sages and poets, of ancient times, contributed to the splendid
+triumph of Constantinople, and gave occasion to the remark of the
+historian Cedrenus, who observes, with some enthusiasm, that nothing
+seemed wanting except the souls of the illustrious men whom those
+admirable monuments were intended to represent. But it is not in the
+city of Constantine, nor in the declining period of an empire, when the
+human mind was depressed by civil and religious slavery, that we should
+seek for the souls of Homer and of Demosthenes.</p>
+
+<p>During the siege of Byzantium the conqueror had pitched his tent on the
+commanding eminence of the second hill. To perpetuate the memory of his
+success, he chose the same advantageous position for the principal
+forum, which appears to have been of a circular or rather elliptical
+form. The two opposite entrances formed triumphal arches; the porticos,
+which enclosed it on every side, were filled with statues; and the
+centre of the forum was occupied by a lofty column, of which a mutilated
+fragment is now degraded by the appellation of the "burnt pillar." This
+column was erected on a pedestal of white marble twenty feet high, and
+was composed of ten pieces of porphyry, each of which measured about ten
+feet in height and about thirty-three in circumference. On the summit of
+the pillar, above one hundred and twenty feet from the ground, stood the
+colossal statue of Apollo. It was of bronze, had been transported either
+from Athens or from a town of Phrygia, and was supposed to be the work
+of Phidias. The artist<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> had represented the god of day, or, as it was
+afterward interpreted, the emperor Constantine himself, with a sceptre
+in his right hand, the globe of the world in his left, and a crown of
+rays glittering on his head.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Circus, or Hippodrome, was a stately building about four hundred
+paces in length and one hundred in breadth. The space between the two
+<i>met&aelig;</i> or goals was filled with statues and obelisks; and we may still
+remark a very singular fragment of antiquity, the bodies of three
+serpents, twisted into one pillar of brass. Their triple heads had once
+supported the golden tripod which, after the defeat of Xerxes, was
+consecrated in the temple of Delphi by the victorious Greeks. The beauty
+of the hippodrome has been long since defaced by the rude hands of the
+Turkish conquerors; but, under the similar appellation of Atmeidan, it
+still serves as a place of exercise for their horses. From the throne,
+whence the emperor viewed the Circensian games, a winding staircase
+descended to the palace; a magnificent edifice, which scarcely yielded
+to the residence of Rome itself, and which, together with the dependent
+courts, gardens, and porticos, covered a considerable extent of ground
+upon the banks of the Propontis between the Hippodrome and the Church of
+St. Sophia. We might likewise celebrate the baths, which still retained
+the name of Zeuxippus,<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> after they had been enriched, by the
+munificence of Constantine, with lofty columns, various marbles, and
+above threescore statues of bronze. But we should deviate from the
+design of this history if we attempted minutely to describe the
+different buildings or quarters of the city. It may be sufficient to
+observe that whatever could adorn the dignity of a great capital, or
+contribute to the benefit or pleasure of its numerous inhabitants, was
+contained within<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> the walls of Constantinople. A particular description,
+composed about a century after its foundation, enumerates a capitol or
+school of learning, a circus, two theatres, eight public and one hundred
+and fifty-three private baths, fifty-two porticos, five granaries, eight
+aqueducts or reservoirs of water, four spacious halls for the meetings
+of the senate or courts of justice, fourteen churches, fourteen palaces,
+and four thousand three hundred and eighty-eight houses, which, for
+their size or beauty, deserved to be distinguished from the multitude of
+plebeian habitations.</p>
+
+<p>The populousness of his favored city was the next and most serious
+object of the attention of its founder. In the dark ages which succeeded
+the translation of the empire, the remote and the immediate consequences
+of that memorable event were strangely confounded by the vanity of the
+Greeks and the credulity of the Latins. It was asserted, and believed,
+that all the noble families of Rome, the senate, and the equestrian
+order, with their innumerable attendants, had followed their Emperor to
+the banks of the Propontis; that a spurious race of strangers and
+plebeians was left to possess the solitude of the ancient capital; and
+that the lands of Italy, long since converted into gardens, were at once
+deprived of cultivation and inhabitants. Since the growth of
+Constantinople cannot be ascribed to the general increase of mankind and
+of industry, it must be admitted that this artificial colony was raised
+at the expense of the ancient cities of the empire.</p>
+
+<p>Many opulent senators of Rome, and of the eastern provinces, were
+probably invited by Constantine to adopt for their country the fortunate
+spot which he had chosen for his own residence. The invitations of a
+master are scarcely to be distinguished from commands; and the
+liberality of the Emperor obtained a ready and cheerful obedience. He
+bestowed on his favorites the palaces which he had built in the several
+quarters of the city, assigned them lands and pensions for the support
+of their dignity, and alienated the demesnes of Pontus and Asia to grant
+hereditary estates by the easy tenure of maintaining a house in the
+capital. But these encouragements and obligations soon became
+superfluous and were gradually abolished. Wherever the seat of
+government is fixed, a considerable part of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> public revenue will be
+expended by the prince himself, by his ministers, by the officers of
+justice, and by the domestics of the palace. The most wealthy of the
+provincials will be attracted by the powerful motives of interest and
+duty, of amusement and curiosity. A third and more numerous class of
+inhabitants will insensibly be formed, of servants, of artificers, and
+of merchants, who derive their subsistence from their own labor and from
+the wants or luxury of the superior ranks. In less than a century
+Constantinople disputed with Rome itself the pre&euml;minence of riches and
+numbers. New piles of buildings, crowded together with too little regard
+to health or convenience, scarcely allowed the intervals of narrow
+streets for the perpetual throng of men, of horses, and of carriages.
+The allotted space of ground was insufficient to contain the increasing
+people; and the additional foundations, which, on either side, were
+advanced into the sea, might alone have composed a very considerable
+city.</p>
+
+<p>The frequent and regular distributions of wine and oil, of corn or
+bread, of money or provisions, had almost exempted the poorer citizens
+of Rome from the necessity of labor. The magnificence of the first
+C&aelig;sars was in some measure imitated by the founder of Constantinople;
+but his liberality, however it might excite the applause of the people,
+has incurred the censure of posterity. A nation of legislators and
+conquerors might assert their claim to the harvests of Africa, which had
+been purchased with their blood; and it was artfully contrived by
+Augustus that, in the enjoyment of plenty, the Romans should lose the
+memory of freedom. But the prodigality of Constantine could not be
+excused by any consideration either of public or private interest; and
+the annual tribute of corn imposed upon Egypt for the benefit of his new
+capital was applied to feed a lazy and insolent populace at the expense
+of the husbandmen of an industrious province. Some other regulations of
+this Emperor are less liable to blame, but they are less deserving of
+notice. He divided Constantinople into fourteen regions or quarters,
+dignified the public council with the appellation of senate,
+communicated to the citizens the privileges of Italy, and bestowed on
+the rising city the title of colony, the first and most favored daughter
+of ancient Rome. The venerable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> parent still maintained the legal and
+acknowledged supremacy which was due to her age, to her dignity, and to
+the remembrance of her former greatness.</p>
+
+<p>As Constantine urged the progress of the work with the impatience of a
+lover, the walls, the porticos, and the principal edifices were
+completed in a few years, or, according to another account, in a few
+months; but this extraordinary diligence should excite the less
+admiration, since many of the buildings were finished in so hasty and
+imperfect a manner that, under the succeeding reign, they were preserved
+with difficulty from impending ruin. But while they displayed the vigor
+and freshness of youth, the founder prepared to celebrate the dedication
+of his city. The games and largesses which crowned the pomp of this
+memorable festival may easily be supposed; but there is one circumstance
+of a more singular and permanent nature, which ought not entirely to be
+overlooked. As often as the birthday of the city returned, the statue of
+Constantine, framed by his order, of gilt wood, and bearing in its right
+hand a small image of the genius of the place, was erected on a
+triumphal car. The guards, carrying white tapers, and clothed in their
+richest apparel, accompanied the solemn procession as it moved through
+the Hippodrome. When it was opposite to the throne of the reigning
+Emperor, he rose from his seat, and with grateful reverence adored the
+memory of his predecessor. At the festival of the dedication, an edict,
+engraved on a column of marble, bestowed the title of "Second or New
+Rome" on the city of Constantine. But the name of Constantinople has
+prevailed over that honorable epithet; and after the revolution of
+fourteen centuries, still perpetuates the fame of its author.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> The navigator Byzas, who was styled the Son of Neptune,
+founded the city 656 years before the Christian era. His followers were
+drawn from Argos and Megara. Byzantium was afterward rebuilt and
+fortified by the Spartan general Pausanias.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> The practical illustration of the possibility of Leander's
+feat by Lord Byron is too well known to need particular reference.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> The accurate Thevenot walked in one hour and
+three-quarters round two of the sides of the triangle, from the Kiosk of
+the Seraglio to the seven towers. D'Anville examines with care, and
+receives with confidence, this decisive testimony, which gives a
+circumference of ten or twelve miles. The extravagant computation of
+Tournefort of thirty-four or thirty miles, without including Scutari, is
+a strange departure from his usual character.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> On this column Constantine, with singular shamelessness,
+placed his own statue with the attributes of Apollo and Christ. He
+substituted the nails of the Passion for the rays of the sun.
+Constantine was replaced by the "great and religious" Julian; Julian, by
+Theodosius. <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1412 the keystone was loosened by an earthquake. The
+statue fell in the reign of Alexius Comnenus, and was replaced by the
+cross. The palladium was said to be buried under the pillar.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> Zeuxippus was an epithet of Jupiter, and the baths were a
+part of old Byzantium.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p>
+<h2>JULIAN THE APOSTATE BECOMES EMPEROR OF ROME</h2>
+
+<h4>A.D. 360</h4>
+
+<h3>EDWARD GIBBON</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The great reign of Constantine was ended. The new capital,
+Constantinople, which after fifteen centuries still perpetuates the
+name of its imperial founder, had outrivalled Rome. The heirs of
+Constantine, the sons of Fausta, had all been called C&aelig;sar, and
+were appointed to succeed to imperial power. Constantine,
+Constantius, and Constans they were named. They held court in
+different parts of the realm during their father's life, although
+he reserved for himself the title of Augustus.</p>
+
+<p>The last years of his reign of thirty years had been peaceful,
+disturbed only by the insurrection in Cyprus and the wars of the
+Goths and Sarmatians. And so he died, and the purple and diadem
+were but empty symbols, as he lay in state upon his golden bed.</p>
+
+<p>The great Emperor was no sooner dead than the sons made haste to
+rid themselves of all possible rivals in a family that seemed too
+numerous for peace. Two uncles and seven cousins were quickly put
+out of the way under one pretence and another.</p>
+
+<p>The provinces were divided between the three brothers, and they
+reigned peacefully for three years, until Constantine demanded the
+surrender to him of a part of the dominions of Constans. In the war
+which ensued Constantine was killed, and Constans took possession
+of his brother's provinces, refusing any share of them to
+Constantius.</p>
+
+<p>He reigned ten years longer, when he was destroyed, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 350, by a
+conspiracy in Gaul headed by one Magnentius. This soldier, of
+barbarian extraction, was soon defeated by Constantius, who now
+became sole Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>He soon found his burden of power too great, and decided to share
+it with the two young nephews who had been permitted to live when
+the massacre of the house of Constantine occurred.</p>
+
+<p>To Gallus, the elder, he gave the title of c&aelig;sar, and invested him
+with the government of the East. Gallus conducted himself like a
+Nero and was disgraced and executed about three years later.</p>
+
+<p>The younger nephew, Julian, had been brought up in the Christian
+faith, and received an excellent education, which was finished in
+the philosophical schools of Athens. He was created c&aelig;sar by
+Constantius, whose sister Helena he married, and was invested with
+the government of Gaul, Spain, and Britain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Julian's wise civil administration was very acceptable to the
+people, and his brilliant military exploits established his fame
+throughout the empire and won the affection of his soldiers. He
+repulsed the Alemanns and the Franks, sending captives to the court
+of Constantius. His expeditions beyond the Rhine were crowned with
+success. He restored the cities of Gaul and stemmed the tide of
+barbarian invasion.</p>
+
+<p>All these triumphs had awakened the jealousy of the emperor
+Constantius, who was practically ruled by the eunuchs and bishops
+at his court. The rising fortunes of Julian had caused envy among
+many, who set about to poison the mind of Constantius with
+innuendoes and false suggestions. They resolved to disarm Julian
+and to separate him from his army. The Emperor ordered Julian to
+send his best troops to the war in Persia. But they forgot that the
+troops adored Julian. They overlooked the fact that the soldiers
+would see through such a scheme to humiliate their commander. The
+Gauls also feared the departure of Julian's men, for they dreaded
+the attacks of the Germans. This then was the situation. Julian
+attempted to follow the orders of the Emperor. But fate ordained
+otherwise. The army proclaimed him emperor. He refused the honor at
+first, but was forced to assume the dangerous title. The war which
+immediately followed was cut short by the sudden death of
+Constantius, and Julian became sole ruler of the Roman Empire. He
+renounced Christianity and is known in history as Julian the
+Apostate.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of eunuchs and
+bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with transport in every
+part of the empire, except in the palace of Constantius. The barbarians
+of Germany had felt and still dreaded the arms of the young c&aelig;sar; his
+soldiers were the companions of his victory; the grateful provincials
+enjoyed the blessings of his reign; but the favorites, who had opposed
+his elevation, were offended by his virtues; and they justly considered
+the friend of the people as the enemy of the court. As long as the fame
+of Julian was doubtful the buffoons of the palace, who were skilled in
+the language of satire, tried the efficacy of those arts which they had
+so often practised with success. They easily discovered that his
+simplicity was not exempt from affectation; the ridiculous epithets of a
+hairy savage, of an ape invested with the purple, were applied to the
+dress and person of the philosophic warrior; and his modest despatches
+were stigmatized as the vain and elaborate fictions of a loquacious
+Greek, a speculative soldier, who had studied the art of war amid the
+groves of the academy.</p>
+
+<p>The voice of malicious folly was at length silenced by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> shouts of
+victory; the conqueror of the Franks and Alemanni could no longer be
+painted as an object of contempt; and the monarch himself was meanly
+ambitious of stealing from his lieutenant the honorable reward of his
+labors. In the letters crowned with laurel, which, according to ancient
+custom, were addressed to the provinces, the name of Julian was omitted.
+"Constantius had made his dispositions in person; <i>he</i> had signalized
+his valor in the foremost ranks; <i>his</i> military conduct had secured the
+victory; and the captive king of the barbarians was presented to <i>him</i>
+on the field of battle," from which he was at that time distant about
+forty days' journey. So extravagant a fable was incapable, however, of
+deceiving the public credulity, or even of satisfying the pride of the
+Emperor himself. Secretly conscious that the applause and favor of the
+Romans accompanied the rising fortunes of Julian, his discontented mind
+was prepared to receive the subtle poison of those artful sycophants,
+who colored their mischievous designs with the fairest appearances of
+truth and candor. Instead of depreciating the merits of Julian, they
+acknowledged, and even exaggerated, his popular fame, superior talents,
+and important services. But they darkly insinuated that the virtues of
+the c&aelig;sar might instantly be converted into the most dangerous crimes if
+the inconstant multitude should prefer their inclinations to their duty;
+or if the general of a victorious army should be tempted from his
+allegiance by the hopes of revenge and independent greatness. The
+personal fears of Constantius were interpreted by his council as a
+laudable anxiety for the public safety; while in private, and perhaps in
+his own breast, he disguised, under the less odious appellation of fear,
+the sentiments of hatred and envy, which he had secretly conceived for
+the inimitable virtues of Julian.</p>
+
+<p>The apparent tranquillity of Gaul, and the imminent danger of the
+eastern provinces, offered a specious pretence for the design which was
+artfully concerted by the imperial ministers. They resolved to disarm
+the c&aelig;sar; to recall those faithful troops who guarded his person and
+dignity; and to employ, in a distant war against the Persian monarch,
+the hardy veterans who had vanquished, on the banks of the Rhine, the
+fiercest nations of Germany. While Julian used the laborious hours of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>
+his winter quarters at Paris in the administration of power, which, in
+his hands, was the exercise of virtue, he was surprised by the hasty
+arrival of a tribune and a notary, with positive orders from the
+Emperor, which <i>they</i> were directed to execute and <i>he</i> was commanded
+not to oppose.</p>
+
+<p>Constantius signified his pleasure that four entire legions, the Celt&aelig;,
+and Petulants, the Heruli, and the Batavians, should be separated from
+the standard of Julian, under which they had acquired their fame and
+discipline; that in each of the remaining bands three hundred of the
+bravest youths should be selected; and that this numerous detachment,
+the strength of the Gallic army, should instantly begin their march, and
+exert their utmost diligence to arrive, before the opening of the
+campaign, on the frontiers of Persia. The c&aelig;sar foresaw and lamented the
+consequences of this fatal mandate. Most of the auxiliaries, who engaged
+their voluntary service, had stipulated that they should never be
+obliged to pass the Alps. The public faith of Rome, and the personal
+honor of Julian, had been pledged for the observance of this condition.
+Such an act of treachery and oppression would destroy the confidence and
+excite the resentment of the independent warriors of Germany, who
+considered truth as the noblest of their virtues, and freedom as the
+most valuable of their possessions.</p>
+
+<p>The legionaries who enjoyed the title and privileges of Romans were
+enlisted for the general defence of the republic; but those mercenary
+troops heard with cold indifference the antiquated names of the republic
+and of Rome. Attached, either from birth or long habit, to the climate
+and manners of Gaul, they loved and admired Julian; they despised, and
+perhaps hated, the Emperor; they dreaded the laborious march, the
+Persian arrows, and the burning deserts of Asia. They claimed as their
+own the country which they had saved, and excused their want of spirit,
+by pleading the sacred and more immediate duty of protecting their
+families and friends. The apprehensions of the Gauls were derived from
+the knowledge of the impending and inevitable danger. As soon as the
+provinces were exhausted of their military strength the Germans would
+violate a treaty which had been imposed on their fears; and
+notwithstanding the abilities and valor of Julian, the general<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> of a
+nominal army, to whom the public calamities would be imputed, must find
+himself, after a vain resistance, either a prisoner in the camp of the
+barbarians or a criminal in the palace of Constantius.</p>
+
+<p>If Julian complied with the orders which he had received, he subscribed
+his own destruction and that of a people who deserved his affection. But
+a positive refusal was an act of rebellion and a declaration of war. The
+inexorable jealousy of the Emperor, the peremptory and perhaps insidious
+nature of his commands, left not any room for a fair apology or candid
+interpretation; and the dependent station of the c&aelig;sar scarcely allowed
+him to pause or to deliberate. Solitude increased the perplexity of
+Julian; he could no longer apply to the faithful counsels of Sallust,
+who had been removed from his office by the judicious malice of the
+eunuchs; he could not even enforce his representations by the
+concurrence of the ministers, who would have been afraid or ashamed to
+approve the ruin of Gaul. The moment had been chosen when Lupicinus, the
+general of the cavalry, was despatched into Britain to repulse the
+inroads of the Scots and Picts; and Florentius was occupied at Vienne by
+the assessment of the tribute. The latter, a crafty and corrupt
+statesman, declining to assume a responsible part on this dangerous
+occasion, eluded the pressing and repeated invitations of Julian, who
+represented to him that in every important measure the presence of the
+prefect was indispensable in the council of the prince.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean while the c&aelig;sar was oppressed by the rude and importunate
+solicitations of the imperial messengers, who presumed to suggest that
+if he expected the return of his ministers, he would charge himself with
+the guilt of the delay, and reserve for them the merit of the execution.
+Unable to resist, unwilling to comply, Julian expressed, in the most
+serious terms, his wish, and even his intention, of resigning the
+purple, which he could not preserve with honor, but which he could not
+abdicate with safety.</p>
+
+<p>After a painful conflict, Julian was compelled to acknowledge that
+obedience was the virtue of the most eminent subject, and that the
+sovereign alone was entitled to judge of the public welfare. He issued
+the necessary orders for carrying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> into execution the commands of
+Constantius; a part of the troops began their march for the Alps; and
+the detachments from the several garrisons moved toward their respective
+places of assembly. They advanced with difficulty through the trembling
+and affrighted crowds of provincials, who attempted to excite their pity
+by silent despair or loud lamentations; while the wives of the soldiers,
+holding their infants in their arms, accused the desertion of their
+husbands, in the mixed language of grief, of tenderness, and of
+indignation. This scene of general distress afflicted the humanity of
+the c&aelig;sar; he granted a sufficient number of post-wagons to transport
+the wives and families of the soldiers, endeavored to alleviate the
+hardships which he was constrained to inflict, and increased, by the
+most laudable arts, his own popularity and the discontent of the exiled
+troops.</p>
+
+<p>The grief of an armed multitude is soon converted into rage; their
+licentious murmurs, which every hour were communicated from tent to tent
+with more boldness and effect, prepared their minds for the most daring
+acts of sedition; and by the connivance of their tribunes, a seasonable
+libel was secretly dispersed, which painted in lively colors the
+disgrace of the c&aelig;sar, the oppression of the Gallic army, and the feeble
+vices of the tyrant of Asia. The servants of Constantius were astonished
+and alarmed by the progress of this dangerous spirit. They pressed the
+c&aelig;sar to hasten the departure of the troops; but they imprudently
+rejected the honest and judicious advice of Julian, who proposed that
+they should not march through Paris, and suggested the danger and
+temptation of a last interview.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the approach of the troops was announced the c&aelig;sar went out
+to meet them, and ascended his tribunal, which had been erected in a
+plain before the gates of the city. After distinguishing the officers
+and soldiers who by their rank or merit deserved a peculiar attention,
+Julian addressed himself in a studied oration to the surrounding
+multitude: he celebrated their exploits with grateful applause;
+encouraged them to accept, with alacrity, the honor of serving under the
+eyes of a powerful and liberal monarch; and admonished them that the
+commands of Augustus required an instant and cheerful obedience.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The soldiers, who were apprehensive of offending their general by an
+indecent clamor, or of belying their sentiments by false and venal
+acclamations, maintained an obstinate silence, and after a short pause
+were dismissed to their quarters. The principal officers were
+entertained by the c&aelig;sar, who professed, in the warmest language of
+friendship, his desire and his inability to reward, according to their
+deserts, the brave companions of his victories. They retired from the
+feast, full of grief and perplexity, and lamented the hardship of their
+fate, which tore them from their beloved general and their native
+country. The only expedient which could prevent their separation was
+boldly agitated and approved; the popular resentment was insensibly
+moulded into a regular conspiracy; their just reasons of complaint were
+heightened by passion, and their passions were inflamed by wine, as, on
+the eve of their departure, the troops were indulged in licentious
+festivity. At the hour of midnight, the impetuous multitude, with swords
+and bows and torches in their hands, rushed into the suburbs,
+encompassed the palace, and, careless of future dangers, pronounced the
+fatal and irrevocable words "<span class="smcap">Julian Augustus</span>!"</p>
+
+<p>The prince, whose anxious suspense was interrupted by their disorderly
+acclamations, secured the doors against their intrusion, and, as long as
+it was in his power, secluded his person and dignity from the accidents
+of a nocturnal tumult. At the dawn of day the soldiers, whose zeal was
+irritated by opposition, forcibly entered the palace, seized, with
+respectful violence, the object of their choice, guarded Julian with
+drawn swords through the streets of Paris, placed him on the tribunal,
+and with repeated shouts saluted him as their emperor. Prudence, as well
+as loyalty, inculcated the propriety of resisting their treasonable
+designs, and of preparing, for his oppressed virtue, the excuse of
+violence. Addressing himself by turns to the multitude and to
+individuals, he sometimes implored their mercy, and sometimes expressed
+his indignation; conjured them not to sully the fame of their immortal
+victories; and ventured to promise, that if they would immediately
+return to their allegiance, he would undertake to obtain from the
+Emperor not only a free and gracious pardon, but even the revocation of
+the orders which had excited their resentment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the soldiers, who were conscious of their guilt, chose rather to
+depend on the gratitude of Julian than on the clemency of the Emperor.
+Their zeal was insensibly turned into impatience, and their impatience
+into rage. The inflexible c&aelig;sar sustained, till the third hour of the
+day, their prayers, their reproaches, and their menaces; nor did he
+yield till he had been repeatedly assured that if he wished to live he
+must consent to reign. He was exalted on a shield in the presence and
+amid the unanimous acclamations of the troops; a rich military collar,
+which was offered by chance, supplied the want of a diadem; the ceremony
+was concluded by the promise of a moderate donative; and the new
+Emperor, overwhelmed with real or affected grief, retired into the most
+secret recesses of his apartment.</p>
+
+<p>The grief of Julian could proceed only from his innocence, but his
+innocence must appear extremely doubtful in the eyes of those who have
+learned to suspect the motives and the professions of princes. His
+lively and active mind was susceptible of the various impressions of
+hope and fear, of gratitude and revenge, of duty and of ambition, of the
+love of fame, and of the fear of reproach. But it is impossible for us
+to calculate the respective weight and operation of these sentiments; or
+to ascertain the principles of action which might escape the
+observation, while they guided, or rather impelled, the steps of Julian
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>The discontent of the troops was produced by the malice of his enemies;
+their tumult was the natural effect of interest and of passion; and if
+Julian had tried to conceal a deep design under the appearances of
+chance, he must have employed the most consummate artifice without
+necessity, and probably without success. He solemnly declares, in the
+presence of Jupiter, of the Sun, of Mars, of Minerva, and of all the
+other deities, that till the close of the evening which preceded his
+elevation he was utterly ignorant of the designs of the soldiers; and it
+may seem ungenerous to distrust the honor of a hero and the truth of a
+philosopher. Yet the superstitious confidence that Constantius was the
+enemy, and that he himself was the favorite, of the gods, might prompt
+him to desire, to solicit, and even to hasten the auspicious moment of
+his reign, which was predestined to restore the ancient religion of
+mankind. When<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> Julian had received the intelligence of the conspiracy he
+resigned himself to a short slumber, and afterward related to his
+friends that he had seen the Genius of the Empire waiting with some
+impatience at his door, pressing for admittance, and reproaching his
+want of spirit and ambition. Astonished and perplexed, he addressed his
+prayers to the great Jupiter, who immediately signified, by a clear and
+manifest omen, that he should submit to the will of heaven and of the
+army.</p>
+
+<p>The conduct which disclaims the ordinary maxims of reason excites our
+suspicion and eludes our inquiry. Whenever the spirit of fanaticism, at
+once so credulous and so crafty, has insinuated itself into a noble
+mind, it insensibly corrodes the vital principles of virtue and
+veracity.</p>
+
+<p>To moderate the zeal of his party, to protect the persons of his
+enemies, to defeat and to despise the secret enterprises which were
+formed against his life and dignity, were the cares which employed the
+first days of the reign of the new emperor. Although he was firmly
+resolved to maintain the station which he had assumed, he was still
+desirous of saving his country from the calamities of civil war, of
+declining a contest with the superior forces of Constantius, and of
+preserving his own character from the reproach of perfidy and
+ingratitude. Adorned with the ensigns of military and imperial pomp,
+Julian showed himself in the field of Mars to the soldiers, who glowed
+with ardent enthusiasm in the cause of their pupil, their leader, and
+their friend. He recapitulated their victories, lamented their
+sufferings, applauded their resolution, animated their hopes, and
+checked their impetuosity; nor did he dismiss the assembly till he had
+obtained a solemn promise from the troops, that if the emperor of the
+East would subscribe an equitable treaty, they would renounce any views
+of conquest and satisfy themselves with the tranquil possession of the
+Gallic provinces.</p>
+
+<p>On this foundation he composed, in his own name, and in that of the
+army, a specious and moderate epistle, which was delivered to Pentadius,
+his master of the offices, and to his chamberlain Eutherius, two
+ambassadors whom he appointed to receive the answer and observe the
+dispositions of Constantius. This epistle is inscribed with the modest
+appellation of c&aelig;sar; but Julian solicits, in a peremptory, though
+respectful,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> manner, the confirmation of the title of augustus. He
+acknowledges the irregularity of his own election, while he justifies,
+in some measure, the resentment and violence of the troops which had
+extorted his reluctant consent. He allows the supremacy of his brother
+Constantius, and engages to send him an annual present of Spanish
+horses, to recruit his army with a select number of barbarian youths,
+and to accept from his choice a pr&aelig;torian prefect of approved discretion
+and fidelity. But he reserves for himself the nomination of his other
+civil and military officers, with the troops, the revenue, and the
+sovereignty of the provinces beyond the Alps. He admonishes the Emperor
+to consult the dictates of justice; to distrust the arts of those venal
+flatterers, who subsist only by the discord of princes, and to embrace
+the offer of a fair and honorable treaty, equally advantageous to the
+republic and to the house of Constantine.</p>
+
+<p>In this negotiation Julian claimed no more than he already possessed.
+The delegated authority which he had long exercised over the provinces
+of Gaul, Spain, and Britain was still obeyed under a name more
+independent and august. The soldiers and the people rejoiced in a
+revolution which was not stained even with the blood of the guilty.
+Florentius was a fugitive; Lupicinus a prisoner. The persons who were
+disaffected to the new government were disarmed and secured; and the
+vacant offices were distributed, according to the recommendation of
+merit, by a prince who despised the intrigues of the palace and the
+clamors of the soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>The negotiations of peace were accompanied and supported by the most
+vigorous preparations for war. The army, which Julian held in readiness
+for immediate action, was recruited and augmented by the disorders of
+the times. The cruel persecution of the faction of Magnentius had filled
+Gaul with numerous bands of outlaws and robbers. They cheerfully
+accepted the offer of a general pardon from a prince whom they could
+trust, submitted to the restraints of military discipline, and retained
+only their implacable hatred to the person and government of
+Constantius.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the season of the year permitted Julian to take the field, he
+appeared at the head of his legions; threw a bridge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> over the Rhine in
+the neighborhood of Cleves; and prepared to chastise the perfidy of the
+Attuarii, a tribe of Franks, who presumed that they might ravage, with
+impunity, the frontiers of a divided empire. The difficulty, as well as
+glory, of this enterprise consisted in a laborious march; and Julian had
+conquered, as soon as he could penetrate into a country which former
+princes had considered as inaccessible. After he had given peace to the
+barbarians, the emperor carefully visited the fortifications along the
+Rhine from Cleves to Basel; surveyed, with peculiar attention, the
+territories which he had recovered from the hands of the Alemanni,
+passed through Besan&ccedil;on, which had severely suffered from their fury,
+and fixed his head-quarters at Vienne for the ensuing winter.</p>
+
+<p>The barrier of Gaul was improved and strengthened with additional
+fortifications; and Julian entertained some hopes that the Germans, whom
+he had so often vanquished, might, in his absence, be restrained by the
+terror of his name. Vadomair was the only prince of the Alemanni whom he
+esteemed or feared; and while the subtle barbarian affected to observe
+the faith of treaties, the progress of his arms threatened the State
+with an unseasonable and dangerous war. The policy of Julian
+condescended to surprise the prince of the Alemanni by his own arts: and
+Vadomair, who, in the character of a friend, had incautiously accepted
+an invitation from the Roman governors, was seized in the midst of the
+entertainment, and sent away prisoner into the heart of Spain. Before
+the barbarians were recovered from their amazement the Emperor appeared
+in arms on the banks of the Rhine, and, once more crossing the river,
+renewed the deep impressions of terror and respect which had been
+already made by four preceding expeditions.</p>
+
+<p>The ambassadors of Julian had been instructed to execute, with the
+utmost diligence, their important commission. But, in their passage
+through Italy and Illyricum, they were detained by the tedious and
+affected delays of the provincial governors; they were conducted by slow
+journeys from Constantinople to C&aelig;sarea in Cappadocia; and when at
+length they were admitted to the presence of Constantius, they found
+that he had already conceived, from the despatches of his own officers,
+the most unfavorable opinion of the conduct of Julian and of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> Gallic
+army. The letters were heard with impatience; the trembling messengers
+were dismissed with indignation and contempt; and the looks, the
+gestures, the furious language of the monarch expressed the disorder of
+his soul. The domestic connection, which might have reconciled the
+brother and the husband of Helena, was recently dissolved by the death
+of that princess, whose pregnancy had been several times fruitless, and
+was at last fatal to herself. The empress Eusebia had preserved, to the
+last moment of her life, the warm, and even jealous, affection which she
+had conceived for Julian; and her mild influence might have moderated
+the resentment of a prince, who, since her death, was abandoned to his
+own passions, and to the arts of his eunuchs.</p>
+
+<p>But the terror of a foreign invasion obliged him to suspend the
+punishment of a private enemy; he continued his march toward the
+confines of Persia, and thought it sufficient to signify the conditions
+which might entitle Julian and his guilty followers to the clemency of
+their offended sovereign. He required that the presumptuous c&aelig;sar should
+expressly renounce the appellation and rank of augustus, which he had
+accepted from the rebels; that he should descend to his former station
+of a limited and dependent minister; that he should vest the powers of
+the State and army in the hands of those officers who were appointed by
+the imperial court; and that he should trust his safety to the
+assurances of pardon, which were announced by Epictetus, a Gallic
+bishop, and one of the Arian favorites of Constantius. Several months
+were ineffectually consumed in a treaty which was negotiated at the
+distance of three thousand miles between Paris and Antioch; and, as soon
+as Julian perceived that his modest and respectful behavior served only
+to irritate the pride of an implacable adversary, he boldly resolved to
+commit his life and fortune to the chance of a civil war.</p>
+
+<p>He gave a public and military audience to the qu&aelig;stor Leonas; the
+haughty epistle of Constantius was read to the attentive multitude; and
+Julian protested, with the most flattering deference, that he was ready
+to resign the title of augustus, if he could obtain the consent of those
+whom he acknowledged as the authors of his elevation. The faint proposal
+was impetuously silenced; and the acclamations of "Julian Augustus,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span>
+continue to reign, by the authority of the army, of the people, of the
+republic which you have saved," thundered at once from every part of the
+field, and terrified the pale ambassador of Constantius. A part of the
+letter was afterward read, in which the Emperor arraigned the
+ingratitude of Julian, whom he had invested with the honors of the
+purple; whom he had educated with so much care and tenderness; whom he
+had preserved in his infancy, when he was left a helpless orphan.</p>
+
+<p>"An orphan!" interrupted Julian, who justified his cause by indulging
+his passions: "does the assassin of my family reproach me that I was
+left an orphan? He urges me to revenge those injuries which I have long
+studied to forget." The assembly was dismissed; and Leonas, who, with
+some difficulty, had been protected from the popular fury, was sent back
+to his master with an epistle, in which Julian expressed, in a strain of
+the most vehement eloquence, the sentiments of contempt, of hatred, and
+of resentment, which had been suppressed and imbittered by the
+dissimulation of twenty years. After this message, which might be
+considered as a signal of irreconcilable war, Julian, who, some weeks
+before, had celebrated the Christian festival of the Epiphany, made a
+public declaration that he committed the care of his safety to the
+<span class="smcap">immortal gods</span>, and thus publicly renounced the religion as well as the
+friendship of Constantius.</p>
+
+<p>The situation of Julian required a vigorous and immediate resolution. He
+had discovered, from intercepted letters, that his adversary,
+sacrificing the interest of the State to that of the monarch, had again
+excited the barbarians to invade the provinces of the West. The position
+of two magazines, one of them collected on the banks of the Lake of
+Constance, the other formed at the foot of the Cottian Alps, seemed to
+indicate the march of two armies; and the size of those magazines, each
+of which consisted of six hundred thousand quarters of wheat, or rather
+flour, was a threatening evidence of the strength and numbers of the
+enemy who prepared to surround him. But the imperial legions were still
+in their distant quarters of Asia; the Danube was feebly guarded; and if
+Julian could occupy, by a sudden incursion, the important provinces of
+Illyricum, he might expect that a people of soldiers would resort to his
+standard,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> and that the rich mines of gold and silver would contribute
+to the expenses of the civil war.</p>
+
+<p>He proposed this bold enterprise to the assembly of the soldiers;
+inspired them with a just confidence in their general and in themselves;
+and exhorted them to maintain their reputation of being terrible to the
+enemy, moderate to their fellow-citizens, and obedient to their
+officers. His spirited discourse was received with the loudest
+acclamations, and the same troops which had taken up arms against
+Constantius, when he summoned them to leave Gaul, now declared with
+alacrity that they would follow Julian to the farthest extremities of
+Europe or Asia. The oath of fidelity was administered; and the soldiers,
+clashing their shields, and pointing their drawn swords to their
+throats, devoted themselves, with horrid imprecations, to the service of
+a leader whom they celebrated as the deliverer of Gaul and the conqueror
+of the Germans. This solemn engagement, which seemed to be dictated by
+affection rather than by duty, was singly opposed by Nebridius, who had
+been admitted to the office of pr&aelig;torian prefect.</p>
+
+<p>That faithful minister, alone and unassisted, asserted the rights of
+Constantius in the midst of an armed and angry multitude, to whose fury
+he had almost fallen an honorable but useless sacrifice. After losing
+one of his hands by the stroke of a sword, he embraced the knees of the
+prince whom he had offended. Julian covered the prefect with his
+imperial mantle, and, protecting him from the zeal of his followers,
+dismissed him to his own house, with less respect than was perhaps due
+to the virtue of an enemy. The high office of Nebridius was bestowed on
+Sallust; and the provinces of Gaul, which were now delivered from the
+intolerable oppression of taxes, enjoyed the mild and equitable
+administration of the friend of Julian, who was permitted to practise
+those virtues which he had instilled into the mind of his pupil.</p>
+
+<p>The hopes of Julian depended much less on the number of his troops than
+on the celerity of his motions. In the execution of a daring enterprise,
+he availed himself of every precaution, as far as prudence could
+suggest; and where prudence could no longer accompany his steps, he
+trusted the event to valor and to fortune. In the neighborhood of Basel
+he assembled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> and divided his army. One body, which consisted of ten
+thousand men, was directed under the command of Nevitta, general of the
+cavalry, to advance through the midland parts of Rh&aelig;tia and Noricum. A
+similar division of troops, under the orders of Jovius and Jovinus,
+prepared to follow the oblique course of the highways, through the Alps
+and the northern confines of Italy. The instructions to the generals
+were conceived with energy and precision: to hasten their march in close
+and compact columns, which, according to the disposition of the ground,
+might readily be changed into any order of battle; to secure themselves
+against the surprises of the night by strong posts and vigilant guards;
+to prevent resistance by their unexpected arrival; to elude examination
+by their sudden departure; to spread the opinion of their strength and
+the terror of his name; and to join their sovereign under the walls of
+Sirmium.</p>
+
+<p>For himself Julian had reserved a more difficult and extraordinary part.
+He selected three thousand brave and active volunteers, resolved, like
+their leader, to cast behind them every hope of a retreat: at the head
+of this faithful band he fearlessly plunged into the recesses of the
+Marcian, or Black Forest, which conceals the sources of the Danube; and,
+for many days, the fate of Julian was unknown to the world. The secrecy
+of his march, his diligence and vigor, surmounted every obstacle; he
+forced his way over mountains and morasses, occupied the bridges or swam
+the rivers, pursued his direct course, without reflecting whether he
+traversed the territory of the Romans or of the barbarians, and at
+length emerged, between Ratisbon and Vienna, at the place where he
+designed to embark his troops on the Danube. By a well-concerted
+stratagem, he seized a fleet of light brigantines as it lay at anchor;
+secured a supply of coarse provisions sufficient to satisfy the
+indelicate but voracious appetite of a Gallic army; and boldly committed
+himself to the stream of the Danube.</p>
+
+<p>The labors of his mariners, who plied their oars with incessant
+diligence, and the steady continuance of a favorable wind, carried his
+fleet above seven hundred miles in eleven days; and he had already
+disembarked his troops at Bononia, only nineteen miles from Sirmium,
+before his enemies could receive any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> certain intelligence that he had
+left the banks of the Rhine. In the course of this long and rapid
+navigation, the mind of Julian was fixed on the object of his
+enterprise; and though he accepted the deputations of some cities, which
+hastened to claim the merit of an early submission, he passed before the
+hostile stations, which were placed along the river, without indulging
+the temptation of signalizing a useless and ill-timed valor. The banks
+of the Danube were crowded on either side with spectators, who gazed on
+the military pomp, anticipated the importance of the event, and diffused
+through the adjacent country the fame of a young hero, who advanced with
+more than mortal speed at the head of the innumerable forces of the
+West. Lucilian, who, with the rank of general of the cavalry, commanded
+the military powers of Illyricum, was alarmed and perplexed by the
+doubtful reports, which he could neither reject nor believe.</p>
+
+<p>He had taken some slow and irresolute measures for the purpose of
+collecting his troops, when he was surprised by Dagalaiphus, an active
+officer, whom Julian, as soon as he landed at Bononia, had pushed
+forward with some light infantry. The captive general, uncertain of his
+life or death, was hastily thrown upon a horse, and conducted to the
+presence of Julian; who kindly raised him from the ground, and dispelled
+the terror and amazement which seemed to stupefy his faculties. But
+Lucilian had no sooner recovered his spirits than he betrayed his want
+of discretion, by presuming to admonish his conqueror that he had rashly
+ventured, with a handful of men, to expose his person in the midst of
+his enemies. "Reserve for your master Constantius these timid
+remonstrances," replied Julian, with a smile of contempt: "when I gave
+you my purple to kiss, I received you not as a counsellor, but as a
+suppliant." Conscious that success alone could justify his attempt, and
+that boldness only could command success, he instantly advanced, at the
+head of three thousand soldiers, to attack the strongest and most
+populous city of the Illyrian provinces.</p>
+
+<p>As he entered the long suburb of Sirmium, he was received by the joyful
+acclamations of the army and people, who, crowned with flowers, and
+holding lighted tapers in their hands, conducted their acknowledged
+sovereign to his imperial residence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> Two days were devoted to the
+public joy, which was celebrated by the games of the Circus; but, early
+on the morning of the third day, Julian marched to occupy the narrow
+pass of Succi, in the defiles of Mount H&aelig;mus; which, almost in the
+midway between Sirmium and Constantinople, separates the provinces of
+Thrace and Dacia, by an abrupt descent toward the former, and a gentle
+declivity on the side of the latter. The defence of this important post
+was intrusted to the brave Nevitta; who, as well as the generals of the
+Italian division, successfully executed the plan of the march and
+junction which their master had so ably conceived.</p>
+
+<p>The homage which Julian obtained, from the fears or the inclination of
+the people, extended far beyond the immediate effect of his arms. The
+prefectures of Italy and Illyricum were administered by Taurus and
+Florentius, who united that important office with the vain honors of the
+consulship; and, as those magistrates had retired with precipitation to
+the court of Asia, Julian, who could not always restrain the levity of
+his temper, stigmatized their flight by adding, in all the Acts of the
+Year, the epithet of <i>fugitive</i> to the names of the two consuls.</p>
+
+<p>The provinces which had been deserted by their first magistrates
+acknowledged the authority of an emperor who, conciliating the qualities
+of a soldier with those of a philosopher, was equally admired in the
+camps of the Danube and in the cities of Greece. From his palace, or,
+more properly, from his head-quarters of Sirmium and Naissus, he
+distributed, to the principal cities of the empire, a labored apology
+for his own conduct; published the secret despatches of Constantius, and
+solicited the judgment of mankind between two competitors, the one of
+whom had expelled, and the other had invited, the barbarians. Julian,
+whose mind was deeply wounded by the reproach of ingratitude, aspired to
+maintain, by argument as well as by arms, the superior merits of his
+cause; and to excel, not only in the arts of war, but in those of
+composition. His epistle to the senate and people of Athens seems to
+have been dictated by an elegant enthusiasm; which prompted him to
+submit his actions and his motives to the degenerate Athenians of his
+own times, with the same humble deference as if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> he had been pleading,
+in the days of Aristides, before the tribunal of the Areopagus. His
+application to the senate of Rome, which was still permitted to bestow
+the titles of imperial power, was agreeable to the forms of the expiring
+republic. An assembly was summoned by Tertullus, prefect of the city;
+the epistle of Julian was read; and, as he appeared to be master of
+Italy, his claims were admitted without a dissenting voice.</p>
+
+<p>His oblique censure of the innovations of Constantine, and his
+passionate invective against the vices of Constantius, were heard with
+less satisfaction; and the senate, as if Julian had been present,
+unanimously exclaimed, "Respect, we beseech you, the author of your own
+fortune"&mdash;an artful expression, which, according to the chance of war,
+might be differently explained; as a manly reproof of the ingratitude of
+the usurper, or as a flattering confession that a single act of such
+benefit to the State ought to atone for all the failings of Constantius.</p>
+
+<p>The intelligence of the march and rapid progress of Julian was speedily
+transmitted to his rival, who, by the retreat of Sapor, had obtained
+some respite from the Persian war. Disguising the anguish of his soul
+under the semblance of contempt, Constantius professed his intention of
+returning into Europe, and of giving chase to Julian; for he never spoke
+of his military expedition in any other light than that of a hunting
+party. In the camp of Hierapolis, in Syria, he communicated this design
+to his army; slightly mentioned the guilt and rashness of the c&aelig;sar, and
+ventured to assure them that if the mutineers of Gaul presumed to meet
+them in the field they would be unable to sustain the fire of their eyes
+and the irresistible weight of their shout of onset.</p>
+
+<p>The speech of the Emperor was received with military applause, and
+Theodotus, the president of the council of Hierapolis, requested, with
+tears of adulation, that <i>his</i> city might be adorned with the head of
+the vanquished rebel. A chosen detachment was despatched away in
+post-wagons, to secure, if it were yet possible, the pass of Succi; the
+recruits, the horses, the arms, and the magazines, which had been
+prepared against Sapor, were appropriated to the service of the civil
+war; and the domestic victories of Constantius inspired his partisans<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>
+with the most sanguine assurances of success. The notary Gaudentius had
+occupied in his name the provinces of Africa; the subsistence of Rome
+was intercepted; and the distress of Julian was increased by an
+unexpected event, which might have been productive of fatal
+consequences. Julian had received the submission of two legions and a
+cohort of archers, who were stationed at Sirmium; but he suspected with
+reason the fidelity of those troops which had been distinguished by the
+Emperor; and it was thought expedient, under the pretence of the exposed
+state of the Gallic frontier, to dismiss them from the most important
+scene of action.</p>
+
+<p>They advanced, with reluctance, as far as the confines of Italy; but as
+they dreaded the length of the way and the savage fierceness of the
+Germans, they resolved, by the instigation of one of their tribunes, to
+halt at Aquileia, and to erect the banners of Constantius on the walls
+of that impregnable city. The vigilance of Julian perceived at once the
+extent of the mischief, and the necessity of applying an immediate
+remedy. By his order, Jovinus led back a part of the army into Italy;
+and the siege of Aquileia was formed with diligence and prosecuted with
+vigor. But the legionaries, who seemed to have rejected the yoke of
+discipline, conducted the defence of the place with skill and
+perseverance; invited the rest of Italy to imitate the example of their
+courage and loyalty; and threatened the retreat of Julian, if he should
+be forced to yield to the superior numbers of the armies of the East.</p>
+
+<p>But the humanity of Julian was preserved from the cruel alternative
+which he pathetically laments, of destroying or of being himself
+destroyed; and the seasonable death of Constantius delivered the Roman
+Empire from the calamities of civil war. The approach of winter could
+not detain the monarch at Antioch; and his favorites durst not oppose
+his impatient desire of revenge. A slight fever, which was perhaps
+occasioned by the agitation of his spirits, was increased by the
+fatigues of the journey; and Constantius was obliged to halt at the
+little town of Mopsucrene, twelve miles beyond Tarsus, where he expired,
+after a short illness, in the forty-fifth year of his age and the
+twenty-fourth of his reign. Julian thus became master of the Roman
+world.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE HUNS AND THEIR WESTERN MIGRATION</h2>
+
+<h4>A.D. 374-376</h4>
+
+<h3>MARCELLINUS</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The Huns, whose incursions into Europe constituted the first
+"yellow peril," were a nomadic Mongolian race. In the fourth
+century before Christ they successfully invaded China. From that
+country, about <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 90, they were driven by Hiong-nu, and the Huns
+then proceeded, joined by hordes of their fellows from the steppes
+of Tartary, to make their way to the Caspian Sea.</p>
+
+<p>Previous to the incursion of the Huns another Tartar tribe, the
+Alani&mdash;the first of that race known to the Romans&mdash;had ravaged
+Media and Armenia, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 75, carrying off a vast number of prisoners
+and an enormous booty. They later settled themselves in the country
+between the Volga and the Tanais, at an equal distance from the
+Black Sea and the Caspian. The Huns, having crossed the Volga,
+drove the Alani before them to the Danube. Valens, the then Emperor
+of the East, was a weak, incapable ruler; he failed to recognize
+the peril by which his empire would ere long be threatened, and
+permitted the Alani to find a refuge in his dominions. These were
+in turn followed and absorbed by the Huns, and the whole Roman
+Empire was finally faced by Mongol foes.</p>
+
+<p>The historian Ammianus Marcellinus wrote racily of these events at
+the time of their occurrence.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The swift wheel of fortune, which continually alternates adversity with
+prosperity, was giving Bellona the Furies for her allies, and arming her
+for war; and now transferred our disasters to the east, as many presages
+and portents foreshowed by undoubted signs.</p>
+
+<p>For after many true prophecies uttered by diviners and augurs, dogs were
+seen to recoil from howling wolves, and the birds of night constantly
+uttered querulous and mournful cries; and lurid sunrises made the
+mornings dark. Also, at Antioch, among the tumults and squabbles of the
+populace, it had come to be a custom for anyone who fancied himself
+ill-treated to cry out, in a licentious manner: "May Valens be burned
+alive."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> And the voices of the criers were constantly heard ordering
+wood to be carried to warm the baths of Valens, which had been built
+under the superintendence of the Emperor himself.</p>
+
+<p>All which circumstances all but pointed out in express words that the
+end of the Emperor's life was at hand. Besides all these things, the
+ghost of the King of Armenia, and the miserable shades of those who had
+lately been put to death in the affair of Theodorus, agitated numbers of
+people with terrible alarms, appearing to them in their sleep, and
+shrieking out verses of horrible import.</p>
+
+<p>Last of all, when the ancient walls of Chalcedon were thrown down in
+order to build a bath at Constantinople, and the stones were torn
+asunder, on one squared stone which was hidden in the very centre of the
+walls these Greek verses were found engraved, which gave a full
+revelation of what was to happen:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"But when young wives and damsels blithe, in dances that delight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall glide along the city streets, with garlands gayly bright;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when these walls, with sad regrets, shall fall to raise a bath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then shall the Huns in multitude break forth with might and wrath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By force of arms the barrier-stream of Ister they shall cross,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O'er Scythic ground and M&oelig;sian lands spreading dismay and loss;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They shall Pannonian horsemen brave, and Gallic soldiers slay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And nought but loss of life and breath their course shall ever stay."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The following circumstances were the original cause of all the
+destruction and various calamities which the fury of Mars roused up,
+throwing everything into confusion by his usual ruinous violence: the
+people called Huns, slightly mentioned in the ancient records, live
+beyond the Sea of Azov, on the border of the Frozen Ocean, and are a
+race savage beyond all parallel.</p>
+
+<p>At the very moment of their birth the cheeks of their infant children
+are deeply marked by an iron, in order that the usual vigor of their
+hair, instead of growing at the proper season, may be withered by the
+wrinkled scars; and accordingly they grow up without beards, and
+consequently without any beauty, like eunuchs, though they all have
+closely knit and strong limbs and plump necks; they are of great size,
+and bow-legged, so that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> you might fancy them two-legged beasts, or the
+stout figures which are hewn out in a rude manner with an axe on the
+posts at the end of bridges.</p>
+
+<p>They are certainly in the shape of men, however uncouth, but are so
+hardy that they neither require fire nor well-flavored food, but live on
+the roots of such herbs as they get in the fields, or on the half-raw
+flesh of any animal, which they merely warm rapidly by placing it
+between their own thighs and the back of their horses.</p>
+
+<p>They never shelter themselves under roofed houses, but avoid them, as
+people ordinarily avoid sepulchres as things not fitted for common use.
+Nor is there even to be found among them a cabin thatched with reed; but
+they wander about, roaming over the mountains and the woods, and
+accustom themselves to bear frost and hunger and thirst from their very
+cradles. And even when abroad they never enter a house unless under the
+compulsion of some extreme necessity; nor, indeed, do they think people
+under roofs as safe as others.</p>
+
+<p>They wear linen clothes, or else garments made of the skins of
+field-mice; nor do they wear a different dress out of doors from that
+which they wear at home; but after a tunic is once put round their
+necks, however much it becomes worn, it is never taken off or changed
+till, from long decay, it becomes actually so ragged as to fall to
+pieces.</p>
+
+<p>They cover their heads with round caps, and their shaggy legs with the
+skins of kids; their shoes are not made on any lasts, but are so
+unshapely as to hinder them from walking with a free gait. And for this
+reason they are not well suited to infantry battles, but are nearly
+always on horseback, their horses being ill-shaped, but hardy; and
+sometimes they even sit upon them like women if they want to do anything
+more conveniently. There is not a person in the whole nation who cannot
+remain on his horse day and night. On horseback they buy and sell, they
+take their meat and drink, and there they recline on the narrow neck of
+their steed, and yield to sleep so deep as to indulge in every variety
+of dream.</p>
+
+<p>And when any deliberation is to take place on any weighty matter, they
+all hold their common council on horseback. They are not under the
+authority of a king, but are contented with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> the irregular government of
+their nobles, and under their lead they force their way through all
+obstacles.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, when provoked, they fight; and when they go into battle, they
+form in a solid body, and utter all kinds of terrific yells. They are
+very quick in their operations, of exceeding speed, and fond of
+surprising their enemies. With a view to this, they suddenly disperse,
+then reunite, and again, after having inflicted vast loss upon the
+enemy, scatter themselves over the whole plain in irregular formations:
+always avoiding the fort or an intrenchment.</p>
+
+<p>And in one respect you may pronounce them the most formidable of all
+warriors, for when at a distance they use missiles of various kinds,
+tipped with sharpened bones instead of the usual points of javelins, and
+these bones are admirably fastened into the shaft of the javelin or
+arrow; but when they are at close quarters they fight with the sword,
+without any regard for their own safety; and often while their
+antagonists are warding off their blows they entangle them with twisted
+cords, so that, their hands being fettered, they lose all power of
+either riding or walking.</p>
+
+<p>None of them plough, or even touch a plough handle; for they have no
+settled abode, but are homeless and lawless, perpetually wandering with
+their wagons, which they make their homes; in fact, they seem to be
+people always in flight. Their wives live in these wagons, and there
+weave their miserable garments; and here, too, they sleep with their
+husbands, and bring up their children till they reach the age of
+puberty; nor, if asked, can any one of them tell you where he was born,
+as he was conceived in one place, born in another at a great distance,
+and brought up in another still more remote.</p>
+
+<p>In truces they are treacherous and inconstant, being liable to change
+their minds at every breeze of every fresh hope which presents itself,
+giving themselves up wholly to the impulse and inclination of the
+moment; and, like brute beasts, they are utterly ignorant of the
+distinction between right and wrong. They express themselves with great
+ambiguity and obscurity; have no respect for any religion or
+superstition whatever; are immoderately covetous of gold; and are so
+fickle and irascible that they very often, on the same day that they
+quarrel with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> their companions without any provocation, again become
+reconciled to them without any mediator.</p>
+
+<p>This active and indomitable race, being excited by an unrestrainable
+desire of plundering the possessions of others, went on ravaging and
+slaughtering all the nations in their neighborhood till they reached the
+Alani, who were formerly called the Massaget&aelig;; and from what country
+these Alani came, or what territories they inhabit&mdash;since my subject has
+led me so far&mdash;it is expedient now to explain, after showing the
+confusion existing in the accounts of the geographers, who, at last,
+have found out the truth.</p>
+
+<p>The Danube, which, is greatly increased by other rivers falling into it,
+passes through the territory of the Sauromat&aelig; [Scythians], which extends
+as far as the river Don, the boundary between Asia and Europe. On the
+other side of this river the Alani inhabit the enormous deserts of
+Scythia, deriving their own name from the mountains around; and they,
+like the Persians, having gradually subdued all the bordering nations by
+repeated victories, have united them to themselves and comprehended them
+under their own name. Of these other tribes the Neuri inhabit the inland
+districts, being near the highest mountain chains, which are both
+precipitous and covered with the everlasting frost of the north. Next to
+them are the Budini, and the Geloni, a race of exceeding ferocity, who
+flay the enemies they have slain in battle, and make of their skins
+clothes for themselves and trappings for their horses. Next to the
+Geloni are the Agathyrsi, who dye both their bodies and their hair of a
+blue color, the lower classes using spots few in number and small; the
+nobles broad spots, close and thick, and of a deeper hue.</p>
+
+<p>Next to those are the Melanchl&aelig;n&aelig; and the Anthropophagi, who roam about
+upon different tracts of land and live on human flesh. And these men are
+so avoided on account of their horrid food that all the tribes which
+were their neighbors have removed to a distance from them. And in this
+way the whole of that region to the northeast, till you come to the
+Chinese, is uninhabited.</p>
+
+<p>On the other side the Alani again extend to the east, near the
+territories of the Amazons, and are scattered among many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> populous and
+wealthy nations, stretching to the parts of Asia which, as I am told,
+extend up to the Ganges, a river which passes through the country of the
+Indians, and falls into the Southern Ocean.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Alani, being thus divided among the two quarters of the
+globe&mdash;the various tribes which make up the whole nation it is not worth
+while to enumerate&mdash;although widely separated, wander, like the nomads,
+over enormous districts. But in the progress of time all these tribes
+came to be united under one generic appellation, and are called Alani.</p>
+
+<p>They have no cottages, and never use the plough, but live solely on meat
+and plenty of milk, mounted on their wagons which they cover with a
+curved awning made of the bark of trees, and then drive them through
+their boundless deserts. And when they come to any pasture land, they
+pitch their wagons in a circle, and live like a herd of beasts, eating
+up all the forage&mdash;carrying, as it were, their cities with them in their
+wagons. In them the husbands sleep with their wives&mdash;in them their
+children are born and brought up; these wagons, in short, are their
+perpetual habitation, and, wherever they fix them, that place they look
+upon as their home.</p>
+
+<p>They drive before them their flocks and herds to their pasturage; and
+about all other cattle, they are especially careful of their horses. The
+fields in that country are always green, and are interspersed with
+patches of fruit-trees, so that, wherever they go, there is no dearth
+either of food for themselves or fodder for their cattle. And this is
+caused by the moisture of the soil and the number of the rivers which
+flow through these districts.</p>
+
+<p>All their old people, and especially all the weaker sex, keep close to
+the wagons and occupy themselves in the lighter employments. But the
+young men, who from their earliest childhood are trained to the use of
+the horses, think it beneath them to walk. They are also all trained by
+careful discipline of various sorts to become skilful warriors. And this
+is the reason why the Persians, who are originally of Scythian
+extraction, are very skilful in war.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly all the Alani are men of great stature and beauty. Their hair is
+somewhat yellow, their eyes are terribly fierce;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> the lightness of their
+armor renders them rapid in their movements, and they are in every
+respect equal to the Huns, only more civilized in their food and their
+manner of life. They plunder and hunt as far as the Sea of Azov and the
+Cimmerian Bosporus, ravaging also Armenia and Media.</p>
+
+<p>And as ease is a delightful thing to men of a quiet and placid
+disposition, so danger and war are a pleasure to the Alani, and among
+them that man is called happy who has lost his life in battle; for those
+who grow old, or who go out of the world from accidental sicknesses,
+they pursue with bitter reproaches as degenerate and cowardly. Nor is
+there anything of which they boast with more pride than of having killed
+a man; and the most glorious spoils they esteem the scalps which they
+have torn from the heads of those whom they have slain, which they put
+as trappings and ornaments on their war horses.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is there any temple or shrine seen in their country, nor even any
+cabin thatched with straw, their only idea of religion being to plunge a
+naked sword into the ground with barbaric ceremonies, and they worship
+that with great respect, as Mars, the presiding deity of the regions
+over which they wander.</p>
+
+<p>They presage the future in a most remarkable manner, for they collect a
+number of great twigs of osier, then with certain secret incantations
+they separate them from one another on particular days; and from them
+they learn clearly what is about to happen.</p>
+
+<p>They have no idea of slavery, inasmuch as they themselves are all born
+of noble families; and those whom even now they appoint to be judges are
+always men of proved experience and skill in war. But now let us return
+to the subject which we proposed to ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>The Huns, after having traversed the territories of the Alani, and
+especially of that tribe of them who border on the Gruthungi, and who
+are called Tanait&aelig;, and having slain many of them and acquired much
+plunder they made a treaty of friendship and alliance with those who
+remained. And when they had united them to themselves, with increased
+boldness they made a sudden incursion into the extensive and fertile
+districts of Ermenrichus, a very warlike prince, and one whom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> his
+numerous gallant actions of every kind had rendered formidable to all
+the neighboring nations.</p>
+
+<p>He was astonished at the violence of this sudden tempest, and although,
+like a prince whose power was well established, he long attempted to
+hold his ground, he was at last overpowered by a dread of the evils
+impending over his country, which were exaggerated by common report,
+till he terminated his fear of great danger by a voluntary death.</p>
+
+<p>After his death Vithimiris was made king. He for some time maintained a
+resistance to the Alani, relying on the aid of other tribes of the Huns
+whom by large promises of pay he had won over to his party; but, after
+having suffered many losses, he was defeated by superior numbers and
+slain in battle. He left an infant son named Viderichus, of whom
+Alatheus and Saphrax undertook the guardianship, both generals of great
+experience and proved courage. And when they, yielding to the
+difficulties of the crisis, had given up all hope of being able to make
+an effectual resistance, they retired with caution till they came to the
+river Dniester, which lies between the Danube and the Dnieper, and flows
+through a vast extent of country.</p>
+
+<p>When Athanaric, the chief magistrate of the Thuringians, had become
+informed of those unexpected occurrences, he prepared to maintain his
+ground, with a resolution to rise up in strength should he be assailed
+as the others had been.</p>
+
+<p>At last he pitched his camp at a distance in a very favorable spot near
+the banks of the Dniester and the valleys of the Gruthungi, and sent
+Muderic, who afterward became duke of the Arabian frontier, with
+Lagarimanus and others of the nobles, with orders to advance for twenty
+miles, to reconnoitre the approach of the enemy; while in the mean time
+he himself, without delay, marshalled his troops in line of battle.</p>
+
+<p>However, things turned out in a manner very contrary to his
+expectations. For the Huns&mdash;being very sagacious in
+conjectures&mdash;suspecting that there must be a considerable multitude
+farther off, contrived to pass beyond those they had seen, and arranged
+themselves to take their rest where there was nothing at hand to disturb
+them; and then, when the moon dispelled the darkness of night, they
+forded the river, which was the best plan which presented itself, and
+fearing lest the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> pickets at the outposts might give the alarm to the
+distant camp, they made all possible speed and advanced with the hope of
+surprising Athanaric himself.</p>
+
+<p>He was stupefied at the suddenness of their onset, and, after losing
+many of his men, was compelled to flee for refuge to the precipitous
+mountains in the neighborhood, where, being wholly bewildered with the
+strangeness of this occurrence, and the fear of greater evils to come,
+he began to fortify with lofty walls all the territory between the banks
+of the River Pruth and the Danube, where it passes through the land of
+the Taifali; and he completed this line of fortification with great
+diligence, thinking that by this step he should secure his own personal
+safety.</p>
+
+<p>While this important work was going on, the Huns kept pressing on his
+traces with great speed, and they would have overtaken and destroyed him
+if they had not been forced to abandon the pursuit from being impeded by
+the great quantity of their booty. In the mean time a report spread
+extensively through the other nations of the Goths, that a race of men,
+hitherto unknown, had suddenly descended like a whirlwind from the lofty
+mountains, as if they had risen from some secret recess of the earth,
+and were ravaging and destroying everything which came in their way. And
+then the greater part of the population which, because of their want of
+necessaries, had deserted Athanaric, resolved to flee and to seek a home
+remote from all knowledge of the barbarians; and after a long
+deliberation where to fix their abode, they resolved that a retreat into
+Thrace was the most suitable for these two reasons: first of all,
+because it is a district most fertile in grass; and also because, by the
+great breadth of the Danube, it is wholly separated from the barbarians,
+who were already exposed to the thunder-bolts of foreign warfare. And
+the whole population of the tribe adopted this resolution unanimously.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, under the command of their leader Alavivus, they occupied
+the bank of the Danube, and having sent ambassadors to Valens, they
+humbly entreated to be received by him as his subjects, promising to
+live quietly, and to furnish a body of auxiliary troops if any necessity
+for such a force should arise.</p>
+
+<p>While these events were passing in foreign countries, a terrible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> rumor
+arose that the tribes of the North were planning new and unprecedented
+attacks upon us; and that over the whole region, which extends from the
+country of the Marcomanni and Quadi to Pontus, a barbarian host,
+composed of different distant nations, which had suddenly been driven by
+force from their own country, was now, with all their families,
+wandering about in different directions on the banks of the river
+Danube.</p>
+
+<p>At first this intelligence was lightly treated by our people, because
+they were not in the habit of hearing of any wars in those remote
+districts till they were terminated either by victory or by treaty.</p>
+
+<p>But presently, as the belief in these occurrences grew stronger, being
+confirmed, too, by the arrival of the foreign ambassadors, who, with
+prayers and earnest entreaties, begged that the people thus driven from
+their homes and now encamped on the other side of the river might be
+kindly received by us, the affair seemed a cause of joy rather than of
+fear, according to the skilful flatterers who were always extolling and
+exaggerating the good fortune of the Emperor; congratulating him that an
+embassy had come from the farthest corners of the earth unexpectedly,
+offering him a large body of recruits; and that, by combining the
+strength of his own nation with these foreign forces, he would have an
+army absolutely invincible; observing further that, by the yearly
+payment for military reinforcements which came in every year from the
+provinces, a vast treasure of gold might be accumulated in his coffers.</p>
+
+<p>Full of this hope, he sent forth several officers to bring this
+ferocious people and their wagons into our territory. And such great
+pains were taken to gratify this nation which was destined to overthrow
+the Empire of Rome, that not one was left behind, not even of those who
+were stricken with mortal disease. Moreover, having obtained permission
+of the Emperor to cross the Danube and to cultivate some districts in
+Thrace, they crossed the stream day and night, without ceasing,
+embarking in troops on board ships and rafts, and canoes made of the
+hollow trunks of trees, in which enterprise, as the Danube is the most
+difficult of all rivers to navigate, and was at that time swollen with
+continual rains, a great many were drowned,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> who, because they were too
+numerous for the vessels, tried to swim across, and in spite of all
+their exertions were swept away by the stream.</p>
+
+<p>In this way, through the turbulent zeal of violent people, the ruin of
+the Roman Empire was brought on. This, at all events, is neither obscure
+nor uncertain that the unhappy officers who were intrusted with the
+charge of conducting the multitude of the barbarians across the river,
+though they repeatedly endeavored to calculate their numbers, at last
+abandoned the attempt as hopeless; and the man who would wish to
+ascertain the number might as well&mdash;as the most illustrious of poets
+says&mdash;attempt to count the waves in the African Sea, or the grains of
+sand tossed about by the zephyrs.</p>
+
+<p>Let, however, the ancient annals be accredited which record that the
+Persian host which was led into Greece was, while encamped on the shores
+of the Hellespont, and making a new and artificial sea, numbered in
+battalions at Doriscus; a computation which has been unanimously
+regarded by all posterity as fabulous.</p>
+
+<p>But after the innumerable multitudes of different nations, diffused over
+all our provinces and spreading themselves over the vast expanses of our
+plains, who filled all the champaign country and all the mountain
+ranges, are considered, the credibility of the ancient accounts is
+confirmed by this modern instance. And first of all Tritigernus was
+received with Alavivus, and the Emperor assigned them a temporary
+provision for their immediate support, and ordered lands to be assigned
+them to cultivate.</p>
+
+<p>At that time the defences of our provinces were much exposed, and the
+armies of barbarians spread over them like the lava of Mount &AElig;tna. The
+imminence of our danger manifestly called for generals already
+illustrious for their past achievements in war; but nevertheless, as if
+some unpropitious deity had made the selection, the men who were sought
+out for the chief military appointments were of tainted character. The
+chief among them were Lupicinus and Maximus, the one being count of
+Thrace, the other a leader notoriously wicked&mdash;and both men of great
+ignorance and rashness.</p>
+
+<p>And their treacherous covetousness was the cause of all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> our disasters.
+For&mdash;to pass over other matters in which the officers aforesaid, or
+others with their unblushing connivance, displayed the greatest
+profligacy in their injurious treatment of the foreigners dwelling in
+our territory, against whom no crime could be alleged&mdash;this one
+melancholy and unprecedented piece of conduct&mdash;which, even if they were
+to choose their own judges, must appear wholly unpardonable&mdash;must be
+mentioned:</p>
+
+<p>When the barbarians who had been conducted across the river were in
+great distress from want of provisions, those detested generals
+conceived the idea of a most disgraceful traffic; and having collected
+hounds from all quarters with the most unsatiable rapacity, they
+exchanged them for an equal number of slaves, among whom were several
+sons of men of noble birth.</p>
+
+<p>About this time also, Vitheric, the King of the Gruthungi, with Alatheus
+and Saphrax, by whose influence he was mainly guided, and also with
+Farnobius, approached the bank of the Danube and sent envoys to the
+Emperor to entreat that he also might be received with the same kindness
+that Alavivus and Fritigern had experienced.</p>
+
+<p>But when, as seemed best for the interests of the State, these
+ambassadors had been rejected, and were in great anxiety what they
+should do, Athanaric, fearing similar treatment, departed, recollecting
+that long ago, when he was discussing a treaty with Valens, he had
+treated that Emperor with contempt in affirming that he was bound by a
+religious obligation never to set his foot on the Roman territory; and
+that, by this excuse, he had compelled the Emperor to conclude a peace
+in the middle of the war. And he, fearing that the grudge which Valens
+bore him for this conduct was still lasting, withdrew with all his
+forces to Caucalandes, a place which, from the height of its mountains
+and the thickness of its woods, is completely inaccessible; and from
+which he had lately driven out the Sarmatians.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p>
+<h2>FINAL DIVISION OF ROMAN EMPIRE: THE DISRUPTIVE INTRIGUES</h2>
+
+<h4>A.D. 395</h4>
+
+<h3>J. B. BURY</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>When Theodosius I, surnamed "the Great," was elevated to power as
+ruler of the East, that part of the empire was distracted in
+consequence of wars with the Visigoths who, flying from the Huns,
+had been granted a refuge in the Roman provinces of M&oelig;sia and
+Thrace. Ill-treatment by the Romans drove the Visigoths to revolt,
+and Valens, then Emperor of the East, set out with an army to
+punish them. In the battle of Adrianople, August 9, 378, the Roman
+army was defeated, and in the retreat Valens was killed. The
+Visigoths pressed on, ravaging the country even to the foot of the
+walls of Constantinople, and the doom of the empire seemed to be at
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture Gratian&mdash;Emperor of the West, who also upon the
+death of Valens succeeded him as ruler of the East&mdash;sent for
+Theodosius, then a Roman general living in retirement in Spain,
+made him his colleague in the East, and placed him, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>, 379 at
+the head of an army for the suppression of the Gothic outbreaks.
+Theodosius enabled his soldiers to regain their lost confidence by
+waging a successful <i>guerilla</i> war with the marauding Goths; but
+having thus shown his mastery over their straggling bands, he did
+not undertake to drive them out from Roman territory, but weakened
+them by causing them to quarrel among themselves; then, showing
+himself as their friend, he gave them lands and settled them within
+definite limits. To the Visigoths, or West Goths, he gave Thrace,
+and to the Ostrogoths, or East Goths, who had also now poured into
+the Roman provinces, he assigned Pannonia.</p>
+
+<p>By this policy Theodosius established his authority in the East and
+restored the empire to something of its earlier power. Except
+during the last four months of his life, when he was sole Emperor,
+his direct authority was confined to the East; but he exerted a
+potent influence upon the affairs of the whole empire, both
+temporal and spiritual. He warred steadily against paganism and
+heresy. He took the side of Trinitarian orthodoxy against Arianism,
+which had previously triumphed in the East, and restored religious
+unity to the empire by making the Athanasian doctrine the faith of
+Constantinople, as it was that of the West. This policy was
+ratified by the second ecumenical council, called by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> Theodosius,
+at Constantinople in 381, when the orthodoxy first promulgated by
+the Council of Nic&aelig;a in 325 was substantially reaffirmed. It was
+also largely through the influence of Theodosius, who was the
+friend of Ambrose, archbishop of Milan, that the Roman senate, by a
+great majority, voted (388) to abolish the worship of Jupiter and
+to adopt the worship of Christ, thus making Christianity the state
+religion. In the debate which preceded this transition the
+eloquence of Symmachus, on the pagan side, was overmatched by the
+arguments of Ambrose, aided by the powerful support of Theodosius
+in person.</p>
+
+<p>In his further dealings with the Visigoths, Theodosius, following a
+precedent already established, enlisted in the Roman service a
+separate Gothic army of forty thousand soldiers; but this policy,
+as the event proved, was fatal to the permanency of his hitherto
+successful control of these alien elements, for they soon gathered
+strength to take the mastery into their own hands. Theodosius died
+in 395, after publishing a decree for partition of the empire
+between his two sons, Honorius to rule in the West, and Arcadius in
+the East. He meant, not to establish two independent jurisdictions,
+but that there should be one commonwealth, whose two rulers should
+be colleagues and coadjutors in its defence. This new disposition
+of the empire was followed by dissensions and intrigues against
+which the weak sons of Theodosius were helpless in the hands of
+able and unscrupulous self-seekers, the result of which was the
+final separation of the empire into two distinct governments and
+the weakening of the powers of resistance of both against those
+ever-increasing encroachments of the barbarians which eventually
+caused the fall of both empires.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>One of the few men in history who have won the title of great, the
+emperor Theodosius I, who had by his policy, at once friendly and firm,
+pacified the Goths, who had confirmed the triumph of Athanasian over
+Arian Christianity, who had stamped out the last flames of refractory
+paganism represented by the tyrant Eugenius, died on the 17th of
+January, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 395. His wishes were that his younger son, Honorius, then
+a boy of ten years, should reign in the West, where he had already
+installed him, and that his eldest son, Arcadius, whom he had left as
+regent in Constantinople when he set out against Eugenius, should
+continue to reign in the East.</p>
+
+<p>But he was not willing to leave his youthful heirs&mdash;Arcadius was only
+eighteen&mdash;without a protector, and the most natural protector was one
+bound to them by ties of relationship. Accordingly on his deathbed he
+commended them to the care of the Vandal Stilicho, whom he had raised
+for his military and other talents to the rank of commander-in-chief,
+and, deeming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> him worthy of an alliance with his own family, had united
+to his favorite niece Serena. We can hardly doubt that it was in this
+capacity, as the husband of his niece and a trusted friend, not as a
+general, that Stilicho received Theodosius' dying wishes; it was as an
+elder member of the same family that the husband of their cousin could
+claim to exert an influence over Arcadius and Honorius, of whom,
+however, the latter, it would appear, was more especially committed to
+his care, not only as the younger, but because Stilicho, being <i>magister
+militum</i> of the armies of Italy, would come more directly into contact
+with him than with his brother.</p>
+
+<p>Arcadius, with whom we are especially concerned, was about eighteen at
+the time of his father's death. He was of short stature, of dark
+complexion, thin and inactive, and the dulness of his wit was betrayed
+by his speech and by his eyes, which always seemed as if they were about
+to close in sleep. His smallness of intellect and his weakness of
+character made it inevitable that he should come under the influence,
+good or bad, of commanding personalities, with which he might be brought
+in contact. Such a potent personality was the pr&aelig;torian prefect Rufinus,
+a native of Aquitaine, who in almost every respect presented a contrast
+to his sovereign. He was tall and manly, and the restless movements of
+his keen eyes and the readiness of his speech signified his intellectual
+powers. He was a strong, worldly man, ambitious of power, and
+sufficiently unprincipled; avaricious, too, like most ministers of the
+age.</p>
+
+<p>He had made many enemies by acts which were perhaps somewhat more than
+usually unscrupulous, but we cannot justly assume that in the overthrow
+of certain rivals he was entirely guilty and they entirely innocent, as
+is sometimes represented. It is almost certain that he formed the scheme
+and cherished the hope of becoming joint emperor with Arcadius.</p>
+
+<p>This ambition of Rufinus placed him at once in an attitude of opposition
+to Stilicho, who was himself not above the suspicion of entertaining
+similar schemes, not, however, in the interest of his own person, but
+for his son Eucherius. The position of the Vandal, who was connected by
+marriage with the imperial family, gave him an advantage over Rufinus,
+which was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> strengthened by the generally known fact that Theodosius had
+given him his last instructions. Stilicho, moreover, was popular with
+the army, and for the present the great bulk of the forces of the empire
+was at his disposal; for the regiments united to suppress Eugenius had
+not yet been sent back to their various stations. Thus a struggle was
+imminent between the ambitious minister who had the ear of Arcadius, and
+the strong general who held the command and enjoyed the favor of the
+army.</p>
+
+<p>Before the end of the year this struggle began and concluded in an
+extremely curious way; but we must first relate how a certain scheme of
+Rufinus had been checkmated by an obscurer but wilier rival nearer at
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>It was the cherished project of Rufinus to unite Arcadius with his only
+daughter; once the Emperor's father-in-law, he might hope to become
+speedily an emperor himself. But he imprudently made a journey to
+Antioch, in order to execute vengeance personally on the Count of the
+East, who had offended him; and during his absence from Byzantium an
+adversary stole a march on him. This adversary was the eunuch Eutropius,
+the lord chamberlain, a bald old man, who with oriental craftiness had
+won his way up from the meanest services and employments. Determining
+that the future Empress should be bound to himself and not to Rufinus,
+he chose Eudoxia, a girl of singular beauty, the daughter of a
+distinguished Frank, but herself of Roman education.</p>
+
+<p>Her father, Bauto, was dead, and she lived in the house of the widow and
+sons of one of the victims of Rufinus. Eutropius showed a picture of the
+Frank maiden to the Emperor and engaged his affections for her; the
+nuptials were arranged by the time Rufinus returned to Constantinople,
+and were speedily celebrated (April 27, 395). This was a blow to
+Rufinus, but he was still the most powerful man in the East.</p>
+
+<p>The event which at length brought him into contact with Stilicho was the
+rising of the Visigoths, who had been settled by Theodosius in M&oelig;sia
+and Thrace, and were bound in return for their lands to serve in the
+army as <i>f&oelig;derati</i>. They had accompanied the Emperor to Italy against
+Eugenius, and had returned to their habitations sooner than the rest of
+the army.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The causes of discontent which led to their revolt are not quite clear;
+but it seems that Arcadius refused to give them certain grants of money
+which had been allowed them by his father, and, as has been suggested,
+they probably expected that favor would wane and influence decrease now
+that the "friend of Goths" was dead, and consequently determined to make
+themselves heard and felt. To this must be added that their most
+influential chieftain, Alaric, called Baltha ("the Bold"), desired to be
+made a commander-in-chief, <i>magister militum</i>, and was offended that he
+had been passed over.</p>
+
+<p>However this may be, the historical essence of the matter is that an
+immense body of restless, uncivilized Germans could not abide
+permanently in the centre of Roman provinces in a semi-dependent,
+ill-defined relation to the Roman government; the West Goths had not yet
+found their permanent home. Under the leadership of Alaric they raised
+the ensign of revolt, and spread desolation in the fields and homesteads
+of Macedonia, M&oelig;sia, and Thrace, even advancing close to the walls of
+Constantinople. They carefully spared certain estates outside the city,
+belonging to the prefect Rufinus, but this policy does not seem to have
+been adopted with the same motive that caused Archidamus to spare the
+lands of Pericles. Alaric may have wished not to render Rufinus
+suspected, but to conciliate his friendship and obtain thereby more
+favorable terms. Rufinus actually went to Alaric's camp, dressed as a
+Goth, but the interview led to nothing.</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible to take the field against the Goths, because there
+were no forces available, as the eastern armies were still with Stilicho
+in the West. Arcadius therefore was obliged to summon Stilicho to send
+or bring them back immediately, to protect his throne. This summons gave
+that general the desired opportunity to interfere in the politics of
+Constantinople; and having with energetic celerity arranged matters on
+the Gallic frontier, he marched overland through Illyricum and
+confronted Alaric in Thessaly, whither the Goth had traced his
+devastating path from the Propontis.</p>
+
+<p>It appears that Stilicho's behavior is quite as open to the charges of
+ambition and artfulness as the behavior of Rufinus, for I do not
+perceive how we can strictly justify his detention<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> of the forces, which
+ought to have been sent back to defend the provinces of Arcadius at the
+very beginning of the year. Stilicho's march to Thessaly can scarcely
+have taken place before October, and it is hard to interpret this long
+delay in sending back the troops, over which he had no rightful
+authority, if it were not dictated by a wish to implicate the government
+of New Rome in difficulties and render his own intervention necessary.</p>
+
+<p>We are told, too, that he selected the best soldiers from the eastern
+regiments and enrolled them in the western corps. If we adopted the
+Cassian maxim, <i>Cui bono fuerit</i>, we should be inclined to accuse
+Stilicho of having been privy to the revolt of Alaric; such a
+supposition would at least be far more plausible than the calumny which
+was circulated charging Rufinus with having stirred up the Visigoths.
+For such a supposition, too, we might find support in the circumstance
+that the estates of Rufinus were spared by the soldiers of Alaric; it
+would be intelligible that Stilicho suggested the plan in order to bring
+odium upon Rufinus. To such a conjecture, finally, certain other
+circumstances, soon to be related, point: but it remains nothing more
+than a suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>It seems that before Stilicho arrived Alaric had experienced a defeat at
+the hands of garrison soldiers in Thessaly; at all events he shut
+himself up in a fortified camp and declined to engage with the Roman
+general. In the mean time Rufinus induced Arcadius to send a peremptory
+order to Stilicho to despatch the eastern troops to Constantinople and
+depart himself whence he had come; the Emperor resented, or pretended to
+resent, the presence of his cousin as an officious interference.
+Stilicho yielded so readily that his willingness seems almost
+suspicious; but we shall probably never know whether he was responsible
+for the events that followed. He consigned the eastern soldiers to the
+command of a Gothic captain, Gainas, and himself departed to Salona,
+allowing Alaric to proceed on his wasting way into the lands of Hellas.</p>
+
+<p>Gainas and his soldiers marched by the Via Egnatia to Constantinople,
+and it was arranged that, according to a usual custom, the Emperor and
+his court should come forth from the city to meet the army in the Campus
+Martius, which extended<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> on the west side of the city near the Golden
+Gate. We cannot trust the statement of a hostile writer that Rufinus
+actually expected to be created augustus on this occasion, and appeared
+at the Emperor's side prouder and more sumptuously arrayed than ever; we
+only know that he accompanied Arcadius to meet the army.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that, when the Emperor had saluted the troops, Rufinus
+advanced and displayed a studied affability and solicitude to please
+toward even individual soldiers. They closed in round him as he smiled
+and talked, anxious to secure their good-will for his elevation to the
+throne, but just as he felt himself very nigh to supreme success, the
+swords of the nearest were drawn, and his body, pierced with wounds,
+fell to the ground. His head, carried through the streets, was mocked by
+the people, and his right hand, severed from the trunk, was presented at
+the doors of houses with the request: "Give to the insatiable!"</p>
+
+<p>We can hardly suppose that the lynching of Rufinus was the fatal
+inspiration of a moment, but whether it was proposed or approved of by
+Stilicho, or was a plan hatched among the soldiers on their way to
+Constantinople, is uncertain. One might even conjecture that the whole
+affair was the result of a prearrangement between Stilicho and the party
+in Byzantium, which was adverse to Rufinus and led by the eunuch
+Eutropius; but there is no evidence. Our knowledge of this scene
+unfortunately depends on a partial and untrustworthy writer, who,
+moreover, wrote in verse&mdash;the poet Claudian.</p>
+
+<p>He enjoyed the patronage of Stilicho, and his poems <i>Against Rufinus</i>,
+<i>Against Eutropius</i>, and <i>On the Gothic War</i> are a glorification of his
+patron's splendid virtues. Stilicho and Rufinus he paints as two
+opposite forces, the force of good and the force of evil, like the
+principles of the Manich&aelig;ans.</p>
+
+<p>Rufinus is the terrible Pytho, the scourge of the world; Stilicho is the
+radiant Apollo, the deliverer of mankind. Rufinus is a power of
+darkness, whose tartarean wickedness surpasses even the wickedness of
+the Furies of hell; Stilicho is an angel of light. In the works of a
+poet whose leading idea was so extravagant, we can hardly expect to find
+much fair historical truth; it is, as a rule, only accidental references
+and allusions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> that we can accept, unless other authorities confirm his
+statements. Yet even modern writers, who know well how cautiously
+Claudian must be used, have been unconsciously prejudiced in favor of
+Stilicho and against Rufinus.</p>
+
+<p>We must return to the movements of Alaric, who had entered the regions
+of classical Greece, for which he showed scant respect. The commander of
+the garrison at Thermopyl&aelig;, and the proconsul of Achaia, offered no
+resistance, and the West Goths entered B&oelig;otia, where Thebes alone
+escaped their devastation. They occupied the Pir&aelig;us, but Athens itself
+was spared, and Alaric was entertained as a guest in the city of Athene.
+But the great temple of the mystic goddesses Demeter and Persephone, at
+Eleusis, was burned down by the irreverent barbarians; Megara, the next
+place on their southward route, fell; then Corinth, Argos, and Sparta.</p>
+
+<p>But when they reached Elis they were confronted by an unexpected
+opponent. Stilicho had returned from Italy, by way of Salona, which he
+reached by sea, to stay the hand of the invader. He blockaded him in the
+plain of Phol&oelig;, but for some reason, not easily comprehensible, he
+did not press his advantage, and set free the hordes of the Visigothic
+land pirates to resume their career of devastation. He went back to
+Italy, and Alaric returned, plundering as he went, to Illyricum and
+Thrace, where he made terms with the government of New Rome, and
+received the desired title of <i>magister militum per Illyricum</i>. No one
+will suppose that Stilicho went all the way from Italy to the
+Peloponnesus, and then, although he had Alaric practically at his mercy,
+retreated, leaving matters just as they were, without some excellent
+reason.</p>
+
+<p>If he had genuinely wished to deliver the distressed countries and
+assist the emperor Arcadius, he would not have acted in this ineffectual
+manner. And it is difficult to see that his conduct is explained by
+assuming that he was not willing, by a complete extermination of the
+Goths, to enable Arcadius to dispense with his help in future. In that
+case, what did he gain by going to the Peloponnesus at all? Or we might
+ask, if he wished Arcadius to summon his assistance from year to year,
+is it likely that he would have adopted the method of rendering no
+assistance whatever? But, above all, the question occurs,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> what pleasure
+would it have been to the general to look forward to being called upon
+again and again to take the field against the Visigoths?</p>
+
+<p>It seems evident that Stilicho and Alaric made at Phol&oelig; some secret
+and definite arrangement, which conditioned Stilicho's departure, and
+that this arrangement was conducive to the interests of Stilicho, who
+was in the position of advantage, and at the same time not contrary to
+the interests of Alaric, for otherwise Stilicho could not have been sure
+that the agreement would be carried out. What this secret compact was
+can only be a matter of conjecture; but I would suggest that Stilicho
+had already formed the plan of creating his son Eucherius emperor, and
+that he designed the Balkan peninsula to be the dominion over which
+Eucherius should hold sway. His conduct becomes perfectly explicable if
+we assume that by a secret agreement he secured Alaric's assistance for
+the execution of this scheme, which the preponderance of Gothic power in
+Illyricum and Thrace would facilitate.</p>
+
+<p>It was not only the European parts of Arcadius' dominions that were
+ravaged in 395, by the fire and sword of barbarians. In the same year
+hordes of trans-Caucasian Huns poured through the Caspian gates, and,
+rushing southward through the provinces of Mesopotamia, carried
+desolation into Syria. St. Jerome was in Palestine at this time, and in
+two of his letters we have the account of an eye-witness: "As I was
+searching for an abode worthy of such a lady (Fabiola, his friend),
+behold, suddenly messengers rush hither and thither, and the whole East
+trembles with the news that from the far M&aelig;otis, from the land of the
+ice-bound Don and the savage Massaget&aelig;, where the strong works of
+Alexander on the Caucasian cliffs keep back the wild nations, swarms of
+Huns had burst forth, and, flying hither and thither, were scattering
+slaughter and terror everywhere. The Roman army was at that time, absent
+in consequence of the civil wars in Italy.... May Jesus protect the
+Roman world in future from such beasts! They were everywhere, when they
+were least expected, and their speed outstripped the rumor of their
+approach; they spared neither religion nor dignity nor age; they showed
+no pity to the cry of infancy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Babes, who had not yet begun to live, were forced to die; and, ignorant
+of the evil that was upon them, as they were held in the hands and
+threatened by the swords of the enemy, there was a smile upon their
+lips. There was a consistent and universal report that Jerusalem was the
+goal of the foes, and that on account of their insatiable lust for gold
+they were hastening to this city. The walls, neglected by the
+carelessness of peace, were repaired. Antioch was enduring a blockade.
+Tyre, fain to break off from the dry land, sought its ancient island.
+Then we too were constrained to provide ships, to stay on the sea-shore,
+to take precautions against the arrival of the enemy, and, though the
+winds were wild, to fear a shipwreck less than the barbarians&mdash;making
+provision not for our own safety so much as for the chastity of our
+virgins." In another letter, speaking of these "wolves of the north," he
+says: "How many monasteries were captured? The waters of how many rivers
+were stained with human gore? Antioch was besieged and the other cities,
+past which the Halys, the Cydnus, the Orontes, the Euphrates flow. Herds
+of captives were dragged away; Arabia, Ph&oelig;nicia, Palestine, Egypt,
+were led captive by fear."</p>
+
+<p>The Huns, however, were not the only depredators at whose hands the
+provinces of Asia Minor and Syria suffered. There were other enemies
+within, whose ravages were constant, while the expedition of the Huns
+from without occurred only once. These enemies were the freebooters who
+dwelt in the Isaurian mountains, wild and untamed in their secure
+fastnesses. Ammianus Marcellinus describes picturesquely the habits of
+these sturdy robbers. They used to descend from the difficult mountain
+slopes like a whirlwind to places on the sea-shore, where in hidden ways
+and glens they lurked till the fall of night, and in the light of the
+crescent moon watched until the mariners riding at anchor slept; then
+they boarded the vessels, killed and plundered the crews. Thus the coast
+of Isauria was like a deadly shore of Sciron; it was avoided by sailors,
+who made a practice of putting in at the safer ports of Cyprus.</p>
+
+<p>The Isaurians did not always confine their land expeditions to the
+surrounding provinces of Cilicia and Pamphylia; they penetrated, in <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>
+403, northward to Cappadocia and Pontus, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> southward to Syria and
+Palestine; and the whole range of the Taurus, as far as the confines of
+Syria, seems to have been their spacious habitation. An officer named
+Arbacazius was intrusted by Arcadius with an office similar in object to
+that which, four and a half centuries ago, had been assigned to
+Pompeius; but, though he quelled the spirits of the freebooters for a
+moment, Arbacazius did not succeed in eradicating the lawless element,
+in the same way as Pompeius had succeeded in exterminating the piracy
+which in his day infested the same regions. In the years 404 and 405
+Cappadocia was overrun by the robber bands.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, after the death of Rufinus, the weak emperor Arcadius passed
+under the influence of the eunuch Eutropius, who, in unscrupulous greed
+of money, resembled Rufinus and many other officials of the time, and,
+like Rufinus, has been painted far blacker than he really was. All the
+evil things that were said by his enemies of Rufinus were said of
+Eutropius by his enemies; but in reading of the enormities of the latter
+we must make great allowance for the general prejudice existing against
+a person with Eutropius' physical disqualifications.</p>
+
+<p>Eutropius naturally looked on the pr&aelig;torian prefects, the most powerful
+men in the administration next to the Emperor, with jealousy and
+suspicion, as dangerous rivals. It was his interest to reduce their
+power and to raise the dignity of his own office to an equality with
+theirs. To his influence, then, we are probably justified in ascribing
+two innovations which were made by Arcadius. The administration of the
+<i>cursus publicus</i>, or office of postmaster-general, was transferred from
+the pr&aelig;torian prefects to the master of offices, and the same
+transferrence was made in regard to the manufactories of arms. On the
+other hand, the grand chamberlain, <i>pr&aelig;positus sacri cubiculi</i>, was made
+an <i>illustris</i>, equal in rank to the pr&aelig;torian prefects. Both these
+innovations were afterward altered.</p>
+
+<p>The general historical import of the position of Eutropius is that the
+empire was falling into a danger, by which it had been threatened from
+the outset, and which it had been ever trying to avoid. We may say that
+there were two dangers which constantly impended over the Roman Empire
+from its inauguration by Augustus to its redintegration by Diocletian&mdash;a
+Scylla<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> and Charybdis, between which it had to steer. The one was a
+cabinet of imperial freedmen, the other was a military despotism. The
+former danger called forth, and was counteracted by, the creation of a
+civil service system, to which Hadrian perhaps made the most important
+contributions, and which was finally elaborated by Diocletian, who at
+the same time averted the other danger by separating the military and
+civil administrations. But both dangers revived in a new form. The
+danger from the army became danger from the Germans, who preponderated
+in it; and the institution of court ceremonial tended to create a
+cabinet of chamberlains and imperial dependents.</p>
+
+<p>This oriental ceremonial, so marked a feature of late "Byzantinism,"
+involved, as one of its principles, difficulty of access to the Emperor,
+who, living in the retirement of his palace, was tempted to trust less
+to his eyes than his ears, and saw too little of public affairs.
+Diocletian appreciated this disadvantage himself, and remarked that the
+sovereign, shut up in his palace, cannot know the truth, but must rely
+on what his attendants and officers tell him. We may also remark that
+absolute monarchy, by its very nature, tends in this direction; for
+absolute monarchy naturally tends to a dynasty, and a dynasty implies
+that there must sooner or later come to the throne weak men,
+inexperienced in public affairs, reared up in an atmosphere of flattery
+and illusion, easily guided by intriguing chamberlains and eunuchs.
+Under such conditions, then, aulic cabals and chamber cabinets are sure
+to become dominant sometimes. Diocletian, whose political insight and
+ingenuity were remarkable, tried to avoid the dangers of a dynasty by
+his artificial system, but artifice could not contend with success
+against nature.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest blot on the ministry of Eutropius&mdash;for, as he was the most
+trusted adviser of the Emperor, we may use the word ministry&mdash;was the
+sale of offices, of which Claudian gives a vivid and exaggerated
+account. This was a blot, however, that stained other men of those days
+as well as Eutropius, and we must view it rather as a feature of the
+times than as a personal enormity. Of course, the eunuch's spies were
+ubiquitous; of course, informers of all sorts were encouraged and
+rewarded. All the usual stratagems for grasping and plundering were put
+into practice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The strong measures that a determined minister was ready to take for the
+mere sake of vengeance may be exemplified by a treatment which the whole
+Lycian province received at the hands of Rufinus. On account of a single
+individual, Tatian, who had offended that minister, all the provincials
+were excluded from public offices. After the death of Rufinus, the
+Lycians were relieved from these disabilities; but the fact that the
+edict of emancipation expressly enjoins "that no one henceforward
+venture to wound a Lycian citizen with a name of scorn" shows what a
+serious misfortune their degradation was.</p>
+
+<p>The eunuch won considerable odium in the first year of his power (396)
+by bringing about the fall of two men of distinction&mdash;Abundantius, to
+whose patronage he owed his rise in the world, and Timasius, who had
+been the commander-general in the East. An account of the manner in
+which the ruin of the latter was wrought will illustrate the sort of
+intrigues that were spun at the Byzantine court.</p>
+
+<p>Timasius had brought with him from Sardis a Syrian sausage-seller, named
+Bargus, who, with native address, had insinuated himself into his good
+graces and obtained a subordinate command in the army. The prying
+omniscience of Eutropius discovered that, years before, this same Bargus
+had been forbidden to enter Constantinople for some misdemeanor, and by
+means of this knowledge he gained an ascendency over the Syrian, and
+compelled him to accuse his benefactor, Timasius, of a treasonable
+conspiracy, supporting the charge by forgeries. The accused was tried,
+condemned, and banished to the Lybian oasis, a punishment equivalent to
+death; he was never heard of more. Eutropius, foreseeing that the
+continued existence of Bargus might at some time compromise himself,
+suborned his wife to lodge very serious charges against her husband, in
+consequence of which he was put to death. Whether Eutropius then got rid
+of the wife we are not informed.</p>
+
+<p>Among the adherents of Eutropius, who were equally numerous and
+insincere, two were of especial importance&mdash;Osius, who had risen from
+the post of a cook to be count of the sacred largesses, and finally
+master of the offices, and Leo, a soldier, corpulent and good-humored,
+who was known by the sobriquet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> of Ajax, a man of great body and little
+mind, fond of boasting, fond of eating, fond of drinking, and fond of
+women.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, Eutropius had many enemies, and enemies in two
+different quarters. Romans of the stamp of Timasius and Aurelian were
+naturally opposed to the supremacy of an emasculated chamberlain; while,
+as we shall see subsequently, the German element in the empire,
+represented by Gainas, was also inimical. It seems certain that a
+serious confederacy was formed in the year 397, aiming at the overthrow
+of Eutropius. Though this is not stated by any writer, it seems an
+inevitable conclusion from the law which was passed in the autumn of
+that year, assessing the penalty of death to anyone who had conspired
+"with soldiers or private persons, including barbarians," against the
+lives "of <i>illustres</i> who belong to our consistory or assist at our
+counsels," or other senators, such a conspiracy being considered
+equivalent to treason. Intent was to be regarded as equivalent to crime,
+and not only did the individual concerned incur capital punishment, but
+his descendants were visited with disfranchisement.</p>
+
+<p>It is generally recognized that this law was an express palladium for
+chamberlains; but surely it must have been suggested by some actually
+formed conspiracy, of which Eutropius discovered the threads before it
+was carried out. The particular mention of soldiers and barbarians
+points to a particular danger, and we may suspect that Gainas, who
+afterward brought about the fall of Eutropius, had some connection with
+it.</p>
+
+<p>While the eunuch was sailing in the full current of success at
+Byzantium, the Vandal Stilicho was enjoying an uninterrupted course of
+prosperity in the somewhat less stifling air of Italy. The poet
+Claudian, who acted as a sort of poet-laureate to Honorius, was really
+an apologist for Stilicho, who patronized and paid him. Almost every
+public poem he produced is an extravagant panegyric on that general, and
+we cannot but suspect that many of his utterances were direct
+manifestoes suggested by his patron. In the panegyric in honor of the
+third consulate of Honorius (396), which, composed soon after the death
+of Rufinus, breathes a spirit of concord between East and West, the
+writer calls upon Stilicho "to protect with his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> right hand the two
+brothers" (<i>geminos dextra tu protege fratres</i>).</p>
+
+<p>Such lines as this are written to put a certain significance on
+Stilicho's policy. In the panegyric in honor of the fourth consulate of
+Honorius (398) he gives an absolutely false and misleading account of
+Stilicho's expedition to Greece two years before, an account which no
+allowance for poetical exaggeration can defend. At the same time he
+extols Honorius with the most absurd eulogiums, and overwhelms him with
+the most extravagant adulations, making out the boy of fourteen to be
+greater than his father and grandfather. If Claudian were not a poet, we
+should say that he was a most outrageous liar. We are therefore unable
+to accord him the smallest credit when he boasts that the subjects in
+the western provinces are not oppressed by heavy taxes and that the
+treasury is not replenished by extortion.</p>
+
+<p>Stilicho and Eutropius had shaken hands over the death of Rufinus, but
+the good understanding was not destined to last longer than the song of
+triumph. We cannot justly blame Eutropius for this. No minister of
+Arcadius could regard with good-will or indifference the desire of
+Stilicho to interfere in the affairs of New Rome; for this desire cannot
+be denied, even if one do not accept the theory that the scheme of
+detaching Illyricum from Arcadius' dominion was entertained by him at as
+early a date as 396. His position as master of soldier in Italy gave him
+no power in other parts of the empire; and the attitude which he assumed
+as an elderly relative, solicitously concerned for the welfare of his
+wife's young cousin, in obedience to the wishes of that cousin's father,
+was untenable, when it led him to exceed the acts of a strictly private
+friendship.</p>
+
+<p>We can then well understand the indignation felt at New Rome, not only
+by Eutropius, but probably also by men of a quite different faction,
+when the news arrived that Stilicho purposed to visit Constantinople to
+set things in order and arrange matters for Arcadius. Such officiousness
+was intolerable, and it was plain that the strongest protest must be
+made against it. The senate accordingly passed a resolution declaring
+Stilicho a public enemy. This action of the senate is very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> remarkable,
+and its signification is not generally perceived. If the act had been
+altogether due to Eutropius, it would surely have taken the form of an
+imperial decree. Eutropius would not have resorted to the troublesome
+method of bribing or threatening the whole senate even if he had been
+able to do so. We must conclude then that the general feeling against
+Stilicho was strong, and we must confess naturally strong.</p>
+
+<p>The situation was now complicated by a revolt in Africa, which
+eventually proved highly fortunate for the glory and influence of
+Stilicho.</p>
+
+<p>Eighteen years before, the Moor Firmus had made an attempt to create a
+kingdom for himself in the African provinces (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 379), and had been
+quelled by the arms of Theodosius, who received important assistance
+from Gildo, the brother and enemy of Firmus. Gildo was duly rewarded. He
+was finally military commander, or Count, of Africa, and his daughter
+Salvina was united in marriage to a nephew of the empress &AElig;lia
+Flaccilla. But the faith of the Moors was as the faith of Carthaginians.
+Gildo refused to send aid to Theodosius in his expedition against
+Eugenius.</p>
+
+<p>After Theodosius' death he prepared to take a more positive attitude,
+and he engaged numerous African nomad tribes to support him in his
+revolt. The strained relations between Old and New Rome, which did not
+escape his notice, suggested to him that his rebellion might assume the
+form of a transition from the sovereignty of Honorius to the sovereignty
+of Arcadius. He knew that if he were dependent only on New Rome he would
+be practically independent. He entered accordingly into communication
+with the government of Arcadius, but the negotiations came to nothing.
+It appears that Gildo demanded that Lybia should be consigned to his
+rule, and he certainly took possession of it. It also appears that
+embassies on the subject passed between Italy and Constantinople, and
+that Symmachus the orator was one of the ambassadors. But it is certain
+that Arcadius did not in any way assist Gildo, and the comparatively
+slight and moderate references which the hostile Claudius makes to the
+hesitating attitude of New Rome indicate that the government of
+Alexandrius did not behave very badly after all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We need not go into the details of the Gildonic war, through which
+Stilicho won well-deserved laurels, although he did not take the field
+himself. What made the revolt of the Count of Africa of such great
+moment was the fact that the African provinces were the granary of Old
+Rome, as Egypt was the granary of New Rome. By stopping the supplies of
+corn, Gildo might hope to starve out Italy. The prompt action and
+efficient management of Stilicho, however, prevented any catastrophe;
+for ships from Gaul and from Spain, laden with corn, appeared in the
+Tiber, and Rome was supplied during the winter months. Early in 398 a
+fleet sailed against the tyrant, whose hideous cruelties and oppressions
+were worthy of his Moorish blood; and it is a curious fact that this
+fleet was under the command of Mascezel, Gildo's brother, who was now
+playing the same part toward Gildo that Gildo had played toward his
+brother Firmus. The undisciplined nomadic army of the rebel was
+scattered without labor at Ardalio, and Africa was delivered from the
+Moor's reign of ruin and terror, to which Roman rule, with all its
+fiscal sternness, was peace and prosperity.</p>
+
+<p>This subjugation of the man whom the senate of Old Rome had pronounced a
+public enemy redounded far and wide to the glory of the man whom the
+senate of New Rome had proclaimed a public enemy. And in the mean time
+Stilicho's position had become still more splendid and secure by the
+marriage of his daughter Maria with the emperor Honorius (398), for
+which an epithalamium was written by Claudian, who, as we might expect,
+celebrates the father-in-law as expressly as the bridal pair. The
+Gildonic war also supplied, we need hardly remark, a grateful material
+for his favorite theme; and the year 400, to which Stilicho gave his
+name of consul, inspired an enthusiastic effusion.</p>
+
+<p>It may seem strange that now, almost at the zenith of his fame, the
+father-in-law of the Emperor and the hero of the Gildonic war did not
+make some attempt to carry out his favorite project of interfering with
+the government of the eastern provinces. But there are two
+considerations which may help to explain this.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place Stilicho himself was not the man of indomitable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> will
+who forms a project and carries it through; he was a man rather of that
+ambitious but hesitating character which Mommsen attributes to Pompey.
+He was half a Roman and half a barbarian; he was half strong and half
+weak; he was half patriotic and half selfish. His intentions were
+unscrupulous, but he was almost afraid of them. Besides this, his wife,
+Serena, probably endeavored to check his policy of discord and maintain
+unity in the Theodosian house. In the second place, it is sufficiently
+probable that he was in constant communication with Gainas, the German
+general of the eastern armies and chief representative of the German
+interests in the realm of Arcadius, and that Gainas was awaiting his
+time for an outbreak, by which Stilicho hoped to profit and execute his
+designs. He had no excuse for interference, and he was willing to wait.
+His inactive policy of the next two years must not be taken to indicate
+that he cherished no ambitious projects.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans looked up to Stilicho as the most important German in the
+empire; their natural protector and friend, while there was a large
+Roman faction opposed to him as a foreigner. But as yet this faction was
+not strong enough to overpower him. It is remarkable that his fall was
+finally brought about by the influence of a palace official (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 408),
+while the fall of his rival Eutropius, which occurred far sooner (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span>
+399), was brought about by the compulsion of a German general. These
+facts indicate that the two dangers to which I have already called
+attention&mdash;the preponderating influence of chamberlains and
+eunuchs&mdash;were mutually checks on each other.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY</h2>
+
+<h5><span class="smcap">Embracing the Period Covered in This Volume</span></h5>
+
+<h4>A.D. 13-409</h4>
+
+<h3>JOHN RUDD, LL.D.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Events treated at length are here indicated in large type; the numerals
+following give volume and page.</p>
+
+<p>Separate chronologies of the various nations, and of the careers of
+famous persons, will be found in the <span class="smcap">Index Volume</span>, with volume and page
+references showing where the several events are fully treated.</p>
+
+<p>*  Denotes date uncertain.</p>
+
+<p><b>A.D.</b></p>
+
+<p>13. A fifth ten-year term of imperial rule is voted to Augustus at Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Roman invasion of Germany under Germanicus. See "<span class="smcap">Germanicus in Germany</span>,"
+iii, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>.</p>
+
+<p>14. Death of Augustus; succeeded by his adopted son, Tiberius, as
+emperor of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>16. Germanicus successful in his campaign against Arminius. He is
+recalled to Rome by Tiberius. See "<span class="smcap">Germanicus in Germany</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>.</p>
+
+<p>17. Ephesus, Magnesia, and other cities in Asia destroyed by an
+earthquake.</p>
+
+<p>Germanicus f&ecirc;ted in Rome.</p>
+
+<p>18. Herod the Tetrarch builds the city of Tiberias in Galilee.</p>
+
+<p>Wealthy women of Jerusalem provide wine medicated with opiates for
+crucified malefactors. See "<span class="smcap">The Crucifixion</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</p>
+
+<p>19. Death of Germanicus.</p>
+
+<p>Jews and Egyptians expelled from Rome; four thousand of them colonize in
+Sardinia.</p>
+
+<p>21. The theatre of Pompey, at Rome, destroyed by fire.</p>
+
+<p>23. Birth of Pliny the Elder.</p>
+
+<p>26. Tiberius leaves Rome to the government of Sejanus.</p>
+
+<p>27. The Roman Pantheon completed.</p>
+
+<p>30 (29-33). Death of Jesus. See "<span class="smcap">The Crucifixion</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</p>
+
+<p>31. Downfall and execution of Sejanus.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>33. Great impetus of Christianity. See "<span class="smcap">The Rise and Spread of
+Christianity</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</p>
+
+<p>37. Caius, called Caligula, succeeds Tiberius as emperor of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>41. Emperor Caligula murdered; Claudius elevated to the throne.</p>
+
+<p>The Herodian kingdom of Judea restored under Herod Agrippa.</p>
+
+<p>43. Beginning of the Roman conquest of Britain under Aulus Plautius and
+Claudius.</p>
+
+<p>44. Plautius is appointed the first Roman governor of Britain.</p>
+
+<p>Death of Herod Agrippa; end of the kingdom of Judea.</p>
+
+<p>51. Caractacus, King of the Trinobantes in Britain, captured by Ostorius
+and sent in chains to Rome.</p>
+
+<p>52. Aqueducts of the Aqua Claudia in Rome, begun in <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 38, completed.</p>
+
+<p>54. Agrippina poisons Claudius; Nero, her son, becomes emperor.</p>
+
+<p>55.* Birth of Tacitus.</p>
+
+<p>59. Agrippina murdered at Nero's order.</p>
+
+<p>61. Boadicea in Britain revolts against the Romans; the uprising quelled
+by Suetonius Paulinus.</p>
+
+<p>62.* Birth of Pliny the Younger.</p>
+
+<p>64. The burning of Rome. See "<span class="smcap">Burning of Rome under Nero</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</p>
+
+<p>First persecution of Christians. See "<span class="smcap">Persecution of the Christians
+under Nero</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</p>
+
+<p>65. The conspiracy of Piso against Nero. Execution of Lucan and Seneca
+by command of Nero.</p>
+
+<p>66. Revolt of the Jews against the Roman government.</p>
+
+<p>67. Victorious campaigns of Vespasian against the rebellious Jews.</p>
+
+<p>68. Rise of the Roman commanders against Nero. Galba's march upon Rome.
+Suicide of Emperor Nero; accession of Galba.</p>
+
+<p>69. Galba murdered. Otho becomes emperor; vanquished by Vitellius, who
+ascends the throne. Vespasian overthrows Vitellius and succeeds him.</p>
+
+<p>Uprising of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis.</p>
+
+<p>70. The Roman Capitol rebuilt by Vespasian.</p>
+
+<p>Jerusalem besieged and destroyed by Titus. See "<span class="smcap">The Great Jewish
+Revolt</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.</p>
+
+<p>76. Birth of the emperor Hadrian.</p>
+
+<p>78. Agricola succeeds Julius Frontinus in Britain; extends the Roman
+dominion to the Tyne and introduces the useful arts.</p>
+
+<p>79. Death of Vespasian; Titus on the throne.</p>
+
+<p>Destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii by an eruption of Vesuvius; Pliny
+the Elder, writer of the <i>Studiosus</i>, loses his life. See "<span class="smcap">Destruction
+of Pompeii</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</p>
+
+<p>80. The Roman Empire swept by pestilence.</p>
+
+<p>The Colosseum, the work of Vespasian, dedicated by Titus.</p>
+
+<p>81. Death of Titus; Domitian, his brother, becomes emperor.</p>
+
+<p>Agricola extends Roman dominion in Britain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>84. Successful campaigns of Agricola against the Caledonians under
+Galgacus. Agricola builds a wall of defence between the Clyde and the
+Forth, and sails around the north of Scotland for the first time.</p>
+
+<p>85. Agricola recalled to Rome through jealousy of Domitian, who appoints
+Sallustius in his stead.</p>
+
+<p>86. Successful onslaught of the Dacians, under the Decebalus, against
+the Romans.</p>
+
+<p>Capitoline games instituted by Domitian at Rome.</p>
+
+<p>87. Dacian wars led Rome to agree to pay tribute and provoked the
+cruelties of Domitian.</p>
+
+<p>88. Celebration of the secular games at Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Tacitus appointed pr&aelig;tor.</p>
+
+<p>91. Domitian concludes a peace with the Dacians.</p>
+
+<p>94. Domitian's wholesale slaughter of his subjects appalls Rome.</p>
+
+<p>95. Jews and Christians refusing to pay taxes to rebuild the temple of
+Jupiter at Rome are severely punished. These cruelties are sometimes
+called the "second persecution."</p>
+
+<p>96. The tyrannies of Domitian finally provoke a conspiracy which
+accomplishes his death. Nerva succeeds him as emperor. Exiles recalled
+and the unjustly imprisoned freed.</p>
+
+<p>97. Tacitus, the historian, becomes consul at Rome. Nerva adopts Trajan.</p>
+
+<p>98. Nerva dies and is succeeded by Trajan; Pliny and Plutarch are highly
+distinguished by him.</p>
+
+<p>99. Julius Servius becomes governor of Britain.</p>
+
+<p>101. Trajan discontinues the annual payment to the Dacians; they invade
+the Roman provinces; Trajan attacks and drives them over the Danube.</p>
+
+<p>102. Rome continues the war in Dacia. Trajan's Empress, Plotina Pompeia,
+and his sister, Marciana, by their example reform the manners and
+character of the Roman women.</p>
+
+<p>103. Trajan dictates a treaty of peace to Decebalus, the Dacian leader.</p>
+
+<p>104. Rome renews the Dacian war; Trajan again in command; Hadrian serves
+under him.</p>
+
+<p>Pliny writes his famous letter to the Roman Emperor in regard to the
+Christians.</p>
+
+<p>105. Trajan's bridge over the Danube constructed.</p>
+
+<p>Plutarch is governor of Illyricum.</p>
+
+<p>106. Decebalus falling in battle, the Dacian war ends; Dacia becomes a
+Roman province beyond the Danube.</p>
+
+<p>107. Trajan drains the Pontine marshes and constructs a road through
+them; he erects a school for poor children and performs other
+meritorious works.</p>
+
+<p>Great discontent is aroused by the progress of Christianity among the
+numerous classes of those whose livelihood is derived from the services
+and ceremonies of the heathen temples. The third persecution of
+Christians begins.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>114. Trajan's Column erected; it was made of twenty-four huge blocks of
+marble so closely united that they seem like one piece; it is still in
+existence, although Trajan's statue, surmounting it, was replaced by one
+of St. Peter.</p>
+
+<p>115. War of Rome with Parthia; Trajan adds Armenia and Mesopotamia to
+the Roman domains. Rome attains its greatest extension.</p>
+
+<p>Great earthquake at Antioch.</p>
+
+<p>116. Great revolt of the Jews in Cyrene, Cyprus, and Egypt; they
+slaughter many thousands of Greeks and Romans.</p>
+
+<p>117. Death of Trajan, who is succeeded by Hadrian; the Asiatic conquests
+are relinquished by him.</p>
+
+<p>118. Hadrian, who was with Trajan at the time of his death, returns to
+Rome; a plot against him is discovered and four conspiring senators are
+put to death. Hadrian conciliates the people with large gifts. He enters
+upon his campaign in M&oelig;cia.</p>
+
+<p>119. Hadrian begins a personal survey of his dominions; he visits
+Campania, Gaul, and Britain.</p>
+
+<p>121. Birth of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.</p>
+
+<p>131. Birth of Galen, long the supreme authority in medical science.</p>
+
+<p>132. Insurrection of the Jews under Bar Cocheba; their final dispersion
+follows. See "<span class="smcap">The Jews' Last Struggle for Freedom: Their Final
+Dispersion</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.</p>
+
+<p>138. Death of Hadrian and succession of Antoninus Pius.</p>
+
+<p>155.* About this time Polycarp and Justin suffer martyrdom. See
+"<span class="smcap">Martyrdom of Polycarp and Justin Martyr</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</p>
+
+<p>161. Death of Antoninus Pius; Marcus Aurelius Antoninus succeeds to the
+Roman throne and makes Lucius Verus his associate in the Empire.</p>
+
+<p>Roman war with Parthia begins.</p>
+
+<p>162. Volagases, with a Parthian army, invades Syria and defeats the
+Romans.</p>
+
+<p>163. Verus, the Roman Emperor, enjoys himself at Antioch and Daphne
+while his generals reap successes in Armenia and Media.</p>
+
+<p>165. Seleucia and Ctesiphon are captured by the Romans; end of the
+Parthian war; Rome acquires Mesopotamia.</p>
+
+<p>166.* Great plague throughout the Roman Empire.</p>
+
+<p>War begins between Rome and the Germanic tribes of the Marcomanni and
+Quadi, which had invaded Roman territories.</p>
+
+<p>168. The Marcomanni retire into their own country, but M. Aurelius
+pursues his preparations against them, in order to safeguard Italy.</p>
+
+<p>169. Sudden death of Verus, while in his chariot, on his journey to
+Rome.</p>
+
+<p>174. Aurelius makes a short visit to Rome; when he rejoins the army the
+German tribes are signally defeated; this gives rise to the fable of the
+"Thundering Legion."</p>
+
+<p>177. Persecution of the Christians in Gaul begins; Pothinus, Bishop<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> of
+Lyons, suffers martyrdom. See "<span class="smcap">Persecution of the Christians in Gaul</span>,"
+iii, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.</p>
+
+<p>180. Death of Marcus Aurelius; his son, Commodus, succeeds him on the
+Roman throne. See "<span class="smcap">Beginning of Rome's Decline: Commodus</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.</p>
+
+<p>183. Lucilla, the sister of Commodus, having conspired against her
+brother, is exiled from Rome; Commodus vents his rage on the senators.</p>
+
+<p>184. The Caledonians break through the wall on the northern borders of
+Britain; they are driven back by Ulpius Marcellus.</p>
+
+<p>185. Marcia, the favorite of Commodus, protects the Christians.</p>
+
+<p>Birth of Origen, one of the early Church fathers, at Alexandria.</p>
+
+<p>186. Many prominent Roman citizens are put to death, by order of
+Commodus.</p>
+
+<p>187. Commodus degrades himself by acting as a gladiator and slaying wild
+beasts in the Circus at Rome. See "<span class="smcap">Beginning of Rome's Decline:
+Commodus</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.</p>
+
+<p>188. Lightning strikes the Capitol at Rome; the library and many
+adjacent buildings are burned.</p>
+
+<p>189. Revolt of Maternus in Spain and Gaul subdued by Pescennius Niger.</p>
+
+<p>Famine and pestilence in Rome; popular commotions; the guards are
+overcome and Commodus is driven to Lanuvium; the populace is appeased by
+the sacrifice of Cleander. See "<span class="smcap">Beginning of Rome's Decline: Commodus</span>,"
+iii, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.</p>
+
+<p>191. Great fire at Rome; the temples of Vesta and of Peace are burned;
+many valuable libraries destroyed, in which some works of Galen's are
+lost.</p>
+
+<p>192. Murder of Commodus.</p>
+
+<p>193. Pertinax elected emperor by the Roman senate; he is later
+assassinated by the pr&aelig;torians. The Imperial dignity is purchased by
+Didius Julianus; he is slain the same year. Albinus in Britain, Niger in
+Syria, and Septimus Severus in Pannonia are proclaimed emperors by their
+respective legions. Fall of Didius Julianus and accession of Severus.</p>
+
+<p>194. In the East, Severus triumphs over his rival, Niger. Byzantium
+resists Severus.</p>
+
+<p>196. Byzantium falls before Severus.</p>
+
+<p>197. Albinus in Gaul is crushed by Severus.</p>
+
+<p>198. Septimus Severus proceeds against the Parthians; he besieges and
+captures Ctesiphon.</p>
+
+<p>208. Successful campaign of Severus against the Caledonians in Britain
+and Caledonia.</p>
+
+<p>211. Death of Septimus Severus at York; his sons Caracalla and Geta
+succeed him.</p>
+
+<p>212. Caracalla slays his brother Geta.</p>
+
+<p>213. Caracalla, universally detested for his cruelties, goes into Gaul<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span>
+and assumes the surname of Germanicus. He leads the first attack of the
+Romans against the Alemanni.</p>
+
+<p>215. Having proceeded through Dacia, Thrace, and Antioch to Alexandria,
+Caracalla orders a massacre of the Egyptians.</p>
+
+<p>216. By a delusive offer of marriage with the daughter of Artabanus,
+Caracalla decoys the Parthians into his camp, where he treacherously
+attacks and slays a great number of them.</p>
+
+<p>217. Caracalla is assassinated; Macrinus is proclaimed emperor; he
+purchases peace with the Parthians. Julia Domna, the mother of Caracalla
+and Geta, being banished to Antioch, starves herself to death.</p>
+
+<p>218. Macrinus is overthrown by Elagabalus, who succeeds him as emperor
+of Rome. This was accomplished by M&oelig;sa, sister of Julia Domna,
+bribing a portion of the army to espouse the cause of her grandson
+Elagabalus.</p>
+
+<p>219. Elagabalus arrives at Rome; he brings with him his Syrian idol,
+which he places in a stately temple.</p>
+
+<p>220. The highest offices of the State are filled by Elagabalus with his
+vilest associates.</p>
+
+<p>222. Alexander Severus (Alexianus) succeeds Elagabalus, who is slain by
+the pr&aelig;torians; his mother, So&oelig;mias, is killed with him.</p>
+
+<p>223. All persecution of the Christians ceases in Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Alexander Severus guided by his mother, Marn&aelig;a, who is created augusta.</p>
+
+<p>224. The Persians, under Ardashir (known by the Greeks as Artaxerxes),
+revolt against the Parthians.</p>
+
+<p>225. Marriage of Alexander Severus to Sulpitia Memmia.</p>
+
+<p>226. Ardashir overthrows the Parthian kingdom; he founds the new Persian
+kingdom of the Sassanid&aelig;.</p>
+
+<p>228. Ulpian, pr&aelig;torian prefect, endeavors to restrain the licentiousness
+of the guards; a mutiny ensues and he is put to death.</p>
+
+<p>229. Dion Cassius having, as governor of Dalmatia and Pannonia, offended
+the army by his strictness, the Emperor testifies his approbation by
+making him his colleague in the consulship.</p>
+
+<p>230. Artaxerxes, now at the head of a powerful empire and great army,
+lays claim to all the former territories of Persia.</p>
+
+<p>231. Alexander Severus, at Antioch, prepares to resist the Persian
+demands by arms.</p>
+
+<p>232. After a campaign in Mesopotamia without decisive results, but in
+which the Romans claim the victory, Alexander returns to Antioch.</p>
+
+<p>233. Close of the Persian war.</p>
+
+<p>234. Alexander musters his forces in Gaul to repel the German tribes
+that had invaded the province.</p>
+
+<p>235. Alexander Severus and his mother, Mam&aelig;a, are murdered in a mutiny
+of the army, near Mainz (or Mentz).</p>
+
+<p>Maximin is proclaimed emperor.</p>
+
+<p>Ambrosius assists the labors of Origen by paying clerks to copy for
+him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>236. Maximin defeats the Germans and drives them across the Rhine.</p>
+
+<p>237. Maximin proceeds to Sirmium, with the design of attacking the
+Sarmatians. His ferocious tyranny excites universal horror.</p>
+
+<p>238. A rebellion against Maximin in Africa; Gordian, the proconsul, and
+his son are proclaimed emperors; they are overthrown by Capelianus and
+slain, Maximus and Balbinus are elected by the senate as joint emperors;
+they are murdered by the pr&aelig;torians. On his march to Rome, Maximin is
+assassinated by his soldiers; his son is also slain. The Third Gordian
+is associated with Maximus and Capelianus in the empire. The two latter
+are slain, and Gordian becomes ruler of the Roman domain.</p>
+
+<p>239. The young emperor of Rome, at first deceived by the eunuchs of the
+palace, is extricated from their pernicious influence by Misitheus.</p>
+
+<p>240. Various tribes of Germany confederate under the name of Franks.
+This is the first time they are mentioned in history.</p>
+
+<p>241. Victorious advance of Sapor I against the Roman dominions. See
+"<span class="smcap">Eventful Reign of Sapor I, King of Persia</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>.</p>
+
+<p>242. The Persians are defeated by Gordian; Misitheus, his general,
+recovers Mesopotamia. Plotinus accompanies the Roman army, in the hope
+of reaching India.</p>
+
+<p>244. Gordian, aged nineteen, is murdered, near Circesium (Carchemish); a
+lofty mound is there raised to his memory.</p>
+
+<p>Philip the Arabian becomes emperor of Rome; he makes peace with Sapor.</p>
+
+<p>249. The Roman legions revolt in several provinces; some proclaim
+Jotapianus, and others Marinus, both of whom are killed by their own
+men. Decius, who is sent to appease the mutineers, is compelled by them
+to assume the purple and lead them into Italy. Battle of Verona. Philip
+is defeated and slain, and his son murdered at Rome. Decius is emperor.</p>
+
+<p>250. Decius orders the persecution of the Christians.</p>
+
+<p>The Goths cross the Danube, enter the Roman dominions as far as Thrace,
+and capture Philippopolis.</p>
+
+<p>251. Victory of the Goths; Decius, at the head of the Romans, is
+defeated and slain. Gallus ascends the throne.</p>
+
+<p>253. Barbarians invade M&oelig;sia and Pannonia; they are defeated by
+&AElig;milianus, who is hailed as emperor by his army; he marches against
+Gallus, who, with his son, is assassinated by his soldiers. On the
+approach of Valerian, at the head of the Gallic legions, &AElig;milianus is
+slain, near Spoleto. Valerian becomes emperor.</p>
+
+<p>254. Franks invade the northern provinces of Gaul.</p>
+
+<p>An eruption of Mount &AElig;tna.</p>
+
+<p>Persecution of the Christians recommences.</p>
+
+<p>256. The Roman Empire is assailed on all sides. The Franks pass through
+Gaul and sack Tarraco in Spain; the Alemanni attack Italy; the
+Sarmatians and Quadi force their way into Pannonia; Macedon and Greece
+are ravaged by the Goths; Persians invade Syria and Mesopotamia.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Cyprian, one of the early fathers of the Church, assembles another
+council at Carthage, which provokes angry disputes.</p>
+
+<p>258. Valerian goes into the East against the Persians. The invaders of
+Gaul are checked by Postumus. The Goths capture Trebizond.</p>
+
+<p>260. Roman war with Persia; defeat and capture of Valerian by Sapor.
+Outbreaks continue throughout the provinces. Gallienus ascends the
+throne.</p>
+
+<p>261. Manes originates the Manich&aelig;an heresy, which taught among other
+things that there were two souls or spirits in man, one good and the
+other evil; also that the soul at death went first to the moon and then
+to the sun, and thence to God.</p>
+
+<p>267. Various Gothic bands, called by some Scythians, ravage Greece and
+Asia. One section is driven out of Asia by Odenathus; later he is
+assassinated by his nephew, M&aelig;onius. His widow, Zenobia, avenges his
+death and fills with glory his vacant throne of Palmyra.</p>
+
+<p>268. Murder of the emperor Gallienus; accession of Claudius II.</p>
+
+<p>269. Claudius signally defeats the Goths at Naissus, M&oelig;sia.</p>
+
+<p>Zenobia rules in Egypt in the name of Claudius.</p>
+
+<p>270. The Goths are again defeated by Claudius; shortly after, he dies of
+the plague at Sirmium. His brother assumes the purple, but dies by his
+own hand seventeen days later. Aurelian is universally acknowledged as
+emperor; he makes peace with the Goths, and relinquishes Dacia to them,
+transferring that name to another province south of the Danube.</p>
+
+<p>271. The Alemanni who had invaded Italy are overwhelmed by Aurelian.</p>
+
+<p>272. Aurelian attacks Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra; he captures Tyana,
+Emesa, and Antioch.</p>
+
+<p>273. Palmyra surrenders to Aurelian, and Queen Zenobia is made prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>274. Aurelian, having reunited the Roman Empire, celebrates a splendid
+triumph at Rome. Queen Zenobia is treated generously and passes her life
+in peace and affluence.</p>
+
+<p>275. On his march to attack Persia, Aurelian is assassinated; Tacitus is
+elected by the senate.</p>
+
+<p>276. Aurelian's murderers are punished by Tacitus; he dies while leading
+an expedition against the Goths, who had invaded Asia. Florian, his
+brother, succeeds him; he is slain. Probus is proclaimed emperor by the
+army; the senate confirms it.</p>
+
+<p>277. Probus drives out the Franks, Burgundians, and other German tribes
+that had overrun Gaul. A number of his prisoners, removed to Pontus,
+seize a fleet in the Euxine, escape through the Bosporus, plunder many
+cities on the shores of the Mediterranean, and reach Germany again.</p>
+
+<p>278. Probus repairs the fortified line from the Rhine to the Danube,
+expels the Goths from Thrace, represses the Isaurian robbers, and
+arrives in Syria, where he arranges terms of peace with Persia.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>282. Probus, successful since 276 against the enemies of Rome, is killed
+in a mutiny of the army at Sirmium.</p>
+
+<p>Accession of Carus; he gives the title of c&aelig;sar to each of his two sons,
+Carinus and Numerianus.</p>
+
+<p>283. Carus wages a successful campaign against Persia; he dies
+mysteriously in his tent, near Ctesiphon, during a violent storm.
+Carinus and Numerianus become joint emperors of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>284. Murder of Numerianus; Diocletian proclaimed emperor.</p>
+
+<p>285. Carinus is murdered.</p>
+
+<p>286. Maximian made Imperial colleague of Diocletian.</p>
+
+<p>287. The Bagauds revolt in Gaul.</p>
+
+<p>288. Carausius, in command of the Roman fleet at Gessoriacum, revolts
+and establishes an independent sovereignty in Britain.</p>
+
+<p>292. Constantius Chlorus and Galerius are appointed c&aelig;sars by Diocletian
+and Maximian; the Roman Empire is divided among the four.</p>
+
+<p>293. Carausius is treacherously murdered by Allectus, who assumes the
+government of Britain.</p>
+
+<p>296. Athanasius, the "Father of Orthodoxy," born.*</p>
+
+<p>297. Achillius having revolted in Egypt, Diocletian in person suppresses
+the insurrection; Alexandria is captured and the inhabitants
+slaughtered.</p>
+
+<p>298. Rome makes a victorious peace with Persia; extension of the Roman
+Empire.</p>
+
+<p>300. From this date paganism declines. See "<span class="smcap">Conversion of Constantine</span>,"
+iii, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.</p>
+
+<p>303. Diocletian persecutes the Christians; the fiercest and most
+systematic persecution which they had yet suffered.</p>
+
+<p>304. Severe illness of Diocletian, imputed to his long journey in the
+winter, but attributable rather to his vexation at the disorders caused
+by his change of policy toward the Christians, and to his finding it
+impossible to extirpate their religion. See "<span class="smcap">Conversion of Constantine</span>,"
+iii, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.</p>
+
+<p>305. The dilemma in which Diocletian is placed by the rash counsels of
+Galerius determines him to abdicate. He resigns the purple at Nicomedia,
+and persuades Maximian to follow his example on the same day at Milan.
+Constantius and Galerius take the title of augustus, and that of c&aelig;sar
+is given to Severus and Maximian.</p>
+
+<p>306. Death of Constantius Chlorus; Constantine the Great, his son, is
+made c&aelig;sar; Severus becomes augustus; Maxentius, son of Maximian,
+assumes the purple. Maximian resumes the rank of augustus. Civil war
+begins between Constantine and his rivals. The Salian Franks are
+defeated by Constantine.</p>
+
+<p>307. Licinius is made augustus on the fall of Severus.</p>
+
+<p>308. There are five emperors actually ruling in the Roman Empire, with
+Maximian, as a sixth, holding nominal power in the court of his
+son-in-law, Constantine.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span></p>
+<p>310. Maximian is slain by order of Constantine.</p>
+
+<p>311. Galerius issues an order to stop the persecution of the Christians;
+his death occurs soon afterward.</p>
+
+<p>312. Constantine vanquishes Maxentius in Italy, and becomes sole ruler
+of the Western Roman Empire. See "<span class="smcap">Conversion of Constantine</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.</p>
+
+<p>313. Constantine and Licinius proclaim toleration for the Christians.</p>
+
+<p>Maximian is overthrown by Licinius, who unites the Roman Empire of the
+East under his rule.</p>
+
+<p>314. Constantine and Licinius have their first war; the latter is
+vanquished. See "<span class="smcap">Conversion of Constantine</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.</p>
+
+<p>315. Constantine issues an edict against infanticide; another edict
+condemns to be burned alive any Jews who persecute or ill-treat converts
+from their sect to Christianity.</p>
+
+<p>318. Beginning of the Arian controversy.</p>
+
+<p>321. Constantine makes an edict ordering the Aruspices to be consulted
+in certain cases, according to the ancient form. Two others prescribe
+the observance of Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>323. Licinius is overcome by Constantine, who becomes sole master of the
+Roman Empire. See "<span class="smcap">Conversion of Constantine</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.</p>
+
+<p>324. Constantine, who had promised his sister not to injure Licinius,
+orders Licinius to be strangled.</p>
+
+<p>325. Council of Nice, the first general council of the Church; the
+followers of Athanasius pronounce the condemnation of the Arians. See
+"<span class="smcap">First Nicene Council</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>.</p>
+
+<p>326. Helena, saint and Empress, visits Palestine and founds churches
+there.</p>
+
+<p>329. Frumentius preaches Christianity to the Abyssinians.</p>
+
+<p>330. Removal of the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium.
+See "<span class="smcap">Foundation of Constantinople</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>.</p>
+
+<p>331. Birth of Hieronymus (St. Jerome).</p>
+
+<p>333. The title of c&aelig;sar given by Constantine to his youngest son,
+Constans.</p>
+
+<p>An edict of Constantine's exempts medical men and professors of
+literature from military service. This confirmed the procedure of
+certain former emperors.</p>
+
+<p>337. Death of Constantine, soon after his baptism by Eusebius, an Arian
+bishop. Partition of the Roman Empire between his sons, Constantine,
+Constans, and Constantius.</p>
+
+<p>340. Constantine II makes war upon Constans; the former is slain, and
+Constans becomes ruler of the greater part of the Roman Empire.
+Constantius rules in the East.</p>
+
+<p>341. Gaul is invaded by the Franks, who resist Constans.</p>
+
+<p>Ulfilas becomes bishop of the Goths.*</p>
+
+<p>Violent earthquakes in Syria. The Synod of Antioch assents to an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span>Arian
+creed, deposes Athanasius, and appoints Gregory bishop of Alexandria.</p>
+
+<p>347. A general council is held at Sardica. The majority approves the
+Nicene faith; the deposition of Arian bishops voted, and the restoration
+of Athanasius and Marcellus to episcopal honors. The minority secede to
+Philippopolis and annul their acts; the two bodies mutually
+excommunicate each other.</p>
+
+<p>348. Sapor, at the head of the Persians, defeats the Romans at Singara.</p>
+
+<p>350. Magentius proclaims himself emperor; Constans flees into Spain,
+where he is assassinated.</p>
+
+<p>351. Constantius defeats Magentius at the battle of Mursa.</p>
+
+<p>352. Italy declares against Magentius, who gains a useless victory at
+Pavia.</p>
+
+<p>353. Constantius sole emperor, Magentius being overthrown by him.</p>
+
+<p>Constantius convokes the Council of Arles, which condemns Arianism.</p>
+
+<p>354. Birth of St. Augustine.</p>
+
+<p>355. Julian, being appointed c&aelig;sar, takes command of the Roman troops in
+Gaul.</p>
+
+<p>Athanasius is deposed by the Council of Milan.</p>
+
+<p>356. Julian is successful against the Alemanni and Franks in Gaul.</p>
+
+<p>357. Constantius visits Rome; he presents an obelisk from Egypt to the
+city.</p>
+
+<p>Julian has a great victory at Strasburg.</p>
+
+<p>358. Julian winters in Paris, after which he resumes his campaign and
+defeats the Franks.</p>
+
+<p>359. Again the Rhine is crossed by Julian, who conquers all before him.</p>
+
+<p>360. The Cathedral of St. Sophia is dedicated at Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p>Julian is elected emperor in Gaul. See "<span class="smcap">Julian the Apostate Becomes
+Emperor of Rome</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.</p>
+
+<p>361. Death of Constantius while on his way to oppose Julian.</p>
+
+<p>A revival of paganism.</p>
+
+<p>362. Julian proclaims universal toleration and recalls the exiled
+bishops to their sees.</p>
+
+<p>363. Expedition of Julian against the Persians, under Sapor II; Julian
+retreats and is slain; Jovian succeeds him in the purple; he purchases
+peace of Sapor by allotting him the Roman frontiers.</p>
+
+<p>Christianity again in the ascendant.</p>
+
+<p>364. Death of Emperor Jovian; Valentinian succeeds him in the West, and
+Valens in the East.</p>
+
+<p>365. Great earthquake in the Roman dominions.</p>
+
+<p>Gaul is harassed by the Alemanni; Britain by the Picts, Scots, and
+Saxons.</p>
+
+<p>367. First campaign of Theodosius against the Picts and Scots in
+Britain.</p>
+
+<p>368. The Alemanni repulsed from Gaul.</p>
+
+<p>369. Theodosius, having subdued a revolt in Britain, returns to Gaul.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>370. Saxons infest the coast of Gaul; they are driven back to their
+ships by Severus.</p>
+
+<p>374. Huns cross the Volga and proceed westward, overpowering the Alani.
+See "<span class="smcap">The Huns and Their Western Migration</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>.</p>
+
+<p>St. Ambrose is elected bishop of Milan.</p>
+
+<p>375. Death of Valentinian I; he is succeeded by his son Gratian and
+Valentinian II, his infant brother.</p>
+
+<p>376. Driven by the Huns, the Visigoths are admitted into the Roman
+Empire south of the Danube.</p>
+
+<p>378. Death of Emperor Valens in an encounter with the Visigoths at
+Adrianople.</p>
+
+<p>Gaul is invaded by the Alemanni; they are repulsed by Gratian.</p>
+
+<p>379. Theodosius is recalled from his retirement in Spain and awarded the
+sovereignty of the East by Gratian.</p>
+
+<p>380. Theodosius is baptized by the Bishop of Thessalonica.</p>
+
+<p>381. Second general council, held at Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p>382. Theodosius makes a treaty with the Visigoths; their final
+settlement in Thrace and M&oelig;sia.</p>
+
+<p>383. Rebellion of Maximus in Britain; he lands in Gaul, where he is
+joined by the forces there; he overthrows Gratian.</p>
+
+<p>387. Maximus invades Italy. Valentinian flees with his mother and
+sister, Galla, to Thessalonica; Theodosius meets them, marries Galla,
+and prepares to meet Maximus.</p>
+
+<p>388. Maximus is defeated and slain.</p>
+
+<p>A formal vote of the senate establishes Christianity in the Roman
+Empire.</p>
+
+<p>389. Theodosius visits Rome; he commands the destruction of the heathen
+temples. Valentinian becomes sole ruler of the West.</p>
+
+<p>390. Sedition at Thessalonica, and massacre of its inhabitants, by order
+of Theodosius.</p>
+
+<p>392. Paganism in the Roman Empire is finally suppressed by law.</p>
+
+<p>Murder of Valentinian II by Arbogast; Eugenius usurps the throne in the
+West.</p>
+
+<p>394. Eugenius and Arbogast are vanquished by Theodosius the Great, who
+unites the whole Roman Empire under his sceptre.</p>
+
+<p>395. Death of Theodosius the Great; final division of the Empire. See
+"<span class="smcap">Final Division of Roman Empire</span>," iii, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>.</p>
+
+<p>399. The Ostrogoths, under Tribigild, revolt and ravage Phrygia.</p>
+
+<p>Stilicho sends additional forces into Britain, and fortifies the coast
+against the Saxons.</p>
+
+<p>402. Alaric advances in Italy, and Stilicho prepares to resist him.</p>
+
+<p>403. Honorius, on the approach of Alaric, flees from Milan.</p>
+
+<p>Alaric, King of the Visigoths, encounters Stilicho, Honorius' general,
+at Pollentia; the Romans claim the victory, but Alaric continues his
+advance toward Rome. Stilicho defeats and drives him back, near Verona;
+Alaric retires from Italy.*</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span></p>
+<p>404. Triumph of Honorius and Stilicho at Rome. Combats of gladiators
+exhibited for the last time.</p>
+
+<p>The capital of the Western Empire is removed from Rome to Ravenna.*</p>
+
+<p>Chrysostom, the patriarch, is banished Constantinople; the Church of St.
+Sophia, probably kindled by the angry adherents of Chrysostom, burned to
+the ground.</p>
+
+<p>405. Radagaisus collects a great horde of Ostrogoths, Vandals, Suevi,
+and other Barbarians, and leads them into Italy. He is defeated by
+Stilicho near Florence, and surrenders on condition of having his life
+spared. He is, however, treacherously put to death.</p>
+
+<p>St. Jerome completes his Latin translation of the Bible.*</p>
+
+<p>406. German tribes break down the Rhine barrier and establish themselves
+in Gaul.</p>
+
+<p>Vigilantius, a presbyter of Barcelona, condemns celibacy, the worship of
+relics, etc.; St. Jerome attacks him in a furious epistle, saying that
+he ought to be put to death.</p>
+
+<p>407. Constantine usurps authority in Britain and Gaul.</p>
+
+<p>408. Arcadius is succeeded by his son Theodosius II in the Byzantine
+empire.</p>
+
+<p>Honorius orders Stilicho to be put to death, accusing him of
+treacherously treating with Alaric, who is besieging Rome.</p>
+
+<p>409. Alaric receives a large ransom from the citizens of Rome and
+withdraws into Tuscany. Deceived in his negotiations with Honorius, he
+again lays siege to Rome, which is again spared on condition of Attalus
+being made emperor.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to the passes of the Pyrenees being left unguarded, the Vandals,
+Suevi, and Alani enter Spain.</p>
+
+
+<h4>END OF VOLUME III</h4>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Events by Famous Historians,
+Volume 03, by Various
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+</body>
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@@ -0,0 +1,15894 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Events by Famous Historians,
+Volume 03, by Various
+
+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: The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Rossiter Johnson
+        Charles Horne
+        John Rudd
+
+Release Date: June 6, 2008 [EBook #25712]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT EVENTS, VOLUME 03 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Famous painting of the head Jesus Christ
+
+(By steadily gazing at the eyes in the picture they will be seen to
+suddenly open.)
+
+Painting by Gabriel Max.]
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT EVENTS
+
+BY
+
+FAMOUS HISTORIANS
+
+A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY, EMPHASIZING
+THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS, AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES
+IN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS
+
+NON-SECTARIAN           NON-PARTISAN           NON-SECTIONAL
+
+ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOST
+DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE, INCLUDING BRIEF
+INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED
+NARRATIVES, ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY. WITH THOROUGH INDICES,
+BIBLIOGRAPHIES, CHRONOLOGIES. AND COURSES OF READING
+
+EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
+
+ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.
+
+ASSOCIATE EDITORS
+
+CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D.
+
+JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
+
+_With a staff of specialists_
+
+_VOLUME III_
+
+[Illustration: Decorative]
+
+The National Alumni
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1905,
+
+BY THE NATIONAL ALUMNI
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+VOLUME III
+
+                                                           PAGE
+
+_An Outline Narrative of the Great Events_,                  xi
+      CHARLES F. HORNE
+
+_Germanicus in Germany (A.D. 13-16)_,                         1
+      TACITUS
+
+_The Crucifixion (A.D. 30)_,                                 23
+      FREDERIC WILLIAM FARRAR
+
+_The Rise and Spread of Christianity (A.D. 33)_,             40
+      RENAN
+      WISE
+      NEWMAN
+
+_Burning of Rome under Nero (A.D. 64)_,                     108
+      SIENKIEWICZ
+      TACITUS
+
+_Persecution of the Christians under Nero (A.D. 64-68)_,    134
+      FREDERIC WILLIAM FARRAR
+
+_The Great Jewish Revolt_
+_Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem (A.D. 70)_,             150
+      JOSEPHUS
+
+_Destruction of Pompeii (A.D. 79)_,                         207
+      PLINY
+      LYTTON
+
+_The Jews' Last Struggle for Freedom_
+_Their Final Dispersion (A.D. 132)_,                        222
+      CHARLES MERIVALE
+
+_Martyrdom of Polycarp and Justin Martyr_
+_Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians (A.D. 155)_,         231
+      HOMERSHAM COX
+      POLYCARP
+
+_Persecution of the Christians in Gaul (A.D. 177)_,         246
+      FRANCOIS P. G. GUIZOT
+
+_Beginning of Rome's Decline_
+_Commodus (A.D. 180)_,                                      263
+      EDWARD GIBBON
+
+_Eventful Reign of Sapor I, King of Persia (A.D. 241)_,     277
+      GEORGE RAWLINSON
+
+_Conversion of Constantine_
+_Decline of Paganism (A.D. 300-337)_,                       289
+      JOHANN L. VON MOSHEIM
+
+_First Nicene Council_
+_Rise and Decline of Arianism (A.D. 325)_,                  299
+      JOHANN L. VON MOSHEIM
+      ARTHUR P. STANLEY
+
+_Foundation of Constantinople (A.D. 330)_,                  320
+      EDWARD GIBBON
+
+_Julian the Apostate Becomes Emperor of Rome (A.D. 360)_,   333
+      EDWARD GIBBON
+
+_The Huns and Their Western Migration (A.D. 374-376)_,      352
+      MARCELLINUS
+
+_Final Division of Roman Empire_
+_The Disruptive Intrigues (A.D. 395)_,                      364
+      J. B. BURY
+
+_Universal Chronology (A.D. 13-409)_,                       385
+      JOHN RUDD
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+VOLUME III
+
+                                                                 PAGE
+
+_Famous painting of the head of Jesus Christ_ (_page 23_),
+      By Gabriel Max.                                    Frontispiece
+
+_Queen Thusnelda, wife of Arminius, taken prisoner
+by the soldiers of the Roman general Germanicus_,                  4
+      Painting by H. Koenig.
+
+
+
+
+AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE
+
+TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF
+
+THE GREAT EVENTS
+
+(THE PERIOD OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE)
+
+CHARLES F. HORNE
+
+
+So vast and wonderful a construction was the Roman world, so different
+from our own, that we are apt to imagine it as an arrangement far more
+deliberately planned, far more mechanically complete, than it appeared
+to its own inhabitants.
+
+From a cursory glance, we may carry away wholly mistaken conceptions of
+its thought and purpose. Thus, for instance, the Roman Republic never
+assumed the definite design of conquering the world; its people had only
+the vaguest conception of whither the world might extend. They merely
+quarrelled with their neighbors, defeated and then annexed them.
+
+At almost any time after Hannibal's death, Rome might have marched her
+legions, practically unopposed, over all the lands within her reach. Yet
+she permitted a century and a half to elapse ere Pompey asserted her
+sovereignty over Asia. It was left for Augustus to take the final step,
+and, by absorbing Egypt, make his country become in name what it had
+long been in fact, the ruler of the civilized world.
+
+Thus, too, we think of Augustus as a kindly despot, supreme, and
+governed only by his own will. But his compatriots looked on him as
+simply the chief citizen of their republic. They considered that of
+their own free will, to escape the dangers of further civil war, they
+had chosen to confer upon one man, eminently "safe and sane," all the
+high offices whose holders had previously battled against one another.
+So Augustus was Emperor or Imperator, which meant no more than general
+of the armies of the Republic; he was Consul, or chief civil
+administrator of the Republic; he was Pontifex Maximus, high-priest of
+the Republic. He could have had more titles and offices still if he
+would have accepted them from an obsequious senate.
+
+But the title of "king," so obnoxious to Roman taste, Augustus never
+sought, nor did his successors, who were in turn appointed to all his
+offices. For nearly three centuries after the one-man power had become
+absolute, Rome continued to call itself a republic, to go through forms
+of election and ceremonial, which grew ever more and more meaningless
+and trivial.
+
+Augustus seems to have felt the tremendous weight of his position, and
+to have tried honestly to divide his authority. He invested the
+trembling senate with both power and responsibility. In theory, it
+became as influential as he. But the appointment of its members, and
+also the supreme control of the armies, remained always with the
+Imperator; and thus the senate continued in reality little better than a
+flickering shadow. Under the reign of a well-meaning emperor, it loomed
+large, and often dilated into a very valuable and honorable body. In the
+grip of a tyrant, it sank at once to its true aspect of helpless and
+obsequious submission.
+
+
+THE "ROMAN PEACE"
+
+To the outside world the reign of the emperors was welcome. The
+provinces were governed by salaried officials, whose conduct was
+seriously investigated. The hideous extortions and cruelties of the
+governors sent out in the earlier days of the Republic almost
+disappeared. This milder rule seemed happy in the contrast. An emperor
+might be a brute at home, but his personal cruelties could scarce spread
+over an entire world. Money for even the hugest extravagances of only
+one man, the provinces could supply. At first they scarce felt the
+drain.
+
+For two entire centuries after Augustus had assumed power, the world
+flourished and apparently prospered under the "Roman peace." The ruins
+of Pompeii, the tale of its destruction, show how well and how lazily
+the upper classes and even the masses lived.[1] The legions were scarce
+needed except for petty wars along the frontier. The defeat inflicted by
+the German barbarians was avenged, and the northern wilderness seems to
+have come very near to sharing the fate of Gaul.[2] But the long
+campaigns were costly and apparently valueless. No taxes flowed into the
+treasury from the poor half-subjugated savages; and the emperor Tiberius
+contemptuously declared that he would leave them to fight among
+themselves. Another frontier strife completed the subjugation of Spain.
+Another added Britain to the Empire. Another made temporary conquest
+over Dacia and extended the Asian boundary. There were minor revolts in
+Gaul.
+
+Then the Jews, roused to sudden religious frenzy and believing
+themselves invincible, burst into rebellion.[3] Titus stormed their
+capital and burned their Temple. But the lesson was wasted on the
+stubborn, fanatical race, and sixty years later they flared out again.
+Roman relentlessness was roused to its fullest rage, and accomplished
+against them the destruction of prophecy. Their cities were razed to the
+ground, and the poor remnant of the race were scattered abroad. Yet,
+apparently imperishable, refusing to be merged with other men, they
+remained a people though without a country. They became what they are
+to-day, a nation of wanderers.[4]
+
+One other tumult, more central and in that sense more serious, intruded
+on the Roman system. Just a century after the rise of Augustus, the
+tyrannies of his successor Nero became so unbearable that even his own
+senate turned against him; and he was slain, without having appointed a
+successor. The purely military character of the Empire was at once
+revealed. Different armies each upheld their own general as emperor. The
+claimants attacked one another in turn, and the strongest won. The
+turmoil lasted for only a year or so, just long enough for the distant
+legions to gather around Rome; the bloodshed was nothing as compared to
+former ages; the helpless senate acquiesced in each new proclamation of
+each successful army; and the rest of the world, scarce even jarred in
+its daily course, flowed on as before.
+
+On the whole, then, these two hundred years were one long period of
+peace. It was Augustus who for the first time in centuries closed the
+gates of the war-god's temple in Rome. He encouraged literature, and we
+have the "Augustan" age. He boasted that he found Rome built of bricks,
+and left it of marble. He and his successors did far more than that.
+They constructed roads extending from end to end of their domains.
+Communication became easy; a mail post was established; people began to
+travel for pleasure. The nations of the world intermingled freely, and
+discovered, for the first time on earth, that they were much alike. The
+universal brotherhood of man may be not even yet fully recognized and
+welcomed; but the first step toward its acknowledgment was taken under
+imperial Rome.
+
+
+CHRISTIANITY
+
+This brings us to a very solemn thought. Many earnest men have believed
+that they see a divine Providence running through the whole course of
+history, and nowhere more obvious than here. They point to the careers
+of both Greece and Rome as being a special preparation for the coming of
+the Christ. The mission of Greece, they tell us, was to arouse the mind
+of man, to make him capable of thought and sensitive to spiritual
+beauty; that of Rome was to teach him the value of law and peace, and
+yet more, to draw all men together, that all might have opportunity to
+hear the lessons of the new faith.
+
+Certain it is that at any earlier date it would have seemed practically
+impossible for a religion to spread beyond a single people. Not only was
+communication between the nations faint and intermittent, but they were
+so savage, so suspicious of each other, that a wanderer had to meet them
+weapon in hand. He must have a ship to flee to or an army at his back.
+Now, however, under the restraint of Roman law, strangers met and passed
+without a blow. Latin, the tongue of law, was everywhere partly known.
+Greek was almost equally widespread as the language of art and culture.
+
+The Hebrews, too, had done their share in the work of preparation. They
+had developed the religious sense, beyond any of the Aryan peoples.
+Their religion had become a part, the main part, of their daily lives.
+They believed it, not with the languid logic of the Romans, not with the
+sensuous pleasure of the Greeks, but fiercely, fervidly, with a passion
+that swept all reason to the winds.
+
+Among them appeared the Christ, born in the days of Augustus, crucified
+in those of Tiberius.[5] His teaching was mainly the doctrine of love,
+which Buddha had announced five hundred years before, but which was new
+to the Roman world; and the promise of life beyond the grave, which many
+races had more or less believed in, but which never before had been made
+to carry a vision of such splendor and such glory. He also advocated
+non-resistance to enemies, a principle which the early Church obeyed,
+but which has found small favor among the masses of later Christians.
+
+These teachings, then, were none of them wholly unconceived before; but
+they were enforced by a life so pure, a manner so earnest, as compelled
+respect. Converts became many; and one of these at least took literally
+the command of the Master, to proclaim the faith to all peoples of the
+earth. The apostle Paul, stepping beyond the narrow bounds of Judea,
+preached Christianity to mankind.[6]
+
+Paul was the first great missionary. The earlier faiths of Greece and
+Rome had not sought to extend themselves, because they did not recognize
+the brotherhood of man. The new faith insisted upon this, insisted on
+our duty to our fellows; and so under Paul's leadership every Christian
+became a missionary, teaching, uplifting the downtrodden, giving them
+hope, not of this world, but of an infinitely brighter one. The faith
+spread faster than ever world conquest had been spread before. Scarce a
+generation after the Crucifixion it had permeated the Empire, and Nero,
+to divert from himself the suspicion of having burned Rome, accused the
+Christians.[7]
+
+This led to their first persecution. They were tortured as a punishment
+and to extort confession. Most of them stood nobly by their doctrine of
+non-resistance, and endured heroically a martyrdom which they looked on
+as opening the gates of heaven.[8]
+
+Their devotion drew to them the first serious notice of the Roman
+authorities. Hitherto they had been regarded merely as a sect among the
+Jews. But now, with reluctant admiration of their courage, there came
+also a recognition of their rapid growth and a suspicion of their
+motives. The Romans could not understand such devotion to a mere
+religion; and they always feared lest the faith was something more, a
+cloak for nameless crimes, or a secret conspiracy of rebellion among
+their slaves, who would some day turn and rend them.
+
+Thus while Nero's attack on the Christians was in a sense an accident,
+the blind rush of a half-crazed beast, the later persecutions were often
+directed by serious and well-intentioned emperors and magistrates. The
+Romans were far from being intolerant. They had interfered very little
+with the religions of their subject races, and had, indeed, adopted more
+than one foreign god into their own temples. They were quite willing
+that the Christ should be worshipped. What they could not understand was
+that reverence to one god should forbid reverence to another.
+
+It was the new religion which was intolerant, which, in the passionate
+intensity of its faith, attacked the old gods, denied their existence,
+or declared them devils. When a man was summoned before a Roman court on
+the charge of being a Christian, he was not, as a rule, asked to deny
+Christ; only, there being a general impression that his sect was evil,
+he was required to prove his honest citizenship and general good
+character by doing reverence to the Roman gods.[9]
+
+In spite of persecution, some writers say because of it, Christianity
+spread. Toward the end of the first two hundred years of the Empire, it
+seemed about the only prosperous institution in a world which was
+beginning to go badly. During the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the last of
+the "good" emperors (161-180), troubles, some accidental, some inherent
+in the Roman system, were gathering very dark.
+
+The curse of inaction, of wealth without liberty, of intellect without a
+goal to strive toward, had long been corrupting the upper classes. Now,
+a terrible plague swept the world from end to end, so that laborers
+became scarce, lands went untenanted, taxes unpaid. The drain of
+supporting Rome's boundless extravagance, in buildings, feasts, and
+gladiatorial displays, began to tell upon the provinces at last. Newer
+and ever harsher methods had to be employed to wring money from
+exhausted lands. Driven by their sufferings to cling to religion as a
+support, men thought of it more seriously; and a cry went up that earth
+was being punished for its neglect and insult of the ancient gods. The
+Christians were persecuted anew.[10]
+
+
+THE PERIOD OF DECAY
+
+The reign of Commodus,[11] son of Marcus Aurelius, marks the beginning
+of a century which sank almost into anarchy. He was murdered, and his
+guards auctioned the Empire to the highest bidder. Once more the legions
+fought against each other and placed their generals upon the throne.
+During ninety-two years there were twenty-five emperors fully
+acknowledged, besides a far larger number of claimants who were
+overthrown before Rome had time to hear of and salute them. The Imperial
+city was no longer mistress of the world; she was only its capital, as
+feeble and helpless as the other cities, which these unstable emperors
+began at times to favor in her stead.
+
+The barbarians also, who through all these ages were growing stronger
+while Rome grew weaker, became ever a more serious menace. The internal
+disorder of the Empire left its frontiers often unguarded. The Germans
+plundered Gaul in the West, the Persians ravaged Asia in the East. In
+fact, so comparatively strong had the Persians grown that one emperor,
+venturing against them, was defeated and captured, and lived out his
+miserable life a Persian slave. Rome could not rescue him.[12]
+
+In the year 284 there came to the front an emperor "of iron,"
+Diocletian. He did what Augustus had done three centuries before,
+re-formed and recast the government of the world. The last empty
+ceremonies of the Republic were discarded. Even the pretence of Rome's
+leadership was brushed aside. The Empire was divided into four
+districts, each with a capital of its own, and Diocletian selected three
+other generals to share its rule with him. He and his colleagues
+restored the long-lost peace. They chastised the barbarians.
+Diocletian's reforms saved the Roman fabric from what seemed inevitable
+extinction, and enabled it to exist in some shape for almost another two
+hundred years.
+
+His system of division did not, however, save the Empire from civil
+wars. No sooner was his restraining hand removed than his colleagues
+fought among themselves, until Constantine overthrew his antagonists and
+once more united the entire Empire. Constantine became a Christian.[13]
+
+It has been repeatedly asserted that his conversion was one of policy
+rather than belief; and there could be no stronger evidence of the
+changed position of the new faith. Diocletian had ordered a persecution
+against it, the last and most terrible which its martyrs suffered. But
+all that was best and most energetic and most living in the moribund
+Empire seemed to have gathered round the Church. The persecution did but
+emphasize its worth and influence.
+
+Constantine did not force his followers to change their beliefs with
+him; but he encouraged and rewarded those who did. Under him was held
+the first general council of the faith. The bishops gathered from all
+the different cities of the world to compare ideas and settle more
+exactly the doctrines to be taught. Christianity stepped out from its
+hiding-place and supplanted paganism as the state religion of the
+Empire.[14]
+
+As though the unimportance of Rome were not thus sufficiently
+established, Constantine abandoned the decaying capital altogether, and
+built himself a new city, Constantinople, at the junction of Europe and
+Asia. This became the centre of the changing world. Built upon the site
+of an old Greek colony, it was almost wholly Greek, not only in the
+nationality of the people who flocked to it, but in the manners of the
+court which Constantine created around him, in the art of its
+decorators, in the language of its streets.[15] The Empire remained
+Roman only in name. The might of a thousand years had made that name a
+magic spell, had sunk its restraining influence deep in the minds of
+men. It was not lightly to be thrown aside.
+
+Julian, a nephew of Constantine, who after an interval succeeded him
+upon the throne, abandoned the adopted religion of his family, and tried
+to revive paganism.[16] Julian was a powerful and clever man; he seems
+also to have been an honest and an earnest one. But he could not turn
+back the current of the world. He could not make shallow speculation
+take the place of earnest faith. Altruism, the spirit of brotherhood,
+which was the animating force of Christianity, might and later somewhat
+did lose itself amid the sands of selfishness; but it could not be
+combated by one man with a chance preference for egotism.
+
+Julian turned to a worthier purpose. He died fighting the barbarians.
+These, held back for a time by Diocletian and Constantine, were
+recommencing their ravages with renewed force. And now a change comes
+over the character of the invasions. Hitherto they had been mere raids
+for plunder; but now a huge, far-reaching, racial movement was in
+progress.
+
+From the distant plains of Asia came the vanguard of the Huns, a race of
+horsemen, whose swift steeds enabled them to scatter or concentrate at
+will around slower-paced opponents.[17] The Huns swept over Southern
+Russia, then occupied by the Goths, the most civilized of the Teutonic
+tribes. The Goths, finding themselves helpless against the active and
+fierce marauders, moved onward in their turn. They crossed the Danube,
+not as a raiding troop, but as an entire nation, and, half begging, half
+demanding a place of refuge, they penetrated into the world of
+civilization. With them came fearful stories of the Huns; but these
+latter, sweeping off in another direction, failed for a while to follow
+up the fugitives.
+
+As for the Goths, after they had defeated and slain one emperor, they
+were given lands and temporarily subdued by Theodosius the Great, the
+last ruler to hold the entire Roman domain. In 395 Theodosius, dying,
+divided his possessions, quite like a hereditary monarch, between his
+two sons, both mere boys.[18] To the elder he gave Constantinople and
+the East, to the younger Rome and the West. So instead of one kingdom
+there were two. Partly through its own disorganization, partly from the
+pressure of the barbarians, the Roman world had burst and fallen into
+halves. These proved two very helpless and feeble halves in the hands of
+their boy rulers; and the eager Teutons, finding themselves no longer
+withheld, began that remarkable series of plundering invasions by which
+they overwhelmed the ancient world.
+
+
+[FOR THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS GENERAL SURVEY SEE VOLUME IV.]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] See _Destruction of Pompeii_, page 207.
+
+[2] See _Germanicus in Germany_, page 1.
+
+[3] See _Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem_, page 150.
+
+[4] See _Jews' Last Struggle for Freedom_, page 222.
+
+[5] See _The Crucifixion_, page 23.
+
+[6] See _Rise and Spread of Christianity_, page 40.
+
+[7] See _Burning of Rome under Nero_, page 108.
+
+[8] See _Persecution of the Christians under Nero_, page 134.
+
+[9] See _Martyrdom of Polycarp and Justin Martyr_, page 231.
+
+[10] See _Persecutions of Christians in Gaul_, page 246.
+
+[11] See _Beginning of Rome's Decline_, page 263.
+
+[12] See _Eventful Reign of Sapor I, King of Persia_, page 277.
+
+[13] See _Conversion of Constantine_, page 289.
+
+[14] See _First Nicene Council_, page 297.
+
+[15] See _Foundation of Constantinople_, page 320.
+
+[16] See _Julian the Apostate_, page 333.
+
+[17] See _The Huns and Their Western Migration_, page 352.
+
+[18] See _Final Division of the Roman Empire_, page 364.
+
+
+
+
+GERMANICUS IN GERMANY
+
+A.D. 13-16
+
+TACITUS
+
+     When the Germans first became known to the Romans--about B.C.
+     112--they showed themselves as warlike tribes along the northern
+     borders of Italy and in various parts of Gaul, where Caesar
+     afterward had frequent encounters with them, driving them across
+     the Rhine into their own country. But Caesar's knowledge of them was
+     confined to those tribes whose dwellings were near the Rhine,
+     beyond which he did not pursue them.
+
+     Augustus fortified against the Germans along the Rhine, and Drusus,
+     his step-son, took command against them, defeating them in several
+     expeditions (B.C. 13-9). As a reward, he received for himself and
+     his posterity the surname of Germanicus, conqueror of Germany. He
+     died at the age of thirty.
+
+     His son, Germanicus, born B.C. 14, was sent, in A.D. 12, to command
+     the forces on the Rhine. After quelling serious mutinies among his
+     legions he crossed the Rhine and attacked and routed some of the
+     German tribes who had been actively aggressive against the Romans.
+     During the following year he defeated other tribes, and after his
+     return across the Rhine he was persuaded by Segestes to aid him
+     against his son-in-law Arminius (the Latin name for Herman), by
+     whom Segestes was besieged and who, according to Tacitus, became in
+     the end the deliverer of Germany from the power of the Romans. But
+     before he was able to render this service to the German peoples he
+     had many hardships to endure, and at the hands of Germanicus he met
+     with severe reverses.
+
+     Arminius had defeated Varus, who, by reason of that disgrace,
+     killed himself (A.D. 10), and the despatch of Germanicus to command
+     the German legions was ordered in the first instance to revenge the
+     overthrow of his predecessor. Although it required several
+     campaigns, the work of Germanicus was so effectual that he withdrew
+     in the end, at the command of Tiberius, with advantage on his side,
+     and, returning to Rome, enjoyed a triumph (A.D. 17). His name is
+     preserved in history, alike for his military talents and services,
+     for his attainments in literary pursuits, and his nobleness of
+     mind.
+
+
+In the consulship of Drusus Caesar and Caius Norbanus a triumph was
+decreed to Germanicus; the war continuing. He was preparing with all
+diligence to prosecute it in the summer, but anticipated it by a sudden
+irruption early in the spring into the territories of the Cattians: for
+he had conceived a hope that the enemy was divided into opposite parties
+under Arminius and Segestes, both remarkable for perfidy or fidelity
+toward us: Arminius was the incendiary of Germany, but Segestes had
+given repeated warning of an intended revolt at other times and during
+the banquet immediately preceding the insurrection, and advised Varus
+"to secure him and Arminius and all the other chiefs; that the
+multitude, bereft of their leaders, would not dare to attempt anything;
+and Varus would have an opportunity to separate the guilty from the
+innocent." But fate decreed it, and he was slain by Arminius. Segestes,
+though drawn into the war by the universal agreement of the nation in
+it, yet continued to disapprove of it; his detestation being augmented
+by motives of a domestic nature, for Arminius had carried away the
+daughter of Segestes, already betrothed to another: the son-in-law
+hated, the fathers-in-law were at enmity; and those relations which are
+bonds of affection between friends fomented the animosities of enemies.
+
+Germanicus therefore handed over to Caecina four legions, five thousand
+auxiliaries, and some tumultuous bands of Germans who dwelt on this side
+the Rhine; he led, himself, as many legions, with double the number of
+allies, and erecting a fort in Mount Taunus, upon the site of one raised
+by his father, he pushed on in light marching order against the
+Cattians; having left Lucius Apronius to secure the roads and the
+rivers, for, as the roads were dry and the rivers within bounds--events
+in that climate of rare occurrence--he had found no check in his rapid
+march, but on his return apprehended the violent rains and floods. He
+fell upon the Cattians with such surprise that all the weak (through sex
+or age) were instantly taken or slaughtered. The young men swam over the
+Adrana and endeavored to obstruct the Romans, who commenced building a
+bridge; then, repulsed by engines and arrows and having in vain tried
+terms of peace--after some had gone over to Germanicus--the rest
+abandoned their cantons and villages and dispersed themselves into the
+woods. Mattium, the capital of the nation, he burned, ravaged the open
+country, and bent his march to the Rhine; nor durst the enemy harass his
+rear, which is their custom whenever they have fled, more from craft
+than fear. The Cheruscans had purposed to assist the Cattians, but were
+deterred by Caecina, who moved about with his forces from place to place;
+and the Marsians, who dared to engage him, he checked by a victory.
+
+Soon after arrived deputies from Segestes, praying relief against the
+violence of his countrymen, by whom he was besieged; Arminius having
+more influence with them than himself, because he advised war, for with
+barbarians the more resolute in daring a man is the more he is trusted
+and preferred in times of commotion. To the deputies Segestes had added
+Segimund, his son; but the young man hesitated from self-conviction; for
+the year when Germany revolted, having been created priest at the Ubian
+altar, he had rent the fillets and fled to the revolters: yet, induced
+to rely upon Roman clemency, he undertook the execution of his father's
+orders, was graciously received, and conducted with a guard to the
+Gallic bank of the Rhine. Germanicus thought it worth while to march
+back, fought the besiegers, and rescued Segestes with a numerous train
+of his relations and followers, in which were ladies of illustrious
+rank, and among them the wife of Arminius--the same who was the daughter
+of Segestes--with a spirit more like that of her husband than her
+father; neither subdued to tears, nor uttering the language of
+supplication, but her hands folded within her bosom, and her eyes fixed
+upon her teeming womb. There were, likewise, carried off the spoils
+taken at the slaughter of Varus and his army, and given as booty to most
+of those who then surrendered.
+
+At the same time appeared Segestes himself, of vast stature, and
+undaunted in the consciousness of his fidelity. In this manner he spoke:
+"This is not the first day that I have approved my faith and constancy
+to the Roman people: from the moment I was by the deified Augustus
+presented with the freedom of the city I have chosen my friends and
+enemies with reference to your interests, and that not from hatred of my
+country--for odious are traitors even to the party they prefer--but,
+because the interests of the Romans and Germans were the same, and
+because I was inclined to peace rather than war. For this reason, before
+Varus, the then general, I arraigned Arminius, the ravisher of my
+daughter and the violator of the league with you. Put off, from the
+supineness of the general, and seeing there was little protection in the
+laws, I importuned him to throw into irons myself and Arminius and his
+accomplices: witness that night--to me I would rather it had been the
+last! More to be lamented than defended are the events which followed.
+However, I cast Arminius into irons, and was myself cast into irons by
+his faction: and now, on the first opportunity of conferring with you, I
+prefer old things to new, peace to turbulence; and at the same time I
+might be a fitting mediator for the German nation, with no view of
+reward, but to clear myself of perfidy, if they would rather repent than
+be destroyed. For the youth and inexperience of my son I implore pardon.
+I admit my daughter has been brought into this state by constraint; it
+will be yours to consider which should preponderate with you--that she
+is the wife of Arminius or the daughter of Segestes." The answer of
+Germanicus was gracious: he promised indemnity to his children, and
+kindred, and to himself, as a retreat, a place called "Vetera," in the
+province; then returned with his army, and by the direction of Tiberius
+received the title of _Imperator_.
+
+[Illustration: Queen Thusnelda, wife of Arminius, taken prisoner by the
+soldiers of the Roman general Germanicus
+
+Painting by H. Koenig]
+
+The account circulated of the surrender of Segestes, and his gracious
+reception, affected his countrymen with hope or anguish as they were
+severally prone or averse to the war. Acting upon a temper naturally
+violent, the captivity of his wife and the child in her womb subjected
+to bondage drove Arminius to distraction: he flew about among the
+Cheruscans, calling them to arms against Segestes, against Germanicus;
+nor did he refrain from invectives--"An excellent father! a great
+general; a valiant army, whose many hands had carried off one bit of a
+woman! That before him three legions fell, three lieutenants-general;
+for his method of carrying on war was not by treason nor against
+pregnant women, but openly, against armed hosts. That the Roman
+standards were still to be seen in the German groves, there suspended by
+him to his country's gods. Segestes might live upon the vanquished bank;
+he might get the priesthood restored to his son; but the Germans would
+ever regard the fellow as the guilty cause of their having seen between
+the Elbe and Rhine rods and axes and the toga. That to other nations who
+know not the Roman domination, executions and tributes were unknown;
+and as they had thrown them off, and as Augustus (he who was enrolled
+with the gods) had retreated without accomplishing his object, and
+Tiberius, his chosen successor, let them not dread an inexperienced
+stripling and a mutinous army. If they preferred their country, their
+parents, and their ancient possessions, to masters and new settlements,
+they should follow Arminius, who led them to glory and liberty, rather
+than Segestes, who conducted them to infamous servitude."
+
+By these means not the Cheruscans only were roused, but the bordering
+nations; and Inguiomer, paternal uncle to Arminius, a man long in high
+credit with the Romans, was drawn into the confederacy. Hence Germanicus
+became more alarmed, and to prevent the war falling upon him with
+unbroken force, sent Caecina with forty Roman cohorts to the river
+Amisia, through the territories of the Bructerians, to effect a division
+in the army of the enemy. Pedo, the prefect, led the cavalry along the
+confines of the Frisians; he himself, embarking four legions, sailed
+through the lakes; and at the aforesaid river the whole body met--foot,
+horse, and fleet. The Chaucians, upon offering their assistance, were
+taken into the service; but the Bructerians, setting fire to their
+effects and dwellings, were routed by Lucius Stertinius, despatched
+against them by Germanicus with a band lightly armed. And amid the
+carnage and plunder he found the eagle of the Nineteenth legion lost in
+the overthrow of Varus. The army marched next to the farthest borders of
+the Bructerians, and the whole country between the rivers Amisia and
+Luppia was laid waste. Not far hence lay the forest of Teutoburgium, and
+in it the bones of Varus and the legions, by report, still unburied.
+
+Germanicus, therefore, conceived a desire to pay the last offices to the
+legions and their leader; while the whole of the army present were moved
+to deep commiseration for their kinsmen and friends, and generally for
+the calamities of war and the condition of humanity. Caecina having been
+sent before to explore the gloomy recesses of the forest, and to lay
+bridges and causeways over the watery portions of the morasses and
+insecure places in the plains, they enter the doleful scene, hideous in
+appearance and association. The first camp of Varus appeared in view.
+The extent of ground and the measurement of the _principia_ left no
+doubt that the whole was the work of three legions. After that a
+half-decayed rampart with a shallow foss, where their remains, now sadly
+reduced, were understood to have sunk down. In the intervening portion
+of the plain were whitening bones, either scattered or accumulated,
+according as they had fled or had made a stand. Near them lay fragments
+of javelins and limbs of horses. There were also skulls fixed upon the
+trunks of trees. In the adjacent groves were the savage altars, where
+they had immolated the tribunes and centurions of the first rank. Those
+who survived the slaughter, having escaped from captivity and the sword,
+related the sad particulars to the rest: "Here the commanders of the
+legions were slain; there we lost the eagles; here Varus had his first
+wound; there he gave himself another, and perished by his own unhappy
+hand. In that place, too, stood the tribunal whence Arminius harangued.
+How many gibbets he erected for the execution of his captives; what
+trenches he dug; and how, in proud scorn, he made a mock at the
+standards and eagles."
+
+The Roman army which was on the spot buried the bones of the three
+legions six years after the slaughter: nor could anyone distinguish
+whether he buried the remains of a stranger or of a kinsman; but all
+considered the whole as friends, as relations, with heightened
+resentment against the foe, at once sad and revengeful. Germanicus laid
+the first sod used in raising a tomb, thus rendering a most acceptable
+service to the dead, and showing that he shared the sorrows of the
+living, a proceeding not liked by Tiberius; whether it were that upon
+every action of Germanicus he put a malignant construction, or that he
+believed that the impression produced by the sight of the unburied slain
+would dampen the ardor of the army for battle and inspire them with fear
+of the enemy. He also said that "A general invested with the office of
+augur and the most ancient religious functions ought not to have put his
+hand to the ceremonies of the dead."
+
+Arminius, retiring into pathless places, was pursued by Germanicus, who,
+as soon as he reached him, commanded the horse to advance and dislodge
+the enemy from the post he had possessed. Arminius, having directed his
+men to keep close together and draw near to the wood, wheeled suddenly
+about, and to those whom he had hid in the forest gave the signal to
+rush out. Then the Roman horse were thrown into disorder by the assault
+of a new army, and the cohorts sent out to support them, broken in upon
+by the body of troops that fled, had augmented the consternation, and
+were now being pushed into the morass--a place well known to the
+pursuers, but dangerous to those unacquainted with it--had not
+Germanicus drawn out the legions in order of battle. Hence the enemy
+became terrified, our men reanimated, and both retired without advantage
+on either side. Germanicus, soon after, returning with the army to the
+Amisia, reconducted the legions, as he had brought them, in the fleet;
+part of the horse were ordered to march along the sea-shore to the
+Rhine. Caecina, who led his own men, was warned that, though he was to
+return through well-known roads, yet he should with all speed pass the
+causeway called the Long Bridges. It is a narrow causeway, between vast
+marshes, and formerly raised by Lucius Domitius. The rest of the country
+is of a moist nature, either tough and sticky from a heavy kind of clay
+or dangerous from the streams which intersect it. Round about are woods
+which rise gently from the plain, which at that time were filled with
+soldiers by Arminius, who, by short cuts and quick marching, had arrived
+there before our men, who were loaded with arms and baggage. Caecina, who
+was perplexed how at once to repair the causeway decayed by time and to
+repulse the foe, resolved to encamp in the place, that while some were
+employed in the work, others might begin the fight.
+
+The barbarians, having made a vigorous effort to break through the
+outposts and fall upon those employed in the works, harass the troops,
+march round them, and throw themselves in their way. A mingled shout
+arose from the workmen and the combatants; all things equally combined
+to distress the Romans--the place deep with ooze, sinking under those
+who stood, slippery to such as advanced; their bodies were encumbered
+with their coats of mail, nor could they hurl their javelins in the
+midst of water. The Cheruscans, on the contrary, were inured to
+encounters in the bogs: their persons tall; their spears long, so as to
+wound at a distance. At last the legions, already giving way, were saved
+from defeat by the approach of night; the Germans not feeling fatigue on
+account of their success, without refreshing themselves with sleep, even
+then diverted all the courses of the springs which rise in the
+neighboring mountains into the plains; thus the ground being flooded,
+and the work, as far as they had carried it, overturned, the soldiers
+had all to do over again. Caecina, who had served forty years, either
+under others or in command, was experienced in the vicissitudes of war,
+prosperous or disastrous, and thence undaunted. Weighing, therefore, all
+probabilities, he could devise no other expedient than that of
+restraining the enemy to the wood until he had sent forward all the
+wounded and baggage; for between the mountains and the marshes there
+stretched a plain large enough to admit a small army. To this purpose
+the legions selected were: The Fifth, for the right wing, and
+Twenty-first, for the left; the soldiers of the First legion to lead the
+van of the Twentieth to oppose the pursuers.
+
+It was a restless night to both armies, but from different causes. The
+barbarians, with festive carousals, songs of triumph, or horrid cries,
+filled the vales below and echoing wood. Among the Romans were feeble
+fires, low broken murmurs; they leaned, drooping here and there, against
+the pales, or wandered about the tents, more like men wanting sleep than
+quite awake. The general, too, was alarmed by direful visions during his
+sleep; he thought he heard, and saw, Quintilius Varus, rising out of the
+marsh, all besmeared with blood, stretching forth his hand and calling
+upon him, but that he rejected the call, and pushed back his hand as he
+held it toward him. At break of day the legions, posted on the wings,
+whether from perverseness or fear, deserted their post and took sudden
+possession of a field beyond the bogs; neither did Arminius fall
+straight upon them, though they lay open to assault; but when the
+baggage was set fast in the mire and ditches, the soldiers about it in
+disorder, the order of the standards confounded, and--as usual at such a
+time--each man acting hastily for himself, when the ears are slow to
+catch the word of command, he then commanded his Germans to charge,
+exclaiming vehemently, "Behold! Varus and his legions again subdued by
+the same fate!" Thus he cried, and instantly, with a select body, broke
+through the mass, and chiefly against the horse directed his weapons.
+Floundering in their own blood and the slippery soil of the marsh, they
+threw their riders, overturned all they met, and trampled on those that
+were on the ground. The greatest distress was around the eagles, which
+could neither be carried against a shower of darts nor be planted in the
+slimy ground. Caecina, while he sustained the fight, had his horse shot
+and, having fallen, would have been overpowered had not the First legion
+come up to succor him. Our relief came from the greediness of the enemy,
+who ceased slaying, to seize the spoil. And the legions, as the day
+closed in, by great exertion got into the open and firm ground. Nor was
+this the end of their miseries; a palisade was to be raised, an
+intrenchment digged; their instruments, too, for throwing up and
+carrying earth, and their tools for cutting turf, were almost all lost.
+No tents for the soldiers; no remedies for the wounded. While dividing
+among them their food, defiled with mire or blood, they lamented that
+mournful night; they lamented the approaching day, to so many thousand
+men the last.
+
+It happened that a horse which had broken his fastenings and, as he
+strayed about, become frightened by a noise, had run over some that were
+in his way. This raised such a consternation in the camp--from a
+persuasion that the Germans had forced an entrance--that all rushed to
+the gates, especially to the postern,[19] as the farthest from the foe
+and safer for flight. Caecina having ascertained that there was no cause
+for alarm, but unable to stop them or hold them back, either by his
+authority or prayers or even by force, prostrated himself on the
+threshold of the gate; and thus at length by appealing to their
+humanity--for if they proceeded it must be over the body of the
+general--he blocked the passage, and the tribunes and centurions
+satisfied them the while that it was a false alarm.
+
+Then assembling them in the court, and desiring them to hear him with
+silence, he warned them of their difficulties, and their duty under
+them: "That their sole hope of safety was in their valor, but that must
+be guided by counsel; that they must keep close within their camp till
+the enemy, in hopes of taking it by storm, came up nearer to them; then
+make a sudden sally on every side, that by this sally they might make
+good their way to the Rhine; but if they fled, more forests, deeper
+marshes, and the fierce attack of the foe still remained to them; but
+that if they conquered, honor and renown awaited them." He reminded them
+of all that was dear to them at home, and the rewards to be obtained in
+the camp, but suppressed all mention of defeat. He next distributed
+horses, first his own, then those of the tribunes and leaders of the
+legions, to all the bravest warriors, without any flattery, that these
+first, and afterward the infantry, might charge the enemy.
+
+The Germans were in no less agitation from hope, eagerness, and the
+opposite counsels of their leaders. Arminius proposed "To let them march
+out, and to beset them again in their way when they got into marshes and
+difficult passes." Inguiomer advised measures more resolute and
+acceptable to barbarians--"To invest the camp; it would be quickly
+captured; there would be more captives, and the plunder uninjured." As
+soon therefore as it was light, they level the ditch, cast hurdles into
+it, attempt to scale the palisade, there being but few men on the
+rampart, and those who were, standing as if paralyzed by fear. But when
+they were hampered in the fortifications, the signal was given to the
+cohorts; the cornets and trumpets sounded at once, and instantly,
+shouting and charging, they poured down upon their rear, telling them
+tauntingly "that there were no thickets, no marshes, but equal chances
+in a fair field." The enemy, expecting an easy conquest, and that the
+Romans were few and half-armed, were overpowered with the sounds of
+trumpets and glitter of arms, which were then magnified in proportion as
+they were unexpected; and they fell like men who, as they are void of
+moderation in prosperity, are also destitute of conduct in distress.
+Arminius fled from the fight unhurt, Inguiomer severely wounded. The men
+were slaughtered as long as day and rage lasted. At length, at night,
+the legions returned, and though distressed by the same want of
+provisions and more wounds, yet in victory they found all
+things--health, vigor, and abundance.
+
+Meanwhile a report had spread that an army was cut off, and a body of
+Germans on full march to invade Gaul; so that, under the terror of this
+news, there were those whose cowardice would have emboldened them to
+demolish the bridge upon the Rhine, had not Agrippina forbidden the
+infamous attempt. This high-minded woman took upon herself all the
+duties of a general, and distributed to the soldiers, gratuitously,
+medicines and clothes, according as anyone was in want or wounded. Caius
+Plinius, the writer of the German wars, relates that she stood at the
+head of the bridge as the legions returned, and bestowed on them thanks
+and praises; a behavior which sunk deep into the heart of Tiberius, for
+these attentions he thought were not disinterested; nor was it against
+foreigners she sought to win the army; for nothing was now left the
+generals to do, when a woman paid her visits of inspection to the
+companies, attended the standards, and presumed to distribute largesses;
+as if before she had shown but small tokens of ambitious designs in
+carrying her child (the son of the general) in a soldier's uniform
+about the camp and desiring that he be styled Caesar Caligula.
+Already Agrippina was in greater credit with the army than the
+lieutenants-general, or even the generals--a woman had suppressed a
+sedition which the authority of the Emperor was not able to restrain.
+These jealousies were inflamed and ministered to by Sejanus, who was
+well acquainted with the temper of Tiberius, and supplied him with
+materials for hatred, prospectively, that he might treasure them up in
+his heart and draw them out augmented in bitterness.
+
+Germanicus handed over the Second and Fourteenth of the legions, which
+he had brought in ships, to Publius Vitellius to conduct them by land,
+that his fleet, thus lightened, might sail on the shoally sea, or run
+aground with safety when the tide ebbed. Vitellius at first marched
+without interruption while the ground was dry or the tide flowed within
+bounds. Presently the ocean beginning to swell by the action of the
+northwest wind upon it, and also by the influence of the equinoxial
+constellation--at which season the sea swells most--the troops were
+miserably harassed and driven about. The lands were completely
+inundated; the sea, the shore, the fields, had one uniform face: no
+distinction of depths from shallows, of firm from treacherous footing;
+they were overturned by billows, absorbed by the eddies; beasts of
+burden, baggage, and dead bodies floated among them and came in contact
+with them. The several companies were mixed at random, wading now breast
+high, now up to their chin; sometimes, the ground failing them, they
+fell, some never more to rise. Their cries and mutual encouragements
+availed them nothing; the noise of the water drowning them; no
+difference between the coward and the brave, the wise and the foolish;
+none between circumspection and hap-hazard, but all were involved in the
+sweeping torrent. Vitellius at length, having by great exertion gained
+the higher ground, withdrew the legions thither, where they passed the
+night without fire and without food, many of them naked or lamed, not
+less miserable than men enclosed by an enemy--for even such had the
+resource of an honorable death, while these must perish ingloriously.
+Daylight restored the land, and they marched to the river Unsingis,
+whither Germanicus had gone with the fleet. The legions were then
+embarked, while rumor reported that they were sunk; nor was their escape
+believed until Germanicus and the army were seen to return.
+
+Stertinius, who had been sent before to receive the submission of
+Sigimer, the brother of Segestes, had now brought him and his son to the
+city of the Ubians; both were pardoned, the father promptly, the son
+with more hesitation, because he was said to have insulted the corpse of
+Varus. For the rest, Spain, Italy, and the Gauls vied in supplying the
+losses of the army, offering arms, horses, money, whatever each had at
+hand. Germanicus, applauding their zeal, accepted only the horses and
+arms for the war; with his own money he assisted the soldiers; and, to
+soften by kindness also the memory of the late disaster, he visited the
+wounded, extolled the exploits of individuals, and, looking at their
+wounds, with hopes encouraged some, with a sense of glory animated
+others, and by affability and attention confirmed them all in devotion
+to himself and to his service. Between the Romans and the Cheruscans
+flowed the river Visurgis. On its bank stood Arminius, with the other
+chiefs, inquiring whether Germanicus was come; and being answered that
+he was there, he prayed leave to speak with his brother. This brother of
+his was in the army, his name Flavius, remarkable for his fidelity, and
+for the loss of an eye under Tiberius. Permission was then granted.
+Flavius, advancing, was saluted by Arminius, who having removed his own
+attendants, requested that the archers ranged upon our bank might
+retire. When they were gone--"How came you," he asked his brother, "by
+that deformity in your face?" The brother having informed him where and
+in what fight, he desired to know "what reward he had received"? Flavius
+answered, "Increase of pay, the chain, the crown, and other military
+gifts"; which Arminius treated with derision, as the vile wages of
+servitude.
+
+After that they began in different strains. Flavius urged "the Roman
+greatness, the power of Caesar, the severe punishment inflicted on the
+vanquished; and the clemency vouchsafed to those who submitted; that
+neither the wife nor son of Arminius was treated as a captive." Arminius
+to this opposed "the claims of country, their hereditary liberty, the
+domestic gods of Germany; their mother, who joined in his prayer that he
+would not prefer the character of a deserter, and a betrayer of his
+kinsmen and connections, in short, of his race, to that of their
+general." From this they gradually proceeded to invectives; nor would
+the interposition of the river have restrained them from an encounter,
+had not Stertinius, running to him, held back Flavius, full of rage and
+calling for his arms and his horse. On the opposite side was seen
+Arminius, menacing furiously and proclaiming battle. For most of what he
+said in this dialogue was in Latin, having, as the general of his
+countrymen, served in the Roman camp.
+
+Next day the German army stood in order of battle beyond the Visurgis.
+Germanicus, who thought it became not a general to endanger the legions
+in the passage without bridges and guards, made the horse ford over.
+They were led by Stertinius and AEmilius, one of the principal
+centurions, who entered the river at distant places to divide the
+attention of the foe. Cariovalda, captain of the Batavians, dashed
+through where the stream was most rapid, and was by the Cheruscans--who
+feigned flight--drawn into a plain surrounded by woods. Then starting up
+at once, and pouring upon him on every side, they overthrew those who
+resisted, and pressed after those who gave way, who at length, forming
+themselves into a circle, were assailed by some hand-to-hand, by others
+were annoyed by missiles. Cariovalda, having long sustained the fury of
+the enemy, exhorted his men to break through the assailing bands in a
+solid body; he himself charged into the thickest, and fell under a
+shower of darts--his horse also being killed--and many nobles fell
+around him. The rest were saved by their own bravery, or by the cavalry
+under Stertinius and AEmilius, which came up to their assistance.
+
+Germanicus, having passed the Visurgis, learned from a deserter that
+Arminius had marked out the place of battle; that more tribes also had
+joined him at a wood sacred to Hercules, and would attempt to storm our
+camp by night. The deserter was believed, the enemy's fires were in
+view, and the scouts, having advanced toward them, reported that they
+heard the neighing of horses and the murmur of a mighty and tumultuous
+host. Being thus upon the eve of a decisive battle, Germanicus thought
+it behooved him to learn the sentiments of the soldiers, and deliberated
+with himself how to get at the truth; "the reports of the tribunes and
+centurions were oftener agreeable than true; the freedmen had servile
+spirits; friends were apt to flatter; if an assembly were called, there,
+too, the counsel proposed by a few was carried by the clamorous plaudits
+of the rest. The minds of soldiers could, then, only be thoroughly known
+when, by themselves, free from all restraint, and over their mess, they
+gave unreserved utterance to their hopes and fears."
+
+At nightfall, taking the path leading by the place of divination,[20] he
+went out with a single attendant, a deerskin covering his shoulders,[21]
+and proceeding by a secret way where there were no sentinels, entered
+the avenues of the camp, stationed himself near the tents, and eagerly
+listened to what was said of himself, while one magnified the imperial
+birth of his general, another his graceful person, very many his
+firmness, condescension, and the evenness of his temper, whether
+seriously occupied or in moments of relaxation; and they confessed that
+their sense of his merits should be shown in battle, protesting at the
+same time that those traitors and violators of peace should be made a
+sacrifice to vengeance and to fame. In the mean time one of the enemy
+who understood Latin rode up to the palisades, and with a loud voice
+offered, in the name of Arminius, to every deserter a wife and land,
+and, as long as the war lasted, a hundred sesterces a day. This affront
+kindled the wrath of the legions. "Let day come," they cried, "battle
+should be given, the soldiers would themselves take the lands of the
+Germans, lead away wives by right of conquest; they, however, welcomed
+the omen, and considered the wealth and women of the enemy their
+destined prey." About the third watch[22] an attempt was made upon the
+camp, but not a dart was discharged, as they found the cohorts planted
+thick upon the works, and nothing neglected that was necessary for a
+vigorous defence.
+
+Germanicus had the same night a cheering dream: he thought he
+sacrificed, and, in place of his own robe besmeared with the blood of
+the victim, received one fairer from the hands of his grandmother
+Augusta. Elated by the omen, and the auspices being favorable, he called
+an assembly, and laid before them what in his judgment seemed likely to
+be advantageous and suitable for the impending battle. He said "that to
+the Roman soldiers not only plains, but, with due circumspection, even
+woods and forests were convenient. The huge targets, the enormous spears
+of the barbarians, could never be wielded among trunks of trees and
+thickets of underwood shooting up from the ground like Roman swords and
+javelins, and armor fitting the body; that they should reiterate their
+blows, and aim at the face with their swords. The Germans had neither
+helmet nor coat of mail; their bucklers were not even strengthened with
+leather or iron, but mere contextures of twigs, and boards of no
+substance flourished over with paint; their first rank was armed with
+pikes, in some sort, the rest had only stakes burned at the end, or
+short darts. And now to come to their persons, as they were terrific to
+sight, and vigorous enough for a brief effort, so they were utterly
+impatient of wounds; unaffected with shame for misconduct, and destitute
+of respect for their generals. They would quit their posts or run away
+before the enemy; cowards in adversity, in prosperity despisers of all
+divine, of all human laws; if weary of marches and sea voyages, they
+wished an end of these things, by this battle it was presented to them.
+The Elbe was now nearer than the Rhine; there was nothing to subdue
+beyond this; they had only to place him, crowned with victory, in the
+same country which had witnessed the triumphs of his father and uncle,
+in whose footsteps he was treading." The ardor of the soldiers was
+kindled by this speech of the general, and the signal for the onset was
+given.
+
+Neither did Arminius or the other chiefs neglect solemnly to assure
+their several bands that "these were Romans; the most desperate
+fugitives of the Varian army, who, to avoid the hardships of war, had
+put on the character of rebels; who, without any hope of success, were
+again braving the angry gods, and exposing to their exasperated foes,
+some of them backs burdened with wounds, others limbs enfeebled with the
+effects of storms and tempests. Their motive for having recourse to a
+fleet and the pathless regions of the ocean was that no one might oppose
+them as they approached or pursue them when repulsed; but when they
+engaged hand-to-hand, vain would be the help of winds and oars after a
+defeat. The Germans needed only remember their rapine, cruelty, and
+pride; was any other course left them than to maintain their liberty,
+and, if they could not do that, to die before they took a yoke upon
+them?"
+
+The enemy thus inflamed, and calling for battle, were led into a plain
+called Idistavisus. It lies between the Visurgis and the hills, and
+winds irregularly along, as it is encroached upon by the projecting
+bases of the mountains or enlarged by the receding banks of the river.
+At their rear rose a majestic forest, the branches of the trees shooting
+up into the air, but the ground clear between their trunks. The army of
+barbarians occupied the plain and the entrances of the forest; the
+Cheruscans alone sat in ambush upon the mountain, in order to pour down
+from thence upon the Romans when engaged in the fight. Our army marched
+thus: the auxiliary Gauls and Germans in front, after them the foot
+archers, next four legions, and then Germanicus with two praetorian
+cohorts and the choice of the cavalry; then four legions more, and the
+light foot with the mounted archers, and the other cohorts of the
+allies; the men were on the alert and in readiness, so that the order of
+march might form the order of battle when they halted.
+
+As the bands of Cheruscans who had impatiently rushed forward were now
+perceived, Germanicus commanded the most efficient of his horse to
+charge them in the flank, and Stertinius with the rest to wheel round to
+attack them in the rear, and promised to be ready to assist them at the
+proper moment. Meanwhile an omen of happiest import appeared; eight
+eagles, seen to fly toward the wood and to enter it, caught the eye of
+the general. "Advance!" he cried, "follow the Roman birds; follow the
+tutelar deities of the legions!"
+
+At once the foot charged, and the cavalry sent forward attacked their
+flank and rear, and, strange to relate, the two divisions of their army
+fled opposite ways; that in the wood ran to the plain, that in the plain
+rushed into the wood. The Cheruscans between both were driven from the
+hills; among them Arminius formed a conspicuous object, while with his
+hand, his voice, and the exhibition of his wounds he strove to sustain
+the fight. He had vigorously assaulted the archers, and would have
+broken through them had not the cohorts of the Rhaetians, the
+Vindelicians, and the Gauls advanced to oppose him. However, by his own
+personal effort and the impetus of his horse he made good his passage,
+his face besmeared with his own blood to avoid being known. Some have
+related that the Chaucians, who were among the Roman auxiliaries, knew
+him and let him go; the same bravery or stratagem procured Inguiomer his
+escape; the rest were slain on all hands; great numbers attempting to
+swim the Visurgis perished either by the darts showered after them or
+the violence of the current, or, if they escaped these, they were
+overwhelmed by the weight of the rushing crowd and the banks which fell
+upon them. Some, seeking an ignominious refuge, climbed to the tops of
+trees, and, concealing themselves among the branches, were shot in
+sport by the archers, who were brought up for the purpose; others were
+dashed against the ground as the trees were felled. This was a great
+victory, and withal achieved without loss on our side.
+
+This slaughter of the foe, from the fifth hour[23] of the day until
+night, filled the country for ten miles with carcasses and arms. Among
+the spoils, chains were found, which, sure of conquering, they had
+brought to bind the Roman captives. The soldiers saluted Tiberius as
+"Imperator"[24] upon the field of battle, and, raising a mount, placed
+upon it, after the manner of trophies, the German arms, with the names
+of all the vanquished nations inscribed below.
+
+This sight filled the Germans with more anguish and rage than all their
+wounds, afflictions, and overthrows. They, who were just now prepared to
+abandon their dwellings and retire beyond the Elbe, meditate war and
+grasp their arms; people, nobles, youth, aged, all rush suddenly upon
+the Roman army in its march and disorder it. Lastly, they chose a
+position shut in by a river and a forest, the inner space being a
+confined and humid plain; the forest, too, surrounded with a deep marsh,
+except that the Angrivarii had elevated one side by erecting a broad
+mound to part them and the Cheruscans. Here their foot were posted;
+their horse were concealed among the neighboring groves, that they might
+be on the rear of the legions when they had entered the wood.
+
+Nothing of all this was a secret to Germanicus. He knew their counsels,
+their stations, their overt movements and their concealed measures; and
+turned their subtlety to the destruction of themselves. To Seius Tubero,
+his lieutenant, he committed the horse and the plain; the infantry he
+so formed that part might pass the level approaches into the wood, and
+the rest force their way up the rampart; whatever was arduous he
+reserved to himself, the rest he committed to his lieutenants. Those who
+had the even ground to traverse easily forced an entrance; but they who
+were to storm the rampart were battered from above, as if they had been
+assaulting a wall. The general perceived the inequality of this close
+encounter, and, drawing off the legions a small distance, ordered the
+slingers and engineers to discharge their missiles and dislodge the
+enemy. Immediately darts were poured from the engines, and the defenders
+of the barrier, the more conspicuous they were, with the more wounds
+were beaten down. Germanicus, having taken the rampart, first forced his
+way at the head of the praetorian cohorts into the wood, and there
+fought, foot-to-foot. Behind the enemy was the morass, behind the Romans
+the mountains or the river; no room for either to retreat, no hope but
+in valor, no safety but in victory.
+
+The Germans were not inferior in courage, but in their method of
+fighting and the nature of their arms; as their vast numbers, hampered
+in narrow places, could not push forward, nor recover their immense
+spears, nor practise their usual assaults and rapid motions, being
+compelled by their crowded condition to adopt a stationary manner of
+fighting. On the contrary, our soldiers, with shields fitted to their
+breasts, and their hands firmly grasping their sword hilts, could gash
+the brawny limbs and naked faces of the barbarians, and open themselves
+a way with havoc to the enemy. Besides, the activity of Arminius now
+failed him, being either exhausted by a succession of disasters or
+disabled by his recent wound. Nay, Inguiomer, too, who flew from place
+to place throughout the battle, was abandoned by fortune rather than
+courage. Germanicus, to be the easier known, pulled off his helmet, and
+exhorted his men "to prosecute the slaughter; they wanted no captives,"
+he said; "the extermination of the people alone would put an end to the
+war!" It was now late in the day and he drew off a legion to pitch a
+camp; the rest glutted themselves till night with the blood of the foe;
+the horse fought with doubtful success.
+
+Germanicus, having in a public harangue praised his victorious troops,
+raised a pile of arms with this proud inscription: "That the army of
+Tiberius Caesar, having subdued the nations between the Rhine and the
+Elbe, had consecrated these memorials to Mars, to Jupiter, and to
+Augustus." Of himself he made no mention; either fearful of provoking
+envy or that he felt satisfied with the consciousness of his own merit.
+He next charged Stertinius with the war among the Angrivarians, and he
+would have proceeded had they not made haste to submit; approaching as
+supplicants, and making a full confession of their guilt, they received
+pardon without reserve.
+
+The summer being now far advanced, some of the legions were sent back
+into winter quarters by land; the greater part Caesar put on board the
+fleet and conveyed them along the Amisia to the ocean. The sea, at first
+serene, resounded only with the oars of a thousand ships or their
+impulse when under sail; but presently a shower of hail poured down from
+a black mass of clouds; at the same time storms raging on all sides in
+every variety, the billows rolling now here, now there, obstructed the
+view and made it impossible to manage the ships. The soldiers, too,
+unaccustomed to the perils of the sea, in their alarm embarrassed the
+mariners, or, helping them awkwardly, rendered unavailing the services
+of the skilful. After this, the whole expanse of air and sea was swept
+by a southwest wind, which, deriving strength from the mountainous
+regions of Germany, its deep rivers, and boundless tract of clouded
+atmosphere, and rendered still harsher by the rigor of the neighboring
+north, tore away the ships, scattered and drove them into the open
+ocean, or upon islands, dangerous from precipitous rocks or the hidden
+sand-banks which beset them. Having got a little clear of these (but
+with great difficulty), the tide turned, and, flowing in the same
+direction as that in which the wind blew, they were unable to ride at
+anchor or bale out the water that broke in upon them. Horses, beasts of
+burden, baggage, even arms, were thrown overboard to lighten the holds
+of the vessels, which took in water at their sides and from the waves
+running over them. Around them were either shores inhabited by enemies
+or a sea so vast and unfathomable as to be supposed to be the limit of
+the world and unbounded by any land. Part of the fleet was swallowed
+up; many ships were driven upon remote islands where, without a trace of
+civilized humanity, the men perished through famine, or were kept alive
+by the carcasses of horses that were dashed upon the same shore. The
+galley of Germanicus alone reached the coast of the Chaucians[25] where,
+during the whole period of his stay, both day and night, amid the rocks
+and prominences of the shore, he reproached himself as being the author
+of such overwhelming destruction, and was hardly restrained by his
+friends from destroying himself in the sea. At last, with the returning
+tide and favoring gale, the shattered ships returned--almost all
+destitute of oars, or with garments spread for sails, and some towed by
+those which were less disabled. He repaired them hastily, and despatched
+them to search the islands. By this diligence the greater part were
+recovered; many were by the Angrivarians (our new subjects) redeemed
+from their more inland neighbors and restored; and some, driven into
+Great Britain, were sent back by the petty kings. Each according to the
+remoteness of the region he had returned from recounted the wonders he
+had witnessed: "the impetuosity of whirlwinds; strange birds; sea
+monsters of ambiguous form between man and beast"--things either seen or
+fancied from the effects of fear.
+
+Intelligence of this wreck animated the Germans with hopes of renewing
+the war, which Germanicus, perceiving, resolved to check. He commanded
+Caius Silius, with thirty thousand foot and three thousand horse, to
+march into the country of the Cattians; he himself, with a greater
+force, invaded the Marsians, where he learned from Malovendus, their
+general--lately taken into our subjection--that the eagle of one of
+Varus' legions was hidden underground in a neighboring grove kept by a
+slender guard. Instantly two parties were despatched: one to face the
+enemy and draw him from his position, the other to march around upon the
+rear and open the ground. Success attended both. Hence Germanicus,
+advancing toward the interior with greater alacrity, laid waste the
+country and destroyed the effects of the late disaster. The foe,
+wherever they engaged, were instantly defeated; nor (as was learned from
+the prisoners) were they ever more dismayed. "The Romans," they
+exclaimed, "are invincible; no calamities can subdue them; they have
+wrecked their fleet, their arms are lost, our shores are covered with
+the bodies of their horses and men; and yet they have invaded us with
+their usual spirit, with the same firmness, and as if their numbers were
+increased."
+
+The army was thence led back into winter quarters, full of joy to have
+balanced, by this prosperous expedition, their misfortunes at sea; and
+by the bounty of Germanicus their happiness was increased; since to each
+sufferer he paid as much as he declared he had lost; neither was it
+doubted but that the enemy was tottering and concerting measures for
+obtaining peace, and that the next summer would terminate the war.
+Tiberius, by frequent letters, pressed him "to come home to the triumph
+decreed him." He urged also that he had experienced enough of events and
+casualties; he had indeed fought great and successful battles, but he
+must likewise remember his losses and calamities, which (however, owing
+to wind and waves, and no fault of the general) were yet great and
+grievous. He himself had been sent nine times into Germany by Augustus,
+and effected much more by policy than arms. It was thus he had brought
+the Sygambrians into subjection, thus the Suevians, thus King Maroboduus
+had been obliged to submit to terms. The Cheruscans, too, and the other
+hostile nations--now the Roman honor was vindicated--might be left to
+pursue their own intestine feuds. Germanicus besought one year to
+accomplish his conquest, but Tiberius assailed his modesty with fresh
+importunity, by offering him another consulship, the duties of which
+would require his presence; he added "that if the war were still to be
+prosecuted, he should leave materials for the fame of his brother,
+Drusus, who, as there then remained no other enemy, could acquire the
+title of _Imperator_, and earn the privilege of presenting the laurel in
+Germany alone." Germanicus persisted no longer; though he knew that this
+was all hypocrisy, and that through envy he was torn away from a ripened
+harvest of glory.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[19] There were four gates to a Roman camp. Livy says so in express
+terms: "_Ad quatuor portas exercitum instruxit, ut, signo dato, ex
+omnibus portubus eruptionem facerent._" The several gates were the
+_praetorian_; the gate opposite to it, at the extremity of the camp,
+called the _decuman_; and two others, called the _right_ and _left
+principals_, because they stood on the right and left sides of the camp,
+fronting the street called _Principia_.
+
+[20] In the camp a place was set apart for taking the auspices, on the
+right of the general's tent.
+
+[21] He assumed this disguise in order to appear like a German soldier.
+
+[22] The Romans divided the night into four watches. Each watch was on
+duty three hours, and then relieved by the next in turn. The third watch
+began about the modern twelve at night.
+
+[23] It appears that the battle was fought in July or the beginning of
+August, _adulta jam aestate_. If so, the _fifth_ hour nearly agrees with
+our nine in the morning.
+
+[24] In the time of the republic, the title of Imperator was given by
+the soldiers in the field of battle to the commander-in-chief. The
+custom ceased under Augustus, who annexed the title to the imperial
+dignity, the prince being then generalissimo of all the armies of the
+empire. The name of Imperator, it is true, was afterward given to the
+general who gained a victory; but that was not done without the special
+permission of the prince. The same rule was observed under the following
+emperors; and accordingly we find that Tiberius was saluted Imperator;
+but the soldiers did not presume to do that honor to Germanicus.
+
+[25] The mouth of the Visurgis, or the Weser.
+
+
+
+
+THE CRUCIFIXION
+
+A.D. 30[26]
+
+FREDERIC WILLIAM FARRAR
+
+     The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ took place on Friday of the
+     Passover week of the Jews, in the year A.D. 30. This day is known
+     and now generally observed by Christians as Good Friday.
+     Crucifixion, as a means of inflicting death in the most cruel,
+     lingering, and shameful way, was used by many nations of antiquity.
+     The Jews never executed their criminals in this way, but the Greeks
+     and Romans made the cross the instrument of death to malefactors.
+     The cross was in the shape either of the letter T or the letter X,
+     or was in the form familiar in such paintings of the Crucifixion as
+     the well-known representation of Rubens. It was the usual custom to
+     compel the criminal to carry his own cross to the place of
+     execution. The cross was then set up and the criminal was usually
+     tied to it by the hands and feet and left to perish of hunger and
+     thirst. Sometimes he was given a narcotic drink to stupefy him. In
+     the case of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ the victim was fastened
+     to the cross by nails driven through his hands and feet.
+
+     As Dr. Judson Titsworth has plainly pointed out, the men who were
+     crucified with Jesus Christ were not thieves, but robbers (this is
+     the term also used below by Farrar), or perhaps Jewish patriots, to
+     the Romans political rebels and outlaws. They would then be classed
+     with Jesus under the accusation that they were not loyal to the
+     sovereignty of the Roman Emperor. During the procuratorship of
+     Pontius Pilate there was a widely prevailing spirit of sedition and
+     revolt among the Jews, and many rebels were sentenced to
+     crucifixion. Such a rebel was the robber Barabbas, whom Pilate
+     wished to substitute for Jesus as the victim of popular fury. The
+     "robber" episode of the Crucifixion is treated by Farrar with a
+     picturesque effect which heightens the vivid coloring in his
+     account of the supreme event that marks "the central point of the
+     world's history."
+
+
+Utterly brutal and revolting as was the punishment of crucifixion, which
+has now for fifteen hundred years been abolished by the common pity and
+abhorrence of mankind, there was one custom in Judea, and one
+occasionally practised by the Romans, which reveal some touch of
+passing humanity. The latter consisted in giving to the sufferer a blow
+under the armpit, which, without causing death, yet hastened its
+approach. Of this I need not speak, because, for whatever reason, it was
+not practised on this occasion. The former, which seems to have been due
+to the milder nature of Judaism, and which was derived from a happy
+piece of rabbinic exegesis on Prov. xxxi. 6, consisted in giving to the
+condemned, immediately before his execution, a draught of wine medicated
+with some powerful opiate. It had been the custom of wealthy ladies in
+Jerusalem to provide this stupefying potion at their own expense, and
+they did so quite irrespectively of their sympathy for any individual
+criminal. It was probably taken freely by the two malefactors, but when
+they offered it to Jesus he would not take it. The refusal was an act of
+sublimest heroism. The effect of the draught was to dull the nerves, to
+cloud the intellect, to provide an anaesthetic against some part at least
+of the lingering agonies of that dreadful death. But he, whom some
+modern sceptics have been base enough to accuse of feminine feebleness
+and cowardly despair, preferred rather "to look Death in the face"--to
+meet the king of terrors without striving to deaden the force of one
+agonizing anticipation, or to still the throbbing of one lacerated
+nerve.
+
+The three crosses were laid on the ground--that of Jesus, which was
+doubtless taller than the other two, being placed in bitter scorn in the
+midst. Perhaps the cross-beam was now nailed to the upright, and
+certainly the title, which had either been borne by Jesus fastened round
+his neck or carried by one of the soldiers in front of him, was now
+nailed to the summit of his cross. Then he was stripped naked of all his
+clothes, and then followed the most awful moment of all. He was laid
+down upon the implement of torture. His arms were stretched along the
+cross-beams; and at the centre of the open palms the point of a huge
+iron nail was placed, which, by the blow of a mallet, was driven home
+into the wood. Then through either foot separately, or possibly through
+both together as they were placed one over the other, another huge nail
+tore its way through the quivering flesh. Whether the sufferer was
+_also_ bound to the cross we do not know; but, to prevent the hands and
+feet being torn away by the weight of the body, which could not "rest
+upon nothing but four great wounds," there was, about the centre of the
+cross, a wooden projection strong enough to support, at least in part, a
+human body which soon became a weight of agony.
+
+It was probably at this moment of inconceivable horror that the voice of
+the Son of Man was heard uplifted, not in a scream of natural agony at
+that fearful torture, but calmly praying in divine compassion for his
+brutal and pitiless murderers--aye, and for all who in their sinful
+ignorance crucify him afresh forever: "Father, forgive them, for they
+know not what they do."
+
+And then the accursed tree--with its living human burden hanging upon it
+in helpless agony, and suffering fresh tortures as every movement
+irritated the fresh rents in hands and feet--was slowly heaved up by
+strong arms, and the end of it fixed firmly in a hole dug deep in the
+ground for that purpose. The feet were but a little raised above the
+earth. The victim was in full reach of every hand that might choose to
+strike, in close proximity to every gesture of insult and hatred. He
+might hang for hours to be abused, outraged, even tortured by the
+ever-moving multitude who, with that desire to see what is horrible
+which always characterizes the coarsest hearts, had thronged to gaze
+upon a sight which should rather have made them weep tears of blood.
+
+And there, in tortures which grew ever more insupportable, ever more
+maddening as time flowed on, the unhappy victims might linger in a
+living death so cruelly intolerable that often they were driven to
+entreat and implore the spectators or the executioners, for dear pity's
+sake, to put an end to anguish too awful for man to bear--conscious to
+the last, and often, with tears of abject misery, beseeching from their
+enemies the priceless boon of death.
+
+For indeed a death by crucifixion seems to include all that pain and
+death _can_ have of horrible and ghastly--dizziness, cramp, thirst,
+starvation, sleeplessness, traumatic fever, tetanus, publicity of shame,
+long continuance of torment, horror of anticipation, mortification of
+untended wounds--all intensified just up to the point at which they can
+be endured at all, but all stopping just short of the point which would
+give to the sufferer the relief of unconsciousness. The unnatural
+position made every movement painful; the lacerated veins and crushed
+tendons throbbed with incessant anguish; the wounds, inflamed by
+exposure, gradually gangrened; the arteries--especially of the head and
+stomach--became swollen and oppressed with surcharged blood; and while
+each variety of misery went on gradually increasing, there was added to
+them the intolerable pang of a burning and raging thirst; and all these
+physical complications caused an internal excitement and anxiety which
+made the prospect of death itself--of death, the awful unknown enemy, at
+whose approach man usually shudders most--bear the aspect of a delicious
+and exquisite release.
+
+Such was the death to which Christ was doomed; and though for him it was
+happily shortened by all that he had previously endured, yet he hung
+from soon after noon until nearly sunset before "he gave up his soul to
+death."
+
+When the cross was uplifted the leading Jews, for the first time,
+prominently noticed the deadly insult in which Pilate had vented his
+indignation. Before, in their blind rage, they had imagined that the
+manner of his crucifixion was an insult aimed at _Jesus_; but now that
+they saw him hanging between the two robbers, on a cross yet loftier, it
+suddenly flashed upon them that it was a public scorn inflicted upon
+_them_. For on the white wooden tablet smeared with gypsum, which was to
+be seen so conspicuously over the head of Jesus on the cross, ran, in
+black letters, an inscription in the three civilized languages of the
+ancient world--the three languages of which _one_ at least was certain
+to be known by every single man in that assembled multitude--in the
+official Latin, in the current Greek, in the vernacular
+Aramaic--informing all that this Man who was thus enduring a shameful,
+servile death--this Man thus crucified between two _sicarii_ in the
+sight of the world, was "THE KING OF THE JEWS."
+
+To him who was crucified the poor malice seemed to have in it nothing of
+derision. Even on his cross he reigned; even there he seemed divinely
+elevated above the priests who had brought about his death, and the
+coarse, idle, vulgar multitude who had flocked to feed their greedy eyes
+upon his sufferings. The malice was quite impotent against One whose
+spiritual and moral nobleness struck awe into dying malefactors and
+heathen executioners, even in the lowest abyss of his physical
+degradation. With the passionate ill-humor of the Roman governor there
+probably blended a vein of seriousness. While he was delighted to
+revenge himself on his detested subjects by an act of public insolence,
+he probably meant, or half meant, to imply that this _was_, in one
+sense, the King of the Jews--the greatest, the noblest, the truest of
+his race, whom therefore his race had crucified. The King was not
+unworthy of his kingdom, but the kingdom of the King. There was
+something loftier even than royalty in the glazing eyes which never
+ceased to look with sorrow on the City of Righteousness, which had now
+become a city of murderers. The Jews felt the intensity of the scorn
+with which Pilate had treated them. It so completely poisoned their hour
+of triumph that they sent their chief priests in deputation, begging the
+governor to alter the obnoxious title. "Write not," they said, "'The
+King of the Jews,' but that 'He _said_, I am the King of the Jews.'" But
+Pilate's courage, which had oozed away so rapidly at the name of Caesar,
+had now revived. He was glad in any and every way to browbeat and thwart
+the men whose seditious clamor had forced him in the morning to act
+against his will. Few men had the power of giving expression to a
+sovereign contempt more effectually than the Romans. Without deigning
+any justification of what he had done, Pilate summarily dismissed these
+solemn hierarchs with the curt and contemptuous reply, "What I have
+written I have written."
+
+In order to prevent the possibility of any rescue, even at the last
+moment--since instances had been known of men taken from the cross and
+restored to life--a quaternion of soldiers with their centurion were
+left on the ground to guard the cross. The clothes of the victims always
+fell as perquisites to the men who had to perform so weary and
+disagreeable an office. Little dreaming how exactly they were fulfilling
+the mystic intimations of olden Jewish prophecy, they proceeded,
+therefore, to divide between them the garments of Jesus. The _tallith_
+they tore into four parts, probably ripping it down the seams; but the
+_cetoneth_, or undergarment, was formed of one continuous woven texture,
+and to tear would have been to spoil it; they therefore contented
+themselves with letting it become the property of any one of the four to
+whom it should fall by lot. When this had been decided, they sat down
+and watched him till the end, beguiling the weary lingering hours by
+eating and drinking, and gibing, and playing dice.
+
+It was a scene of tumult. The great body of the people seem to have
+stood silently at gaze; but some few of them as they passed by the
+cross--perhaps some of the many false witnesses and other conspirators
+of the previous night--mocked at Jesus with insulting noises and furious
+taunts, especially bidding him come down from the cross and save
+himself, since he could destroy the Temple and build it in three days.
+And the chief priests, and scribes, and elders, less awe-struck, less
+compassionate than the mass of the people, were not ashamed to disgrace
+their gray-haired dignity and lofty reputation by adding their heartless
+reproaches to those of the evil few. Unrestrained by the noble patience
+of the sufferer, unsated by the accomplishment of their wicked
+vengeance, unmoved by the sight of helpless anguish and the look of eyes
+that began to glaze in death, they congratulated one another under his
+cross with scornful insolence: "He saved others, himself he cannot
+save;" "Let this Christ, this King of Israel, descend now from the
+cross, that we may see and believe." No wonder then that the ignorant
+soldiers took their share of mockery with these shameless and
+unvenerable hierarchs: no wonder that, at their midday meal, they
+pledged in mock hilarity the Dying Man, cruelly holding up toward his
+burning lips their cups of sour wine, and echoing the Jewish taunts
+against the weakness of the King whose throne was a cross, whose crown
+was thorns. Nay, even the poor wretches who were crucified with him
+caught the hideous infection; comrades, perhaps, of the respited
+Barabbas, heirs of the rebellious fury of a Judas the Gaulonite, trained
+to recognize no Messiah but a Messiah of the sword, they reproachfully
+bade him, if his claims were true, to save himself and them. So _all_
+the voices about him rang with blasphemy and spite, and in that long
+slow agony his dying ear caught no accent of gratitude, of pity, or of
+love. Baseness, falsehood, savagery, stupidity--such were the
+characteristics of the world which thrust itself into hideous prominence
+before the Saviour's last consciousness, such the muddy and miserable
+stream that rolled under the cross before his dying eyes.
+
+But amid this chorus of infamy Jesus spoke not. He _could_ have spoken.
+The pains of crucifixion did not confuse the intellect or paralyze the
+powers of speech. We read of crucified men who, for hours together upon
+the cross, vented their sorrow, their rage, or their despair in the
+manner that best accorded with their character; of some who raved and
+cursed, and spat at their enemies; of others who protested to the last
+against the iniquity of their sentence; of others who implored
+compassion with abject entreaties; of one even who, from the cross, as
+from a tribunal, harangued the multitude of his countrymen, and
+upbraided them with their wickedness and vice. But, except to bless and
+to encourage, and to add to the happiness and hope of others, Jesus
+spoke not. So far as the malice of the passers-by, and of priests and
+sanhedrists and soldiers, and of these poor robbers who suffered with
+him, was concerned--as before during the trial so now upon the cross--he
+maintained unbroken his kingly silence.
+
+But that silence, joined to his patient majesty and the divine holiness
+and innocence which radiated from him like a halo, was more eloquent
+than any words. It told earliest on one of the crucified robbers. At
+first this _bonus latro_ of the Apocryphal Gospels seems to have faintly
+joined in the reproaches uttered by his fellow-sinner; but when those
+reproaches merged into deeper blasphemy, he spoke out his inmost
+thought. It is probable that he had met Jesus before, and heard him, and
+perhaps been one of those thousands who had seen his miracles. There is
+indeed no authority for the legend which assigns to him the name of
+Dysmas, or for the beautiful story of his having saved the life of the
+Virgin and her Child during their flight into Egypt. But on the plains
+of Gennesareth, perhaps from some robber's cave in the wild ravines of
+the Valley of the Doves, he may well have approached his presence--he
+may well have been one of those publicans and sinners who drew near to
+him for to hear him. And the words of Jesus had found some room in the
+good ground of his heart; they had not all fallen upon stony places.
+Even at this hour of shame and death, when he was suffering the just
+consequence of his past evil deeds, faith triumphed. As a flame
+sometimes leaps up among dying embers, so amid the white ashes of a
+sinful life which lay so thick upon his heart, the flame of love toward
+his God and his Saviour was not quite quenched. Under the hellish
+outcries which had broken loose around the cross of Jesus there had lain
+a deep misgiving. Half of them seem to have been instigated by doubt and
+fear. Even in the self-congratulations of the priests we catch an
+undertone of dread. Suppose that even now some imposing miracle should
+be wrought! Suppose that even now that martyr-form should burst indeed
+into messianic splendor, and the King, who seemed to be in the slow
+misery of death, should suddenly with a great voice summon his legions
+of angels, and, springing from his cross upon the rolling clouds of
+heaven, come in flaming fire to take vengeance upon his enemies! And the
+air seemed to be full of signs. There was a gloom of gathering darkness
+in the sky, a thrill and tremor in the solid earth, a haunting presence
+as of ghostly visitants who chilled the heart and hovered in awful
+witness above that scene. The dying robber had joined at first in the
+half-taunting, half-despairing appeal to a defeat and weakness which
+contradicted all that he had hoped; but now this defeat seemed to be
+greater than victory, and this weakness more irresistible than strength.
+As he looked, the faith in his heart dawned more and more into the
+perfect day. He had long ceased to utter any reproachful words; he now
+rebuked his comrade's blasphemies. Ought not the suffering innocence of
+him who hung between them to shame into silence their just punishment
+and flagrant guilt? And so, turning his head to Jesus, he uttered the
+intense appeal, "O Jesus, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom."
+Then he, who had been mute amid invectives, spake at once in surpassing
+answer to that humble prayer, "Verily, I say to thee, to-day shalt thou
+be with me in Paradise."
+
+Though none spoke to comfort Jesus--though deep grief, and terror, and
+amazement kept them dumb--yet there were hearts amid the crowd that beat
+in sympathy with the awful sufferer. At a distance stood a number of
+women looking on, and perhaps, even at that dread hour, expecting his
+immediate deliverance. Many of these were women who had ministered to
+him in Galilee, and had come from thence in the great band of Galilean
+pilgrims. Conspicuous among this heart-stricken group were his mother
+Mary, Mary of Magdala, Mary the wife of Clopas, mother of James and
+Joses, and Salome the wife of Zebedee. Some of them, as the hours
+advanced, stole nearer and nearer to the cross, and at length the
+filming eye of the Saviour fell on his own mother Mary, as, with the
+sword piercing through and through her heart, she stood with the
+disciple whom he loved. His mother does not seem to have been much with
+him during his ministry. It may be that the duties and cares of a humble
+home rendered it impossible. At any rate, the only occasions on which we
+hear of her are occasions when she is with his brethren, and is joined
+with them in endeavoring to influence, apart from his own purposes and
+authority, his messianic course. But although at the very beginning of
+his ministry he had gently shown her that the earthly and filial
+relation was now to be transcended by one far more lofty and divine, and
+though this end of all her high hopes must have tried her faith with an
+overwhelming and unspeakable sorrow, yet she was true to him in this
+supreme hour of his humiliation, and would have done for him all that a
+mother's sympathy and love can do. Nor had he for a moment forgotten her
+who had bent over his infant slumbers, and with whom he had shared those
+thirty years in the cottage at Nazareth. Tenderly and sadly he thought
+of the future that awaited her during the remaining years of her life on
+earth, troubled as they must be by the tumults and persecutions of a
+struggling and nascent faith. After his resurrection her lot was wholly
+cast among his apostles, and the apostle whom he loved the most, the
+apostle who was nearest to him in heart and life, seemed the fittest to
+take care of her. To him, therefore--to John whom he had loved more than
+his brethren--to John whose head had leaned upon his breast at the Last
+Supper, he consigned her as a sacred charge. "Woman," he said to her, in
+fewest words, but in words which breathed the uttermost spirit of
+tenderness, "behold thy son;" and then to St. John, "Behold thy mother."
+He could make no gesture with those pierced hands, but he could bend his
+head. They listened in speechless emotion, but from that hour--perhaps
+from that very moment--leading her away from a spectacle which did but
+torture her soul with unavailing agony, that disciple took her to his
+own home.
+
+It was now noon, and at the Holy City the sunshine should have been
+burning over that scene of horror with a power such as it has in the
+full depth of an English summer-time. But instead of this, the face of
+the heavens was black, and the noonday sun was "turned into darkness,"
+on "this great and terrible day of the Lord." It could have been no
+darkness of any natural eclipse, for the Paschal moon was at the full;
+but it was one of those "signs from heaven" for which, during the
+ministry of Jesus, the Pharisees had so often clamored in vain. The
+early Fathers appealed to pagan authorities--the historian Phallus, the
+chronicler Phlegon--for such a darkness; but we have no means of testing
+the accuracy of these references, and it is quite possible that the
+darkness was a local gloom which hung densely over the guilty city and
+its immediate neighborhood. But whatever it was, it clearly filled the
+minds of all who beheld it with yet deeper misgiving. The taunts and
+jeers of the Jewish priests and the heathen soldiers were evidently
+confined to the earlier hours of the Crucifixion. Its later stages seem
+to have thrilled alike the guilty and the innocent with emotions of
+dread and horror. Of the incidents of those last three hours we are told
+nothing, and that awful obscuration of the noonday sun may well have
+overawed every heart into an inaction respecting which there was nothing
+to relate. What Jesus suffered _then_ for us men and our salvation we
+cannot know, for during those three hours he hung upon his cross in
+silence and darkness; or, if he spoke, there was none there to record
+his words. But toward the close of that time his anguish culminated,
+and, emptied to the very uttermost of that glory which he had since the
+world began, drinking to the very deepest dregs the cup of humiliation
+and bitterness, enduring not only to have taken upon him the form of a
+servant, but also to suffer the last infamy which human hatred could
+impose on servile helplessness, he uttered that mysterious cry, of which
+the full significance will never be fathomed by man: _Eli, Eli, lama
+Sabachthani?_ ("My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?")
+
+In those words, quoting the psalm in which the early Fathers rightly
+saw a far-off prophecy of the whole passion of Christ, he borrowed from
+David's utter agony the expression of his own. In that hour he was
+alone. Sinking from depth to depth of unfathomable suffering, until, at
+the close approach of a death which--because he was God, and yet had
+been made man--was more awful to him than it could ever be to any of the
+sons of men, it seemed as if even his divine humanity could endure no
+more.
+
+Doubtless the voice of the sufferer--though uttered loudly in that
+paroxysm of an emotion which, in another, would almost have touched the
+verge of despair--was yet rendered more uncertain and indistinct from
+the condition of exhaustion in which he hung; and so, amid the darkness,
+and confused noise, and dull footsteps of the moving multitude, there
+were some who did not hear what he had said. They had caught only the
+first syllable, and said to one another that he had called on the name
+of Elijah. The readiness with which they seized this false impression is
+another proof of the wild state of excitement and terror--the
+involuntary dread of something great and unforeseen and terrible--to
+which they had been reduced from their former savage insolence. For
+Elijah, the great prophet of the Old Covenant, was inextricably mingled
+with all the Jewish expectations of a Messiah, and these expectations
+were full of wrath. The coming of Elijah would be the coming of a day of
+fire, in which the sun should be turned into blackness and the moon into
+blood, and the powers of heaven should be shaken. Already the noonday
+sun was shrouded in unnatural eclipse; might not some awful form at any
+moment rend the heavens and come down, touch the mountains and they
+should smoke? The vague anticipation of conscious guilt was unfulfilled.
+Not such as yet was to be the method of God's workings. His messages to
+man for many ages more were not to be in the thunder and earthquake, not
+in rushing wind or roaring flame, but in the "still small voice"
+speaking always amid the apparent silences of Time in whispers
+intelligible to man's heart, but in which there is neither speech nor
+language, though the voice is heard.
+
+But now the end was very rapidly approaching, and Jesus, who had been
+hanging for nearly six hours upon the cross, was suffering from that
+torment of thirst which is most difficult of all for the human frame to
+bear--perhaps the most unmitigated of the many separate sources of
+anguish which were combined in this worst form of death. No doubt this
+burning thirst was aggravated by seeing the Roman soldiers drinking so
+near the cross; and happily for mankind, Jesus had never sanctioned the
+unnatural affectation of stoic impassibility. And so he uttered the one
+sole word of physical suffering which had been wrung from him by all the
+hours in which he had endured the extreme of all that man can inflict.
+He cried aloud, "I thirst." Probably a few hours before, the cry would
+have only provoked a roar of frantic mockery; but now the lookers-on
+were reduced by awe to a readier humanity. Near the cross there lay on
+the ground the large earthen vessel containing the _posca_, which was
+the ordinary drink of the Roman soldiers. The mouth of it was filled
+with a piece of sponge, which served as a cork. Instantly some one--we
+know not whether he was friend or enemy, or merely one who was there out
+of idle curiosity--took out the sponge and dipped it in the posca to
+give it to Jesus. But low as was the elevation of the cross, the head of
+the sufferer, as it rested on the horizontal beam of the accursed tree,
+was just beyond the man's reach; and therefore he put the sponge at the
+end of a stalk of hyssop--about a foot long--and held it up to the
+parched and dying lips. Even this simple act of pity, which Jesus did
+not refuse, seemed to jar upon the condition of nervous excitement with
+which some of the multitude were looking on. "Let be," they said to the
+man, "let us see whether Elias is coming to save him." The man did not
+desist from his act of mercy, but when it was done he, too, seems to
+have echoed those uneasy words. But Elias came not, nor human comforter,
+nor angel deliverer. It was the will of God, it was the will of the Son
+of God, that he should be "perfected through sufferings"; that--for the
+eternal example of all his children as long as the world should last--he
+should "endure unto the end."
+
+And now the end was come. Once more, in the words of the sweet Psalmist
+of Israel, but adding to them that title of trustful love which, through
+him, is permitted to the use of all mankind, "Father," he said, "into
+thy hands I commend my spirit." Then with one more great effort he
+uttered the last cry--"It is finished." It may be that that great cry
+ruptured some of the vessels of his heart, for no sooner had it been
+uttered than he bowed his head upon his breast and yielded his life, "a
+ransom for many"--a willing sacrifice to his Heavenly Father. "Finished
+was his holy life; with his life his struggle, with his struggle his
+work, with his work the redemption, with the redemption the foundation
+of the new world." At that moment the veil of the Temple was rent in
+twain from the top to the bottom. An earthquake shook the earth and
+split the rocks, and as it rolled away from their places the great
+stones which closed and covered the cavern sepulchres of the Jews, so it
+seemed to the imaginations of many to have disimprisoned the spirits of
+the dead, and to have filled the air with ghostly visitants, who after
+Christ had risen appeared to linger in the Holy City. These
+circumstances of amazement, joined to all they had observed in the
+bearing of the Crucified, cowed even the cruel and gay indifference of
+the Roman soldiers. On the centurion who was in command of them the
+whole scene had exercised a yet deeper influence. As he stood opposite
+to the cross and saw the Saviour die, he glorified God and exclaimed,
+"This Man was in truth righteous"--nay, more, "This Man was a Son of
+God." Even the multitude, utterly sobered from their furious excitement
+and frantic rage, began to be weighed down with a guilty consciousness
+that the scene which they had witnessed had in it something more awful
+than they could have conceived, and as they returned to Jerusalem they
+wailed and beat upon their breasts. Well might they do so! This was the
+last drop in a full cup of wickedness: this was the beginning of the end
+of their city and name and race.
+
+And in truth that scene was more awful than they, or even we, can know.
+The secular historian, be he ever so sceptical, cannot fail to see in it
+the central point of the world's history. Whether he be a believer in
+Christ or not, he cannot refuse to admit that this new religion grew
+from the smallest of all seeds to be a mighty tree, so that the birds of
+the air took refuge in its branches; that it was the little stone cut
+without hands which dashed into pieces the colossal image of heathen
+greatness, and grew till it became a great mountain and filled the
+earth. Alike to the infidel and to the believer the Crucifixion is the
+boundary instant between ancient and modern days. Morally and
+physically, no less than spiritually, the faith of Christ was the
+_palingenesia_ of the world. It came like the dawn of a new spring to
+nations "effete with the drunkenness of crime." The struggle was long
+and hard, but from the hour when Christ died began the death-knell to
+every satanic tyranny and every tolerated abomination. From that hour
+holiness became the universal ideal of all who name the name of Christ
+as their Lord, and the attainment of that ideal the common heritage of
+souls in which his spirit dwells.
+
+The effects, then, of the work of Christ are even to the unbeliever
+indisputable and historical. It expelled cruelty; it curbed passion; it
+branded suicide; it punished and repressed an execrable infanticide; it
+drove the shameless impurities of heathendom into a congenial darkness.
+There was hardly a class whose wrongs it did not remedy. It rescued the
+gladiator; it freed the slave; it protected the captive; it nursed the
+sick; it sheltered the orphan; it elevated the woman; it shrouded as
+with a halo of sacred innocence the tender years of the child. In every
+region of life its ameliorating influence was felt. It changed pity from
+a vice into a virtue. It elevated poverty from a curse into a beatitude.
+It ennobled labor from a vulgarity into a dignity and a duty. It
+sanctified marriage from little more than a burdensome convention into
+little less than a blessed sacrament. It revealed for the first time the
+angelic beauty of a purity of which men had despaired and of a meekness
+at which they had utterly scoffed. It created the very conception of
+charity, and broadened the limits of its obligation from the narrow
+circle of a neighborhood to the widest horizons of the race. And while
+it thus evolved the idea of humanity as a common brotherhood, even where
+its tidings were _not_ believed--all over the world, wherever its
+tidings _were_ believed, it cleansed the life and elevated the soul of
+each individual man. And in all lands where it has moulded the
+characters of its true believers it has created hearts so pure and lives
+so peaceful and homes so sweet that it might seem as though those angels
+who had heralded its advent had also whispered to every depressed and
+despairing sufferer among the sons of men: "Though ye have lien among
+the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove, that is covered with
+silver wings, and her feathers like gold."
+
+Others, if they _can_ and _will_, may see in such a work as this no
+divine Providence, they may think it philosophical enlightenment to hold
+that Christianity and Christendom are adequately accounted for by the
+idle dreams of a noble self-deceiver and the passionate hallucinations
+of a recovered demoniac. We persecute them not, we denounce them not, we
+judge them not; but we say that, unless all life be a hollow, there
+could have been no such miserable origin to the sole religion of the
+world which holds the perfect balance between philosophy and popularity,
+between religion and morals, between meek submissiveness and the pride
+of freedom, between the ideal and the real, between the inward and the
+outward, between modest stillness and heroic energy--nay, between the
+tenderest conservatism and the boldest plans of world-wide reformation.
+The witness of history to Christ is a witness which has been given with
+irresistible cogency; and it has been so given to none but him.
+
+But while even the unbeliever must see what the life and death of Jesus
+have effected in the world, to the believer that life and death are
+something deeper still; to him they are nothing less than a resurrection
+from the dead. He sees in the cross of Christ something which far
+transcends its historical significance. He sees in it the fulfilment of
+all prophecy as well as the consummation of all history; he sees in it
+the explanation of the mystery of birth, and the conquest over the
+mystery of the grave. In that life he finds a perfect example; in that
+death an infinite redemption. As he contemplates the Incarnation and the
+Crucifixion, he no longer feels that God is far away, and that this
+earth is but a disregarded speck in the infinite azure, and he himself
+but an insignificant atom chance-thrown amid the thousand million living
+souls of an innumerable race, but he exclaims in faith and hope and
+love: "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men; yea, he will be their
+God, and they shall be his people." "Ye are the temple of the living
+God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them."
+
+The sun was westering as the darkness rolled away from the completed
+sacrifice. They who had not thought it a pollution to inaugurate their
+feast by the murder of their Messiah, were seriously alarmed lest the
+sanctity of the following day--which began at sunset--should be
+compromised by the hanging of the corpses on the cross. And horrible to
+relate, the crucified often lived for many hours--nay, even for two
+days--in their torture. The Jews therefore begged Pilate that their legs
+might be broken, and their bodies taken down. This _crurifragium_, as it
+was called, consisted in striking the legs of the sufferers with a heavy
+mallet, a violence which seemed always to have hastened, if it did not
+instantly cause, their death. Nor would the Jews be the only persons who
+would be anxious to hasten the end by giving the deadly blow. Until life
+was extinct the soldiers appointed to guard the execution dared not
+leave the ground. The wish, therefore, was readily granted. The soldiers
+broke the legs of the two malefactors first, and then, coming to Jesus,
+found that the great cry had been indeed his last, and that he was dead
+already. They did not therefore break his legs, and thus unwittingly
+preserved the symbolism of that Paschal lamb, of which he was the
+antetype, and of which it had been commanded that "a bone of it shall
+not be broken." And yet, as he might be only in a syncope--as instances
+had been known in which men apparently dead had been taken down from the
+cross and resuscitated--and as the lives of the soldiers would have had
+to answer for any irregularity, one of them, in order to make death
+certain, drove the broad head of his _hasta_ into his side. The wound,
+as it was meant to do, pierced the region of the heart, and "forthwith,"
+says St. John, with an emphatic appeal to the truthfulness of his
+eye-witness--an appeal which would be singularly and impossibly
+blasphemous if the narrative were the forgery which so much elaborate
+modern criticism has wholly failed to prove that it is--"forthwith came
+there out blood and water." Whether the water was due to some abnormal
+pathological conditions caused by the dreadful complication of the
+Saviour's sufferings, or whether it rather means that the pericardium
+had been rent by the spear point, and that those who took down the body
+observed some drops of its serum mingled with the blood, in either case
+that lance thrust was sufficient to hush all the heretical assertions
+that Jesus had only _seemed_ to die; and as it assured the soldiers, so
+should it assure all who have doubted, that he, who on the third day
+rose again, had in truth been crucified, dead, and buried, and that his
+soul had passed into the unseen world.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[26] The disputed date of the Crucifixion of Jesus--long variously
+placed between A.D. 29 and 33--is definitely fixed by many later
+authorities at the year 30.
+
+
+
+
+THE RISE AND SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
+
+A.D. 33
+
+RENAN      WISE      NEWMAN
+
+     It is a favorite view of historians and critical students that
+     Jesus was born at a time when the world seemed especially prepared
+     for his birth. The correspondence between world conditions then and
+     the actual process of Christianity in its rise and early spread
+     appears to conform to evolutionary laws as regarded in the light of
+     modern interpretation.
+
+     In its origin Christianity is most intimately connected with
+     Judaism, the parent religion. The known world, however, in the time
+     of Jesus was largely under Roman dominion. This was true of the
+     land where Jesus was born. The Roman Empire was then comparatively
+     at peace, and it was the admonition of St. Paul that the first
+     Christians should maintain that peace. The wide sovereignty of Rome
+     gave the apostles of Christ access to different nations, many of
+     whom had become civilized under Roman influence. But pure
+     monotheism existed only among the Jews. All other nations had a
+     variety of gods and peculiar forms of worship. In most of the pagan
+     religions there were elements of truth and beauty, but they lacked
+     in ethical principles and in moral application to life. Most of
+     their priestcraft was a vulgar imposition upon the ignorance and
+     credulity of the common people. The prevailing philosophies--which,
+     among the more enlightened, took the place of religion--were the
+     Grecian, adopted also by the Romans, and the oriental, with
+     numerous followers in Persia, Syria, Chaldaea, Egypt, and likewise
+     among the Jews. But the philosophers were divided into antagonistic
+     sects. Out of such conditions no practical religion could develop.
+     In the doctrines of Buddhism were to be found the spirit and
+     purpose of a devout and humanely religious people, but the
+     intricate mythology and racial and other limitations of Buddhism
+     forbade that, although it conquered the half of Asia, it should
+     ever become a universal faith.
+
+     The condition of the Jews at this period was little better than
+     that of other peoples. Among the Jews there was a lack of
+     intellectual unity, and their moral ideals had been lowered.
+     Oppressed by Herod, the tributary Roman King--who, although
+     professedly a Jew, copied the open despisers of all religion--they
+     yielded to the influences of Roman luxury and licentiousness which
+     spread over Palestine. Although still conducted by the priests and
+     Levites and under the eye of the Sanhedrim or senate, the Jewish
+     religion had lost much of its earlier character. Like philosophy,
+     it was vexed with contending sects. Strict observance of the Mosaic
+     law and the performance of prescriptive rites and duties were in
+     the main regarded as the sum of religion.
+
+     The race of prophets appeared extinct until prophecy was revived in
+     John the Baptist. The successors of the Maccabaean patriots were not
+     animated by their spirit. There was widespread and passionate
+     expectation of a national messiah, but not such a messiah as John
+     proclaimed and Jesus proved to be; rather a powerful warrior and
+     vindicator of Jewish liberty. Galilee, the early home of Jesus, was
+     especially stirred with messianic fervor. In such a condition of
+     the national mind, and at such a stage of the world's empire, it
+     seems natural in the course of spiritual evolution that such a
+     teacher as Jesus--a spiritual messiah--should arise to be the
+     deliverer not of one people only, but of the world itself. Among
+     the Jewish doctors when Jesus was a child was at least one wise and
+     liberal rabbi, Hillel, a Pharisee, the great reformer of his time,
+     and "the most eminent Jew of the generation before the birth of
+     Jesus." At his feet the boy Jesus may have sat and learned lessons
+     of wisdom and liberality. It gives us a reassurance of spiritual
+     continuity to think that the teachings of Hillel may have "helped
+     to inspire the humane and tender counsels of the founder of
+     Christianity."
+
+     In grouping the glowing words of Renan, with their fine spiritual
+     interpretations and descriptive eloquence, the judgments of an
+     eminent contemporary Jewish scholar, and Newman's learned yet
+     simple portrayal of the Church as it took form in its early
+     environment, and as it was seen through the media of contemporary
+     governments, customs, and criticisms, it is believed that readers
+     will derive satisfaction, and will be aided in their own inquiries,
+     through this threefold presentation. On so vast a subject, with its
+     momentous implications, no single author, however profound his
+     genius, can do more than contribute a partial essay toward the
+     many-sided truth.
+
+
+JOSEPH ERNEST RENAN
+
+From the moment of the arrest of Jesus, and immediately after his death,
+it is probable that many of the disciples had already found their way to
+the northern provinces. At the time of the Resurrection a rumor was
+spread abroad, according to which it was in Galilee that he would be
+seen again. Some of the women who had been to the sepulchre came back
+with the report that the angel had said to them that Jesus had already
+preceded them into Galilee. Others said that it was Jesus himself who
+had ordered them to go there. Now and then some people said that they
+themselves remembered that he had said so during his lifetime.
+
+What is certain is that at the end of a few days, probably after the
+Paschal Feast of the Passover had been quite over, the disciples
+believed they had a command to return into their own country, and to it
+accordingly they returned. Perhaps the visions began to abate at
+Jerusalem. A species of melancholy seized them. The brief appearances of
+Jesus were not sufficient to compensate for the enormous void left by
+his absence. In a melancholy mood they thought of the lake and of the
+beautiful mountains where they had received a foretaste of the kingdom
+of God. The women especially wished, at any cost, to return to the
+country where they had enjoyed so much happiness. It must be observed
+that the order to depart came especially from them. That odious city
+weighed them down. They longed to see once more the ground where they
+had possessed Him whom they loved, well assured in advance of meeting
+him again there.
+
+The majority of the disciples then departed, full of joy and hope,
+perhaps in the company of the caravan which took back the pilgrims from
+the Feast of the Passover. What they hoped to find in Galilee were not
+only transient visions, but Jesus himself to continue with them, as he
+had done before his death. An intense expectation filled their souls.
+Was he going to restore the kingdom of Israel, to found definitely the
+kingdom of God, and, as was said, "reveal his justice"? Everything was
+possible. They already called to mind the smiling landscapes where they
+had enjoyed his presence. Many believed that he had given to them a
+rendezvous upon a mountain, probably the same to which with them there
+clung so many sweet recollections. Never, it is certain, had there been
+a more pleasant journey. All their dreams of happiness were on the point
+of being realized. They were going to see him once more! And, in fact,
+they did see him again. Hardly restored to their harmless chimeras, they
+believed themselves to be in the midst of the gospel-dispensation
+period. It was now drawing near to the end of April. The ground is then
+strewn with red anemones, which were probably those "lilies of the
+fields" from which Jesus delighted to draw his similes. At each step his
+words were brought to mind, adhering, as it were, to the thousand
+accidental objects they met by the way. Here was the tree, the flower,
+the seed, from which he had taken his parables; there was the hill on
+which he delivered his most touching discourses; here was the little
+ship from which he taught. It was like the recommencement of a beautiful
+dream--like a vanished illusion which had reappeared. The enchantment
+seemed to revive. The sweet Galilean "Kingdom of God" had recovered its
+sway. The clear atmosphere, the mornings upon the shore or upon the
+mountain, the nights passed on the lakes watching the nets, all these
+returned again to them in distinct visions. They saw him everywhere
+where they had lived with him. Of course it was not the joy of the first
+enjoyment. Sometimes the lake had to them the appearance of being very
+solitary. But a great love is satisfied with little. If all of us, while
+we are alive, could surreptitiously, once a year, and during a moment
+long enough to exchange but a few words, behold again those loved ones
+whom we have lost--death would not be death!
+
+Such was the state of mind of this faithful band, in this short period
+when Christianity seemed to return for a moment to his cradle and bid to
+him an eternal adieu. The principal disciples, Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel,
+the sons of Zebedee, met again on the shores of the lake, and henceforth
+lived together; they had taken up again their former calling of
+fishermen, at Bethsaida or at Capernaum. The Galilean women were no
+doubt with them. They had insisted more than the others on that return,
+which was to them a heartfelt love. This was their last act in the
+establishment of Christianity. From that moment they disappear. Faithful
+to their love, their wish was to quit no more the country in which they
+had tasted their greatest delight. More than five hundred persons were
+already devoted to the memory of Jesus. In default of the lost master
+they obeyed the disciples, the most authoritative--Peter--in particular.
+
+The activity of these ardent souls had already turned in another
+direction. What they believed to have heard from the lips of the dear
+risen One was the order to go forth and preach, and to convert the
+world. But where should they commence? Naturally, at Jerusalem. The
+return to Jerusalem was then resolved upon by those who at that time had
+the direction of the sect. As these journeys were ordinarily made by
+caravan at the time of the feasts, we now suppose, with all manner of
+likelihood, that the return in question took place at the Feast of
+Tabernacles at the close of the year 33, or the Paschal Feast of the
+year 34. Galilee was thus abandoned by Christianity, and abandoned
+forever. The little Church which remained there continued, no doubt, to
+exist; but we hear it no more spoken of. It was probably broken up, like
+all the rest, by the frightful disaster which then overtook the country
+during the war of Vespasian; the wreck of the dispersed community sought
+refuge beyond Jordan. After the war it was not Christianity which was
+brought back into Galilee; it was Judaism.
+
+Galilee thus counted but an hour in the history of Christianity; but it
+was the sacred hour, _par excellence_; it gave to the new religion that
+which has made it endure--its poetry, its penetrating charms. "The
+Gospel," after the manner of the synoptics, was a Galilean work. But
+"the Gospel" thus extended has been the principal cause of the success
+of Christianity, and continues to be the surest guarantee of its future.
+It is probable that a fraction of the little school which surrounded
+Jesus in his last days remained at Jerusalem.
+
+It is about this period that we can place the vision of James, mentioned
+by St. Paul. James was the brother, or at least a relation, of Jesus. We
+do not find that he had accompanied Jesus on his last sojourn to
+Jerusalem. He probably went there with the apostles, when the latter
+quitted Galilee.
+
+It is very remarkable that the family of Jesus, some of whose members
+during his life had been incredulous and hostile to his mission,
+constituted now a part of the Church, and held in it a very exalted
+position. One is led to suppose that the reconciliation took place
+during the sojourn of the apostles in Galilee. The celebrity which had
+attached itself to the name of their relative, those who believed in
+him, and were assured of having seen him after he had arisen, served to
+make an impression on their minds. From the time of the definite
+establishment of the apostles at Jerusalem, we find with them Mary, the
+mother of Jesus, and the brothers of Jesus. In what concerns Mary, it
+appears that John, thinking in this to obey a recommendation of the
+Master, had adopted and taken her to his own home. He perhaps took her
+back to Jerusalem. This woman, whose personal history and character have
+remained veiled in obscurity, assumed hence great importance. The words
+that the evangelist put into the mouth of some unknown woman, "Blessed
+is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked," began
+to be verified. It is probable that Mary survived her son a few years.
+As for the brothers of Jesus, their history is wrapped in obscurity.
+Jesus had several brothers and sisters. It seemed probable, however,
+that in the class of persons which were called "Brothers of the Lord"
+there were included relations in the second degree. The question is only
+of moment so far as it concerns James, whom we see playing a great part
+in the first thirty years of Christianity.
+
+The apostles henceforth separated no more, except to make temporary
+journeys. Jerusalem became their head-quarters; they seemed to be afraid
+to disperse, while certain acts served to reveal in them the
+prepossession of being opposed to return again into Galilee, which
+latter had dissolved its little society. An express order of Jesus is
+supposed to have interdicted their quitting Jerusalem, before, at least,
+the great manifestations which were to take place. People's thoughts
+were turned with great force toward a promise which it was supposed
+Jesus had made. During his lifetime Jesus, it was said, had often spoken
+of the Holy Spirit, which was understood to mean a personification of
+divine wisdom. He had promised his disciples that the Spirit would nerve
+them in the combats that they would have to engage in, would be their
+inspirer in difficulties, and their advocate if they had to speak in
+public. Sometimes it was supposed that Jesus suddenly presented himself
+in the midst of his disciples assembled, and breathed on them out of his
+own mouth a current of vivifying air. At other times the disappearance
+of Jesus was regarded as a premonition of the coming of the Spirit. Many
+people established an intimate connection between this descent and the
+restoration of the kingdom of Israel.
+
+The affection that the disciples had the one for the other, while Jesus
+was alive, was thus enhanced tenfold after his death. They formed a very
+small and very retired society, and lived exclusively by themselves. At
+Jerusalem they numbered about one hundred and twenty. Their piety was
+active, and, as yet, completely restrained by the forms of Jewish
+piety. The Temple was then the chief place of devotion. They worked, no
+doubt, for a living; but at that time manual labor in Jewish society
+engaged very few. Everyone had a trade, but that trade by no means
+hindered a man from being educated and well-bred.
+
+The dominant idea in the Christian community, at the moment at which we
+are now arrived, was the coming of the Holy Spirit. People were believed
+to receive it in the form of a mysterious breath, which passed over the
+assembly. Every inward consolation, every bold movement, every flush of
+enthusiasm, every feeling of lively and pleasant gayety, which was
+experienced without knowing whence it came, was the work of the Spirit.
+These simple consciences referred, as usual, to some exterior cause the
+exquisite sentiments which were being created in them. When all were
+assembled, and when they awaited in silence inspiration from on high, a
+murmur, any noise whatever, was believed to be the coming of the Spirit.
+In the early times, it was the apparitions of Jesus which were produced
+in this manner. Now the turn of ideas had changed. It was the divine
+breath which passed over the little Church, and filled it with a
+celestial effluvium. These beliefs were strengthened by notions drawn
+from the Old Testament. The prophetic spirit is represented in the
+Hebrew books as a breathing which penetrates man and inspires him. In
+the beautiful vision of Elijah, God passes by in the form of a gentle
+wind, which produces a slight rustling noise.
+
+Among all these "descents of the Spirit," which appear to have been
+frequent enough, there was one which left a profound impression on the
+nascent Church. One day, when the brethren were assembled, a
+thunder-storm burst forth. A violent wind threw open the windows: the
+heavens were on fire. Thunder-storms, in these countries, are
+accompanied by prodigious sheets of lightning; the atmosphere is, as it
+were, everywhere furrowed with ridges of flame. Whether the electric
+fluid had penetrated the room itself or whether a dazzling flash of
+lightning had suddenly illuminated the faces of all, everyone was
+convinced that the Spirit had entered, and that it had alighted on the
+head of each in the form of tongues of fire. The idea that the Spirit
+had alighted on them in the form of jets of flame, resembling tongues of
+fire, gave rise to a series of singular ideas, which took a foremost
+place in the thought of the period.
+
+The tongues of fire appeared a striking symbol. People were convinced
+that God desired to signify in this manner that he poured out upon the
+apostles his most precious gifts of eloquence and of inspiration. But
+they did not stop there. Jerusalem was, like the majority of the large
+cities of the East, a city in which many languages were spoken. The
+diversity of tongues was one of the difficulties which one found there
+in the way of propagating a universal form of faith. One of the things,
+moreover, which alarmed the apostles, at the commencement of a ministry
+destined to embrace the world, was the number of languages which were
+spoken there: they were asking themselves incessantly how they could
+learn so many tongues. "The gift of tongues" became thus a marvellous
+privilege. It was believed that the preaching of the Gospel would clear
+away the obstacle which was created by the diversity of idioms. There
+was in this a liberal idea; they meant to imply that the Gospel should
+have no language of its own; that it should be translatable into every
+tongue; and that the translation should be of the same value as the
+original.
+
+The custom of living together, holding the same faith, and indulging the
+same expectation, necessarily produced many common habits. All lived in
+common, having but one heart and one mind. No one possessed anything
+which was his own. On becoming a disciple of Jesus, one sold one's goods
+and made a gift of the proceeds to the society. The chiefs of the
+society then distributed the common possessions to each, according to
+his needs. They lived in the same quarter. They took their meals
+together, and continued to attach to them the mystic sense that Jesus
+had prescribed. They passed long hours in prayers. Their prayers were
+sometimes improvised aloud, but more often meditated in silence. The
+concord was perfect; no dogmatic quarrels, no disputes in regard to
+precedence. The tender recollection of Jesus effaced all dissensions.
+Joy, lively and deep-seated, was in every heart. Their morals were
+austere, but pervaded by a soft and tender sentiment. They assembled in
+houses to pray and to devote themselves to ecstatic exercises. The
+recollection of these two or three first years remained and seemed to
+them like a terrestrial paradise, which Christianity will pursue
+henceforth in all its dreams and to which it will vainly endeavor to
+return. Such an organization could only be applicable to a very small
+church.
+
+The apostles chosen by Jesus, and who were supposed to have received
+from him a special mandate to announce to the world the kingdom of God,
+had, in the little community, an incontestable superiority. One of the
+first cares, as soon as they saw the sect settle quietly down at
+Jerusalem, was to fill the vacancy that Judas of Kerioth had left in its
+ranks. The opinion that the latter had betrayed his master, and had been
+the cause of his death, became more and more general. The legend was
+mixed up with him, and every day one heard of some new circumstance
+which enhanced the black-heartedness of his deed. In order to replace
+him, it was resolved to have recourse to a vote of some sort. The sole
+condition was that the candidate should be chosen from the groups of the
+oldest disciples, who had been witnesses of the whole series of events,
+from the time of the baptism of John. This reduced considerably the
+number of those eligible. Two only were found in the ranks, Joseph
+Bar-Saba, who bore the name of Justus, and Matthias. The lot fell upon
+Matthias, who was accounted as one of the Twelve. But this was the sole
+instance of such a replacing.
+
+The body of Twelve lived, generally, permanently at Jerusalem. Till
+about the year 60 the apostles did not leave the holy city except upon
+temporary missions. This explains the obscurity in which the majority of
+the members of the central council remained. Very few of them had a
+_role_. This council was a kind of sacred college or senate, destined
+only to represent tradition and a spirit of conservatism. It finished by
+being relieved of every active function, so that its members had nothing
+to do but to preach and pray; but as yet the brilliant feats of
+preaching had not fallen to their lot. Their names were hardly known
+outside Jerusalem, and about the year 70 or 80 the lists which were
+given of these chosen Twelve agreed only in the principal names.
+
+The "Brothers of the Lord" appear often by the side of the "apostles,"
+although they were distinct from them. Their authority, however, was
+equal to that of the apostles. Here two groups constituted, in the
+nascent Church, a sort of aristocracy founded solely on the more or less
+intimate relations that their members had had with the Master. These
+were the men whom Paul denominated "the pillars" of the Church at
+Jerusalem. For the rest, we see that no distinctions in the
+ecclesiastical hierarchy yet existed. The title was nothing; the
+personal authority was everything. The principle of ecclesiastical
+celibacy was already established, but it required time to bring all
+these germs to their complete development. Peter and Philip were married
+and had sons and daughters.
+
+The term used to designate the assembly of the faithful was the Hebrew
+_Kahal_, which was rendered by the essentially democratic word
+_Ecclesia_, which is the convocation of the people in the ancient
+Grecian cities, the summons to the Pnyx or the _Agora_. Commencing with
+the second or the third century before Jesus Christ, the words of the
+Athenian democracy became a sort of common law in Hellenic language;
+many of these terms, on account of their having been used in the Greek
+confraternities, entered into the Christian vocabulary. It was, in
+reality, the popular life, which, restrained for centuries, resumed its
+power under forms altogether different. The primitive Church was, in its
+way, a little democracy.
+
+The power which was ascribed to the Church assembled and to its chiefs
+was enormous. The Church conferred every mission, and was guided solely
+in its choice by the signs given by the Spirit. Its authority went as
+far as decreeing death. It is recorded that at the voice of Peter
+several delinquents had fallen back and expired immediately. St. Paul, a
+little later, was not afraid, in excommunicating a fornicator, "to
+deliver him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit
+may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." Excommunication was held to
+be equivalent to a sentence of death. The apostles were believed to be
+invested with supernatural powers. In pronouncing such condemnations,
+they thought that their anathemas could not fail but be effectual. The
+terrible impression which their excommunications produced, and the
+hatred manifested by the brethren against all the members thus cut off,
+were sufficient, in fact, in many cases, to bring about death, or at
+least to compel the culprit to expatriate himself. Accounts like those
+of the death of Ananias and Sapphira did not excite any scruple. The
+idea of the civil power was so foreign to all that world placed without
+the pale of the Roman law, people were so persuaded that the Church was
+a complete society, sufficient in itself, that no person saw, in a
+miracle leading to death or the mutilation of an individual, an outrage
+punishable by the civil law. Enthusiasm and faith covered all, excused
+everything. But the frightful danger which these theocratic maxims laid
+up in store for the future is readily perceived. The Church is armed
+with a sword; excommunication is a sentence of death. There was
+henceforth in the world a power outside that of the State, which
+disposed of the life of citizens.
+
+Peter had among the apostles a certain precedence, derived directly from
+his zeal and his activity. In these first years he was hardly ever
+separate from John, son of Zebedee. They went almost always together,
+and their amity was doubtless the corner-stone of the new faith. James,
+the brother of the Lord, almost equalled them in authority, at least
+among a fraction of the Church.
+
+It is needless to remark that this little group of simple people had no
+speculative theology. Jesus wisely kept himself far removed from all
+metaphysics. He had only one dogma, his own divine Sonship and the
+divinity of his mission. The whole symbol of the primitive Church might
+be embraced in one line: "Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God." This
+belief rested upon a peremptory argument--the fact of the resurrection,
+of which the disciples claimed to be witnesses. To attest the
+resurrection of Jesus was the task which all considered as being
+specially imposed upon them. It was, however, very soon put forth that
+the Master had predicted this event. Different sayings of his were
+recalled, which were represented as having not been well understood, and
+in which was seen, on second thoughts, an announcement of the
+Resurrection. The belief in the near glorious manifestation of Jesus was
+universal. The secret word which the brethren used among themselves, in
+order to be recognized and confirmed, was _maran-atha_, "the Lord is at
+hand."
+
+Jesus, with his exquisite tact in religious matters, had instituted no
+new ritual. The new sect had not yet any special ceremonies. The
+practices of piety were Jewish. The assemblies had, in a strict sense,
+nothing liturgic. They were the meetings of confraternities, at which
+prayers were offered up, devoted themselves to _glossolaly_ or prophecy,
+and the reading of correspondence. There was nothing yet of
+sacerdotalism. There was no priest (_cohen_); the _presbyter_ was the
+"elder," nothing more. The only priest was Jesus: in another sense, all
+the faithful were priests. Fasting was considered a very meritorious
+practice. Baptism was the token of admission to the sect. The rite was
+the same as administered by John, but it was administered in the name of
+Jesus. Baptism was, however, considered an insufficient initiation. It
+had to be followed by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which were effected
+by means of a prayer, offered up by the apostles, upon the head of the
+new convert, accompanied by the imposition of hands.
+
+This imposition of hands, already so familiar to Jesus, was the
+sacramental act _par excellence_. It conferred inspiration, universal
+illumination, the power to produce prodigies, prophesying, and the
+speaking of languages. It was what was called the Baptism of the Spirit.
+It was supposed to recall a saying of Jesus: "John baptized you with
+water; but as for you, you shall be baptized by the Spirit." Gradually
+all these ideas became amalgamated, and baptism was conferred "in the
+name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." But it is not
+probable that this formula, in the early days in which we now are, was
+yet employed. We see the simplicity of this primitive Christian worship.
+Neither Jesus nor the apostles had invented it. Certain Jewish sects had
+adopted, before them, these grave and solemn ceremonies, which appeared
+to have come in part from Chaldaea, where they are still practised with
+special liturgies by the Sabeans or Mendaites. The religion of Persia
+embraced also many rites of the same description.
+
+The beliefs in popular medicine, which constituted a part of the force
+of Jesus, were continued in his disciples. The power of healing was one
+of the marvellous gifts conferred by the Spirit. The first Christians,
+like almost all the Jews of the time, looked upon diseases as the
+punishment of a transgression, or the work of a malignant demon. The
+apostles passed, just as Jesus did, for powerful exorcists. People
+imagined that the anointings of oil administered by the apostles, with
+imposition of hands and invocation of the name of Jesus, were
+all-powerful to wash away the sins which were the cause of disease, and
+to heal the afflicted one. Oil has always been in the East the medicine
+_par excellence_. For the rest, the simple imposition of the hands of
+the apostles was reputed to have the same effect. This imposition was
+made by immediate contact. Nor is it impossible that, in certain cases,
+the heat of the hands, being communicated suddenly to the head, insured
+to the sick person a little relief.
+
+The sect being young and not numerous, the question of deaths was not
+taken into account until later on. The effect caused by the first
+demises which took place in the ranks of the brethren was strange.
+People were troubled by the manner of the deaths. It was asked whether
+they were less favored than those who were reserved to see with their
+eyes the advent of the Son of Man? They came generally to consider the
+interval between death and the resurrection as a kind of blank in the
+consciousness of the defunct. At the time of which we speak, belief in
+the resurrection almost alone prevailed. The funeral rite was
+undoubtedly the Jewish rite. No importance was attached to it; no
+inscription indicated the name of the dead. The great resurrection was
+near; the bodies of the faithful had only to make in the rock a very
+short sojourn. It did not require much persuasion to put people in
+accord on the question as to whether the resurrection was to be
+universal, that is to say, whether it would embrace the good and the
+bad, or whether it would apply to the elect only. One of the most
+remarkable phenomena of the new religion was the reappearance of
+prophecy. For a long time people had spoken but little of prophets in
+Israel. That particular species of inspiration seemed to revive in the
+little sect. The primitive Church had several prophets and prophetesses
+analogous to those of the Old Testament. The psalmists also reappeared.
+The model of our Christian psalms is without doubt given in the
+canticles which Luke loved to disseminate in his gospel, and which were
+copied from the canticles of the Old Testament. These psalms and
+prophecies are, as regards form, destitute of originality, but an
+admirable spirit of gentleness and of piety animates and pervades them.
+It is like a faint echo of the last productions of the sacred lyre of
+Israel. The Book of Psalms was in a measure the calyx from which the
+Christian bee sucked its first juice. The Pentateuch, on the contrary,
+was, as it would seem, little read and little studied; there was
+substituted for it allegories after the manner of the Jewish
+_midraschim_ in which all the historic sense of the books was
+suppressed.
+
+The music which was sung to the new hymns was probably that species of
+sobbing, without distinct notes, which is still the music of the Greek
+Church, of the Maronites, and in general of the Christians of the East.
+It is less a musical modulation than a manner of forcing the voice and
+of emitting by the nose a sort of moaning in which all the inflections
+follow each other with rapidity. That odd melopoeia was executed
+standing, with the eyes fixed, the eyebrows crumpled, the brow knit, and
+with an appearance of effort. The word _amen_, in particular, was given
+out in a quivering, trembling voice. That word played a great part in
+the liturgy. In imitation of the Jews, the new adherents employed it to
+mark the assent of the multitude to the words of the prophet or the
+precentor. People, perhaps, already attributed to it some secret virtues
+and pronounced it with a certain emphasis. We do not know whether that
+primitive ecclesiastical song was accompanied by instruments. As to the
+inward chant, by which the faithful "made melody in their hearts," and
+which was but the overflowing of those tender, ardent, pensive souls, it
+was doubtless executed like the _catilenes_ of the Lollards of the
+Middle Ages, in medium voice. In general, it was joyousness which was
+poured out in these hymns.
+
+Till now the Church of Jerusalem presents itself to the outside world as
+a little Galilean colony. The friends whom Jesus had made at Jerusalem
+and in its environs, such as Lazarus, Martha, Mary of Bethany, Joseph of
+Arimathea, and Nicodemus, had disappeared from the scene. The Galilean
+group, who pressed around the Twelve, alone remained compact and
+active. The proselytism of the faithful was chiefly carried on by means
+of struggling conversions, in which the fervor of their souls was
+communicated to their neighbors. Their preachings under the porticoes of
+Solomon were addressed to circles not at all numerous. But the effect of
+this was only the more profound. Their discourses consisted principally
+of quotations from the Old Testament, by which it was sought to prove
+that Jesus was the Messiah.
+
+The real preaching was the private conversations of these good and
+sincere men; it was the reflection, always noticeable in their
+discourses, of the words of Jesus; it was, above all, their piety, their
+gentleness. The attraction of communistic life carried with it also a
+great deal of force. Their houses were a sort of hospitals, in which all
+the poor and the forsaken found asylum and succor.
+
+One of the first to affiliate himself with the rising society was a
+Cypriote, named Joseph Hallevi, or the Levite. Like the others, he sold
+his land and carried the price of it to the feet of the Twelve. He was
+an intelligent man, with a devotion proof against everything, and a
+fluent speaker. The apostles attached him closely to themselves and
+called him _Barnaba_, that is to say, "the son of prophecy" or of
+"preaching." He was accounted, in fact, of the number of the prophets,
+that is to say, of the inspired preachers. Later on we shall see him
+play a capital part. Next to St. Paul, he was the most active missionary
+of the first century. A certain Mnason, his countryman, was converted
+about the same time. Cyprus possessed many Jews. Barnabas and Mnason
+were undoubtedly Jewish by race. The intimate and prolonged relations of
+Barnabas with the Church at Jerusalem induces the belief that
+Syro-Chaldaic was familiar to him.
+
+A conquest, almost as important as that of Barnabas, was that of one
+John, who bore the Roman surname of Marcus. He was a cousin of Barnabas,
+and was circumcised. His mother, Mary, enjoyed an easy competency; she
+was likewise converted, and her dwelling was more than once made the
+rendezvous of the apostles. These two conversions appear to have been
+the work of Peter.
+
+The first flame was thus spread with great rapidity. The men, the most
+celebrated of the apostolic century, were almost all gained over to the
+cause in two or three years, by a sort of simultaneous attraction. It
+was a second Christian generation, similar to that which had been formed
+five or six years previously, upon the shores of Lake Tiberias. This
+second generation had not seen Jesus, and could not equal the first in
+authority. But it was destined to surpass it in activity and in its love
+for distant missions. One of the best known among the new converts was
+Stephen, who, before his conversion, appears to have been only a simple
+proselyte. He was a man full of ardor and of passion. His faith was of
+the most fervent, and he was considered to be favored with all the gifts
+of the Spirit. Philip, who, like Stephen, was a zealous deacon and
+evangelist, attached himself to the community about the same time. He
+was often confounded with his namesake, the apostle. Finally, there were
+converted at this epoch, Andronicus and Junia, probably husband and
+wife, who, like Aquila and Priscilla, later on, were the model of an
+apostolic couple, devoted to all the duties of missionary work. They
+were of the blood of Israel, and were in the closest relations with the
+apostles.
+
+The new converts, when touched by grace, were all Jews by religion, but
+they belonged to two very different classes of Jews. The one class was
+the Hebrews; that is to say, the Jews of Palestine, speaking Hebrew or
+rather Armenian, reading the Bible in the Hebrew text; the other class
+was "Hellenists," that is to say, Jews speaking Greek, and reading the
+Bible in Greek. These last were further subdivided into two classes, the
+one being of Jewish blood, the other being proselytes, that is to say,
+people of non-Israelitish origin, allied in divers degrees to Judaism.
+These Hellenists, who almost all came from Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, or
+Cyrene, lived at Jerusalem in distinct quarters. They had their separate
+synagogues, and formed thus little communities apart. Jerusalem
+contained a great number of these special synagogues. It was in these
+that the words of Jesus found the soil prepared to receive it and to
+make it fructify.
+
+The primitive nucleus of the Church at Jerusalem had been composed
+wholly and exclusively of Hebrews; the Aramaic dialect, which was the
+language of Jesus, was alone known and employed there. But we see that
+from the second or third year after the death of Jesus, Greek was
+introduced into the little community, where it soon became dominant. In
+consequence of their daily relations with the new brethren, Peter, John,
+James, Jude, and in general the Galilean disciples acquired the Greek
+with much more facility than if they had already known something of it.
+The Palestinian dialect came to be abandoned from the day in which
+people dreamed of a widespread propaganda. A provincial _patois_, which
+was rarely written, and which was not spoken beyond Syria, was as little
+adapted as could be to such an object. Greek, on the contrary, was
+necessarily imposed on Christianity. It was at the time the universal
+language, at least for the eastern basin of the Mediterranean. It was,
+in particular, the language of the Jews who were dispersed over the
+Roman Empire.
+
+The conversions to Christianity became soon much more numerous among the
+"Hellenists" than among the "Hebrews." The old Jews at Jerusalem were
+but little drawn toward a sect of provincials, moderately advanced in
+the single science that a Pharisee appreciated--the science of the law.
+The position of the little Church in regard to Judaism was, as with
+Jesus himself, rather equivocal. But every religious or political party
+carries in itself a force that dominates it, and obliges it, despite
+itself, to revolve in its own orbit. The first Christians, whatever
+their apparent respect for Judaism was, were in reality only Jews by
+birth or by exterior customs. The true spirit of the sect came from
+another source. That which grew out of official Judaism was the
+_Talmud_; but Christianity has no affinity with the Talmudic school.
+This is why Christianity found special favor among the parties the least
+Jewish belonging to Judaism. The rigid orthodoxists took to it but
+little; it was the newcomers, people scarcely catechized, who had not
+been to any of the great schools, free from routine, and not initiated
+into the holy tongue, which lent an ear to the apostles and the
+disciples.
+
+This family of simple and united brethren drew associates from every
+quarter. In return for that which these brought, they obtained an
+assured future, the society of a congenial brotherhood, and precious
+hopes. The general custom, before entering the sect, was for each one to
+convert his fortune into specie. These fortunes ordinarily consisted of
+small rural, semi-barren properties, and difficult of cultivation. It
+had one advantage, especially for unmarried people: it enabled them to
+exchange these plots of land against funds sunk in an assurance society,
+with a view to the Kingdom of God. Even some married people came to the
+fore in that arrangement; and precautions were taken to insure that the
+associates brought all that they really possessed, and did not retain
+anything outside the common fund. Indeed, seeing that each one received
+out of the latter a share, not in proportion to what one put in, but in
+proportion to one's needs, every reservation of property was actually a
+theft made upon the community. The Christian communism had religion for
+a basis, while modern socialism has nothing of the kind.
+
+Under such a social constitution, the administrative difficulties were
+necessarily very numerous, whatever might be the degree of fraternal
+feeling which prevailed. Between two factions of a community, whose
+language was not the same, misapprehensions were inevitable. It was
+difficult for well-descended Jews not to entertain some contempt for
+their coreligionists who were less noble. In fact, it was not long
+before murmurs began to be heard. The "Hellenists," who each day became
+more numerous, complained because their widows were not so well treated
+at the distributions as those of the "Hebrews." Till now, the apostles
+had presided over the affairs of the treasury. But in face of these
+protestations they felt the necessity of delegating to others this part
+of their powers. They proposed to the community to confide these
+administrative cares to seven experienced and considerate men. The
+proposition was accepted. The seven chosen were Stephanas, or Stephen,
+Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas. Stephen was
+the most important of the seven, and, in a sense, their chief.
+
+To the administrators thus designated were given the Syriac name of
+_Schammaschin_. They were also sometimes called "the Seven," to
+distinguish them from "the Twelve." Such, then, was the origin of the
+diaconate, which is found to be the most ancient ecclesiastical
+function, the most ancient of sacred orders. Later, all the organized
+churches, in imitation of that of Jerusalem, had deacons. The growth of
+such an institution was marvellous. It placed the claims of the poor on
+an equality with religious services. It was a proclamation of the truth
+that social problems are the first which should occupy the attention of
+mankind. It was the foundation of political economy in the religious
+sense. The deacons were the first preachers of Christianity. As
+organizers, financiers, and administrators, they filled a yet more
+important part. These practical men, in constant contact with the poor,
+the sick, the women, went everywhere, observed everything, exhorted, and
+were most efficacious in converting people. They accomplished more than
+the apostles, who remained on their seats of honor at Jerusalem. They
+were the founders of Christianity, in respect of that which it possessed
+which was most solid and enduring.
+
+At an early period women were admitted to this office. They were
+designated, as in our day, by the name of "sisters." At first widows
+were selected; later, virgins were preferred. The tact which guided the
+primitive Church in all this was admirable. The grand idea of
+consecrating by a sort of religious character and of subjecting to a
+regular discipline the women who were not in the bonds of marriage, is
+wholly Christian. The term "widow" became synonymous with religious
+person, consecrated to God, and, by consequence, a "deaconess." In those
+countries where the wife, at the age of twenty-four, is already faded,
+where there is no middle state between the infant and the old woman, it
+was a kind of new life, which was created for that portion of the human
+species the most capable of devotion. These women, constantly going to
+and fro, were admirable missionaries of the new religion.
+
+The bishop and the priest, as we now know them, did not yet exist.
+Still, the pastoral ministry, that intimate familiarity of souls, not
+bound by ties of blood, had already been established. This latter has
+ever been the special gift of Jesus, and a kind of heritage from him.
+Jesus had often said that to everyone he was more than a father and a
+mother, and that in order to follow him it was necessary to forsake
+those the most dear to us. Christianity placed some things above
+family; it instituted brotherhood and spiritual marriage. The ancient
+form of marriage, which placed the wife unreservedly in the power of the
+husband, was pure slavery. The moral liberty of the woman began when the
+Church gave to her in Jesus a guide and a confidant, who should advise
+and console her, listen always to her, and on occasion counsel
+resistance on her part. Woman needs to be governed, and is happy in so
+being; but it is necessary that she should love him who governs her.
+This is what neither ancient societies nor Judaism nor Islamism have
+been able to do. Woman has never had, up to the present time, a
+religious conscience, a moral individuality, an opinion of her own,
+except in Christianity.
+
+It was now about the year 36. Tiberius, at Capreae, has little idea of
+the enemy to the empire which is growing up. In two or three years the
+sect had made surprising progress. It numbered several thousand of the
+faithful. It was already easy to foresee that its conquests would be
+effected chiefly among the Hellenists and proselytes. The Galilean group
+which had listened to the Master, though preserving always its
+precedence, seemed as if swamped by the floods of newcomers speaking
+Greek. One could already perceive that the principal parts were to be
+played by the latter. At the time at which we are arrived no pagan, that
+is to say, no man without some anterior connection with Judaism, had
+entered into the Church. Proselytes, however, performed very important
+functions in it. The circle _de provenance_ of the disciples had
+likewise largely extended; it is no longer a simple little college of
+Palestineans; we can count in it people from Cyprus, Antioch, and
+Cyrene, and from almost all the points of the eastern coasts of the
+Mediterranean, where Jewish colonies had been established. Egypt alone
+was wanting in the primitive Church, and for a long time continued to be
+so.
+
+It was inevitable that the preachings of the new sect, although
+delivered with so much reserve, should revive the animosities which had
+accumulated against its Founder, and eventually brought about his death.
+The Sadducee family of Hanan, who had caused the death of Jesus, was
+still reigning. Joseph Caiaphas occupied, up to 36, the sovereign
+pontificate, the effective power of which he gave over to his
+father-in-law Hanan, and to his relatives, John and Alexander. These
+arrogant and pitiless men viewed with impatience a troop of good and
+holy people, without official title, winning the favor of the multitude.
+Once or twice Peter, John, and the principal members of the apostolic
+college were put in prison and condemned to flagellation. This was the
+chastisement inflicted on heretics. The authorization of the Romans was
+not necessary in order to apply it. As we might indeed suppose, these
+brutalities only served to inflame the ardor of the apostles. They came
+forth from the Sanhedrim, where they had just undergone flagellation,
+rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Him whom
+they loved. Eternal puerility of penal repressions applied to things of
+the soul! They were regarded, no doubt, as men of order, as models of
+prudence and wisdom; these blunderers, who seriously believed in the
+year 36 to gain the upper hand of Christianity by means of a few strokes
+of a whip!
+
+These outrages proceeded chiefly from the Sadducees, that is to say,
+from the upper clergy, who crowded the Temple and derived from it
+immense profits. We do not find that the Pharisees exhibited toward the
+sect the animosity they displayed to Jesus. The new believers were
+strict and pious people, somewhat resembling in their manner of life the
+Pharisees themselves. The rage which the latter manifested against the
+Founder arose from the superiority of Jesus--a superiority which he was
+at no pains to dissimulate. His delicate railleries, his wit, his charm,
+his contempt for hypocrites, had kindled a ferocious hatred. The
+apostles, on the contrary, were devoid of wit; they never employed
+irony. The Pharisees were at times favorable to them; many Pharisees had
+even become Christians. The terrible anathemas of Jesus against
+Pharisaism had not yet been written, and the accounts of the words of
+the Master were neither general nor uniform. These first Christians
+were, besides, people so inoffensive that many persons of the Jewish
+aristocracy, who did not exactly form part of the sect, were well
+disposed toward them. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who had known
+Jesus, remained no doubt with the Church in the bonds of brotherhood.
+
+The most celebrated Jewish doctor of the age, Rabbi Gamaliel the elder,
+grandson of Hillel, a man of broad and very tolerant ideas, spoke, it is
+said, in the Sanhedrim in favor of permitting gospel preaching. The
+author of the Acts credits him with some excellent reasoning, which
+ought to be the rule of conduct of governments on all occasions when
+they find themselves confronted with novelties of an intellectual or
+moral order. "If this work is frivolous," said he, "leave it alone--it
+will fall of itself; if it is serious, how dare you resist the work of
+God? In any case, you will not succeed in stopping it." Gamaliel's words
+were hardly listened to. Liberal minds in the midst of opposing
+fanaticisms have no chance of succeeding.
+
+A terrible commotion was produced by the deacon Stephen. His preaching
+had, as it would appear, great success. Multitudes flocked around him,
+and these gatherings resulted in acrimonious quarrels. It was chiefly
+Hellenists, or proselytes, _habitues_ of the synagogue, called
+_Libertini_, people of Cyrene, of Alexandria, of Cilicia, of Ephesus,
+who took an active part in these disputes. Stephen passionately
+maintained that Jesus was the Messiah, that the priests had committed a
+crime in putting him to death, that the Jews were rebels, sons of
+rebels, people who rejected evidence. The authorities resolved to
+despatch this audacious preacher. Several witnesses were suborned to
+seize upon some words in his discourses against Moses. Naturally they
+found that for which they sought. Stephen was arrested and led into the
+presence of the Sanhedrim. The sentence with which they reproached him
+was almost identical with the one which led to the condemnation of
+Jesus. They accused him of saying that Jesus of Nazareth would destroy
+the Temple and change the traditions attributed to Moses. It is quite
+possible, indeed, that Stephen had used such language. A Christian of
+that epoch could not have had the idea of speaking directly against the
+Law, inasmuch as all still observed it; as for traditions, however,
+Stephen might combat them as Jesus had himself done; nevertheless, these
+traditions were foolishly ascribed by the orthodox to Moses, and people
+attributed to them a value equal to that of the written Law.
+
+Stephen defended himself by expounding the Christian thesis, with a
+wealth of citations from the written Law, from the Psalms, from the
+Prophets, and wound up by reproaching the members of the Sanhedrim with
+the murder of Jesus. "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart," said
+he to them, "you will then ever resist the Holy Ghost as your fathers
+also have done. Which of the prophets have not your fathers prosecuted?
+They have slain those who announced the coming of the Just One, whom you
+have betrayed, and of whom you have been the murderers. This law that
+you have received from the mouth of angels you have not kept." At these
+words a scream of rage interrupted him. Stephen, his excitement
+increasing more and more, fell into one of those transports of
+enthusiasm which were called the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. His
+eyes were fixed on high; he witnessed the glory of God, and Jesus by the
+side of his Father, and cried out, "Behold, I see the heavens opened,
+and the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of God." The whole assembly
+stopped their ears and threw themselves upon him, gnashing their teeth.
+He was dragged outside the city and stoned. The witnesses, who,
+according to the law, had to cast the first stones, divested themselves
+of their garments and laid them at the feet of a young fanatic named
+Saul, or Paul, who was thinking with secret joy of the renown he was
+acquiring in participating in the death of a blasphemer.
+
+In that epoch the persecutors of Christianity were not Romans; they were
+orthodox Jews. The Romans preserved in the midst of this fanaticism a
+principle of tolerance and of reason. If we can reproach the imperial
+authority with anything it is with being too lenient, and with not
+having cut short with a stroke the civil consequences of a sanguinary
+law which visited with death religious derelictions. But as yet the
+Roman domination was not so complete as it became later.
+
+As Stephen's death may have taken place at any time during the years 36,
+37, 38, we cannot, therefore, affirm whether Caiaphas ought to be held
+responsible for it. Caiaphas was deposed by Lucius Vitellius, in the
+year 36, shortly after the time of Pilate; but the change was
+inconsiderable. He had for a successor his brother-in-law, Jonathan, son
+of Hanan. The latter, in turn, was succeeded by his brother Theophilus,
+son of Hanan, who continued the pontificate in the house of Hanan till
+the year 42. Hanan was still alive, and, possessed of the real power,
+maintained in his family the principles of pride, severity, hatred
+against innovators, which were, so to speak, hereditary.
+
+The death of Stephen produced a great impression. The proselytes
+solemnized his funeral with tears and groanings. The separation of the
+new sectaries from Judaism was not yet absolute. The proselytes and the
+Hellenists, less strict in regard to orthodoxy than the pure Jews,
+considered that they ought to render public homage to a man who
+respected their constitution, and whose peculiar beliefs did not put him
+without the pale of the law. Thus began the era of Christian martyrs.
+
+The murder of Stephen was not an isolated event. Taking advantage of the
+weakness of the Roman functionaries, the Jews brought to bear upon the
+Church a real persecution. It seems that the vexations pressed chiefly
+on the Hellenists and the proselytes, whose free behavior exasperated
+the orthodox. The Church of Jerusalem, though already strongly
+organized, was compelled to disperse. The apostles, according to a
+principle which seems to have seized strong hold of their minds, did not
+quit the city. It was probably so, too, with the whole purely Jewish
+group, those who were denominated the "Hebrews." But the great community
+with its common table, its diaconal services, its varied exercises,
+ceased from that time, and was never reformed upon its first model. It
+had endured for three or four years. It was for nascent Christianity an
+unequalled good fortune that its first attempts at association,
+essentially communistic, were so soon broken up. Essays of this kind
+engender such shocking abuses that communistic establishments are
+condemned to crumble away in a very short time or to ignore very soon
+the principle upon which they are founded.
+
+Thanks to the persecution of the year 37, the cenobitic Church of
+Jerusalem was saved from the test of time. It was nipped in the bud
+before interior difficulties had undermined it. It remained like a
+splendid dream, the memory of which animated in their life of trial all
+those who had formed part of it, like an ideal to which Christianity
+incessantly aspires without ever succeeding in reaching its goal.
+
+The leading part in the persecution we have just related belonged to
+that young Saul, whom we have above found abetting, as far as in him
+lay, the murder of Stephen. This hot-headed youth, furnished with a
+permission from the priests, entered houses suspected of harboring
+Christians, laid violent hold on men and women, and dragged them to
+prison or before the tribunals. Saul boasted that there was no one of
+his generation so zealous as himself for the traditions. True it is that
+often the gentleness and the resignation of his victims astonished him;
+he experienced a kind of remorse; he fancied he heard these pious women,
+whom, hoping for the Kingdom of God, he had cast into prison, saying
+during the night, in a sweet voice, "Why persecutest thou us?" The blood
+of Stephen, which had almost smothered him, sometimes troubled his
+vision. Many things that he had heard said of Jesus went to his heart.
+This superhuman being, in his ethereal life, whence he sometimes
+emerged, revealing himself in brief apparitions, haunted him like a
+spectre. But Saul shrunk with horror from such thoughts; he confirmed
+himself with a sort of frenzy in the faith of his traditions, and
+meditated new cruelties against those who attacked him. His name had
+become a terror to the faithful; they dreaded at his hands the most
+atrocious outrages and the most sanguinary treacheries.
+
+The persecution of the year 37 had for its result, as is always the
+case, the spread of the doctrine which it was wished to arrest. Till now
+the Christian preaching had not extended far beyond Jerusalem; no
+mission had been undertaken; enclosed within its exalted but narrow
+communion, the mother Church had spread no halos around herself nor
+formed any branches. The dispersion of the little circle scattered the
+good seed to the four winds of heaven. The members of the Church of
+Jerusalem, driven violently from their quarters, spread themselves over
+every part of Judea and Samaria, and preached everywhere the Kingdom of
+God. The deacons, in particular, freed from their administrative
+functions by the destruction of the community, became excellent
+evangelists.
+
+The scene of the first missions, which was soon to embrace the whole
+basin of the Mediterranean, was the region about Jerusalem, within a
+radius of two or three days' journey. Philip the Deacon was the hero of
+this first holy expedition. He evangelized Samaria most successfully.
+Peter and John, after confirming the Church of Sebaste, departed again
+for Jerusalem, evangelizing on their way the villages of the country of
+Samaria. Philip the Deacon continued his evangelizing journeys,
+directing his steps toward the south, into the ancient country of the
+Philistines.
+
+Azote and the Gaza route were the limits of the first evangelical
+preachings toward the south. Beyond were the desert and the nomadic life
+upon which Christianity has never taken much hold. From Azote Philip the
+Deacon turned toward the north and evangelized all the coast as far as
+Caesarea, where he settled and founded an important church. Caesarea was a
+new city and the most considerable of Judea. It was in a kind of way the
+port of Christianity, the point by which the Church of Jerusalem
+communicated with all the Mediterranean.
+
+Many other missions, the history of which is unknown to us, were
+conducted simultaneously with that of Philip. The very rapidity with
+which this first preaching was done was the reason of its success. In
+the year 38, five years after the death of Jesus, and probably one year
+after the death of Stephen, all this side of Jordan had heard the glad
+tidings from the mouths of missionaries hailing from Jerusalem. Galilee,
+on its part, guarded the holy seed and probably scattered it around her,
+although we know of no missions issuing from that quarter. Perhaps the
+city of Damascus, from the period at which we now are, had also some
+Christians, who received the faith from Galilean preachers.
+
+The year 38 is marked in the history of the nascent Church by a much
+more important conquest. During that year we may safely place the
+conversion of that Saul whom we witnessed participating in the stoning
+of Stephen, and as a principal agent in the persecution of 37, but who
+now, by a mysterious act of grace, becomes the most ardent of the
+disciples of Jesus.
+
+From the year 38 to the year 44 no persecution seems to have been
+directed against the Church. The faithful were, no doubt, far more
+prudent than before the death of Stephen, and avoided speaking in
+public. Perhaps, too, the troubles of the Jews who, during all the
+second part of the reign of Caligula, were at variance with that prince,
+contributed to favor the nascent sect.
+
+This period of peace was fruitful in interior developments. The nascent
+Church was divided into three provinces, Judea, Samaria, Galilee, to
+which Damascus was no doubt attached. The primacy of Jerusalem was
+uncontested. The Church of this city, which had been dispersed after the
+death of Stephen, was quickly reconstituted. The apostles had never
+quitted the city. The brothers of the Lord continued to reside there and
+to wield a great authority.
+
+Peter undertook frequent apostolical journeys in the environs of
+Jerusalem. He had always a great reputation as a thaumaturgist. At Lydda
+in particular he was reputed to have cured a paralytic named AEneas, a
+miracle which is said to have led to numerous conversions in the plain
+of Saron. From Lydda he repaired to Joppa, a city which appears to have
+been a centre for Christianity. Peter made a long sojourn at Joppa, at
+the house of a tanner named Simon, who dwelt near the sea. The
+organization of works of charity was soon actively entered upon.
+
+The germ of those associations of women, which are one of the glories of
+Christianity, existed in the first churches of Judea. At Jaffa commenced
+those societies of veiled women, clothed in linen, who were destined to
+continue through centuries the tradition of charitable secrets. Tabitha
+was the mother of a family which will have no end as long as there are
+miseries to be relieved and feminine instincts to be gratified.
+
+The Church of Jerusalem was still exclusively composed of Jews and of
+proselytes. The Holy Ghost being shed upon the uncircumcised before
+baptism, appeared an extraordinary fact. It is probable that there
+existed thenceforward a party opposed in principle to the admission of
+Gentiles, and that all did not accept the explanations of Peter. The
+author of the Acts would have us believe that the approbation was
+unanimous. But in a few years we shall see the question revived with
+much greater intensity. This matter of the good centurion was, perhaps,
+like that of the Ethiopian eunuch, accepted as an exceptional case,
+justified by a revelation and an express order from God. Still the
+matter was far from being settled. This was the first controversy which
+had taken place in the bosom of the Church; the paradise of interior
+peace had lasted for six or seven years.
+
+About the year 40 the great question upon which depended all the future
+of Christianity appears thus to have been propounded. Peter and Philip
+took a very just view of what was the true solution, and baptized
+pagans.
+
+The new faith was spread from place to place with marvellous rapidity.
+The members of the Church of Jerusalem, who had been dispersed
+immediately after the death of Stephen, pushing their conquests along
+the coast of Phoenicia, reached Cyprus and Antioch. They were at first
+guided by the sole principle of preaching the Gospel to the Jews only.
+
+Antioch, "the metropolis of the East," the third city of the world, was
+the centre of this Christian movement in Northern Syria. It was a city
+with a population of more than five hundred thousand souls, and the
+residence of the imperial legate of Syria. Suddenly advanced to a high
+degree of splendor by the Seleucidae, it reaped great benefit from the
+Roman occupation. Antioch, from its foundation, had been wholly a
+Grecian city. The Macedonians of Antigone and Seleucus had brought with
+them into that country of the Lower Orontes their most lively
+recollections, their worship, and the names of their country. The
+Grecian mythology was there adopted as it were in a second home; they
+pretended to show in the country a crowd of "holy places" forming part
+of this mythology. The city was full of the worship of Apollo and of the
+nymphs. The degradation of the people was awful. The peculiarity of
+these centres of moral putrefaction is to reduce all the race of mankind
+to the same level. The depravity of certain Levantine cities, which are
+dominated by the spirit of intrigue and delivered up entirely to low
+cunning, can scarcely give us an idea of the degree of corruption
+reached by the human race at Antioch. It was an inconceivable medley of
+mountebanks, quacks, buffoons, magicians, miracle-mongers, sorcerers,
+false priests; a city of races, games, dances, processions, _fetes_,
+revels, of unbridled luxury, of all the follies of the East, of the most
+unhealthy superstitions, and of the fanaticism of the orgy. The city
+was very literary, but literary only in the literature of rhetoricians.
+The beauty of works of art and the infinite charm of nature prevented
+this moral degradation from sinking entirely into hideousness and
+vulgarity.
+
+The Church of Antioch owed its foundation to some believers originally
+from Cyprus and Cyrene, who had already been much engaged in preaching.
+Up to this time they had only addressed themselves to the Jews. But in a
+city where pure Jews--Jews who were proselytes, "people fearing God"--or
+half-Jewish pagans and pure pagans, lived together, exclusive preaching
+restricted to a group of houses became impossible. That feeling of
+religious aristocracy on which the Jews of Jerusalem so much prided
+themselves did not exist in those large cities, where civilization was
+altogether of the profane sort, where the scope was greater, and where
+prejudices were less firmly rooted. The Cypriot and Cyrenian
+missionaries were then constrained to depart from their rule. They
+preached to the Jews and to the Greeks indifferently.
+
+The success of the Christian preaching was great. A young, innovating,
+and ardent Church, full of the future, because it was composed of the
+most diverse elements, was quickly founded. All the gifts of the Holy
+Spirit were there poured out, and it was easy to perceive that this new
+Church, emancipated from the strict Mosaism which erected an insuperable
+barrier around Jerusalem, would become the second cradle of
+Christianity. Assuredly, Jerusalem must remain forever the capital of
+the Christian world; nevertheless, the point of departure of the Church
+of the Gentiles, the primordial focus of Christian missions, was, in
+truth, Antioch. It was there that for the first time a Christian church
+was established, freed from the bonds of Judaism; it was there that the
+great propaganda of the apostolic age was established; it was there that
+St. Paul assumed a definite character. Antioch marks the second
+halting-place of the progress of Christianity, and, in respect of
+Christian nobility, neither Rome nor Alexandria nor Constantinople can
+be at all compared with it.
+
+The foundation of Christianity, from this point of view, is the greatest
+work that the men of the people have ever achieved. Very quickly,
+without doubt, men and women of the high Roman nobility joined
+themselves to the Church. At the end of the first century, Flavius
+Clemens and Flavia Domitilla show us Christianity penetrating almost
+into the palace of the Caesars.
+
+
+ISAAC M. WISE
+
+In the rabbinical literature several successes of the apostles are
+noticed, especially at Capernaum and Capersamia. One of them is most
+remarkable, viz., the conversion of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcan by the
+apostle James. This rabbi, the _Talmud_ narrates, was actually arrested
+by Roman officers, and, in obedience to the edict against Christianity,
+was accused of the crime of being a Christian, which he did not deny,
+although he repented it.
+
+The most important success, however, which the apostles could boast was
+the conversion of Paul. The man whose colossal genius and gigantic
+energies grasped the pillars upon which the superstructure of
+Graeco-Roman paganism rested, bent and broke them like rotten staves,
+till with a thundering noise down came the ancient fabric, with its
+gods, altars, temples, priests, and priestesses, depositing _debris_
+that took centuries to remove and remodel; the man whose hands were
+against all, and against whom were all hands; who defied the philosophy
+of the philosophers, the power of the priests, and the religions of the
+world; who was all alone all in all--this man was Paul of Tarsus, the
+great apostle to the Gentiles, with an original gospel of his own. He
+kindled a fire in the very heart of the Roman Empire, under the eyes of
+the authorities of Rome and of Jerusalem, which in a few centuries
+consumed ancient heathenism from the Tigris to the Tiber, and from the
+Tiber to the Thames. With a skilful hand he threw the sparks upon the
+accumulated combustibles of error, corruption, and slavery, and ancient
+society exploded, to make room and furnish the material for a new
+civilization. The conversion of this man was the apostles' great
+success. If it had not been for him the nascent Church, like other
+Jewish sects, would have perished in the catastrophe of Jerusalem,
+because the apostles did not possess that vigor and energy to resist the
+violent shock. In Paul, however, the spirit of John and of Jesus
+resurrected with double vigor, and he became the actual founder of the
+Christianity of history.
+
+Few and far apart are the brilliant stars in the horizon of history.
+Strike out a hundred names and their influence upon the fate of man, and
+you have no history.
+
+Those brilliant stars, however, did not always make history from their
+own wealth, from the original resources of their minds. Ideas which tens
+of thousands have held, without an attempt to carry them into effect,
+and others have unsuccessfully attempted to realize, in the right time
+and under favorable circumstances are seized upon by an executive
+genius, and a new epoch in history is opened. The numerous minor spirits
+which contributed to the sum total of the creative idea disappear in the
+brilliancy of the one star which remains visible in history. The world
+is a machine shop. Each artificer makes the part of a machine. One
+master mind combines the parts, and he is known as the master machinist.
+
+Paul was one of those master machinists, one of those brilliant stars in
+the horizon of history. In him the spirit of Jesus resurrected as
+eminently and vigorously as John had resurrected in Jesus. He was the
+author of Gentile Christianity. He conceived the idea of carrying into
+effect what all the prophets, all pious Israelites of all ages, hoped
+and expected--the denationalization of the Hebrew ideas, and their
+promulgation in the form of universal religion among the Gentiles; to
+conciliate and unite the human family under the great banner inscribed
+with the motto of "One God and one code of morals to all." All Jews of
+all ages hoped and expected that the kingdom of heaven should be
+extended to all nations and tongues; but Paul went forth TO DO it; this
+is his particular greatness.
+
+The circumstances, of course, favored his enterprise. Graeco-Roman
+paganism was undermined. The gods stood in disrepute, and the augurs
+smiled. The state religion was an organized hypocrisy. The learned
+believed nothing; the vulgar almost everything, if it was but
+preposterously absurd enough. The progress of Grecian philosophy and the
+inroads of Judaism in the Roman world were so considerable that royal
+families had embraced Judaism, and the emperor Tiberius had found it
+necessary to drive the Jews, together with the Egyptian priests, from
+Rome, because their religion had its admirers in the very palace of the
+Caesars, as well as among priests, nobles, and plebeians. All the devout
+Gentiles whom Paul met on his journeys were Judaized Greeks or Syrians;
+for the Pharisees traversed land and sea to make one proselyte.
+Therefore, when Paul preached in Asia Minor, Cicero and Cato _had_
+spoken in Rome; Seneca and Epictetus gave utterance to sentiments as
+nearly like those of Paul and other Jews as are the two eyes of the same
+head.
+
+Again, on the other hand, Epicurism in its worst sequences, sensualism
+in its most outrageous form, the despotism and brutality of the Caesars
+and their favorites, had so undermined the moral sentiments and
+religious feelings of the masses that scepticism, fraught with shocking
+vices and unnatural crimes, coupled with contemptible hypocrisy and
+ridiculous superstition, demoralized the masses and brought truth itself
+into ill-repute. To add to all this there came the steady decline of the
+Jewish state, the growing demonstration of fast-approaching ruin, and,
+in consequence thereof, the growth of superstition among the Hebrews,
+among whom a class of mystics sprang up, who professed to know what God
+and his angels do, speak, and think in the secret cabinet of heaven,
+where the throne of the Almighty stands, splendidly and minutely
+described by those mystics who supposed that they received superior
+knowledge by special impressions from on high, without study or research
+on their part; and expected to see the status of social and political
+affairs suddenly changed by miraculous interpositions of the Deity,
+without human exertion and cooperation. This state of affairs was highly
+favorable to Paul's stupendous enterprise.
+
+But who was Paul himself? Notwithstanding all the attempts of the author
+of the Acts to mystify him into as mythical a character as the Gospels
+made of Jesus, Paul is an open book in history. We have his genuine
+epistles, in which he gives considerable account of himself and his
+exploits. We have one portion of the Acts in which, contrary to the rest
+of that book, the author narrates in the first person plural, "we,"
+which appears to be taken from the notes of one of Paul's
+companions--Luke, Timothy, Silas, or any other. Then we have the
+_Talmud_, with its numerous anecdotes about _Acher_, as the rabbis
+called Paul, which are of inestimable value to the historian. These
+sources enable us to form a conception of the man. A few remarks on his
+life will be found interesting.
+
+Paul is not a proper name. It signifies "the little one." The author of
+the Acts states that his name was Saul. But, it appears, he knew no more
+about it than we do, and changed the P of Paul into an S, to make of it
+the Hebrew name Saul. In his epistles he invariably calls himself Paul,
+and not Saul. So the author of the "we" portion of the Acts always calls
+him Paul. Passing under an assumed name, the rabbis called him _Acher_,
+"another," _i.e._, one who passes under another or assumed name. They
+maintain that his name was Elisha ben Abujah. But this name must be
+fictitious, because it is a direct and express reference to Paul's
+theology. It signifies "the saving deity, son of the father god," and
+Paul was the author of the "Son of God" doctrine. The fact is, he was
+known to the world under his assumed name only.
+
+Nothing is known of his youth, except a few spurious anecdotes recorded
+in the _Talmud_. When quite young he studied the law and some Grecian
+literature at the feet of Gamaliel in Jerusalem, among the thousand
+students who listened to the wisdom of that master. He states that he
+was a very zealous Pharisee, who persecuted the Christians. But all of a
+sudden he embraced the cause of the persecuted, and became one of its
+most zealous apostles. We can easily imagine the nature of that
+persecution, although the Stephen story, like the Damascus story and the
+vision on the way, as narrated in the Acts, is spurious, because Paul
+never alludes to it, and the Jews of Jerusalem had no jurisdiction in
+Damascus over anybody. But what caused his remarkable transition from
+one extreme to the other? First a Pharisee, with law and nothing but
+law, and then the author of the epistles, which reject and abrogate the
+entire law. Transitions of this nature require time, and are wrought by
+violent agencies only.
+
+A number of stories narrated in the _Talmud_, together with those of the
+Acts, point to the fact that the youthful Paul, with his vivid
+imagination, witnessed many an act of barbarous violence and outrageous
+injustice. Occurrences of this nature were not rare under the military
+despotism of Rome in Judea. The soil was saturated with innocent blood.
+The world was governed by the sword, and Rome groaned under the
+unnatural crimes of her Caesars. There was universal depravity among the
+governing class, and endless misery among the governed. The rabbis give
+us to understand that this state of affairs misled Paul into the belief
+that there was no justice in heaven or earth, no hope for Israel, no
+reward and no punishment, that the balance of justice was destroyed. It
+is quite natural that under such circumstances such a scepticism should
+overpower young and sensitive reasoners.
+
+King Saul, in a state of despair, receiving no reply from the prophets,
+none from the Urim and Thumim, deeply fallen as he was, went in disguise
+to the Witch of Endor. Goethe's Faust, in imitation thereof, receiving
+no answer to his questions addressed to heaven and eternity, no answer
+through his knowledge of nature's laws and nature's forces, no answer
+from the philosophy of his century and the theology of his priests,
+throws himself into the embrace of Mephistopheles. That is human nature.
+Exactly the same thing was done in the days of Paul, and exactly the
+same thing he himself did. There was the indescribable misery of the
+age, and there were the knowledge and theories of that overburdened
+century, and no answer, no reply to the questions addressed to heaven
+and eternity; and they went to the fountains of mysticism and secret
+knowledge to quench the thirst of the soul. There sprung up the
+visionary Gnostics among the Gentiles, and the Cabalistic Mystics among
+the Jews. History notices the same rotation continually--idealism,
+sensualism, scepticism, and finally mysticism.
+
+The mystic art among the Hebrews then was of two different kinds, either
+to attract an evil spirit or to be transported alive into paradise or
+heaven. An evil spirit was attracted by fasting and remaining for days
+and nights alone in burial-grounds, till the brain was maddened and
+infatuated, when the artificial demoniac prophesied and performed sundry
+miracles. The transportation to heaven or paradise was more difficult.
+The candidate for a tour into heaven would retire to some isolated
+spot, fast until the brain was maddened with delirium and the nerves
+excited to second sight by the loss of sleep. Then, in that state of
+trance, he would sit down on the ground, draw up his knees, bend down
+his head between them, and murmur magic spells, until, through the
+reversed circulation of the blood, the maddened brain, and the unstrung
+nerves, he would imagine that he saw the heaven opening to his
+inspection, palace after palace thrown widely open to his gaze, hosts of
+angels passing within view, until finally he imagined himself entirely
+removed from the earth, transported aloft into those diamond palaces on
+high, or, as Paul calls it, "caught up into paradise," where he heard
+"unspeakable words, which it is not possible for a man to utter," and
+the throne of God, with all the seraphim and cherubim, archangels and
+angels, became visible and their conversation intelligible to the
+enraptured and transported mystic, in a fit of hallucination, when the
+bewildered imagination sees objectively its own subjective phantasma,
+and hears from without, in supposed articulate sounds, its own silent
+thoughts. It requires no great stretch of the imagination to form a
+correct idea of the mystic eccentricities to which this awful practice
+must have led those who frequently indulged in it. Rabbinical mystics,
+like modern trance-speakers, gave vivid descriptions of the interior
+splendor and grand sceneries of heaven and of the conversations of
+angels. One of those descriptions is preserved in _Pirke Rabbi Eliezer_,
+and others in various fragments of the _Talmud_.
+
+Among those particularly noticed in the _Talmud_ as having been in
+heaven or paradise there is also Acher, or Paul, who states so himself
+in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians (xii.). That passage gave rise
+to the story of Jesus appearing in person to Paul, just as the
+rabbinical mystics claimed to have had frequent intercourse with the
+prophet Elijah, who had been transported alive to heaven.
+
+So Paul passed the transition from the law school of the Pharisees to
+the new school of mystics. In this state of trance he discovered that
+central figure of the Cabalistic speculation, the _Metathron_, the
+co-regent of the Almighty; or, as he otherwise was called, the
+_Synadelphos_, the _confrere_ of the Deity, or Suriel, the "Prince of
+the Countenance," whom the Cabalists imagined to be the chief marshal
+or chief scribe in heaven; who was once on earth, as Enoch or as Elijah,
+and was advanced to that high position in heaven.
+
+It is the Demiurge, the highest magistrate in heaven, whom the gnostic
+Valentine calls a godlike angel, and of whom the rabbis said, "His name
+is like unto the name of his Master."
+
+This central figure, blended with the messianic speculations of that
+age, with the doctrines of Peter and the nascent Church, combined in
+Paul's mind to one mystic conception of the "Son of God," intelligible
+to pagan ears. So he went forth and proclaimed Jesus of Nazareth the Son
+of God. In substance, the expression is about the same as Metathron and
+Synadelphos, and the office which Paul ascribed to Jesus is precisely of
+the same nature with that which the Cabalists ascribed to the angel who
+was the _Saar Haolom_, the prince or ruler of this world, who stands
+before God, or also sits before him, as Paul's Jesus stands before God
+or sits at his right hand. It is precisely the same in both systems, the
+names only are changed; so that it is difficult to decide whether Paul
+was or the rabbis were the authors of the metathronic speculations,
+especially as these two angels only have Greek names, while all others
+are Hebrew or Chaldaean, and later Cabalists frequently put down Joshua
+or Jesus in the place of Metathron.
+
+Those who believe that Acher's dualism of the Deity was the Persian
+_Ormuzd_ and _Ahriman_, hence a good and an evil principle, and that
+Metathron never was an evil demon, are as decidedly mistaken as those
+who believe that Paul had more than one God. Paul's Son of God and
+Acher's Metathron are the same central figure before the throne of God,
+and the two authors are identical.
+
+In that world of secret thoughts Paul discovered the harmonization of
+discordant speculations and the remedy for all existing evils. "The
+world must be regenerated by a new religion," was his great ideal. The
+ancient religions and the philosophies have produced the corruption
+which rages universally. They must be swept away. Society must be
+reconstructed on a new basis, and this basis is in the theology and
+ethics of Israel, separated and liberated from their climatical and
+national limitations, their peculiar Jewish garb. There was no hope
+left of saving the Jewish nationality and political organization from
+the hands of omnipotent Rome, which swallowed and neutralized kingdoms
+and nations with wonderful ease; nor was there any particular necessity
+for it if society at large was reconstructed on the new basis. The
+object of Jesus was to reconstruct the kingdom of heaven _in Israel_,
+and he was crucified. All Israel had the same object in view, and stood
+at the brink of dissolution. If the basis and principles of the kingdom
+of heaven became the postulate of society at large, Jesus is resurrected
+in the world, and Israel is saved, was Paul's main idea.
+
+The Pharisean rabbis hoped that this would come to pass at some future
+day, when, they maintained, all sacrifices and all laws would be
+abolished, and all the nations of the earth would be one family, with
+one God and one moral law. Paul seized upon the idea, and added to it
+the simple dogma of Peter, "The Messiah has come." That hoped-for future
+is now. God's promise to Abraham, "And there shall be blessed by thee,
+and by thy seed, all the families of the earth," is to be fulfilled at
+once. So he came forth from his mystical paradise an apostle of Jesus
+and a new redeemer of Israel. He argued exactly as the Pharisean doctors
+did who maintained that the Messiah would come when all mankind should
+be guilty or all righteous. In the estimation of Paul, at that
+particular time all mankind was corrupt and demoralized, and so that was
+the time for the Messiah to make his appearance.
+
+He went to work at once. He began to preach his new Christianity at
+Damascus about the year 51, and found out that the world was not
+prepared for his ideas. He had a narrow escape at Damascus, where the
+governor and soldiers pursued him. Like the spies at Jericho, he was let
+down in a basket over the city walls and made his escape. So _he_
+narrates the story. The author of the Acts, true to his hostility to the
+Jews, of course brings them in as the persecutors. But Paul, in general,
+never speaks otherwise than with the highest regard and love of his
+kinsmen and his brothers according to the flesh.
+
+The failure at Damascus did not discourage Paul. It only convinced him
+that he was too young--he could not at that time have been much over
+twenty-one years; that he was not sufficiently prepared for the great
+enterprise; that it was not such an easy task to throw down the
+superannuated heathenism and to reorganize society on a new basis. He
+retired into Arabia and remained there nearly three years, to perfect a
+plan of operation. Nearly three years he spent in silent contemplation,
+to discover the proper means, to take the right hold upon the heathen
+world, and to unfurl a new banner of heaven upon this wicked earth. In
+53 or 54 we meet him again at Antioch, with his new and original
+gospel--the gospel for the Gentiles--prepared for his mission and ready
+to embark in the great enterprise, to wage active war upon all existing
+systems of religion and philosophy, and to replace all of them by Paul's
+gospel. He had been in Jerusalem fifteen days, had conversed with Peter
+and nobody else, but he repeatedly tells us that he had taken advice of
+none, consulted none, was appointed by nobody, and learned nothing of
+anybody. The gospel was his gospel, and he was an apostle by the
+appointment of God Almighty himself, who had revealed his Son to him. In
+Antioch he established the first congregation of Jews and Gentiles, and
+called them Christians. So Paul was the actual author of Christianity
+among the Gentiles.
+
+What was Paul's gospel? Paul, setting out on his journeys with the great
+idea of converting heathens, was obliged to paganize the Gospel. The
+heathens knew nothing of the Jewish Messiah, and he gave him the name
+popularly known among them--he called him the Son of God, which was a
+common name in mythology. The Son of God and Mary was a term as popular
+among heathens as it was foreign to the Jews, among whom Jesus was to
+remain the Messiah, only that he became also the Metathron. This
+explained to Jewish mystics the possibility of the second advent, and
+gave a metaphysical foundation to the resurrection doctrine. The kingdom
+of heaven, or the theocracy, was another unintelligible idea to the
+heathen. Israel's laws and form of government were as odious and decried
+among the pagans as the hostility to that people was fierce and
+implacable. Paul made thereof a theological kingdom of heaven, when all
+the dead shall resurrect in spiritual bodies, and the living shall be
+changed accordingly, together with this earth and all that is thereon;
+and declared all the laws of Israel abrogated, so that only the spirit
+thereof, the precepts and not the laws, should be obligatory in the new
+state of society.
+
+The sins and wickedness of the world are forgiven to all who believe in
+the Son, and whose flesh is crucified with him, to resurrect with him in
+purity; for he died a vicarious atonement for all. He was the last
+sacrifice, to blot out the sins of all who have faith in him.
+
+The Crucified One did not resurrect merely in the spirit, of which the
+heathens could not form a satisfactory conception, because the
+immortality of the soul was by no means a general belief among them, and
+their gods were no spirits; he resurrected in his very body, and was
+caught up to heaven, to sit or stand there at God's right hand, to come
+down again in proper time. "Here, then, is your tangible proof of
+immortality," he said to the heathens. "Like the Crucified One, all of
+you will resurrect from the dead, or be changed on the day of judgment."
+This was plain language to heathens, who knew that but lately Caesar had
+been caught up to heaven as Romulus was before him, and asked no
+questions as to how a human body can rise in the atmosphere and become
+incorruptible; none as to what means above or below, up or down, as to
+where God is and where he is not, where his right hand, where before and
+where behind him; or as to whether the world is full of his glory. No
+such questions were asked, and there was the ocular demonstration of
+immortality, tangible and intelligible to the grossest intellect.
+
+The Jewish nationality and the Jewish law are at their end, and the
+world is the heir to that covenant and to the blessing of God by Abraham
+and his seed. With the new covenant the old one ceases. It has fulfilled
+its destiny. It was a state of preparation for this period of universal
+salvation to all who have love, hope, and faith. With Adam and the flesh
+came the sin, law, and death; with Jesus the flesh ceases, hence no more
+sin, law, or death.
+
+These are the main features of Paul's gospel: The Son of God, the
+theological kingdom of heaven, the vicarious atonement, the bodily
+resurrection of the Crucified One, the abrogation of the law, and the
+beginning of the new covenant. He was the first man to utter these
+doctrines; with him Christianity begins, and he named it.
+
+But Paul knew well that doctrines alone would be insufficient to rouse
+the heathen world from its demoralized state, its dreary and stupid
+dreams; and he resorted to the most terrible and most shocking of all
+messages. He came to the heathens with the terror-striking proclamation,
+"The end is nigh!" The whole earth, with all the creatures thereon; the
+whole human family, with all its wickedness, all its atrocious crimes,
+will be destroyed in one moment. All of you, men, women, and children,
+with all your vices and crimes, will be suddenly summoned before the
+Eternal and All-just; you have to go, all of you, and appear before the
+omniscient God. The end is nigh, the destruction of the human family is
+certain and right before you. It will come soon. It may come any day, at
+any moment.
+
+Now Paul's gospel came in. Here is your choice. There are death and
+damnation; here are life and happiness everlasting. God has sent his Son
+in advance of the approaching catastrophe to warn you, and he is
+appointed now to conduct the end of all flesh. Cling to him and be
+saved, or believe not and be condemned forever. So he came to the
+heathens. This was his gospel. How did he succeed? We will explain after
+a brief pause.
+
+All passages in the Gospels and the Acts which have reference to the
+above Christology, to the end of things or against it--in which the
+synoptics most fatally contradict one another--are the products of
+writers long after Paul, when the attempts to reconcile Jewish and
+Gentile Christianity were made. For with Paul begins the new form of
+Christianity and the struggle with the representatives of the old form.
+Within ten years he traversed the land from Antioch to Athens, in three
+different journeys, and established his bishopric, the first Christian
+congregations among the Gentiles. He organized them fully, with deacons
+and deaconesses, preachers and prophets; and he was their bishop, their
+oracle, their revelation, and their demi-god. He let his converts
+believe that they could do wonderful things, in healing the sick,
+driving out demons, prophesying and speaking with strange tongues,
+because it served his purposes, although he did none of these things. He
+gave them the Holy Ghost, _i.e._, he regenerated their feelings and
+pacified their stormy passions, suppressed their brutal lusts, and
+elevated their aspirations to higher ideals. He did not feel that
+sovereign contempt for money which the Master did whom he glorified; for
+he, like the other apostles, took his pay, and argued with the
+Corinthians, like a good Pharisean lawyer, that bishops and preachers
+must be paid--an argument well understood by the dignitaries of the
+Church to this day.
+
+Wonderful, indeed, is the progress which Paul made among the Gentiles in
+ten years. Like a pillar of fire, he traversed the deserts of
+heathenism; like a second Elijah, he battled against the priests and
+prophets of Baal, and conjured down the fire from heaven to his
+assistance. Within ten years he laid the foundation of a new
+civilization, of the reorganization of society on the new basis. He did
+not live to see it realized, but he saw the new system take root and
+promise golden fruit. Wonderful, we maintain, was his success; for he
+was not only opposed by the entire heathen world, and by the orthodox
+Jews, although he proclaimed their God and their doctrines, their
+religion and their hopes, but was also most strenuously opposed by the
+apostles and the nascent congregation in Jerusalem, whose Master he
+glorified, and whose cause he made the cause of the world. The
+dissensions between Paul and the apostles were of a very serious
+character, and there was ample cause for them.
+
+In the first place, he took it upon himself to be an apostle, and they
+had their college of Twelve, to which none could be added, especially
+not Paul, who had never seen Jesus of Nazareth. He maintained that God
+had appointed him, God had revealed his Son and his Gospel to him; but
+the apostles did not believe it, and never acknowledged him as an
+apostle. At the end of his journeys, Peter, James, and John, three out
+of Twelve, acknowledged him as an apostle to the Gentiles, but not to
+the Jews. The rest never did, which, of course, was a great trouble and
+drawback to Paul among his own converts.
+
+In the second place, they could never forgive him for the idea of going
+to the Gentiles. Peter, who had become a pious Essene and considered it
+unlawful to go to the house or into the company of a Gentile; James, who
+dreaded the idea of eating of the bread of the Gentile, and made a
+hypocrite in this point of Peter at Antioch--and they were the heads of
+the Church--could not forgive Paul's innovation in going to the
+Gentiles. Paul was sensible enough to silence them by begging money for
+them, and to appoint the Sunday for collections to be made for the
+saints of Jerusalem. But it was too much for them that Paul went to the
+Gentiles.
+
+In the third place, he changed their whole religion into a new sort of
+mythology. He made of Jesus a Son of God, of which they had no
+knowledge. He preached vicarious atonement, bodily resurrection, the end
+of the old covenant and the beginning of a new, the end of all flesh,
+the last judgment--all of which was foreign to them; not one word of all
+that had their Master told them, and they knew only what he did tell
+them. They naturally looked upon him as an unscrupulous innovator. They
+had not experience and forethought enough to understand that Paul's
+success among the heathens depended on that means. They were pious men
+who prayed much, believed seriously, and had no knowledge of the world
+as it was.
+
+In the fourth place, they could not possibly give their consent to
+Paul's abrogation of the whole law, knowing, as they did, how their
+Master respected every tittle, every iota of the law; that he had come
+to fulfil the law, and to reestablish the theocracy; how could they
+possibly think of the idea of abolishing Sabbath and holidays,
+circumcision and ablutions, all and everything, to be guided by the
+phantom of hope, love, and faith, against which James argues in his
+epistle with all the energy of his soul? Those inexperienced saints did
+not know that the Pharisean doctors held similar theories, and that Paul
+could not possibly hope to meet with any success among the Gentiles if
+he had come to them with the laws of the Jews. They were Roman citizens,
+who contemned the laws of the barbarians. Had Paul come with the word
+Judaism on his lips, he would have surely failed. Had he come to enforce
+a foreign law, he would have been laughed at as a madman. They did not
+know that Paul cared not for an hundred and one laws, as long as the
+essence and substance could be saved and preserved; that he held that
+laws are local, the spirit is universal; that laws are limitations, the
+spirit is free and the property of all men of all ages and climes; that
+he was determined to drop everything which could retard his progress.
+
+In the fifth place, and this was the worst, they could not forgive him
+for preaching the theological kingdom of heaven. A kingdom of Israel--a
+throne of David, a Davidian prince, a Zion and a Jerusalem in heaven,
+and slavery, misery, and oppression on earth--was so new and foreign to
+them, so contrary to what they had heard from their Master, that they
+could not accept it. What should become of Peter's Messiah, of the hopes
+and promises connected with the second advent, if all at once the whole
+scheme is transported from earth to heaven? It was too much
+disappointment, they could not endure it. Those men did not understand
+that Paul had carefully to avoid every conflict with the Roman
+authorities. He was too prudent to be crucified. They could not
+comprehend that his great object was not to remove the evil at once; he
+intended to sow the seed, to bring forth the plant; to give to the
+heathens correct notions of God, duty, responsibility, purity, holiness,
+morality, justice, humanity, and freedom, which in proper time should
+necessarily break the chains, revolutionize the sentiments, and elevate
+the views, hopes, aspirations, and designs of the nations.
+
+They could not comprehend that their Messiah and kingdom of heaven,
+together with his terrible message of the end of all flesh and the last
+judgment day, were means, and nothing but means, to captivate and reform
+the heathen. His Son of God was crucified and resurrected from the dead
+to forewarn all of the approaching end of all flesh; to show that in a
+little while all the dead should resurrect and the living should be
+changed to spiritual beings. He had been given all power by the Almighty
+to conduct the catastrophe of the world, and would be present at the
+last judgment day. But after all that is over, the earth and man changed
+to a new state of spiritual life, then the Son of God returns the
+kingdom to the Father, and God will be again all in all. So the Son of
+God was a general superintendent, the demiurge for the time being, a
+doctrine of which the apostles had no knowledge, and to which they
+could not give their consent. He could not get them to understand that
+these were the means for the conversion of the Gentiles, and that he had
+quite another gospel for the enlightened portion of the community. They
+could not see that among heathens used to apotheosis, man-worship, and
+plastic gods, ideas, to become effective, must put on concrete and
+tangible bodies.
+
+They could not imagine that the sensuality and corruption of the age
+required heroic and terror-striking means to rouse and to move the
+masses; and so the dissensions and troubles between Paul and the nascent
+Church increased with the success of Paul among the Gentiles. His
+epistles, one and all, are polemics, not against heathenism or against
+Judaism, but against his colleagues in Jerusalem, whom, together with
+their doctrines, he treats in a most reckless manner. They could not
+write to counterbalance Paul--in fact, there were no writers of any note
+among them. Therefore, only one side of the polemics, that of Paul, is
+fully represented in the New Testament; and the side of the Jewish
+Christians remained mostly matter of tradition.
+
+Messengers were sent to follow Paul to undo his gospel and preach that
+of the apostles; to introduce the law and circumcision among the Gentile
+Christians. Those messengers in many cases succeeded, notwithstanding
+the thundering epistles of Paul. So his influence was weakened and his
+progress retarded among the Gentiles till finally, after ten years of
+hard work, he concluded upon going to Jerusalem and, if possible,
+effecting a compromise with the apostolic congregation. It was a
+dangerous time for him to go to Jerusalem, for just then the fanatic
+high-priest, Ananias, had convened a court of his willing tools, tried
+James, the brother of Jesus, and, finding him guilty, of what God only
+knows, had him and some of his associates executed--a bloody deed, which
+cost him his office, on account of the loud and emphatic protestations
+of the Jews before Agrippa II and the Roman governor. Therefore, Paul
+was cautioned by prophets and friends not to go to Jerusalem.
+
+But he was not the man to be frightened by dangers; he was the very type
+of boldness and courage. He went to Jerusalem to effect a conciliation
+with the Church. A synod met in the house of James the apostle, who had
+succeeded the former James as head of the Church, and Paul was told to
+do that against which his conscience, his honor, his manhood must have
+revolted: he was required to play the hypocrite in Jerusalem, in order
+to pacify the brethren who were angry at him. The thousands of Jews,
+they said, who were zealous for the law, and were informed how Paul
+taught the people to forsake Moses, to give up circumcision and the
+ancient customs, hearing of his presence in Jerusalem, "the multitude
+must needs come together," which points to the Jewish Christians
+faithful to the law. Therefore they advised him to go through the
+mockery of a purification at the Temple, "to be at charges," as they
+called it, with some who had vowed a vow, and make the prescribed
+sacrifices after the purification.
+
+Poor man! After so much labor, such ardent toils, such numerous perils,
+dangers, anxieties, trials, reverses, and triumphs, after ten long years
+of such work and such dangers, he is not safe in Jerusalem among his own
+kinsmen and among those whose Master he glorified, whose doctrines he
+taught, and whose interests he protected. How small must he have
+appeared to himself when walking up the Temple Mount in the company of
+the four men, whose expenses he paid, to be purified with them: "And all
+may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee,
+are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly and keepest the
+law." The man who had defied a world, to submit to the humbling
+dictation of his colleagues, who were children in comparison with
+him--this is mortifying to the utmost. This is the time of which it is
+said in the _Talmud_ that Paul or Acher narrated, that on passing behind
+the _sanctum sanctorum_ he heard the _Bath-kol_ or Holy Ghost exclaim:
+"Return, all ye forward children; all return, except Paul, who has known
+me and rebelled against me." Paul never forgot, never forgave, this
+humiliation. It estranged his feelings altogether from his colleagues in
+Jerusalem, and he embraced the first best opportunity to rid himself
+entirely of his Jewish associations.
+
+The opportunity soon offered. While near the Temple some Jews from Asia
+Minor recognized him. A disturbance ensued. He was arrested and locked
+up in the castle by the Roman commander. Here the author of the Acts
+brings in a terrible tumult--speeches, trials, a Jewish mob, with a
+noble Roman stepping in in time to wind up dramatically--not one word of
+which is historical. Paul, standing accused as the ringleader of the new
+sect who expected the second advent of the Messiah, could only appear
+dangerous to the zealous and vigilant Roman authorities. Nothing else
+was necessary to put his life in jeopardy. In the night he made up his
+mind to appeal to Caesar, because he was a Roman citizen. Therefore he
+was sent to Caesarea, to the governor, under the protection of soldiers.
+Not a sound was heard in his favor among the Jewish Christians. Not an
+angel appeared. Not a solitary miracle was wrought; none dreamed a
+dream; nobody had a vision; the Holy Ghost was as silent as the grave;
+none of all the Christians in Palestine showed his face, when Paul,
+loaded with chains, was transported from Jerusalem to Caesarea. This
+silence speaks volumes. They did not care much about the innovator.
+Therefore Paul's epistles from his prison in Caesarea are thunder-bolts
+against the law, circumcision, and his colleagues in Jerusalem. It is
+the offended man, the wounded lion, who retaliates in his anger.
+
+In Caesarea another mock trial is described by the author of the Acts.
+There can be little doubt that Ananias, the Sadducean high-priest who
+had slain James, thirsted also after the blood of Paul. But it is
+certainly not true that Felix was governor of Judea when Ananias was
+high-priest. Felix and Festus had been removed from their offices before
+Ananias was made high-priest, as the authentic sources of history show.
+If tried at Caesarea at all--which is doubtful, because Paul had appealed
+to Caesar--he was tried before Albinus. His speeches recorded in the Acts
+contain sentences of Paul, but many more additions from the author of
+the Acts.
+
+It matters little, however, whether Paul was tried before Albinus or
+Felix, or whether there was a trial at all. He had appealed to Caesar, in
+order to estrange himself from his colleagues in Jerusalem and to come
+before his converts as an expatriated man, although Agrippa himself had
+said, "This man might have been set at liberty had he not appealed unto
+Caesar."
+
+Fortunately he was detained in Caesarea, when Nero in Rome put to death
+the Christians in his own gardens with exquisite cruelty, and added
+mockery and derision to their sufferings. Had he been brought to Rome
+_then_, no angels could have saved his life, and no power could have
+protected him for two years. He came to Rome in the year 65, when the
+cruelty of Nero's proceedings against the Christians filled every breast
+with compassion, and humanity relented in favor of the Christians. Then
+it was possible for Paul to have a hearing in Rome, where he lived in a
+hired house for two years.
+
+Neither Paul nor Peter was ever bishop of Rome, nor was either of them
+beheaded in Rome or anywhere else. All the legends and myths concerning
+them are void of truth. We know that Paul, who was then about
+thirty-five years old, wrote from Rome epistles in defence of his gospel
+and against his colleagues in Jerusalem, in the same spirit as those
+from Caesarea. We know, furthermore, that he went from Rome to Illyricum,
+where he preached his gospel. We know that he returned to Asia, and
+wrote the quintessence of his gospel in his epistle to the Romans. We
+know that many passages in his epistles were written, after the
+destruction of Jerusalem, when Paul was about forty years old, and his
+principal activity commenced still later, in opposition to Rabbi Akiba
+and his colleagues. We know from the _Talmud_ that he married and left
+daughters. We know also numerous stories of Acher or Paul and his
+disciple, Rabbi Mair.
+
+Long after the death of the apostles the Christianity of Paul and the
+Messiahism of Peter were Platonized by the Alexandrian eclectics in a
+semi-gnostic manner, which gave birth to the fourth gospel, according to
+John, and the two epistles of John the Elder, not the apostle, about
+A.D. 160, of which the Synoptics have no idea. They had only the
+Christianity of Paul and of Peter before them. An original Peter gospel,
+Paul's epistles, and the different traditions of the various
+congregations were their sources, which they attempted to blend into one
+system. All the gospel writers lived in the second century; were not
+acquainted with the particulars of the story; had an imperfect knowledge
+of the Jews, their laws and doctrines; wrote in favor of the Romans,
+whom they wished to convert, and against the Jews, whom they could not
+convert.
+
+The third century inherited four distinct systems of Christianity: that
+of Jesus with the pure theocracy, that of Peter with the Messiah and his
+second advent, that of Paul with the Son of God and the approaching end
+of all flesh, and that of John with the Logos and the self-aggrandizing
+demi-god or man-god on earth. The difficulties and dissensions arising
+from the attempts at uniting all these contradictory systems in one,
+ended with the Council of Nice, in the beginning of the fourth century,
+and the establishment of an orthodox creed, the excommunication of the
+Jewish Christians, and the establishment of the Church as a state
+institution. Then the sword and the pyre established doctrines.
+
+On comparison you will find that Jesus became the Saviour of the
+Gentiles by the exertion of Paul; that the means which Peter and Paul
+adopted for momentary purposes have been turned into main dogmas; that
+the religion which Jesus taught and believed is partly laid aside, and
+the rest is unimportant in Christology, but he himself has been adopted
+in place of his religion; and that the entire New Testament has no
+knowledge of the Trinity and the orthodox creed. On comparison you will
+discover that, if any of our modern congregations are Christian, the
+apostolic congregation of Jerusalem was heretic. If the pope is a
+Christian, Paul was not. If the orthodox creed tells what one must
+believe in order to be a Christian, then Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew. If
+the religion and the theocracy which Jesus preached are to become the
+universal religion, all dogmas must fall, and God alone be all in all.
+Man must become his own priest, prince, and prophet. Justice must govern
+the nations, love must construe the law, virtue and righteousness must
+lead to satisfaction and happiness, and man's consciousness of God,
+immortality, morals, and moral responsibility must be his catechism, his
+guiding star, his protecting angel in life and death. No dogmas; truth,
+in the name of God!
+
+I see it, although it is not now; I behold it, although it is not nigh.
+A star will arise from Jacob in whose soft brilliancy will shine forth
+all the great and redeeming truth. Freedom and humanity, justice and
+love in the name of God, are the right religion; to strive for them is
+divine worship, to love them is holiness.
+
+This was the object of Paul. The means to accomplish that object were
+the necessities of the age to convert that generation. He could not
+dream of the idea that the means would obscure the object, that the
+servant would occupy the master's seat. His was a fearless, powerful,
+and unyielding character, terribly in earnest to break down the ancient
+world and create a new one, and his success, though incomplete, was
+wonderful. Men like Jesus and Paul, whose great aim was to benefit and
+to elevate human nature, however widely we may differ from them, deserve
+the student's laborious research, the philanthropist's most profound
+admiration, the monuments which the human mind rears to their memory.
+Great works are the testimony of their authors, and great minds are the
+diadem and honor, the ornament and pride of human nature. The God Jesus
+and the supernatural Paul appear small in the focus of reason. The
+patriotic and enthusiastic Jesus and the brave, bold, wise, and mighty
+Paul are grand types of humanity among those hundred stars in the
+horizon of history which have made the history of the human family.
+
+
+JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
+
+The _prima-facie_ view of early Christianity, in the eyes of witnesses
+external to it, is presented to us in the brief but vivid descriptions
+given by Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, the only heathen writers who
+distinctly mention it for the first hundred and fifty years.
+
+Tacitus is led to speak of the religion, on occasion of the
+conflagration of Rome, which was popularly imputed to Nero. "To put an
+end to the report," he says, "he laid the guilt on others, and visited
+them with the most exquisite punishment, those, namely, who, held in
+abhorrence for their crimes (_per flagitia invisos_), were popularly
+called Christians. The author of that profession (_nominis_) was Christ,
+who, in the reign of Tiberius, was capitally punished by the procurator,
+Pontius Pilate. The deadly superstition (_exitiabilis superstitio_),
+though checked for a while, broke out afresh; and that, not only
+throughout Judea, the original seat of the evil, but through the city
+also, whither all things atrocious or shocking (_atrocia aut pudenda_)
+flow together from every quarter and thrive. At first, certain were
+seized who avowed it; then, on their report, a vast multitude were
+convicted not so much of firing the city, as of hatred of mankind (_odio
+humani generis_)." After describing their tortures, he continues: "In
+consequence, though they were guilty, and deserved most signal
+punishment, they began to be pitied, as if destroyed not for any public
+object, but from the barbarity of one man."
+
+Suetonius relates the same transactions thus: "Capital punishments were
+inflicted on the Christians, a class of men of a new and magical
+superstition (_superstitionis novae et maleficae_)." What gives additional
+character to this statement is its context, for it occurs as one out of
+various police or sanctuary or domestic regulations, which Nero made,
+such as "controlling private expenses, forbidding taverns to serve meat,
+repressing the contests of theatrical parties, and securing the
+integrity of wills."
+
+When Pliny was governor of Pontus, he wrote his celebrated letter to the
+emperor Trajan, to ask advice how he was to deal with the Christians,
+whom he found there in great numbers. One of his points of hesitation
+was whether the very profession of Christianity was not by itself
+sufficient to justify punishment; "whether the name itself should be
+visited, though clear of flagitious acts (_flagitia_), or only when
+connected with them." He says he had ordered for execution such as
+persevered in their profession after repeated warnings, "as not
+doubting, whatever it was they professed, that at any rate contumacy and
+inflexible obstinacy ought to be punished." He required them to invoke
+the gods, to sacrifice wine and frankincense to the images of the
+Emperor, and to blaspheme Christ; "to which," he adds, "it is said no
+real Christian can be compelled." Renegades informed him that "the sum
+total of their offence or fault was meeting before light on an appointed
+day, and saying with one another a form of words (_carmen_) to Christ,
+as if to a god, and binding themselves by oath (not to the commission of
+any wickedness, but) against the commission of theft, robbery, adultery,
+breach of trust, denial of deposits; that, after this they were
+accustomed to separate, and then to meet again for a meal, but eaten all
+together and harmless; however, that they had even left this off after
+his edicts enforcing the imperial prohibition of _hetaeriae_ or
+associations." He proceeded to put two women to the torture, but
+"discovered nothing beyond a bad and excessive superstition"
+(_superstitionem pravam et immodicam_), "the contagion" of which, he
+continues, "had spread through villages and country, till the temples
+were emptied of worshippers."
+
+In these testimonies, which will form a natural and convenient text for
+what is to follow, we have various characteristics brought before us of
+the religion to which they relate. It was a superstition, as all three
+writers agree; a bad and excessive superstition, according to Pliny; a
+magical superstition, according to Suetonius; a deadly superstition,
+according to Tacitus. Next, it was embodied in a society, and, moreover,
+a secret and unlawful society or _hetaeria_; and it was a proselytizing
+society; and its very name was connected with "flagitious," "atrocious,"
+and "shocking" acts.
+
+Now these few points, which are not all which might be set down, contain
+in themselves a distinct and significant description of Christianity;
+but they have far greater meaning when illustrated by the history of the
+times, the testimony of later writers, and the acts of the Roman
+government toward its professors. It is impossible to mistake the
+judgment passed on the religion by these three writers, and still more
+clearly by other writers and imperial functionaries. They evidently
+associated Christianity with the oriental superstitions, whether
+propagated by individuals or embodied in a rite, which were in that day
+traversing the empire, and which in the event acted so remarkable a part
+in breaking up the national forms of worship, and so in preparing the
+way for Christianity. This, then, is the broad view which the educated
+heathen took of Christianity; and, if it had been very unlike those
+rites and curious arts in external appearance, they would not have
+confused it with them.
+
+Changes in society are by a providential appointment commonly preceded
+and facilitated by the setting in of a certain current in men's thoughts
+and feelings in that direction toward which a change is to be made.
+And, as lighter substances whirl about before the tempest and presage
+it, so words and deeds, ominous but not effective of the coming
+revolution, are circulated beforehand through the multitude or pass
+across the field of events. This was specially the case with
+Christianity, as became its high dignity; it came heralded and attended
+by a crowd of shadows, shadows of itself, impotent and monstrous as
+shadows are, but not at first sight distinguishable from it by common
+spectators. Before the mission of the apostles a movement, of which
+there had been earlier parallels, had begun in Egypt, Syria, and the
+neighboring countries, tending to the propagation of new and peculiar
+forms of worship throughout the empire. Prophecies were afloat that some
+new order of things was coming in from the East, which increased the
+existing unsettlement of the popular mind; pretenders made attempts to
+satisfy its wants, and old traditions of the truth, embodied for ages in
+local or in national religions, gave to these attempts a doctrinal and
+ritual shape, which became an additional point of resemblance to that
+truth which was soon visibly to appear.
+
+The distinctive character of the rites in question lay in their
+appealing to the gloomy rather than to the cheerful and hopeful
+feelings, and in their influencing the mind through fear. The notions of
+guilt and expiation, of evil and good to come, and of dealings with the
+invisible world, were in some shape or other preeminent in them, and
+formed a striking contrast to the classical polytheism, which was gay
+and graceful, as was natural in a civilized age. The new rites, on the
+other hand, were secret; their doctrine was mysterious; their profession
+was a discipline, beginning in a formal initiation, manifested in an
+association, and exercised in privation and pain. They were from the
+nature of the case proselytizing societies, for they were rising into
+power; nor were they local, but vagrant, restless, intrusive, and
+encroaching. Their pretensions to supernatural knowledge brought them
+into easy connection with magic and astrology, which are as attractive
+to the wealthy and luxurious as the more vulgar superstitions to the
+populace.
+
+The Christian, being at first accounted a kind of Jew, was even on that
+score included in whatever odium, and whatever bad associations,
+attended on the Jewish name. But in a little time his independence of
+the rejected people was clearly understood, as even the persecutions
+show; and he stood upon his own ground. Still his character did not
+change in the eyes of the world; for favor or for reproach, he was still
+associated with the votaries of secret and magical rites. The emperor
+Hadrian, noted as he is for his inquisitive temper, and a partaker in so
+many mysteries, still believed that the Christians of Egypt allowed
+themselves in the worship of Serapis. They are brought into connection
+with the magic of Egypt in the history of what is commonly called the
+Thundering legion, so far as this, that the rain which relieved the
+Emperor's army in the field, and which the Church ascribed to the
+prayers of the Christian soldiers, is by Dio Cassius attributed to an
+Egyptian magician, who obtained it by invoking Mercury and other
+spirits. This war had been the occasion of one of the first recognitions
+which the State had conceded to the oriental rites, though statesmen and
+emperors, as private men, had long taken part in them. The emperor
+Marcus had been urged by his fears of the Marcomanni to resort to these
+foreign introductions, and is said to have employed Magi and Chaldaeans
+in averting an unsuccessful issue of the war.
+
+It is observable that, in the growing countenance which was extended to
+these rites in the third century, Christianity came in for a share. The
+chapel of Alexander Severus contained statues of Abraham, Orpheus,
+Apollonius, Pythagoras, and our Lord. Here indeed, as in the case of
+Zenobia's Judaism, an eclectic philosophy aided the comprehension of
+religions. But, immediately before Alexander, Heliogabalus, who was no
+philosopher, while he formally seated his Syrian idol in the Palatine,
+while he observed the mysteries of Cybele and Adonis, and celebrated his
+magic rites with human victims, intended also, according to Lampridius,
+to unite with his horrible superstition "the Jewish and Samaritan
+religions and the Christian rite, that so the priesthood of Heliogabalus
+might comprise the mystery of every worship." Hence, more or less, the
+stories which occur in ecclesiastical history of the conversion or
+good-will of the emperors to the Christian faith, of Hadrian, Mammaea,
+and others, besides Heliogabalus and Alexander. Such stories might often
+mean little more than that they favored it among other forms of oriental
+superstition.
+
+What has been said is sufficient to bring before the mind an historical
+fact, which indeed does not need evidence. Upon the established
+religions of Europe the East had renewed her encroachments, and was
+pouring forth a family of rites which in various ways attracted the
+attention of the luxurious, the political, the ignorant, the restless,
+and the remorseful. Armenian, Chaldee, Egyptian, Jew, Syrian, Phrygian,
+as the case might be, was the designation of the new hierophant; and
+magic, superstition, barbarism, jugglery, were the names given to his
+rite by the world. In this company appeared Christianity. When then
+three well-informed writers call Christianity a superstition and a
+magical superstition, they were not using words at random, or the
+language of abuse, but they were describing it in distinct and
+recognized terms as cognate to those gloomy, secret, odious,
+disreputable religions which were making so much disturbance up and down
+the empire.
+
+The Gnostic family suitably traces its origin to a mixed race, which had
+commenced its national history by associating orientalism with
+revelation. After the captivity of the ten tribes Samaria was colonized
+by "men from Babylon and Cushan, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from
+Sepharvaim," who were instructed at their own instance in "the manner of
+the God of the land," by one of the priests of the Church of Jeroboam.
+The consequence was that "they feared the Lord and served their own
+gods." Of this country was Simon, the reputed patriarch of the Gnostics;
+and he is introduced in the Acts of the Apostles as professing those
+magical powers which were so principal a characteristic of the oriental
+mysteries. His heresy, though broken into a multitude of sects, was
+poured over the world with a catholicity not inferior in its day to that
+of Christianity. St. Peter, who fell in with him originally in Samaria,
+seems to have encountered him again at Rome. At Rome St. Polycarp met
+Marcion of Pontus, whose followers spread through Italy, Egypt, Syria,
+Arabia, and Persia.
+
+"When [the reader of Christian history] comes to the second century,"
+says Dr. Burton, "he finds that Gnosticism, under some form or other,
+was professed in every part of the then civilized world. He finds it
+divided into schools, as numerously and as zealously attended as any
+which Greece or Asia could boast in their happiest days. He meets with
+names totally unknown to him before, which excited as much sensation as
+those of Aristotle or Plato. He hears of volumes having been written in
+support of this new philosophy, not one of which has survived to our own
+day." Many of the founders of these sects had been Christians. Others
+were of Jewish parentage; others were more or less connected in fact
+with the pagan rites to which their own bore so great a resemblance.
+
+Whatever might be the history of these sects, and though it may be a
+question whether they can be properly called "superstitions," and though
+many of them numbered educated men among their teachers and followers,
+they closely resembled--at least in ritual and profession--the vagrant
+pagan mysteries which have been above described. Their very name of
+"Gnostic" implied the possession of a secret, which was to be
+communicated to their disciples. Ceremonial observances were the
+preparation, and symbolical rites the instrument, of initiation. Tatian
+and Montanus, the representatives of very distinct schools, agreed in
+making asceticism a rule of life.
+
+Such were the Gnostics; and to external and prejudiced spectators,
+whether philosophers, as Celsus and Porphyry, or the multitude, they
+wore an appearance sufficiently like the Church to be mistaken for her
+in the latter part of the ante-Nicene period, as she was confused with
+the pagan mysteries in the earlier.
+
+Let us proceed in our contemplation of this reflection, as it may be
+called, of primitive Christianity in the mirror of the world. All three
+writers, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, call it a "superstition"; this
+is no accidental imputation, but is repeated by a variety of subsequent
+writers and speakers. The charge of Thyestean banquets scarcely lasts a
+hundred years; but, while pagan witnesses are to be found, the Church is
+accused of superstition. Now what is meant by the word thus attached by
+a _consensus_ of heathen authorities to Christianity? At least it cannot
+mean a religion in which a man might think what he pleased, and was set
+free from all yokes, whether of ignorance, fear, authority, or
+priestcraft. When heathen writers call the oriental rites superstitions,
+they evidently use the word in its modern sense. It cannot surely be
+doubted that they apply it in the same sense to Christianity. But
+Plutarch explains for us the word at length in his treatise which bears
+the name: "Of all kinds of fear," he says, "superstition is the most
+fatal to action and resource. He does not fear the sea who does not
+sail, nor war who does not serve, nor robbers who keeps at home, nor the
+sycophant who is poor, nor the envious if he is a private man, nor an
+earthquake if he lives in Gaul, nor thunder if he lives in AEthiopia; but
+he who fears the gods fears everything--earth, seas, air, sky, darkness,
+light, noises, silence, sleep. Slaves sleep and forget their masters; of
+the fettered doth sleep lighten the chain; inflamed wounds, ulcers cruel
+and agonizing, are not felt by the sleeping. Superstition alone has come
+to no terms with sleep; but in the very sleep of her victims, as though
+they were in the realms of the impious, she raises horrible spectres and
+monstrous phantoms and various pains, and whirls the miserable soul
+about and persecutes it. They rise, and, instead of making light of what
+is unreal, they fall into the hands of quacks and conjurers, who say,
+'Call the crone to expiate, bathe in the sea, and sit all day on the
+ground.'"
+
+Here we have a vivid picture of Plutarch's idea of the essence of
+superstition; it was the imagination of the existence of an unseen
+ever-present Master; the bondage of a rule of life, of a continual
+responsibility; obligation to attend to little things, the impossibility
+of escaping from duty, the inability to choose or change one's religion,
+an interference with the enjoyment of life, a melancholy view of the
+world, sense of sin, horror at guilt, apprehension of punishment, dread,
+self-abasement, depression, anxiety, and endeavor to be at peace with
+heaven, and error and absurdity in the methods chosen for the purpose.
+Such, too, had been the idea of the Epicurean Velleius, when he shrunk
+with horror from the "_sempiternus dominus_" and "_curiosus Deus_" of
+the Stoics. Such, surely, was the meaning of Tacitus, Suetonius, and
+Pliny. And hence, of course, the frequent reproach cast on Christians as
+credulous, weak-minded, and poor-spirited. The heathen objectors in
+Minucius and Lactantius speak of their "old-woman's tales." Celsus
+accuses them of "assenting at random and without reason," saying, "Do
+not inquire, but believe." "They lay it down," he says elsewhere: "Let
+no educated man approach, no man of wisdom, no man of sense; but if a
+man be unlearned, weak in intellect, an infant, let him come with
+confidence. Confessing that these are worthy of their God, they
+evidently desire, as they are able, to convert none but fools, and
+vulgar, and stupid, and slavish, women and boys." They "take in the
+simple and lead him where they will." They address themselves to
+"youths, house-servants, and the weak in intellect." They "hurry away
+from the educated, as not fit subjects of their imposition, and inveigle
+the rustic." "Thou," says the heathen magistrate to the martyr
+Fructuosus, "who as a teacher dost disseminate a new fable, that fickle
+girls may desert the groves and abandon Jupiter, condemn, if thou art
+wise, the anile creed."
+
+Hence the epithets of itinerant, mountebank, conjurer, cheat, sophist,
+and sorcerer, heaped upon the teachers of Christianity; sometimes to
+account for the report or apparent truth of their miracles, sometimes to
+explain their success. Our Lord was said to have learned his miraculous
+power in Egypt; "wizard, mediciner, cheat, rogue, conjurer," were the
+epithets applied to him by the opponents of Eusebius; they "worship that
+crucified sophist," says Lucian; "Paul, who surpasses all the conjurers
+and impostors who ever lived," is Julian's account of the apostle. "You
+have sent through the whole world," says St. Justin to Trypho, "to
+preach that a certain atheistic and lawless sect has sprung from one
+Jesus, a Galilean cheat." "We know," says Lucian, speaking of Chaldaeans
+and magicians, "the Syrian from Palestine, who is the sophist in these
+matters, how many lunatics, with eyes distorted and mouth in foam, he
+raises and sends away restored, ridding them from the evil at a great
+price." "If any conjurer came to them, a man of skill and knowing how to
+manage matters," says the same writer, "he made money in no time, with a
+broad grin at the simple fellows." The officer who had custody of St.
+Perpetua feared her escape from prison "by magical incantations." When
+St. Tiburtius had walked barefoot on hot coals, his judge cried out
+that Christ had taught him magic. St. Anastasia was thrown into prison
+as a mediciner; the populace called out against St. Agnes, "Away with
+the witch," _Tolle magam, tolle maleficam_. When St. Bonosus and St.
+Maximilian bore the burning pitch without shrinking, Jews and Gentiles
+cried out, "_Isti magi et malefici_." "What new delusion," says the
+heathen magistrate concerning St. Romanus, "has brought in these
+sophists to deny the worship of the gods? How doth this chief sorcerer
+mock us, skilled by his Thessalian charm (_carmine_) to laugh at
+punishment!"
+
+It explains the phenomenon, which has created so much surprise to
+certain moderns--that a grave, well-informed historian like Tacitus
+should apply to Christians what sounds like abuse. Yet what is the
+difficulty, supposing that Christians were considered _mathematici_ and
+_magi_, and these were the secret intriguers against established
+government, the allies of desperate politicians, the enemies of the
+established religion, the disseminators of lying rumors, the
+perpetrators of poisonings and other crimes? "Read this," says Paley,
+after quoting some of the most beautiful and subduing passages of St.
+Paul, "read this, and then think of _exitiabilis superstitio_"; and he
+goes on to express a wish "in contending with heathen authorities, to
+produce our books against theirs," as if it were a matter of books.
+
+Public men care very little for books; the finest sentiments, the most
+luminous philosophy, the deepest theology, inspiration itself, moves
+them but little; they look at facts, and care only for facts. The
+question was, What was the worth, what the tendency of the Christian
+body in the State? What Christians said, what they thought, was little
+to the purpose. They might exhort to peaceableness and passive obedience
+as strongly as words could speak; but what did they _do_, what was their
+political position? This is what statesmen thought of then, as they do
+now. What had men of the world to do with abstract proofs or first
+principles? A statesman measures parties and sects and writers by their
+bearing upon _him_; and he has a practised eye in this sort of judgment,
+and is not likely to be mistaken. "'What is Truth?' said jesting
+Pilate." Apologies, however eloquent or true, availed nothing with the
+Roman magistrate against the sure instinct which taught him to dread
+Christianity. It was a dangerous enemy to any power not built upon
+itself; he felt it, and the event justified his apprehension.
+
+We must not forget the well-known character of the Roman State in its
+dealings with its subjects. It had had from the first an extreme
+jealousy of secret societies; it was prepared to grant a large
+toleration and a broad comprehension, but, as is the case with modern
+governments, it wished to have jurisdiction and the ultimate authority
+in every movement of the body politic and social, and its civil
+institutions were based, or essentially depended, on its religion.
+Accordingly, every innovation upon the established paganism, except it
+was allowed by the law, was rigidly repressed. Hence the professors of
+low superstitions, of mysteries, of magic, of astrology, were the
+outlaws of society, and were in a condition analogous, if the comparison
+may be allowed, to smugglers or poachers among ourselves, or perhaps to
+burglars and highwaymen; for the Romans had ever burnt the sorcerer and
+banished his consulters for life. It was an ancient custom. And at
+mysteries they looked with especial suspicion, because, since the
+established religion did not include them in its provisions, they really
+did supply what may be called a demand of the age.
+
+We know what opposition had been made in Rome even to the philosophy of
+Greece; much greater would be the aversion of constitutional statesmen
+and lawyers to the ritual of barbarians. Religion was the Roman point of
+honor. "Spaniards might rival them in numbers," says Cicero, "Gauls in
+bodily strength, Carthaginians in address, Greeks in the arts, Italians
+and Latins in native talent, but the Romans surpassed all nations in
+piety and devotion." It was one of their laws, "Let no one have gods by
+himself, nor worship in private new gods nor adventitious, unless added
+on public authority." Maecenas in _Dio_ advises Augustus to honor the
+gods according to the national custom, because the contempt of the
+country's deities leads to civil insubordination, reception of foreign
+laws, conspiracies, and secret meetings. "Suffer no one," he adds, "to
+deny the gods or to practise sorcery." The civilian Julius Paulus lays
+it down as one of the leading principles of Roman law, that those who
+introduce new or untried religions should be degraded, and if in the
+lower orders put to death. In like manner, it is enacted in one of
+Constantine's laws that the haruspices should not exercise their art in
+private; and there is a law of Valentinian's against nocturnal
+sacrifices or magic. It is more immediately to our purpose that Trajan
+had been so earnest in his resistance to _hetaeriae_ or secret societies,
+that, when a fire had laid waste Nicomedia, and Pliny proposed to him to
+incorporate a body of a hundred and fifty firemen in consequence, he was
+afraid of the precedent and forbade it.
+
+What has been said will suggest another point of view in which the
+oriental rites were obnoxious to the government--namely, as being
+vagrant and proselytizing religions. If it tolerated foreign
+superstitions, this would be on the ground that districts or countries
+within its jurisdiction held them; to proselytize to a rite hitherto
+unknown, to form a new party, and to propagate it through the empire--a
+religion not local, but catholic--was an offence against both order and
+reason. The State desired peace everywhere, and no change;
+"considering," according to Lactantius, "that they were rightly and
+deservedly punished who execrated the public religion handed down to
+them by their ancestors."
+
+It is impossible, surely, to deny that, in assembling for religious
+purposes, the Christians were breaking a solemn law, a vital principle
+of the Roman constitution; and this is the light in which their conduct
+was regarded by the historians and philosophers of the empire. This was
+a very strong act on the part of the disciples of the great apostle, who
+had enjoined obedience to the powers that be. Time after time they
+resisted the authority of the magistrate; and this is a phenomenon
+inexplicable on the theory of private judgment or of the voluntary
+principle. The justification of such disobedience lies simply in the
+necessity of obeying the higher authority of some divine law; but if
+Christianity were in its essence only private and personal, as so many
+now think, there was no necessity of their meeting together at all. If,
+on the other hand, in assembling for worship and holy communion, they
+were fulfilling an indispensable observance, Christianity has imposed a
+social law on the world, and formally enters the field of politics.
+Gibbon says that, in consequence of Pliny's edict, "the prudence of the
+Christians suspended their _agapae_; but it was _impossible_ for them to
+omit the exercise of public worship." We can draw no other conclusion.
+
+At the end of three hundred years a more remarkable violation of law
+seems to have been admitted by the Christian body. It shall be given in
+the words of Dr. Burton; he has been speaking of Maximin's edict, which
+provided for the restitution of any of their lands or buildings which
+had been alienated from them. "It is plain," he says, "from the terms of
+this edict, that the Christians had for some time been in possession of
+property. It speaks of houses and lands which did not belong to
+individuals, but to the whole body. Their possession of such property
+could hardly have escaped the notice of the government; but it seems to
+have been held in direct violation of a law of Diocletian, which
+prohibited corporate bodies or associations which were not legally
+recognized, from acquiring property. The Christians were certainly not a
+body recognized by law at the beginning of the reign of Diocletian, and
+it might almost be thought that this enactment was specially directed
+against them. But, like other laws which are founded upon tyranny, and
+are at variance with the first principles of justice, it is probable
+that this law about corporate property was evaded. We must suppose that
+the Christians had purchased lands and houses before the law was passed;
+and their disregard of the prohibition may be taken as another proof
+that their religion had now taken so firm a footing that the executors
+of the laws were obliged to connive at their being broken by so numerous
+a body."
+
+No wonder that the magistrate who presided at the martyrdom of St.
+Romanus calls them in Prudentius "a rebel people"; that Galerius speaks
+of them as "a nefarious conspiracy"; the heathen in Minucius, as "men of
+a desperate faction"; that others make them guilty of sacrilege and
+treason, and call them by those other titles which, more closely
+resembling the language of Tacitus, have been noticed above. Hence the
+violent accusations against them as the destructors of the empire, the
+authors of physical evils, and the cause of the anger of the gods.
+
+"Men cry out," says Tertullian, "that the State is beset, that the
+Christians are in their fields, in their forts, in their islands. They
+mourn as for a loss that every sex, condition, and now even rank is
+going over to this sect. And yet they do not by this very means advance
+their minds to the idea of some good therein hidden; they allow not
+themselves to conjecture more rightly, they choose not to examine more
+closely. The generality run upon a hatred of this name, with eyes so
+closed that in bearing favorable testimony to anyone they mingle with it
+the reproach of the name. 'A good man Caius Seius, only he is a
+Christian.' So another, 'I marvel that that wise man Lucius Titius hath
+suddenly become a Christian.' No one reflecteth whether Caius be not
+therefore good and Lucius wise because a Christian, or therefore a
+Christian because wise and good. They praise that which they know, they
+revile that which they know not. Virtue is not in such account as hatred
+of the Christians. Now, then, if the hatred be of the name, what guilt
+is there in names? What charge against words? Unless it be that any word
+which is a name have either a barbarous or ill-omened, or a scurrilous
+or an immodest sound. If the Tiber cometh up to the walls, if the Nile
+cometh not up to the fields, if the heaven hath stood still, if the
+earth hath been moved, if there be any famine, if any pestilence, 'The
+Christians to the lions' is forthwith the word."
+
+"Men of a desperate, lawless, reckless faction," says the heathen
+Caecilius, in the passage above referred to, "who collect together out of
+the lowest rabble the thoughtless portion, and credulous women seduced
+by the weakness of their sex, and form a mob of impure conspirators, of
+whom nocturnal assemblies and solemn fastings and unnatural food, no
+sacred rite but pollution, is the bond. A tribe lurking and
+light-hating, dumb for the public, talkative in corners, they despise
+our temples as if graves, spit at our gods, deride our religious forms;
+pitiable themselves, they pity, forsooth, our priests; half-naked
+themselves, they despise our honors and purple; monstrous folly and
+incredible impudence!... Day after day their abandoned morals wind their
+serpentine course; over the whole world are those most hideous rites of
+an impious association growing into shape;... they recognize each other
+by marks and signs, and love each other almost before they recognize;
+promiscuous lust is their religion. Thus does their vain and mad
+superstition glory in crimes.... The writer who tells the story of a
+criminal capitally punished, and of the gibbet (_ligna feralia_) of the
+cross being their observance (_ceremonias_), assigns to them thereby an
+altar in keeping with the abandoned and wicked, that they may worship
+(_colant_) what they merit.... Why their mighty effort to hide and
+shroud whatever it is they worship (_colunt_), since things honest ever
+like the open day, and crimes are secret? Why have they no altars, no
+temples, no images known to us, never speak abroad, never assemble
+freely, were it not that what they worship and suppress is subject
+either of punishment or of shame?
+
+"What monstrous, what portentous notions do they fabricate! that that
+God of theirs, whom they can neither show nor see, should be inquiring
+diligently into the characters, the acts--nay, the words and secret
+thoughts of all men; running to and fro, forsooth, and present
+everywhere, troublesome, restless--nay, impudently curious they would
+have him; that is, if he is close at every deed, interferes in all
+places, while he can neither attend to each as being distracted through
+the whole, nor suffice for the whole as being engaged about each. Think,
+too, of their threatening fire, meditating destruction to the whole
+earth--nay, the world itself with its stars!... Nor content with this
+mad opinion, they add and append their old wives' tales about a new
+birth after death, ashes and cinders, and by some strange confidence
+believe each other's lies.
+
+"Poor creatures! consider what hangs over you after death, while you are
+still alive. Lo, the greater part of you, the better, as you say, are in
+want, cold, toil, hunger, and your God suffers it; but I omit common
+trials. Lo, threats are offered to you, punishments, torments; crosses
+to be undergone now, not worshipped (_adorandae_); fires, too, which ye
+predict and fear; where is that God who can recover, but cannot preserve
+your life? The answer of Socrates, when he was asked about heavenly
+matters, is well known: 'What is above us does not concern us.' My
+opinion also is, that points which are doubtful, as are the points in
+question, must be left; nor, when so many and such great men are in
+controversy on the subject, must judgment be rashly and audaciously
+given on either side, lest the consequence be either anile superstition
+or the overthrow of all religion."
+
+Such was Christianity in the eyes of those who witnessed its rise and
+propagation--one of a number of wild and barbarous rites which were
+pouring in upon the empire from the ancient realms of superstition, and
+the mother of a progeny of sects which were faithful to the original
+they had derived from Egypt or Syria; a religion unworthy of an educated
+person, as appealing, not to the intellect, but to the fears and
+weaknesses of human nature, and consisting, not in the rational and
+cheerful enjoyment, but in a morose rejection of the gifts of
+Providence; a horrible religion, as inflicting or enjoining cruel
+sufferings, and monstrous and loathsome in its very indulgence of the
+passions; a religion leading by reaction to infidelity; a religion of
+magic, and of the vulgar arts, real and pretended, with which magic was
+accompanied; a secret religion which dared not face the day; an
+itinerant, busy, proselytizing religion, forming an extended confederacy
+against the State, resisting its authority and breaking its laws. There
+may be some exceptions to this general impression, such as Pliny's
+discovery of the innocent and virtuous rule of life adopted by the
+Christians of Pontus; but this only proves that Christianity was not in
+fact the infamous religion which the heathen thought it; it did not
+reverse their general belief to that effect.
+
+Now it must be granted that, in some respects, this view of Christianity
+depended on the times, and would alter with their alteration. When there
+was no persecution, martyrs could not be obstinate; and when the Church
+was raised aloft in high places, it was no longer in caves. Still, I
+believe, it continued substantially the same in the judgment of the
+world external to it while there was an external world to judge of it.
+"They thought it enough," says Julian in the fourth century, of our Lord
+and his apostles, "to deceive women, servants, and slaves, and by their
+means wives and husbands." "A human fabrication," says he elsewhere,
+"put together by wickedness, having nothing divine in it, but making a
+perverted use of the fable-loving, childish, irrational part of the
+soul, and offering a set of wonders to create belief."
+
+"Miserable men," he says elsewhere, "you refuse to worship the ancile,
+yet you worship the wood of the cross, and sign it on your foreheads,
+and fix it on your doors. Shall one for this hate the intelligent among
+you, or pity the less understanding, who in following you have gone to
+such an excess of perdition as to leave the everlasting gods and go over
+to a dead Jew?" He speaks of their adding other dead men to him who died
+so long ago. "You have filled all places with sepulchres and monuments,
+though it is nowhere told you in your religion to haunt the tombs and to
+attend upon them." Elsewhere he speaks of their "leaving the gods for
+corpses and relics." On the other hand, he attributes the growth of
+Christianity to its humanity toward strangers, care in burying the dead,
+and pretended religiousness of life. In another place he speaks of their
+care of the poor.
+
+Libanius, Julian's preceptor in rhetoric, delivers the same testimony,
+as far as it goes. He addressed his _Oration for the Temples_ to a
+Christian emperor, and would in consequence be guarded in his language;
+however it runs in one direction. He speaks of "those black-habited
+men," meaning the monks, "who eat more than elephants, and by the number
+of their potations trouble those who send them drink in their chantings,
+and conceal this by paleness artificially acquired." They "are in good
+condition out of the misfortunes of others, while they pretend to serve
+God by hunger." Those whom they attack "are like bees, they like
+drones." I do not quote this passage to prove that there were monks in
+Libanius' days, which no one doubts, but to show his impression of
+Christianity, as far as his works betray it.
+
+Numantian in the same century describes in verse his voyage from Rome to
+Gaul: one book of the poem is extant; he falls in with Christianity on
+two of the islands which lie in his course. He thus describes them as
+found on one of these: "The island is in a squalid state, being full of
+light-haters. They call themselves monks, because they wish to live
+alone without witness. They dread the gifts, from fearing the reverses,
+of fortune." He meets on the other island a Christian, whom he had
+known, of good family and fortune, and happy in his marriage, who
+"impelled by the Furies had left men and gods, and, credulous exile,
+was living in base concealment. Is not this herd," he continues, "worse
+than Circean poison? then bodies were changed, now minds."
+
+In the _Philopatris_, which is the work of an author of the fourth
+century, Critias is introduced pale and wild. His friend asks him if he
+has seen Cerberus or Hecate; and he answers that he has heard a
+rigmarole from certain "thrice-cursed sophists"; which he thinks would
+drive him mad if he heard it again, and was nearly sending him headlong
+over some cliff as it was. He retires for relief with his inquirer to a
+pleasant place, shadowed by planes, where swallows and nightingales are
+singing, and a quiet brook is purling. Triephon, his friend, expresses a
+fear lest he has heard some incantation, and is led by the course of the
+dialogue, before his friend tells his tale, to give some account of
+Christianity, being himself a Christian. After speaking of the creation,
+as described by Moses, he falls at once upon that doctrine of a
+particular providence which is so distasteful to Plutarch, Velleius in
+Cicero, and Caecilius, and generally to unbelievers. "He is in heaven,"
+he says, "looking at just and unjust, and causing actions to be entered
+in books; and he will recompense all on a day which he has appointed."
+Critias objects that he cannot make this consistent with the received
+doctrine about the Fates, "even though he has perhaps been carried aloft
+with his master, and initiated in unspeakable mysteries." He also asks
+if the deeds of the Scythians are written in heaven for if so there must
+be many scribes there.
+
+Such was the language of paganism after Christianity had for fifty years
+been exposed to the public gaze; after it had been before the world for
+fifty more, St. Augustine had still to defend it against the charge of
+being the cause of the calamities of the empire. And for the charge of
+magic, when the Arian bishops were in formal disputations with the
+Catholic, before Gungebald, Burgundian king of France, at the end of the
+fifth century, we find still that they charged the Catholics with being
+"_praestigiatores_," and worshipping a number of gods; and when the
+Catholics proposed that the King should repair to the shrine of St.
+Justus, where both parties might ask him concerning their respective
+faiths, the Arians cried out that "they would not seek enchantments
+like Saul, for Scripture was enough for them, which was more powerful
+than all bewitchments." This was said, not against strangers of whom
+they knew nothing, as Ethelbert might be suspicious of St. Augustine and
+his brother missionaries, but against a body of men who lived among
+them.
+
+I do not think it can be doubted then that, had Tacitus, Suetonius, and
+Pliny, Celsus, Porphyry, and the other opponents of Christianity lived
+in the fourth century, their evidence concerning Christianity would be
+very much the same as it has come down to us from the centuries before
+it. In either case, a man of the world and a philosopher would have been
+disgusted at the gloom and sadness of its profession, its
+mysteriousness, its claim of miracles, the want of good sense imputable
+to its rule of life, and the unsettlement and discord it was introducing
+into the social and political world.
+
+On the whole then I conclude as follows: If there is a form of
+Christianity now in the world which is accused of gross superstition, of
+borrowing its rites and customs from the heathen, and of ascribing to
+forms and ceremonies an occult virtue; a religion which is considered to
+burden and enslave the mind by its requisitions, to address itself to
+the weak-minded and ignorant, to be supported by sophistry and
+imposture, and to contradict reason and exalt mere irrational faith; a
+religion which impresses on the serious mind very distressing views of
+the guilt and consequences of sin, sets upon the minute acts of the day,
+one by one, their definite value for praise or blame, and thus casts a
+grave shadow over the future; a religion which holds up to admiration
+the surrender of wealth, and disables serious persons from enjoying it
+if they would; a religion, the doctrines of which, be they good or bad,
+are to the generality of men unknown; which is considered to bear on its
+very surface signs of folly and falsehood so distinct that a glance
+suffices to judge of it, and that careful examination is preposterous;
+which is felt to be so simply bad that it may be calumniated at hazard
+and at pleasure, it being nothing but absurdity to stand upon the
+accurate distribution of its guilt among its particular acts, or
+painfully to determine how far this or that story concerning it is
+literally true, or what has to be allowed in candor, or what is
+improbable, or what cuts two ways, or what is not proved, or what may be
+plausibly defended; a religion such that men look at a convert to it
+with a feeling which no other denomination raises except Judaism,
+socialism, or Mormonism--namely, with curiosity, suspicion, fear,
+disgust, as the case may be, as if something strange had befallen him,
+as if he had had an initiation into a mystery, and had come into
+communion with dreadful influences, as if he were now one of a
+confederacy which claimed him, absorbed him, stripped him of his
+personality, reduced him to a mere organ or instrument of a whole; a
+religion which men hate as proselytizing, anti-social, revolutionary, as
+dividing families, separating chief friends, corrupting the maxims of
+government, making a mock at law, dissolving the empire, the enemy of
+human nature, and a "conspirator against its rights and privileges"; a
+religion which they consider the champion and instrument of darkness,
+and a pollution calling down upon the land the anger of heaven; a
+religion which they associate with intrigue and conspiracy, which they
+speak about in whispers, which they detect by anticipation in whatever
+goes wrong, and to which they impute whatever is unaccountable; a
+religion, the very name of which they cast out as evil, and use simply
+as a bad epithet, and which from the impulse of self-preservation they
+would persecute if they could--if there be such a religion now in the
+world, it is not unlike Christianity as that same world viewed it when
+first it came forth from its divine Author.
+
+
+
+
+BURNING OF ROME UNDER NERO
+
+A.D. 64
+
+SIENKIEWICZ          TACITUS
+
+     Nero when a youth was placed under charge of the philosopher
+     Seneca, who carefully attended to his education. During Nero's
+     nonage he was persevering in his studies and made great progress in
+     Greek. By a subterfuge of his mother's he was proclaimed emperor in
+     the place of Britannicus, the real heir to the throne. In the early
+     part of his reign public affairs were wisely conducted, but the
+     private life of Nero was given up to vice and profligacy. His love
+     for Poppaea led him into the crime of matricide, for she, wishing to
+     share the imperial throne, and knowing it was impossible while his
+     mother, Agrippina, lived, induced him to authorize her
+     assassination. Strange that Seneca and Burrhus should have approved
+     of this, yet Tacitus admits that such was the case. In the eighth
+     year of his reign Nero divorced his wife, Octavia, and married
+     Poppaea.
+
+     Nero was an accomplished musician and sang verses composed by
+     himself. He eagerly sought the plaudits of the multitude by
+     reciting his compositions in public. Historians are divided in
+     opinion as to whether Nero was the cause of the burning of Rome.
+     During the conflagration, to court popularity he ordered temporary
+     shelters to be provided for the houseless; yet the people did not
+     acclaim this deed, as it was reported that Nero, at "the very time
+     Rome was in flames," sang the destruction of Troy in his private
+     theatre, likening the present disaster to that ancient catastrophe.
+     In order to divert the masses from what they believed the true
+     origin of the fire, Nero charged it upon the Christians, many
+     hundreds of whom were sacrificed to his fury. He was the last of
+     the Caesars, and died by his own hand amid universal execrations, in
+     June, A.D. 68, four years after the destruction of Rome.
+
+
+HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ
+
+The fire began at the Circus Maximus, in that section which touches the
+Palatine and Caelian hill; it rushed on with inconceivable rapidity and
+fastened upon the whole centre of Rome. Since the time of Brennus never
+had the city witnessed such an awful catastrophe.
+
+A freedman of Caesar's, Phaon by name, ran panting into Nero's presence,
+shrieking: "Rome is in flames! the conflagration is great."
+
+All Caesar's guests arose from their recumbent attitude. "Ye gods! I
+shall see a burning city; now can I finish the _Troyade_," exclaimed
+Nero, placing his lute aside. "If I go at once, can I view the fire?"
+
+"My lord, the whole city is as a sea of flame; the smoke is
+suffocatingly heavy and is destroying the people. The inhabitants faint
+away or rashly cast themselves into the fire, maddened with terror. All
+Rome perishes." And Nero raised his hands and cried, "Woe, woe to thee,
+thou sacred city of Priam!"
+
+Fires were frequent enough in Rome; during these conflagrations violence
+and robbery were rampant, particularly so in those sections of the city
+inhabited by needy half-barbarian peoples, a folk comprising rabble from
+every part of the world. The fear of servile rebellion was like a
+nightmare, which had stifled Rome for many years. It was believed that
+hundreds of thousands of those people were thinking of the times of
+Spartacus, and merely waiting for a favorable moment to seize arms
+against their oppressors and Rome. Now the moment had come! Perhaps war
+and slaughter were raging in the city together with fire.
+
+It was possible even that the praetorians had hurled themselves on the
+city and were slaughtering at command of Caesar. And that moment the hair
+rose on Vinicius' head from terror. He recalled all the conversations
+about burning cities which for some time had been repeated at Caesar's
+court with wonderful persistence; well he recalled Caesar's complaints
+that he was forced to describe a burning city without having seen an
+actual fire; his contemptuous answer to Tigellinus, who offered to burn
+Antium or an artificial wooden city; finally, his complaints against
+Rome, and the pestilential alleys of the Subura.
+
+Yes; truly Caesar has commanded the burning of the city! Only he could
+give such a command, as Tigellinus alone could accomplish it. But if
+Rome is burning at command of Caesar, who can be sure that the population
+will not be slaughtered at his command? The monster is capable of just
+such a deed. Conflagration, a servile revolt, and slaughter! What a
+horrible chaos, what a letting loose of destructive elements and horrid,
+universal frenzy!
+
+The night had paled long since, the dawn had passed into light, and on
+all the nearer summits golden, rosy gleams were shining, which might
+come either from burning Rome or the rising daylight. Vinicius ran to
+the hill, the summit was reached, and then a terrible sight struck his
+eyes.
+
+All the lower region was covered with smoke, forming, as it were, one
+gigantic cloud lying close to the earth. In this cloud towns, aqueducts,
+villas, trees, disappeared; but farther beyond this gray, ghastly plain
+the city was burning on the hills. The conflagration had not the form of
+a pillar of fire, as happens when a single building is burning, even
+when of the greatest size. That was a long belt, rather, shaped like the
+belt of dawn. Above this belt rose a wave of smoke, in places entirely
+black, in places looking rose-colored, in places like blood, in places
+turning in on itself, in some places inflated, in others squeezed and
+squirming, like a serpent which is unwinding and extending.
+
+That monstrous wave seemed at times to cover even the belt of fire,
+which became then as narrow as a ribbon; but later this ribbon
+illuminated the smoke from beneath, changing its lower rolls into waves
+of flame. The two extended from one side of the sky to the other, hiding
+its lower part, as at times a stretch of forest hides the horizon. The
+Sabine hills were not visible in the least.
+
+It seemed at the first glance of the eye that not only the city was
+burning, but the whole world, and that no living being could save itself
+from that ocean of flame and smoke. The wind blew with increasing
+strength from the region of the fire, bringing the smell of burnt things
+and of smoke, which began to hide even nearer objects. Clear daylight
+had come, and the sun lighted up the summits surrounding the Alban Lake.
+
+But the bright golden rays of the morning appeared reddish and sickly
+through the haze. Vinicius, while descending toward Albanum, entered
+smoke which was denser, less and less transparent. The town itself was
+buried in it thoroughly. The alarmed citizens had moved out to the
+street. It was a terror to think of what might be in Rome, when it was
+difficult to breathe in Albanum.
+
+He met increasing numbers of people, who had deserted the city and were
+going to the Alban hills; they had escaped the fire and wished to go
+beyond the line of smoke. Before he had reached Ustrinum he had to
+slacken his pace because of the throng. Besides pedestrians with bundles
+on their backs he met horses with packs, mules and vehicles laden with
+effects, and finally litters in which slaves were bearing the wealthier
+citizens. The town of Ustrinum was so thronged with fugitives from Rome
+that it was difficult to push through the crowd. On the market square,
+under temple porticos, and on the streets were swarms of fugitives.
+
+Here and there people were erecting tents under which whole families
+were to find shelter. Others settled down under the naked sky, shouting,
+calling on the gods, or cursing the Fates. In the general terror it was
+difficult to inquire about anything. New crowds of men, women, and
+children arrived from the direction of Rome every moment; these
+increased the disorder and outcry. Some, gone astray in the throng,
+sought desperately those whom they had lost; others fought for a camping
+place.
+
+Half-crazy shepherds from the Campania crowded to the town to hear news,
+or find profit in plunder made easy by the uproar. Here and there crowds
+of slaves of every nationality and gladiators fell to robbing houses and
+villas in the town, and to fighting with the soldiers who appeared in
+defence of the citizens.
+
+Junius, a friend of Vinicius, said, after a moment's hesitation, in a
+low voice: "I know that thou wilt not betray me, so I will tell thee
+that this is no common fire. People were not permitted to save the
+Circus. When houses began to burn in every direction, I myself heard
+thousands of voices exclaiming, 'Death to those who save!' Certain
+people ran through the city and hurled burning torches into buildings.
+
+"On the other hand, people are revolting and crying that the city is
+burning at command. I can say nothing more. Woe to the city, woe to us
+all and to me! The tongue of man cannot tell what is happening there.
+People are perishing in flames or slaying one another in the throng.
+This is the end of Rome!"
+
+Vinicius, nearing the walls, found it easier to reach Rome than
+penetrate to the middle of the city. It was difficult to push along the
+Appian Way, because of the throng of people. Houses, cemeteries, fields,
+gardens, and temples, lying on both sides of it, were turned into
+camping places. In the temple of Mars, which stood near the Porta Appia,
+the crowd had thrown down the doors, so as to find a refuge within
+during night hours. In the cemeteries the larger monuments were seized,
+and battles fought in defence of them, which were carried to bloodshed.
+Ustrinum with its disorder gave barely a slight foretaste of that which
+was happening beneath the walls of the capital.
+
+All regard for the dignity of law, for family ties, for difference of
+position, had ceased. Gladiators drunk with wine seized in the Emporium,
+gathered in crowds and ran with wild shouts through the neighboring
+squares, trampling, scattering, and robbing the people. A multitude of
+barbarian slaves, exposed for sale in the city, escaped from the booths.
+For them the burning and ruin of Rome were at once the end of slavery
+and the hour of revenge; so that when the permanent inhabitants, who had
+lost all they owned in the fire, stretched their hands to the gods in
+despair, calling for rescue, these slaves with howls of delight
+scattered the crowds, dragged clothing from people's backs, and bore
+away the younger women. They were joined by other slaves serving in the
+city from of old, wretches who had nothing on their bodies save woollen
+girdles around their hips, dreadful figures from the alleys, who were
+hardly ever seen on the streets in the daytime, and whose existence in
+Rome it was difficult to suspect.
+
+Men of this wild and unrestrained crowd--Asiatics, Africans, Greeks,
+Thracians, Germans, Britons--howling in every language of the earth,
+raged, thinking that the hour had come in which they were free to reward
+themselves for years of misery and suffering. In the midst of that
+surging throng of humanity, in the glitter of day and of fire, shone the
+helmets of praetorians, under whose protection the more peaceable
+population had taken refuge, and who in hand-to-hand battle had to meet
+the raging multitude in many places. Vinicius had seen captured cities,
+but never had his eyes beheld a spectacle in which despair, tears, pain,
+groans, wild delight, madness, rage, and license were mingled together
+in such immeasurable chaos. Above this heaving, mad human multitude
+roared the fire, surging up to the hill-tops of the greatest city on
+earth, sending into the whirling throng its fiery breath, and covering
+it with smoke, through which it was impossible to see the blue sky.
+
+The young tribune with supreme effort, and exposing his life every
+moment, forced his way at last to the Appian Gate; but there he saw that
+he could not reach the city through the division of the Porta Capena,
+not merely because of the throng, but also because of the terrible heat
+from which the whole atmosphere was quivering inside the gate. Besides,
+the bridge at the Porta Trigenia, opposite the temple of the Bona Dea,
+did not exist yet, hence those who wished to go beyond the Tiber had to
+pass through to the Pons Sublicius--that is, to pass around the Aventine
+through a part of the city covered now with one sea of flame. That was
+an impossibility. Vinicius understood that he must return toward
+Ustrinum, turn from the Appian Way, cross the river below the city, and
+go to the Via Portuensis, which led straight to the Trans-Tiber.
+
+That was not easy because of the increasing disorder on the Appian Way.
+At the fountain of Mercury, however, he saw a centurion who was known to
+him. This man, at the head of a few tens of soldiers, was defending the
+precinct of the temple; he commanded him to follow. Recognizing a
+tribune and an Augustian, the centurion did not dare to disobey the
+order.
+
+He and his men were followed by curses and a shower of stones; but to
+these he gave no heed, caring only to reach freer spaces at the
+earliest. Still he advanced with the greatest effort. People who had
+encamped would not move, and heaped loud curses on Caesar and the
+praetorians. The throng assumed in places a threatening aspect. Thousands
+of voices accused Nero of burning the city. He and Poppaea were
+threatened with death. Shouts of "Buffoon, actor, matricide!" were heard
+round about. Some shouted to drag him to the Tiber; others that Rome had
+shown patience enough. It was clear that were a leader found these
+threats could be changed into open rebellion which might break out any
+moment.
+
+Meanwhile the rage and despair of the crowd turned against the
+praetorians, who for another reason could not make their way out of the
+crowd: the road was blocked by piles of goods, borne from the fire
+previously, boxes, barrels of provisions, furniture the most costly,
+vessels, infants' cradles, beds, carts, hand-packs. Here and there they
+fought hand-to-hand; but the praetorians conquered the weaponless
+multitude easily. After they had ridden with difficulty across the Viae
+Latina, Numitia, Ardea, Lavinia, and Ostia, and passed around villas,
+gardens, cemeteries, and temples, Vinicius reached at last a village
+called Vicus Alexandri, beyond which he crossed the Tiber. There was
+more open space at this spot and less smoke. From fugitives, of whom
+there was no lack even there, he learned that only certain alleys of the
+Trans-Tiber were burning, but that surely nothing could resist the fury
+of the conflagration, since people were spreading the fire purposely,
+and permitted no one to quench it, declaring that they acted at command.
+
+The young tribune had not the least doubt then that Caesar had given
+command to burn Rome; and the vengeance which people demanded seemed to
+him just and proper. What more could Mithradates or any of Rome's most
+inveterate enemies have done? The measure had been exceeded; his madness
+had grown to be too enormous, and the existence of people too difficult
+because of him. All believed that Nero's hour had struck, that those
+ruins into which the city was falling should and must overwhelm the
+monstrous buffoon together with all those crimes of his. Should a man be
+found of courage sufficient to stand at the head of the despairing
+people, that might happen in a few hours. Here vengeful and daring
+thoughts began to fly through his head. But if he should do that?
+
+The family of Vinicius, which till recent times counted a whole series
+of consuls, was known throughout Rome. The crowds needed only a name.
+Once, when four hundred slaves of the prefect Pedanius Secundus were
+sentenced, Rome reached the verge of rebellion and civil war. What would
+happen to-day in view of a dreadful calamity surpassing almost
+everything which Rome had undergone in the course of eight centuries?
+Whoever calls the _quirites_ to arms, thought Vinicius, will overthrow
+Nero undoubtedly, and clothe himself in purple.
+
+The Trans-Tiber was full of smoke, and crowds of fugitives made it more
+difficult to reach the interior of the place, since people, having more
+time there, had saved greater quantities of goods. The main street
+itself was in many parts filled completely, and around the Naumachia
+Augusta great heaps were piled up. Narrow alleys, in which smoke had
+collected more densely, were simply impassable. The inhabitants were
+fleeing in thousands. On the way Vinicius saw wonderful sights. More
+than once two rivers of people, flowing in opposite directions, met in a
+narrow passage, stopped each other, men fought hand-to-hand, struck and
+trampled one another. Families lost one another in the uproar; mothers
+called on their children despairingly. The young tribune's hair stood on
+end at thought of what must happen nearer the fire.
+
+Amid shouts and howls it was difficult to inquire about anything or
+understand what was said. At times new columns of smoke from beyond the
+river rolled toward them, smoke black and so heavy that it moved near
+the ground, hiding houses, people, and every object, just as night does.
+The fervor of a July day, increased by the heat of the burning parts of
+the city, became unendurable. Smoke pained the eyes; breath failed in
+men's breasts. Even the inhabitants who, hoping that the fire would not
+cross the river, had remained in their houses so far, began to leave
+them, and the throng increased hourly. The praetorians accompanying
+Vinicius were in the rear. In the crush some one wounded his horse with
+a hammer; the beast threw up its bloody head, reared, and refused
+obedience. The crowd recognized in Vinicius an Augustian by his rich
+tunic, and at once cries were raised round about, "Death to Nero and his
+incendiaries!" This was a moment of terrible danger; hundreds of hands
+were stretched toward Vinicius; but his frightened horse bore him away,
+trampling people as he went, and the next moment a new wave of black
+smoke rolled in and filled the street with darkness. Vinicius, seeing
+that he could not ride past, sprang to the earth and rushed forward on
+foot, slipping along walls, and at times waiting till the fleeing
+multitude passed him. He said to himself in spirit that these were vain
+efforts.
+
+At times he stopped and rubbed his eyes. Tearing off the edge of his
+tunic, he covered his nose and mouth with it and ran on. As he
+approached the river the heat increased terribly. Vinicius, knowing that
+the fire had begun at the Circus Maximus, thought at first that that
+heat came from its cinders and from the Forum Boarium and the Velabrum,
+which, situated near by, must be also in flames. But the heat was
+growing unendurable. One old man on crutches and fleeing, the last whom
+Vinicius noticed, cried: "Go not near the bridge of Cestius! The whole
+island is on fire!" It was, indeed, impossible to be deceived any
+longer. At the turn toward the Vicus Judaeorum the young tribune saw
+flames amid clouds of smoke. Not only the island was burning, but the
+Trans-Tiber and the other end of the street on which he ran.
+
+The thunder of the flames was more terrible than the roar of wild
+beasts, and the hour had come now in which he must think of his own
+safety, for the river of fire was flowing nearer and nearer from the
+direction of the island, and rolls of smoke covered the alley almost
+completely. The taper which he carried was quenched from the current of
+air. Vinicius rushed to the street, and ran at full speed toward the Via
+Portuensis, whence he had come; the fire seemed to pursue him with
+burning breath, now surrounding him with fresh clouds of smoke, now
+covering him with sparks, which fell on his hair, neck, and clothing.
+The tunic began to smoulder on him in places; he cared not, but ran
+forward lest he might be stifled from smoke. He had the taste of soot
+and burning in his mouth; his throat and lungs were as if on fire. The
+blood rushed to his head, and at moments all things, even the smoke
+itself, seemed red to him.
+
+Then he thought: "This is living fire! Better throw myself upon the
+ground and quickly perish." The running tortured him more and more. His
+head, neck, and shoulders were streaming with sweat, which scalded like
+boiling water.
+
+But he ran on as if drunk, staggering from one side of the street to the
+other. Meanwhile something changed in that monstrous conflagration which
+had embraced the giant city. Everything which till then had only
+glimmered, burst forth visibly into one sea of flame; the wind had
+ceased to bring smoke. That smoke which had collected in the streets
+was borne away by a mad whirl of heated air. That whirl drove with it
+millions of sparks, so that Vinicius was running in a fiery cloud, as it
+were. But he was able to see before him all the better, and in a moment,
+almost when he was ready to fall, he saw the end of the street. That
+sight gave him fresh strength. Passing the corner, he found himself in a
+street which led to the Via Portuensis and the Codetan Field. The sparks
+ceased to drive him. He understood that if he could run to the Via
+Portuensis he was safe, even were he to faint on it.
+
+At the end of the street he saw again a cloud, as it seemed, which
+stopped the exit. "If that is smoke," thought he, "I cannot pass." He
+ran with the remnant of his strength. On the way he threw off his tunic,
+which, on fire from the sparks, was burning him like the shirt of
+Nessus, having only a _capitium_ around his head and before his mouth.
+When he had run farther, he saw that what he had taken for smoke was
+dust, from which rose a multitude of cries and voices.
+
+"The rabble are plundering houses," thought Vinicius. But he ran toward
+the voices. In any case people were there; they might assist him. In
+this hope he shouted for aid with all his might before he reached them.
+But this was his last effort. It grew redder still in his eyes, breath
+failed his lungs, strength failed his bones; he fell.
+
+They heard him, however, or rather saw him. Two men ran with gourds full
+of water. Vinicius, who had fallen from exhaustion, but had not lost
+consciousness, seized a gourd with both hands and emptied one-half of
+it.
+
+"Thanks," said he; "place me on my feet; I can walk on alone."
+
+The other laborer poured water on his head; the two not only placed him
+on his feet, but raised him from the ground and carried him to the
+others, who surrounded him and asked if he had suffered seriously. This
+tenderness astonished Vinicius.
+
+"People, who are ye?" asked he.
+
+"We are breaking down houses, so that the fire may not reach the Via
+Portuensis," answered one of the laborers.
+
+"Ye came to my aid when I had fallen. Thanks to you."
+
+"We are not permitted to refuse aid," answered a number of voices.
+
+Vinicius, who from early morning had seen brutal crowds slaying and
+robbing, looked with more attention on the faces around him and said:
+
+"May Christ reward you."
+
+"Praise to his name!" exclaimed a whole chorus of voices.
+
+It was evening, but one could see as in daylight, for the conflagration
+had increased. It seemed that not single parts of the city were burning,
+but the whole city through the length and the breadth of it. The sky was
+red as far as the eye could see it, and that night in the world was a
+red night.
+
+The light from the burning city filled the sky as far as human eye could
+reach. The moon rose large and full from behind the mountains, and,
+inflamed at once by the glare, took on the color of heated brass. It
+seemed to look with amazement on the world-ruling city which was
+perishing. In the rose-colored abysses of heaven rose-colored stars were
+glittering; but in distinction from usual nights the earth was brighter
+than the heavens. Rome, like a giant pile, illuminated the whole
+Campania.
+
+In the bloody light were seen distant mountains, towns, villas, temples,
+monuments, and the aqueducts stretching toward the city from all the
+adjacent hills; on the aqueducts were swarms of people who had gathered
+there for safety or to gaze at the burning. Meanwhile the dreadful
+element was embracing new divisions of the city. It was impossible to
+doubt that criminal hands were spreading the fire, since new
+conflagrations were breaking out all the time in places remote from the
+principal fire.
+
+From the heights on which Rome was founded the flames flowed like waves
+of the sea into the valleys densely occupied by houses--houses of five
+and six stories, full of shops, booths, movable wooden amphitheatres,
+built to accommodate various spectacles; and finally storehouses of
+wood, olives, grain, nuts, pine cones, the kernels of which nourished
+the more needy population, and clothing, which through Caesar's favor was
+distributed from time to time among the rabble huddled into narrow
+alleys. In those places the fire, finding abundance of inflammable
+materials, became almost a series of explosions, and took possession of
+whole streets with unheard-of rapidity. People encamping outside the
+city or standing on the aqueducts knew from the color of the flame what
+was burning. The furious power of the wind carried forth from the fiery
+gulf thousands and millions of burning shells of walnuts and almonds,
+which, shooting suddenly into the sky, like countless flocks of bright
+butterflies, burst with a crackling, or, driven by the wind, fell in
+other parts of the city, on aqueducts and fields beyond Rome.
+
+All thought of rescue seemed out of place; confusion increased every
+moment, for on one side the population of the city was fleeing through
+every gate to places outside; on the other the fire had lured in
+thousands of people from the neighborhood, such as dwellers in small
+towns, peasants, and half-wild shepherds of the Campania brought in by
+hope of plunder. The shout, "Rome is perishing!" did not leave the lips
+of the crowd; the ruin of the city seemed at that time to end every rule
+and loosen all bonds which hitherto had joined people in a single
+integrity. The mob, in which slaves were more numerous, cared nothing
+for the lordship of Rome. Destruction of the city could only free them;
+hence here and there they assumed a threatening attitude.
+
+Violence and robbery were extending. It seemed that only the spectacle
+of the perishing city arrested attention, and restrained for the moment
+an outburst of slaughter, which would begin as soon as the city was
+turned into ruins. Hundreds of thousands of slaves, forgetting that
+Rome, besides temples and walls, possessed some tens of legions in all
+parts of the world, appeared merely waiting for a watchword and a
+leader. People began to mention the name of Spartacus; but Spartacus was
+not alive. Meanwhile citizens assembled and armed themselves each with
+what he could. The most monstrous reports were current at all the gates.
+Some declared that Vulcan, commanded by Jupiter, was destroying the city
+with fire from beneath the earth; others that Vesta was taking vengeance
+for Rubria. People with these convictions did not care to save anything,
+but, besieging the temples, implored mercy of the gods. It was repeated
+most generally, however, that Caesar had given command to burn Rome, so
+as to free himself from odors which rose from the Subura, and build a
+new city under the name of Neronia. Rage seized the populace at thought
+of this; and if, as Vinicius believed, a leader had taken advantage of
+that outburst of hatred, Nero's hour would have struck whole years
+before it did.
+
+It was said also that Caesar had gone mad, that he would command
+praetorians and gladiators to fall upon the people and make a general
+slaughter. Others swore by the gods that wild beasts had been let out of
+all the _vivaria_ at Bronze-beard's command. Men had seen on the streets
+lions with burning manes, and mad elephants and bisons, trampling down
+people in crowds. There was even some truth in this; for in certain
+places elephants, at sight of the approaching fire, had burst the
+vivaria, and, gaining their freedom, rushed away from the fire in wild
+fright, destroying everything before them like a tempest. Public report
+estimated at tens of thousands the number of persons who had perished in
+the conflagration. In truth a great number had perished. There were
+people who, losing all their property, or those dearest their hearts,
+threw themselves willingly into the flames from despair. Others were
+suffocated by smoke. In the middle of the city, between the Capitol on
+one side, and the Quirinal, the Viminal, and the Esquiline on the other,
+as also between the Palatine and the Caelian hill, where the streets were
+most densely occupied, the fire began in so many places at once that
+whole crowds of people, while fleeing in one direction, struck
+unexpectedly on a new wall of fire in front of them, and died a dreadful
+death in a deluge of flame.
+
+In terror, in distraction and bewilderment, people knew not where to
+flee. The streets were obstructed with goods and in many narrow places
+were simply closed. Those who took refuge in those markets and squares
+of the city where the Flavian Amphitheatre stood afterward, near the
+temple of the Earth, near the Portico of Silvia, and higher up, at the
+temples of Juno and Lucinia, between the Clivus Virbius and the old
+Esquiline gate, perished from heat, surrounded by a sea of fire. In
+places not reached by the flames were found afterward hundreds of
+bodies burned to a crisp, though here and there unfortunates tore up
+flat stones and half buried themselves in defence against the heat.
+Hardly a family inhabiting the centre of the city survived in full;
+hence along the walls, at the gates, on all roads were heard howls of
+despairing women, calling on the dear names of those who had perished in
+the throng or the fire.
+
+And so, while some were imploring the gods, others blasphemed them
+because of this awful catastrophe. Old men were seen coming from the
+temple of Jupiter Liberator, stretching forth their hands and crying,
+"If thou be a liberator, save thy altars and the city!" But despair
+turned mainly against the old Roman gods, who, in the minds of the
+populace, were bound to watch over the city more carefully than others.
+They had proved themselves powerless; hence were insulted. On the other
+hand, it happened on the Via Asinaria that when a company of Egyptian
+priests appeared conducting a statue of Isis, which they had saved from
+the temple near the Porta Caelimontana, a crowd of people rushed among
+the priests, attached themselves to the chariot, which they drew to the
+Appian gate, and seizing the statue placed it in the temple of Mars,
+overwhelming the priests of that deity who dared to resist them.
+
+In other places people invoked Serapis, Baal, or Jehovah, whose
+adherents, swarming out of the alleys in the neighborhood of the Subura
+and the Trans-Tiber, filled with shouts and uproar the fields near the
+walls. In their cries were heard tones as if of triumph; when,
+therefore, some of the citizens joined the chorus and glorified "the
+Lord of the World," others, indignant at this glad shouting, strove to
+repress it by violence. Here and there hymns were heard, sung by men in
+the bloom of life, by old men, by women and children--hymns wonderful
+and solemn, whose meaning they understood not, but in which were
+repeated from moment to moment the words "Behold the Judge cometh in the
+day of wrath and disaster." Thus this deluge of restless and sleepless
+people encircled the burning city, like a tempest-driven sea. But
+neither despair nor blasphemy nor hymn helped in any way.
+
+The destruction seemed as irresistible, perfect, and pitiless as
+Predestination itself. Around Pompey's Amphitheatre stores of hemp
+caught fire, and ropes used in circuses, arenas, and every kind of
+machine at the games, and with them the adjoining buildings containing
+barrels of pitch with which ropes were smeared. In a few hours all that
+part of the city beyond which lay the Campus Martius was so lighted by
+bright yellow flames that for a time it seemed to the spectators, only
+half conscious from terror, that in the general ruin the order of night
+and day had been lost, and that they were looking at sunshine. But later
+a monstrous bloody gleam extinguished all other colors of flame. From
+the sea of fire shot up to the heated sky gigantic fountains, and
+pillars of flame spreading at their summits into fiery branches and
+feathers; then the wind bore them away, turned them into golden threads,
+into hair, into sparks, and swept them on over the Campania toward the
+Alban hills. The night became brighter; the air itself seemed
+penetrated, not only with light, but with flame. The Tiber flowed on as
+living fire. The hapless city was turned into one pandemonium. The
+conflagration seized more and more space, took hills by storm, flooded
+level places, drowned valleys, raged, roared, and thundered.
+
+The city burned on. The Circus Maximus had fallen in ruins. Entire
+streets and alleys in parts which began to burn first were falling in
+turn. After every fall pillars of flame rose for a time to the very sky.
+The wind had changed, and blew now with mighty force from the sea,
+bearing toward the Caelian, the Esquiline, and the Viminal rivers of
+flame, brands, and cinders. Still the authorities provided for rescue.
+At command of Tigellinus, who had hastened from Antium the third day
+before, houses on the Esquiline were torn down so that the fire,
+reaching empty spaces, died of itself. That was, however, undertaken
+solely to save a remnant of the city; to save that which was burning was
+not to be thought of. There was need also to guard against further
+results of the ruin. Incalculable wealth had perished in Rome; all the
+property of its citizens had vanished; hundreds of thousands of people
+were wandering in utter want outside the walls. Hunger had begun to
+pinch this throng the second day, for the immense stores of provisions
+in the city had burned with it. In the universal disorder and in the
+destruction of authority no one had thought of furnishing new supplies.
+Only after the arrival of Tigellinus were proper orders sent to Ostia;
+but meanwhile the people had grown more threatening.
+
+Besides flour, as much baked bread as possible was brought at his
+command, not only from Ostia, but from all towns and neighboring
+villages. When the first instalment came at night to the Emporium, the
+people broke the chief gate toward the Aventine, seized all supplies in
+the twinkle of an eye, and caused terrible disturbance. In the light of
+the conflagration they fought for loaves, and trampled many of them into
+the earth. Flour from torn bags whitened like snow the whole space from
+the granary to the arches of Drusus and Germanicus. The uproar continued
+till soldiers seized the building and dispersed the crowd with arrows
+and missiles.
+
+Never since the invasion by the Gauls under Brennus had Rome beheld such
+disaster. People in despair compared the two conflagrations. But in the
+time of Brennus the Capitol remained. Now the Capitol was encircled by a
+dreadful wreath of flame. The marbles, it is true, were not blazing; but
+at night, when the wind swept the flames aside for a moment, rows of
+columns in the lofty sanctuary of Jove were visible, red as glowing
+coals. In the days of Brennus, moreover, Rome had a disciplined integral
+people, attached to the city and its altars; but now crowds of a
+many-tongued populace roamed nomad-like around the walls of burning
+Rome, people composed for the greater part of slaves and freedmen,
+excited, disorderly, and ready, under the pressure of want, to turn
+against authority and the city.
+
+But the very immensity of the fire which terrified every heart disarmed
+the crowd in a certain measure. After fire might come famine and
+disease; and to complete the misfortune the terrible heat of July had
+appeared. It was impossible to breathe air inflamed both by fire and the
+sun. Night brought no relief; on the contrary, it presented a hell.
+During daylight an awful and ominous spectacle met the eye. In the
+centre a giant city on heights was turned into a roaring volcano; round
+about as far as the Alban hills was one boundless camp, formed of sheds,
+tents, huts, vehicles, bales, packs, stands, fires, and all covered
+with smoke and dust, lighted by sun rays reddened by passing through
+smoke--everything filled with roars, shouts, threats, hatred, and
+terror, a monstrous swarm of men, women, and children. Mingled with
+_quirites_ were Greeks, shaggy men from the North with blue eyes,
+Africans, and Asiatics; among citizens were slaves, freedmen,
+gladiators, merchants, mechanics, servants, and soldiers--a real sea of
+people, flowing around the island of fire.
+
+Various reports moved this sea as wind does a real one. These reports
+were favorable and unfavorable. People told of immense supplies of wheat
+and clothing to be brought to the Emporium and distributed gratis. It
+was said, too, that provinces in Asia and Africa would be stripped of
+their wealth at Caesar's command, and the treasures thus gained be given
+to the inhabitants of Rome, so that each man might build his own
+dwelling.
+
+But it was noised about also that water in the aqueducts had been
+poisoned; that Nero intended to annihilate the city, destroy the
+inhabitants to the last person, then move to Greece or to Egypt, and
+rule the world from a new place. Each report ran with lightning speed,
+and each found belief among the rabble, causing outbursts of hope,
+anger, terror, or rage. Finally a kind of fever mastered those nomadic
+thousands. The belief of Christians that the end of the world by fire
+was at hand spread even among adherents of the gods and extended daily.
+People fell into torpor or madness. In clouds lighted by the burning,
+gods were seen gazing down on the ruin; hands were stretched toward
+those gods then to implore pity or send them curses.
+
+Meanwhile soldiers, aided by a certain number of inhabitants, continued
+to tear down houses on the Esquiline and the Caelian, as also in the
+Trans-Tiber; these divisions were saved therefore in considerable part.
+But in the city itself were destroyed incalculable treasures accumulated
+through centuries of conquest--priceless works of art, splendid temples,
+the most precious monuments of Rome's past and Rome's glory. They
+foresaw that of all Rome there would remain barely a few parts on the
+edges, and that hundreds of thousands of people would be without a roof.
+Some spread reports that the soldiers were tearing down houses, not to
+stop the fire, but to prevent any part of the city from being saved.
+Tigellinus sent courier after courier to Antium, imploring Caesar in each
+letter to come and calm the despairing people with his presence. But
+Nero moved only when fire had seized the _domus transitoria_ and he
+hurried so as not to miss the moment in which the conflagration should
+be at its highest.
+
+Meanwhile fire had reached the Via Nomentana, but turned from it at once
+with a change of wind toward the Via Lata and the Tiber. It surrounded
+the Capitol, spread along the Forum Boarium, destroyed everything which
+it had spared before, and approached the Palatine a second time.
+
+Tigellinus, assembling all the praetorian forces, despatched courier
+after courier to Caesar with an announcement that he would lose nothing
+of the grandeur of the spectacle, for the fire had increased.
+
+But Nero, who was on the road, wished to come at night, so as to sate
+himself all the better with a view of the perishing capital. Therefore
+he halted, in the neighborhood of Aqua Albana, and, summoning to his
+tent the tragedian Aliturus, decided with his aid on posture, look, and
+expression; learned fitting gestures, disputing with the actor
+stubbornly whether at the words, "O sacred city, which seemed more
+enduring than Ida," he was to raise both hands, or, holding in one the
+_forminga_, drop it by his side, and raise only the other. This question
+seemed to him then more important than all others. Starting at last
+about nightfall, he took counsel of Petronius also whether to the lines
+describing the catastrophe he might add a few magnificent blasphemies
+against the gods, and whether, considered from the standpoint of art,
+they would not have rushed spontaneously from the mouth of a man in such
+a position, a man who was losing his birthplace.
+
+At length he approached the walls about midnight with his numerous
+court, composed of whole detachments of nobles, senators, knights,
+freedmen, slaves, women, and children. Sixteen thousand praetorians,
+arranged in line of battle along the road, guarded the peace and safety
+of his entrance, and held the excited populace at a proper distance. The
+people cursed, shouted, and hissed on seeing the retinue, but dared not
+attack it. In many places, however, applause was given by the rabble,
+which, owning nothing, had lost nothing in the fire, and which hoped for
+a more bountiful distribution than usual of wheat, olives, clothing, and
+money. Finally, shouts, hissing, and applause were drowned in the blare
+of horns and trumpets, which Tigellinus had caused to be sounded.
+
+Nero, on arriving at the Ostian gate, halted, and said: "Houseless ruler
+of a houseless people, where shall I lay my unfortunate head for the
+night?"
+
+After he had passed the Clivus Delphini, he ascended the Appian aqueduct
+on steps prepared purposely. After him followed the Augustians and a
+choir of singers, bearing _citharae_, lutes, and other musical
+instruments.
+
+And all held the breath in their breasts, waiting to learn if he would
+say some great words, which for their own safety they ought to remember.
+But he stood solemn, silent, in a purple mantle and a wreath of golden
+laurels, gazing at the raging might of the flames.
+
+When Terpnos gave him a golden lute, he raised his eyes to the sky,
+filled with the conflagration, as if he were waiting for inspiration.
+The people pointed at him from afar as he stood in the bloody gleam. In
+the distance fiery serpents were hissing. The ancient and most sacred
+edifices were in flames; the temple of Hercules, reared by Evander, was
+burning; the temple of Jupiter Stator was burning, the temple of Luna,
+built by Servius Tullius, the house of Numa Pompilius, the sanctuary of
+Vesta with the _penates_ of the Roman people; through waving flames the
+Capitol appeared at intervals; the past and the spirit of Rome were
+burning. But Caesar was there with a lute in his hand and a theatrical
+expression on his face, not thinking of his perishing country, but of
+his posture and the prophetic words with which he might describe best
+the greatness of the catastrophe, rouse most admiration, and receive the
+warmest plaudits.
+
+He detested that city, he detested its inhabitants, he loved only his
+own songs and verses; hence he rejoiced in heart that at last he saw a
+tragedy like that which he was writing. The poet was happy, the
+declaimer felt inspired, the seeker for emotions was delighted at the
+awful sight, and thought with rapture that even the destruction of Troy
+was as nothing if compared with the destruction of that giant city. What
+more could he desire? There was world-ruling Rome in flames, and he,
+standing on the arches of the aqueduct with a golden lute, conspicuous,
+purple, admired, magnificent, and poetic. Down below, somewhere in the
+darkness, the people are muttering and storming; let them mutter! Ages
+will elapse, thousands of years will pass, but mankind will remember and
+glorify the poet who that night sang the fall and the burning of Troy.
+What was Homer compared with him? What Apollo himself with his
+hollowed-out lute?
+
+Here he raised his hands, and, striking the strings, with an exaggerated
+theatrical gesture pronounced the words of Priam:
+
+"O nest of my fathers, O dear cradle!" His voice in the open air, with
+the roar of the conflagration, and the distant murmur of crowding
+thousands, seemed marvellously weak, uncertain, and low, and the sound
+of the accompaniment like the buzzing of insects. But senators,
+dignitaries, and Augustians, assembled on the aqueduct, bowed their
+heads and listened in silent rapture. He sang long, and his motive was
+ever sadder. At moments, when he stopped to catch breath, the chorus of
+singers repeated the last verse; then Nero cast the tragic _syrma_ from
+his shoulder with a gesture learned from Aliturus, struck the lute, and
+sang on. When he had finished the lines composed, he improvised, using
+grandiose comparisons in the spectacle unfolded before him. His face
+began to change. He was not moved, it is true, by the destruction of his
+country's capital; but he was delighted and moved with the pathos of his
+own words to such a degree that his eyes filled with tears on a sudden.
+
+At last he dropped the lute to his feet with a clatter, and, wrapping
+himself in the syrma, stood as if petrified, like one of those statues
+of Niobe which ornamented the courtyard of the Palatine. Soon a storm of
+applause broke the silence. But in the distance this was answered by the
+howling of multitudes. No one doubted then that Caesar had given command
+to burn the city, so as to afford himself a spectacle and sing a song at
+it.
+
+
+TACITUS
+
+There followed a dreadful disaster, whether fortuitously or by the
+wicked contrivance of the prince is not determined, for both are
+asserted by historians; but of all the calamities which ever befell this
+city from the rage of fire, this was the most terrible and severe. It
+broke out in that part of the Circus which is contiguous to mounts
+Palatine and Caelius, where, by reason of shops in which were kept such
+goods as minister aliment to fire, the moment it commenced it acquired
+strength, and, being accelerated by the wind, it spread at once through
+the whole extent of the Circus: for neither were the houses secured by
+enclosures nor the temples environed with walls, nor was there any other
+obstacle to intercept its progress; but the flame, spreading every way
+impetuously, invaded first the lower regions of the city, then mounted
+to the higher; then again ravaging the lower, it baffled every effort to
+extinguish it, by the rapidity of its destructive course, and from the
+liability of the city to conflagration, in consequence of the narrow and
+intricate alleys, and the irregularity of the streets in ancient Rome.
+
+Add to this the wailings of terrified women, the infirm condition of the
+aged, and the helplessness of childhood; such as strove to provide for
+themselves and those who labored to assist others; these dragging the
+feeble, those waiting for them; some hurrying, others lingering;
+altogether created a scene of universal confusion and embarrassment: and
+while they looked back upon the danger in their rear, they often found
+themselves beset before and on their sides; or, if they had escaped into
+the quarters adjoining, these, too, were already seized by the devouring
+flames; even the parts which they believed remote and exempt were found
+to be in the same distress. At last, not knowing what to shun or where
+to seek sanctuary, they crowded the streets and lay along in the open
+fields. Some, from the loss of their whole substance, even the means of
+their daily sustenance, others, from affection for their relations whom
+they had not been able to snatch from the flames, suffered themselves to
+perish in them, though they had opportunity to escape. Neither dared any
+man offer to check the fire, so repeated were the menaces of many who
+forbade to extinguish it; and because others openly threw firebrands,
+with loud declarations "that they had one who authorized them"; whether
+they did it that they might plunder with the less restraint or in
+consequence of orders given.
+
+Nero, who was at that juncture sojourning at Antium, did not return to
+the city till the fire approached that quarter of his house which
+connected the palace with the gardens of Maecenas; nor could it, however,
+be prevented from devouring the house and palace and everything around.
+But for the relief of the people, thus destitute and driven from their
+dwellings, he opened the field of Mars and the monumental edifices
+erected by Agrippa, and even his own gardens. He likewise reared
+temporary houses for the reception of the forlorn multitude, and from
+Ostia and the neighboring cities were brought, up the river, household
+necessaries, and the price of grain was reduced to three sesterces the
+measure. All which proceedings, though of a popular character, were
+thrown away, because a rumor had become universally current "that at the
+very time when the city was in flames, Nero, going on the stage of his
+private theatre, sang _The Destruction of Troy_, assimilating the
+present disaster to that catastrophe of ancient times."
+
+At length, on the sixth day, the conflagration was stayed at the foot of
+Esquiliae, by pulling down an immense quantity of buildings, so that an
+open space, and, as it were, void air, might check the raging element by
+breaking the continuity. But ere the consternation had subsided the fire
+broke out afresh, with no little violence, but in regions more spacious,
+and therefore with less destruction of human life; but more extensive
+havoc was made of the temples and the porticoes dedicated to amusement.
+This conflagration, too, was the subject of more censorious remark, as
+it arose in the AEmilian possessions of Tigellinus, and Nero seemed to
+aim at the glory of building a new city and calling it by his own name;
+for, of the fourteen sections into which Rome is divided, four were
+still standing entire, three were levelled with the ground, and in the
+seven others there remained only here and there a few remnants of
+houses, shattered and half consumed.
+
+It were no very easy task to recount the number of tenements and temples
+which were lost; but the following, most venerable for antiquity and
+sanctity, were consumed: that dedicated by Servius Tullius to the Moon;
+the temple and great altar consecrated by Evander the Arcadian to
+Hercules while present; the chapel vowed by Romulus to Jupiter Stator;
+the palace of Numa with the temple of Vesta, and in it the tutelar gods
+of Rome. Moreover, the treasures accumulated by so many victories, the
+beautiful productions of Greek artists, ancient writings of authors
+celebrated for genius, and till then preserved entire, were consumed;
+and though great was the beauty of the city, in its renovated form, the
+older inhabitants remembered many decorations of the ancient which could
+not be replaced in the modern city. There were some who remarked that
+the commencement of this fire showed itself on the fourteenth before the
+calends of July, the day on which the Senones set fire to the captured
+city. Others carried their investigation so far as to determine that an
+equal number of years, months, and days intervened between the two
+fires.
+
+To proceed: Nero appropriated to his own purposes the ruins of his
+country,[27] and founded upon them a palace; in which the old-fashioned,
+and, in those luxurious times, common ornaments of gold and precious
+stones, were not so much the objects of attraction as lands and lakes;
+in one part, woods like vast deserts; in another part, open spaces and
+expansive prospects. The projectors and superintendents of this plan
+were Severus and Celer, men of such ingenuity and daring enterprise as
+to attempt to conquer by art the obstacles of nature and fool away the
+treasures of the prince. They had even undertaken to sink a navigable
+canal from the lake Avernus to the mouth of the Tiber, over an arid
+shore or through opposing mountains; nor indeed does there occur
+anything of a humid nature for supplying water except the Pomptine
+marshes; the rest is either craggy rock or a parched soil; and had it
+even been possible to break through these obstructions, the toil had
+been intolerable and disproportioned to the object. Nero, however, who
+longed to achieve things that exceeded credibility, exerted all his
+might to perforate the mountains adjoining to Avernus, and to this day
+there remain traces of his abortive project.
+
+But the rest of the old site not occupied by his palace was laid out,
+not as after the Gallic fire without discrimination and regularity, but
+with the lines of streets measured out, broad spaces left for transit,
+the height of the buildings limited, open areas left, and porticoes
+added to protect the front of the clustered dwellings: these porticoes
+Nero engaged to rear at his own expense, and then to deliver to each
+proprietor the areas about them cleared. He, moreover, proposed rewards
+proportioned to every man's rank and private substance, and fixed a day
+within which, if their houses, single and clustered, were finished, they
+should receive them. He appointed the marshes of Ostia for a receptacle
+of the rubbish, and that the vessels which had conveyed grain up the
+Tiber should return laden with rubbish; that the buildings themselves
+should be raised a certain portion of their height without beams, and
+arched with stone from the quarries of Gabii or Alba, that stone being
+proof against fire; that over the water springs, which had been
+improperly intercepted by private individuals, overseers should be
+placed, to provide for their flowing in greater abundance, and in a
+greater number of places, for the supply of the public; that every
+housekeeper should have in his yard means for extinguishing fire,
+neither should there be party walls, but every house should be enclosed
+by its own walls.[28]
+
+These regulations, which were favorably received, in consideration of
+their utility, were also a source of beauty to the new city; yet some
+there were who believed that the ancient form was more conducive to
+health, as from the narrowness of the streets and the height of the
+buildings the rays of the sun were more excluded; whereas now, the
+spacious breadth of the streets, without any shade to protect it, was
+more intensely heated in warm weather.
+
+Such were the provisions made by human counsels. The gods were next
+addressed with expiations, and recourse had to the sibyl's books. By
+admonition from them to Vulcan, Ceres, and Proserpina, supplicatory
+sacrifices were made, and Juno propitiated by the matrons, first in the
+Capitol, then upon the nearest shore, where, by water drawn from the
+sea, the temple and image of the goddess were besprinkled; the ceremony
+of placing the goddess in her sacred chair, and her vigil, were
+celebrated by ladies who had husbands. But not all the relief that could
+come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor
+all the atonements which could be presented to the gods availed to
+relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the
+conflagration. Hence, to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the
+guilt and punished with the most exquisite tortures the persons commonly
+called Christians, who were hated for their enormities.
+
+Christus, the founder of that name, was put to death as a criminal by
+Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius; but the
+pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again, not only
+through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of
+Rome also, whither all things horrible and disgraceful flow from all
+quarters as to a common receptacle and where they are encouraged.
+Accordingly first those were seized who confessed they were Christians;
+next on their information a vast multitude were convicted, not so much
+on the charge of burning the city as of hating the human race. And in
+their deaths they were also made the subjects of sport, for they were
+covered with the hides of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs, or
+nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and when day declined, burned to
+serve for nocturnal lights. Nero offered his own gardens for that
+spectacle, and exhibited a Circensian game, indiscriminately mingling
+with the common people in the habit of a charioteer, or else standing in
+his chariot. Whence a feeling of compassion arose toward the sufferers,
+though guilty and deserving to be made examples of by capital
+punishment, because they seemed not to be cut off for the public good,
+but victims to the ferocity of one man.
+
+In the mean time, in order to supply money all Italy was pillaged, the
+provinces ruined, both the people in alliance with us and the states
+which are called free. Even the gods were not exempt from plunder on
+this occasion, their temples in the city being despoiled, and all the
+gold conveyed away which the Roman people, in every age, either in
+gratitude for triumphs or in fulfilment of vows, had consecrated, in
+times of prosperity, or in seasons of dismay. Through Greece and Asia,
+indeed, the gifts and oblations and even the statues of the deities were
+carried off.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[27] According to Suetonius, Nero turned the public calamity to his own
+private advantage. He promised to remove the bodies that lay amid the
+ruins, and to clear the ground at his own expense. By that artifice he
+secured all the remaining property of the unhappy sufferers for his own
+use. To add to his ill-gotten store, he levied contributions in the
+provinces, and by those means collected an immense sum.
+
+[28] By a law of the Twelve Tables, it was provided that a space of
+something more than two feet was to be left between all new-built
+houses.
+
+
+
+
+PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS UNDER NERO
+
+A.D. 64-68
+
+FREDERIC WILLIAM FARRAR
+
+     Down to the reign of Nero Christians in the Roman Empire were
+     regarded by the ruling powers merely as a Jewish sect, harmless and
+     guilty of nothing which could call for the interference of the
+     State with their ways of life or of worship. They were therefore
+     unmolested. But during the reign of the infamous Emperor in whom
+     they saw antichrist and the actual embodiment of the symbolic
+     monstrosities of the Apocalypse, the Christians began to be
+     recognized as a separate people, and from milder persecutions at
+     first, under cover of legal procedure, they were soon subjected to
+     outrages, tortures, and deaths than which history has none more
+     revolting and pitiful to record. In Kaulbach's great painting of
+     Nero's persecution there is enough of portrayal and suggestion to
+     add a terrible vividness to the ordinary historian's word-pictures.
+     The Emperor, surrounded by his boon companions, stands on his
+     garden terrace to receive divine honors, while a group of suffering
+     Christians--among them St. Peter, crucified head down, and St.
+     Paul, passionately protesting against the diabolical work--move to
+     compassion a company of elderly men and a body of German soldiers
+     who look upon the horrible spectacle of martyrdom.
+
+     This, the first persecution of the Christians, reached its
+     culminating point of ferocity in A.D. 64, after Nero had been
+     accused of kindling, or conniving at the work of those who did
+     kindle, the great fire in Rome. In order to divert attention, even
+     if he could not turn suspicion, from himself, having charged the
+     Christians with causing the conflagration, he ordered the
+     atrocities which added a still darker stain to his personal and
+     imperial record of shameless crime and savage inhumanity. First
+     such as confessed themselves to be Christians were dealt with, and
+     from these information was extorted on which vast numbers were
+     convicted, "not so much on the charge of burning the city as of
+     hating the human race."
+
+     Nero's character and acts have been depicted by many writers and in
+     famous works of art, but not even the pencil of Kaulbach can make
+     more keen the realization of those scenes enacted in this
+     persecution than the thrilling narration of Farrar, which for
+     picturesque eloquence, fired with dramatic intensity, has seldom
+     been surpassed in English literature.
+
+
+Nero was so secure in his absolutism, he had hitherto found it so
+impossible to shock the feelings of the people or to exhaust the
+terrified adulation of the senate, that he was usually indifferent to
+the pasquinades which were constantly holding up his name to execration
+and contempt. But now[29] he felt that he had gone too far, and that his
+power would be seriously imperilled if he did not succeed in diverting
+the suspicions of the populace. He was perfectly aware that when the
+people in the streets cursed those who set fire to the city they meant
+to curse _him_. If he did not take some immediate step, he felt that he
+might perish, as Gaius had perished before him, by the dagger of the
+assassin.
+
+It is at this point of his career that Nero becomes a prominent figure
+in the history of the Church. It was this phase of cruelty which seemed
+to throw a blood-red light over his whole character and led men to look
+on him as the very incarnation of the world-power in its most demoniac
+aspect, as worse than the Antiochus Epiphanes of Daniel's Apocalypse, as
+the Man of Sin whom--in language figurative indeed, yet awfully
+true--the Lord should slay with the breath of his mouth and destroy with
+the brightness of his coming, for Nero endeavored to fix the odious
+crime of having destroyed the capital of the world upon the most
+innocent and faithful of his subjects--upon the only subjects who
+offered heartfelt prayers on his behalf--the Roman Christians. They were
+the defenceless victims of this horrible charge, for though they were
+the most harmless, they were also the most hated and the most slandered
+of living men.
+
+Why he should have thought of singling out the Christians has always
+been a curious problem, for at this point St. Luke ends the Acts of the
+Apostles, perhaps purposely dropping the curtain, because it would have
+been perilous and useless to narrate the horrors in which the hitherto
+neutral or friendly Roman government began to play so disgraceful a
+part. Neither Tacitus, nor Suetonius, nor the Apocalypse, helps us to
+solve this particular problem. The Christians had filled no large space
+in the eye of the world. Until the days of Domitian we do not hear of a
+single noble or distinguished person who had joined their ranks. That
+the Pudens and Claudia of Rom. xvi. were the Pudens and Claudia of
+Martial's _Epigrams_ seems to me to be a baseless dream. If the "foreign
+superstition" with which Pomponia Graecina, wife of Aulus Plautius, the
+conqueror of Britain, was charged, and of which she was acquitted, was
+indeed, as has been suspected, the Christian religion, at any rate the
+name of Christianity was not alluded to by the ancient writers who had
+mentioned the circumstance. Even if Rom. xvi. was addressed to Rome, and
+not, as I believe, to Ephesus, "they of the household of Narcissus which
+were in the Lord" were unknown slaves, as also were "they of Caesar's
+household."
+
+The slaves and artisans, Jewish and Gentile, who formed the Christian
+community at Rome, had never in any way come into collision with the
+Roman government. They must have been the victims rather than the
+exciters of the messianic tumults--for such they are conjectured to have
+been--which led to the expulsion of the Jews from Rome by the futile
+edict of Claudius. Nay, so obedient and docile were they required to be
+by the very principles on which their morality was based, so far were
+they removed from the fierce independence of the Jewish zealots, that,
+in writing to them a few years earlier, the greatest of their leaders
+had urged upon them a payment of tribute and a submission to the higher
+powers, not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake, because the
+earthly ruler, in his office of repressing evil works, is a minister of
+God. That the Christians were entirely innocent of the crime charged
+against them was well known both at the time and afterward. But how was
+it that Nero sought popularity and partly averted the deep rage which
+was rankling in many hearts against himself, by torturing men and women,
+on whose agonies he thought that the populace would gaze not only with a
+stolid indifference, but even with fierce satisfaction?
+
+Gibbon has conjectured that the Christians were confounded with the
+Jews, and that the detestation universally felt for the latter fell with
+double force upon the former. Christians suffered even more than the
+Jews because of the calumnies so assiduously circulated against them,
+and from what appeared to the ancients to be the revolting absurdity of
+their peculiar tenets. "Nero," says Tacitus, "exposed to accusation, and
+tortured with the most exquisite penalties, a set of men detested for
+their enormities, whom the common people called 'Christians.' Christus,
+the founder of this sect, was executed during the reign of Tiberius, by
+the procurator Pontius Pilate, and the deadly superstition, suppressed
+for a time, began to burst out once more, not only throughout Judea,
+where the evil had its root, but even in the city, whither from every
+quarter all things horrible or shameful are drifted, and find their
+votaries."
+
+The lordly disdain which prevented Tacitus from making any inquiry into
+the real views and character of the Christians is shown by the fact that
+he catches up the most baseless allegations against them. He talks of
+their doctrines as savage and shameful when they breathed the very
+spirit of peace and purity. He charges them with being animated by a
+hatred of their kind when their central tenet was a universal charity.
+The masses, he says, called them "Christians"; and while he almost
+apologizes for staining his page with so vulgar an appellation,[30] he
+merely mentions in passing that, though innocent of the charge of being
+turbulent incendiaries, on which they were tortured to death, they were
+yet a set of guilty and infamous sectaries, to be classed with the
+lowest dregs of Roman criminals.
+
+But the haughty historian throws no light on one difficulty--namely, the
+circumstances which led to the _Christians_ being thus singled out. The
+Jews were in no way involved in Nero's persecution. To persecute the
+Jews at Rome would not have been an easy matter. They were sufficiently
+numerous to be formidable, and had overawed Cicero in the zenith of his
+fame. Besides this, the Jewish religion was recognized, tolerated,
+licensed. Throughout the length and breadth of the empire no man,
+however much he and his race might be detested and despised, could have
+been burned or tortured for the mere fact of being a Jew. We hear of no
+Jewish martyrdoms or Jewish persecutions till we come to the times of
+the Jewish War, and then chiefly in Palestine itself. It is clear that a
+shedding of blood--in fact, some form or other of human sacrifice--was
+imperatively demanded by popular feeling as an expiation of the ruinous
+crime which had plunged so many thousands into the depths of misery. In
+vain had the sibylline books been once more consulted, and in vain had
+public prayer been offered, in accordance with their directions to
+Vulcan and the goddesses of Earth and Hades. In vain had the Roman
+matrons walked in procession in dark robes, and with their long hair
+unbound, to propitiate the insulted majesty of Juno, and to sprinkle
+with sea-water her ancient statue. In vain had largesses been lavished
+upon the people, and propitiatory sacrifices offered to the gods. In
+vain had public banquets been celebrated in honor of various deities. A
+crime had been committed, and Romans had perished unavenged. Blood cried
+for blood before the sullen suspicion against Nero could be averted or
+the indignation of heaven appeased.
+
+Nero had always hated, persecuted, and exiled the philosophers, and no
+doubt, so far as he knew anything of the Christians--so far as he saw
+among his own countless slaves any who had embraced this superstition,
+which the _elite_ of Rome described as not only new, but "execrable" and
+"malefic"--he would hate their gravity and purity, and feel for them
+that raging envy which is the tribute that virtue receives from vice.
+Moreover, St. Paul, in all probability, had recently stood before his
+tribunal, and though he had been acquitted on the special charges of
+turbulence and profanation, respecting which he had appealed to Caesar,
+yet during the judicial inquiry Nero could hardly have failed to hear
+from the emissaries of the Sanhedrim many fierce slanders of a sect
+which was everywhere spoken against. The Jews were by far the deadliest
+enemies of the Christians, and two persons of Jewish proclivities were
+at this time in close proximity to the person of the Emperor. One was
+the pantomimist Aliturus, the other was Poppaea, the harlot-empress.[31]
+The Jews were in communication with these powerful favorites, and had
+even promised Nero that if his enemies ever prevailed at Rome he should
+have the kingdom of Jerusalem.[32]
+
+It is not even impossible that there may have been a third dark and evil
+influence at work to undermine the Christians, for about this very time
+the unscrupulous Pharisee Flavius Josephus had availed himself of the
+intrigues of the palace to secure the liberation of some Jewish priests.
+If, as seems certain, the Jews had it in their power during the reign of
+Nero more or less to shape the whisper of the throne, does not
+historical induction drive us to conclude with some confidence that the
+suggestion of the Christians as scapegoats and victims came from them?
+St. Clement says in his Epistle that the Christians suffered _through
+jealousy_. _Whose_ jealousy? Who can tell what dark secrets lie veiled
+under that suggestive word? Was Acte a Christian, and was Poppaea jealous
+of her? That suggestion seems at once inadequate and improbable,
+especially as Acte was not hurt. But there _was_ a deadly jealousy at
+work against the new religion.
+
+To the pagans, Christianity was but a religious
+extravagance--contemptible, indeed, but otherwise insignificant. To the
+Jews, on the other hand, it was an object of hatred, which never stopped
+short of bloodshed when it possessed or could usurp the power, and
+which, though long suppressed by circumstances, displayed itself in all
+the intensity of its virulence during the brief spasm of the
+dictatorship of Barcochebas. Christianity was hateful to the Jews on
+_every_ ground. It nullified their law. It liberated all Gentiles from
+the heavy yoke of that law, without thereby putting them on a lower
+level. It even tended to render those who were born Jews indifferent to
+the institutions of Mosaism. It was, as it were, a fatal revolt and
+schism from within, more dangerous than any assault from without. And,
+worse than all, it was by the Gentiles confounded with the Judaism which
+was its bitterest antagonist. While it sheltered its existence under the
+mantle of Judaism, as a _religio licita_, it drew down upon the religion
+from whose bosom it sprang all the scorn and hatred which were attached
+by the world to its own special tenets, for however much the Greeks and
+Romans despised the Jews, they despised still more the belief that the
+Lord and Saviour of the world was a crucified malefactor who had risen
+from the dead.
+
+I see in the proselytism of Poppaea, guided by Jewish malice, the only
+adequate explanation of the first Christian persecution. Hers was the
+jealousy which had goaded Nero to matricide; hers not improbably was the
+instigated fanaticism of a proselyte which urged him to imbrue his hands
+in martyr blood. And she had her reward. A woman of whom Tacitus has not
+a word of good to say and who seems to have been repulsive even to a
+Suetonius, is handed down by the renegade Pharisee as "a devout
+woman"--as a worshipper of God!
+
+And, indeed, when once the Christians were pointed out to the popular
+vengeance, many reasons would be adduced to prove their connection with
+the conflagration. Temples had perished--and were they not notorious
+enemies of the temples? Did not popular rumor charge them with nocturnal
+orgies and Thyestaean feasts? Suspicions of incendiarism were sometimes
+brought against Jews; but the Jews were not in the habit of talking, as
+these sectaries were, about a fire which should consume the world, and
+rejoicing in the prospect of that fiery consummation.[33] Nay, more,
+when pagans had bewailed the destruction of the city and the loss of
+the ancient monuments of Rome, had not these pernicious people used
+ambiguous language, as though they joyously recognized in these events
+the signs of a coming end? Even when they tried to suppress all outward
+tokens of exultation, had they not listened to the fears and
+lamentations of their fellow-citizens with some sparkle in the eyes, and
+had they not answered with something of triumph in their tones? There
+was a satanic plausibility which dictated the selection of these
+particular victims. Because they hated the wickedness of the world, with
+its ruthless games and hideous idolatries, they were accused of hatred
+of the whole human race.
+
+The charge of _incivisme_, so fatal in this reign of terror, was
+sufficient to ruin a body of men who scorned the sacrifices of
+heathendom and turned away with abhorrence from its banquets and
+gayeties. The cultivated classes looked down upon the Christians with a
+disdain which would hardly even mention them without an apology. The
+_canaille_ of pagan cities insulted them with obscene inscriptions and
+blasphemous pictures on the very walls of the places where they met.[34]
+Nay, they were popularly known by nicknames, like _Sarmenticii_ and
+_Semaxii_--untranslatable terms of opprobrium derived from the fagots
+with which they were burned and the stakes to which they were chained.
+Even the heroic courage which they displayed was described as being
+sheer obstinacy and stupid fanaticism.
+
+But in the method chosen for the punishment of these saintly innocents
+Nero gave one more proof of the close connection between effeminate
+aestheticism and sanguinary callousness. As in old days, "on that
+opprobrious hill," the temple of Chemosh had stood close by that of
+Moloch, so now we find the _spoliarium_ beside the _fornices_--Lust hard
+by Hate. The _carnificina_ of Tiberius, at Capreae, adjoined the
+_sellariae_. History has given many proofs that no man is more
+systematically heartless than a corrupted debauchee. Like people, like
+prince. In the then condition of Rome, Nero well knew that a nation,
+"cruel, by their sports to blood inured," would be most likely to forget
+their miseries and condone their suspicions by mixing games and gayety
+with spectacles of refined and atrocious cruelty, of which, for eighteen
+centuries, the most passing record has sufficed to make men's blood run
+cold.
+
+Tacitus tells us that "those who confessed were first seized, and then
+on their evidence _a huge multitude_[35] were convicted, not so much on
+the charge of incendiarism as for their hatred to mankind." Compressed
+and obscure as the sentence is, Tacitus clearly means to imply by the
+"confession" to which he alludes the confession of Christianity, and
+though he is not sufficiently generous to acquit the Christians
+absolutely of all complicity in the great crime, he distinctly says that
+they were made the scapegoats of a general indignation. The phrase--"a
+huge multitude"--is one of the few existing indications of the number of
+martyrs in the first persecution, and of the number of Christians in the
+Roman Church. When the historian says that they were convicted on the
+charge of "hatred against mankind" he shows how completely he confounds
+them with the Jews, against whom he elsewhere brings the accusation of
+"hostile feelings toward all except themselves."
+
+Then the historian adds one casual but frightful sentence--a sentence
+which flings a dreadful light on the cruelty of Nero and the Roman mob.
+He adds: "And various forms of mockery were added to enhance their dying
+agonies. Covered with the skins of wild beasts, they were doomed to die
+by the mangling of dogs, or by being nailed to crosses, or to be set on
+fire and burned after twilight by way of nightly illumination. Nero
+offered his own garden for this show, and gave a chariot race, mingling
+with the mob in the dress of a charioteer, or actually driving about
+among them. Hence, guilty as the victims were, and deserving of the
+worst punishments, a feeling of compassion toward them began to rise, as
+men felt that they were being immolated not for any advantage to the
+Commonwealth, but to glut the savagery of a single man."
+
+Imagine that awful scene, once witnessed by the silent obelisk in the
+square before St. Peter's at Rome! Imagine it, that we may realize how
+vast is the change which Christianity has wrought in the feelings of
+mankind! There, where the vast dome now rises, were once the gardens of
+Nero. They were thronged with gay crowds, among whom the Emperor moved
+in his frivolous degradation--and on every side were men dying slowly on
+their cross of shame. Along the paths of those gardens on the autumn
+nights were ghastly torches, blackening the ground beneath them with
+streams of sulphurous pitch, and each of those living torches was a
+martyr in his shirt of fire. And in the amphitheatre hard by, in sight
+of twenty thousand spectators, famished dogs were tearing to pieces some
+of the best and purest of men and women, hideously disguised in the
+skins of bears or wolves. Thus did Nero baptize in the blood of martyrs
+the city which was to be for ages the capital of the world!
+
+The specific atrocity of such spectacles--unknown to the earlier ages
+which they called barbarous--was due to the cold-blooded selfishness,
+the hideous realism of a refined, delicate, aesthetic age. To please
+these "lisping hawthorn buds," these debauched and sanguinary dandies,
+art, forsooth, must know nothing of morality; must accept and rejoice in
+a "healthy animalism"; must estimate life by the number of its few
+wildest pulsations; must reckon that life is worthless without the most
+thrilling experiences of horror or delight! Comedy must be actual shame,
+and tragedy genuine bloodshed. When the play of Afranius, called _The
+Conflagration_, was put on the stage, a house must be really burned and
+its furniture really plundered. In the mime called _Laureolus_ an actor
+must really be crucified and mangled by a bear, and really fling himself
+down and deluge the stage with blood. When the heroism of Mucius Scaevola
+was represented, a real criminal must thrust his hand without a groan
+into the flame and stand motionless while it is being burned. Prometheus
+must be really chained to his rock, and Dirce in very fact be tossed and
+gored by the wild bull; and Orpheus be torn to pieces by a real bear;
+and Icarus must really fly, even though he fall and be dashed to death;
+and Hercules must ascend the funeral pyre and there be veritably burned
+alive; and slaves and criminals must play their parts heroically in gold
+and purple till the flames envelop them.
+
+It was the ultimate romance of a degraded and brutalized society. The
+Roman people, "victors once, now vile and base," could now only be
+amused by sanguinary melodrama. Fables must be made realities, and the
+criminal must gracefully transform his supreme agonies into amusements
+for the multitude by becoming a gladiator or a tragedian. Such were the
+spectacles at which Nero loved to gaze through his emerald eye-glass.
+And worse things than these--things indescribable, unutterable. Infamous
+mythologies were enacted, in which women must play their part in
+torments of shamefulness more intolerable than death. A St. Peter must
+hang upon the cross in the Pincian gardens, as a real Laureolus upon the
+stage. A Christian boy must be the Icarus, and a Christian man the
+Scaevola or the Hercules or the Orpheus of the amphitheatre; and
+Christian women, modest maidens, holy matrons, must be the Danaids or
+the Proserpine or worse, and play their parts as priestesses of Saturn
+and Ceres, and in blood-stained dramas of the dead. No wonder that Nero
+became to Christian imagination the very incarnation of evil; the
+antichrist; the Wild Beast from the abyss; the delegate of the great red
+Dragon, with a diadem and a name of blasphemy upon his brow. No wonder
+that he left a furrow of horror in the hearts of men, and that, ten
+centuries after his death, the church of Sta. Maria del Popolo had to be
+built by Pope Pascal II to exorcise from Christian Rome his restless and
+miserable ghost!
+
+And it struck them with deeper horror to see that the antichrist, so far
+from being abhorred, was generally popular. He was popular because he
+presented to the degraded populace their own image and similitude. The
+frog-like unclean spirits which proceeded, as it were, out of his mouth
+were potent with these dwellers in an atmosphere of pestilence. They had
+lost all love for freedom and nobleness; they cared only for doles and
+excitement. Even when the infamies of a Petronius had been superseded by
+the murderous orgies of Tigellinus, Nero was still everywhere welcomed
+with shouts as a god on earth and saluted on all coins as Apollo, as
+Hercules, as "the savior of the world." The poets still assured him
+that there was no deity in heaven who would not think it an honor to
+concede to him his prerogatives; that if he did not place himself well
+in the centre of Olympus, the equilibrium of the universe would be
+destroyed. Victims were slain along his path, and altars raised for
+him--for this wretch, whom an honest slave could not but despise and
+loathe--as though he was too great for mere human honors. Nay, more, he
+found adorers and imitators of his execrable example--an Otho, a
+Vitellius, a Domitian, a Commodus, a Caracalla, a Heliogabalus--to
+poison the air of the world. The lusts and hungers and furies of the
+world lamented him, and cherished his memory, and longed for his return.
+
+And yet, though all bad men--who were the majority--admired and even
+loved him, he died the death of a dog. Tremendous as was the power of
+imperialism, the Romans often treated their individual emperors as Nero
+himself treated the Syrian goddess, whose image he first worshipped with
+awful veneration and then subjected to the most grotesque indignities,
+for retribution did not linger, and the vengeance fell at once on the
+guilty Emperor and the guilty city.
+
+    "Careless _seems_ the Great Avenger: History's pages but record
+    One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt false systems and the Word;
+    Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne,
+    Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown
+    Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own."[36]
+
+The air was full of prodigies. There were terrible storms; the plague
+wrought fearful ravages. Rumors spread from lip to lip. Men spoke of
+monstrous births; of deaths by lightning under strange circumstances; of
+a brazen statue of Nero melted by the flash; of places struck by the
+brand of heaven in fourteen regions of the city; of sudden darkenings of
+the sun. A hurricane devastated Campania; comets blazed in the heavens;
+earthquakes shook the ground. On all sides were the traces of deep
+uneasiness and superstitious terror. To all these portents, which were
+accepted as true by Christians as well as by pagans, the Christians
+would give a specially terrible significance. They strengthened their
+conviction that the coming of the Lord drew nigh. They convinced the
+better sort of pagans that the hour of their deliverance from a tyranny
+so monstrous and so disgraceful was near at hand.
+
+In spite of the shocking servility with which alike the senate and the
+people had welcomed him back to the city with shouts of triumph, Nero
+felt that the air of Rome was heavy with curses against his name. He
+withdrew to Naples, and was at supper there on March 19, A.D. 68, the
+anniversary of his mother's murder, when he heard that the first note of
+revolt had been sounded by the brave C. Julius Vindex, prefect of
+Farther Gaul. He was so far from being disturbed by the news that he
+showed a secret joy at the thought that he could now order Gaul to be
+plundered. For eight days he took no notice of the matter. He was only
+roused to send an address to the senate because Vindex wounded his
+vanity by calling him _Ahenobarbus_[37] and "a bad singer." But when
+messenger after messenger came from the provinces with tidings of
+menace, he hurried back to Rome. At last, when he heard that Virginius
+Rufus had also rebelled in Germany, and Galba in Spain, he became aware
+of the desperate nature of his position.
+
+On receiving this intelligence he fainted away, and remained for some
+time unconscious. He continued, indeed, his grossness and frivolity, but
+the wildest and fiercest schemes chased each other through his
+melodramatic brain. He would slay all the exiles; he would give up all
+the provinces to plunder; he would order all the Gauls in the city to be
+butchered; he would have all the senators invited to banquets, and would
+then poison them; he would have the city set on fire, and the wild
+beasts of the Amphitheatre let loose among the people; he would depose
+both the consuls and become sole consul himself, since legend said that
+only by a consul could Gauls be conquered; he would go with an army to
+the province, and when he got there would do nothing but weep, and when
+he had thus moved the rebels to compassion would next day sing with them
+at a great festival the ode of victory which he must at once compose.
+Not a single manly resolution lent a moment's dignity to his miserable
+fall.
+
+Sometimes he talked of escaping to Ostia and arming the sailors; at
+others of escaping to Alexandria and earning his bread by his "divine
+voice." Meanwhile he was hourly subjected to the deadliest insults, and
+terrified by dreams and omens so sombre that his faith in the
+astrologers who had promised him the government of the East and the
+kingdom of Jerusalem began to be rudely shaken. When he heard that not a
+single army or general remained faithful to him, he kicked over the
+table at which he was dining, dashed to pieces on the ground two
+favorite goblets embossed with scenes from the Homeric poems, and placed
+in a golden box some poison furnished to him by Locusta.
+
+The last effort which he contemplated was to mount the Rostra, beg
+pardon of the people for his crimes, ask them to try him again, and, at
+the worst, to allow him the prefecture of Egypt. But this design he did
+not dare to carry out, from fear that he would be torn to pieces before
+he reached the Forum. Meanwhile he found that the palace had been
+deserted by his guards, and that his attendants had robbed his chamber
+even of the golden box in which he had stored his poison. Rushing out,
+as though to drown himself in the Tiber, he changed his mind, and begged
+for some quiet hiding-place in which to collect his thoughts. The
+freedman Phaon offered him a lowly villa about four miles from the city.
+Barefooted, and with a faded coat thrown over his tunic, he hid his head
+and face in a kerchief and rode away with only four attendants. On the
+road he heard the tumult of the praetorians cursing his name. Amid evil
+omens and serious perils he reached the back of Phaon's villa, and,
+creeping toward it through a muddy reed-bed, was secretly admitted into
+one of its mean slave-chambers by an aperture through which he had to
+crawl on his hands and feet.
+
+There is no need to dwell on the miserable spectacle of his end, perhaps
+the meanest and most pusillanimous which has ever been recorded. The
+poor wretch who, without a pang, had caused so many brave Romans and so
+many innocent Christians to be murdered could not summon up resolution
+to die. He devised every operatic incident of which he could think. When
+even his most degraded slaves urged him to have sufficient manliness to
+save himself from the fearful infamies which otherwise awaited him, he
+ordered his grave to be dug, and fragments of marble to be collected for
+its adornment, and water and wood for his funeral pyre, perpetually
+whining, "What an artist to perish!"
+
+Meanwhile a courier arrived for Phaon. Nero snatched his despatches out
+of his hand and read that the senate had decided that he should be
+punished in the ancestral fashion as a public enemy. Asking what the
+ancestral fashion was, he was informed that he would be stripped naked
+and scourged to death with rods, with his head thrust into a fork.
+Horrified at this, he seized two daggers, and, after theatrically trying
+their edges, sheathed them again, with the excuse that the fatal moment
+had not yet arrived! Then he bade Sporus begin to sing his funeral song,
+and begged some one to show him how to die. Even his own intense shame
+at his cowardice was an insufficient stimulus, and he whiled away the
+time in vapid epigrams and pompous quotations. The sound of horses'
+hoofs then broke on his ears, and, venting one more Greek quotation, he
+held the dagger to his throat. It was driven home by Epaphroditus, one
+of his literary slaves. At this moment the centurion who came to arrest
+him rushed in. Nero was not yet dead, and under pretence of helping him
+the centurion began to stanch the wound with his cloak. "Too late," he
+said; "is this your fidelity?" So he died; and the bystanders were
+horrified with the way in which his eyes seemed to be starting out of
+his head in a rigid stare. He had begged that his body might be burned
+without posthumous insults, and this was conceded by Icelus, the
+freedman of Galbo.
+
+So died the last of the Caesars! And as Robespierre was lamented by his
+landlady, so even Nero was tenderly buried by two nurses who had known
+him in the exquisite beauty of his engaging childhood, and by Acte, who
+had inspired his youth with a genuine love.
+
+But his history does not end with his grave. He was to live on in the
+expectation alike of Jews and Christians. The fifth head of the Wild
+Beast of the Revelation was in some sort to reappear as the eighth; the
+head with its diadem and its names of blasphemy had been wounded to
+death, but in the Apocalyptic sense the deadly wound was to be healed.
+The Roman world could not believe that the heir of the deified Julian
+race could be cut off thus suddenly and obscurely and vanish like foam
+upon the water. The Christians felt sure that it required something more
+than an ordinary death stroke to destroy the antichrist, and to end the
+vitality of the Wild Beast from the Abyss, who had been the first to set
+himself in deadly antagonism against the Redeemer and to wage war upon
+the saints of God.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[29] In his behavior at the burning of Rome.
+
+[30] There can be little doubt that the name "Christian"--so curiously
+hybrid, yet so richly expressive--was a nickname due to the wit of the
+Antiochenes, which exercised itself quite fearlessly even on the Roman
+emperors. They were not afraid to affix nicknames to Caracalla, and to
+call Julian Cecrops and Victimarius, with keen satire of his beard. It
+is clear that the sacred writers avoided the name, because it was
+employed by their enemies, and by them mingled with terms of the vilest
+opprobrium. It only became familiar when the virtues of Christians had
+shed lustre upon it, and when alike in its true form, and in the
+ignorant mispronunciation "Chrestians," it readily lent itself to
+valuable allegorical meanings.
+
+[31] According to John of Antioch and the _Chronicon Paschale_, Nero was
+originally favorable to the Christians, and put Pilate to death, for
+which the Jews plotted his murder. Poppaea's Judaism is inferred from her
+refusing to be burned, and requesting to be embalmed; from her adopting
+the custom of wearing a veil in the streets; from the favor which she
+showed to Aliturus and Josephus; and from the fact that Josephus speaks
+of her as a religious woman.
+
+[32] Tiberius Alexander, the nephew of Philo, afterward procurator of
+Judea, was a person of influence at Rome; but he was a renegade, and
+would not be likely to hate the Christians. It is, however, remarkable
+that legend attributed the anger of Nero to the conversion of his
+mistress and a favorite slave.
+
+[33] St. Peter--apparently thinking of the fire at Rome and its
+consequences--calls the persecution from which the Christians were
+suffering when he wrote his First Epistle a "conflagration."
+
+[34] Tertullian mentions one of these coarse caricatures--a figure with
+one foot hoofed, wearing a toga, carrying a book, and with long ass's
+ears, under which was written, "The God of the Christians, Onokoites."
+He says that Christians were actually charged with worshipping the head
+of an ass. The same preposterous calumny, with many others, is alluded
+to by Minucius Felix. The Christians were hence called _Asinarii_.
+Analogous calumnies were aimed at the Jews.
+
+[35] Tertullian says that "Nero was the first who raged with the sword
+of Caesar against this sect, which was then specially rising at Rome."
+
+[36] James Russell Lowell: _The Present Crisis_.
+
+[37] "Bronze-beard." Ahenobarbus was the name of a plebeian family to
+which Nero belonged.
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT JEWISH REVOLT
+
+SIEGE AND DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
+
+A.D. 70
+
+JOSEPHUS
+
+     From A.D. 66 events of great moment occurred in Palestine. The Jews
+     were in the throes of revolt against the Roman Government. At the
+     same time the chief factions of the revolutionary party were
+     constantly fighting each other. One of these factions was led by
+     the famous John of Gischala, another by Simon bar Gioras, and a
+     third by Eleazar. These factions of a party which--since the
+     reduction of Judea to a Roman province soon after the death of
+     Herod--had resisted the oppression of the procurators, were now
+     stirred to revolt by the exactions of the procurator Gessius
+     Florus. The revolutionary party, called the Zealots, gained power,
+     and there were many outbreaks in Jerusalem. The counsel of the more
+     prudent spirits was disregarded. At last Roman blood was shed. The
+     nobility and priesthood played into the hands of the Zealots by
+     applying to Florus to put down the revolt. Florus marched against
+     Jerusalem and was badly beaten by the Zealots.
+
+     Open war henceforth existed. Josephus, a Jew of the lineage of
+     Aaron, trained according to the best discipline of his race, and
+     who had also been well received at Rome, was placed by his
+     countrymen in command of the province of Galilee. Afterward, as a
+     historian, he described the events of the war.
+
+     Vespasian, who was then Rome's greatest general, soon came at the
+     head of sixty thousand Roman soldiers. He attacked Galilee.
+     Josephus, with such followers as he could gather, took position on
+     an almost inaccessible hill in Jotapata, which the Romans for five
+     days stormed in vain, then besieged its brave defenders, afterward
+     repeatedly assaulted; and finally, during the night following the
+     forty-seventh day of the siege, Titus, serving under his father,
+     Vespasian, gained possession of the place. Josephus, with forty of
+     the principal citizens, hid in a cave, but their refuge was
+     discovered through treachery.
+
+     Vespasian was anxious to take Josephus alive. He sent the tribune
+     Nicanor, who had been his friend, to the Jewish leader to induce
+     him with fair promises to surrender. Josephus was about to give
+     himself up, but was prevented by his companions. "We will care for
+     the honor of our country," they said. At the same time they offered
+     a sword and "a hand that shall use it against thee." Josephus then
+     proposed that they should all die together, but by the hands of
+     one another, instead of suicide. Lots were cast. He who drew the
+     first offered his neck to him who stood next and so forward.
+     Finally, through marvellous fortune, Josephus and one other alone
+     were left, and here the slaughter ended. The two survivors
+     surrendered to the Romans. Loud cries for the death of Josephus
+     arose, but he was spared by the intercession of Titus. The fall of
+     Jotapata led to the subjugation of Galilee.
+
+     When captured, Josephus made to Vespasian the prophecy: "Thou shalt
+     be emperor--thou and thy son after thee," a prediction soon to be
+     fulfilled, for in A.D. 69 Vespasian was proclaimed emperor, and the
+     next year went to Rome, leaving Titus to carry on the war and
+     subdue Jerusalem. Vespasian himself, it is recorded, released
+     Josephus, "cutting off his chains," thus relieving him from all
+     stain of dishonor.
+
+     "The capture of Jerusalem by Titus in this campaign," says Hosmer,
+     "is one of the most memorable events in the history of mankind. It
+     caused the expulsion of an entire race from its home. The Roman
+     valor, skill, and persistence were never more conspicuously
+     displayed. No more desperate resistance was ever opposed to the
+     eagle-emblemed mistress of the ancient world. There is no event of
+     ancient history the details of which are more minutely known. The
+     circumstances in all their appalling features are given to us by
+     the eye-witness, Josephus, so that we know them as vividly as we do
+     the events of the career of Grant."
+
+
+The legions had orders to encamp at the distance of six furlongs from
+Jerusalem, at the mount called the Mount of Olives, which lies over
+against the city on the east side, and is parted from it by a deep
+valley, interposed between them, which is named Cedron.
+
+Now, when hitherto the several parties in the city had been dashing one
+against another perpetually, this foreign war, now suddenly come upon
+them after a violent manner, put the first stop to their contentions one
+against another; and as the seditious now saw with astonishment the
+Romans pitching three several camps, they began to think of an awkward
+sort of concord, and said one to another: "What do we here, and what do
+we mean, when we suffer three fortified walls to be built to coop us in,
+that we shall not be able to breathe freely? while the enemy is securely
+building a kind of city in opposition to us, and while we sit still
+within our own walls and become spectators only of what they are doing,
+with our hands idle, and our armor laid by, as if they were about
+somewhat that was for our good and advantage. We are, it seems (so did
+they cry out), only courageous against ourselves, while the Romans are
+likely to gain the city without bloodshed by our sedition." Thus did
+they encourage one another when they were gotten together and took their
+armor immediately and ran out upon the Tenth legion and fell upon the
+Romans with great eagerness, and with a prodigious shout, as they were
+fortifying their camp. These Romans were caught in different parties,
+and this in order to perform their several works, and on that account
+had in great measure laid aside their arms, for they thought the Jews
+would not have ventured to make a sally upon them; and had they been
+disposed so to do, they supposed their sedition would have distracted
+them. So they were put into disorder unexpectedly; when some of them
+left their works they were about and immediately marched off, while many
+ran to their arms, but were smitten and slain before they could turn
+back upon the enemy. The Jews became still more and more in number, as
+encouraged by the good success of those that first made the attack; and
+while they had such good fortune, they seemed both to themselves and to
+the enemy to be many more than they really were.
+
+The disorderly way of their fighting at first put the Romans also to a
+stand, who had been constantly used to fight skilfully in good order,
+and with keeping their ranks and obeying the orders that were given
+them, for which reason the Romans were caught unexpectedly and were
+obliged to give way to the assaults that were made upon them. Now, when
+these Romans were overtaken and turned back upon the Jews, they put a
+stop to their career; yet when they did not take care enough of
+themselves through the vehemency of their pursuit, they were wounded by
+them; but as still more and more Jews sallied out of the city, the
+Romans were at length brought into confusion, and put to flight, and ran
+away from their camp. Nay, things looked as though the entire legion
+would have been in danger, unless Titus had been informed of the case
+they were in, and had sent them succors immediately. So he reproached
+them for their cowardice and brought those back that were running away,
+and fell himself upon the Jews on their flank, with those select troops
+that were with him, and slew a considerable number, and wounded more of
+them, and put them all to flight, and made them run away hastily down
+the valley. Now as these Jews suffered greatly in the declivity of the
+valley, so when they were gotten over it they turned about and stood
+over against the Romans, having the valley between them, and there
+fought with them. Thus did they continue the fight till noon; but when
+it was already a little after noon, Titus set those that came to the
+assistance of the Romans with him, and those that belonged to the
+cohorts, to prevent the Jews from making any more sallies, and then sent
+the rest of the legion to the upper part of the mountain, to fortify
+their camp.
+
+This march of the Romans seemed to the Jews to be a flight; and as the
+watchman who was placed upon the wall gave a signal by shaking his
+garment, there came out a fresh multitude of Jews, and that with such
+mighty violence that one might compare it to the running of the most
+terrible wild beasts. To say the truth, none of those that opposed them
+could sustain the fury with which they made their attacks; but, as if
+they had been cast out of an engine, they brake the enemies' ranks to
+pieces, who were put to flight, and ran away to the mountain; none but
+Titus himself, and a few others with him, being left in the midst of the
+acclivity. Now these others, who were his friends, despised the danger
+they were in and were ashamed to leave their general, earnestly
+exhorting him to give way to these Jews that are fond of dying, and not
+to run into such dangers before those that ought to stay before him; to
+consider what his fortune was, and not, by supplying the place of a
+common soldier, to venture to turn back upon the enemy so suddenly; and
+this because he was general in the war, and lord of the habitable earth,
+on whose preservation the public affairs do all depend.
+
+These persuasions Titus seemed not so much as to hear, but opposed those
+that ran upon him, and smote them on the face; and when he had forced
+them to go back, he slew them: he also fell upon great numbers as they
+marched down the hill, and thrust them forward; while those men were so
+amazed at his courage and his strength that they could not fly directly
+to the city, but declined from him on both sides, and pressed after
+those that fled up the hill; yet did he still fall upon their flank, and
+put a stop to their fury. In the mean time a disorder and a terror fell
+again upon those that were fortifying their camp at the top of the
+hill, upon their seeing those beneath them running away; insomuch that
+the whole legion was dispersed while they thought that the sallies of
+the Jews upon them were plainly insupportable, and that Titus was
+himself put to flight, because they took it for granted that, if he had
+stayed, the rest would never have fled for it. Thus were they
+encompassed on every side by a kind of panic fear, and some dispersed
+themselves one way, and some another, till certain of them saw their
+general in the very midst of an action, and being under great concern
+for him, they loudly proclaimed the danger he was in to the entire
+legion; and now shame made them turn back, and they reproached one
+another that they did worse than run away, by deserting Caesar. So they
+used their utmost force against the Jews, and declining from the
+straight declivity, they drove them on heaps into the bottom of the
+valley. Then did the Jews turn about and fight them; but as they were
+themselves retiring, and now, because the Romans had the advantage of
+the ground and were above the Jews, they drove them all into the valley.
+
+As now the war abroad ceased for a while, the sedition within was
+revived; and on the feast of unleavened bread, which was now come, it
+being the fourteenth day of the month Xanthicus [Nisan], when it is
+believed the Jews were first freed from the Egyptians, Eleazar and his
+party opened the gates of this [inmost court of the] Temple, and
+admitted such of the people as were desirous to worship God into it. But
+John made use of this festival as a cloak for his treacherous designs,
+and armed the most inconsiderable of his own party, the greater part of
+whom were not purified, with weapons concealed under their garments, and
+sent them with great zeal into the Temple, in order to seize upon it,
+which armed men, when they were gotten in, threw their garments away,
+and presently appeared in their armor. Upon which there was a very great
+disorder and disturbance about the holy house, while the people, who had
+no concern in the sedition, supposed that this assault was made against
+all without distinction, as the Zealots thought it was made against
+themselves only. So these left off guarding the gates any longer and
+leaped down from their battlements before they came to an engagement,
+and fled away into the subterranean caverns of the Temple, while the
+people that stood trembling at the altar and about the holy house were
+rolled on heaps together and trampled upon, and were beaten both with
+wooden and with iron weapons without mercy. Such also as had differences
+with others slew many persons that were quiet, out of their own private
+enmity and hatred, as if they were opposite to the seditious; and all
+those that had formerly offended any of these plotters were now known,
+and were now led away to the slaughter, and when they had done abundance
+of horrid mischief to the guiltless they granted a truce to the guilty
+and let those go off that came out of the caverns. These followers of
+John also did now seize upon this inner temple, and upon all the warlike
+engines therein, and then ventured to oppose Simon. And thus that
+sedition, which had been divided into three factions, was now reduced to
+two.
+
+But Titus, intending to pitch his camp nearer to the city than Scopus,
+placed as many of his choice horsemen and footmen as he thought
+sufficient opposite to the Jews to prevent their sallying out upon them,
+while he gave orders for the whole army to level the distance as far as
+the wall of the city. So they threw down all the hedges and walls which
+the inhabitants had made about their gardens and groves of trees, and
+cut down all the fruit trees that lay between them and the wall of the
+city, and filled up all the hollow places and the chasms, and demolished
+the rocky precipices with iron instruments; and thereby made all the
+place level from Scopus to Herod's monuments, which adjoined to the pool
+called the Serpent's Pool.
+
+Now at this very time the Jews contrived the following stratagem against
+the Romans. The bolder sort of the seditious went out at the towers,
+called the Women's Towers, as if they had been ejected out of the city
+by those who were for peace, and rambled about as if they were afraid of
+being assaulted by the Romans, and were in fear of one another, while
+those that stood upon the wall and seemed to be of the people's side
+cried out aloud for peace, and entreated they might have security for
+their lives given them, and called for the Romans, promising to open the
+gates to them; and as they cried out after that manner they threw stones
+at their own people, as though they would drive them away from the
+gates. These also pretended that they were excluded by force, and that
+they petitioned those that were within to let them in; and rushing upon
+the Romans perpetually, with violence, they then came back, and seemed
+to be in great disorder. Now the Roman soldiers thought this cunning
+stratagem of theirs was to be believed real, and thinking they had the
+one party under their power, and could punish them as they pleased, and
+hoping that the other party would open their gates to them, set to the
+execution of their designs accordingly.
+
+But for Titus himself, he had this surprising conduct of the Jews in
+suspicion, for whereas he had invited them to come to terms of
+accommodation, by Josephus, but one day before, he could then receive no
+civil answer from them; so he ordered the soldiers to stay where they
+were. However, some of them that were set in the front of the works
+prevented him, and catching up their arms ran to the gates; whereupon
+those that seemed to have been ejected at the first retired; but as soon
+as the soldiers were gotten between the towers on each side of the gate
+the Jews ran out and encompassed them round, and fell upon them behind,
+while that multitude which stood upon the wall threw a heap of stones
+and darts of all kinds at them, insomuch that they slew a considerable
+number, and wounded many more, for it was not easy for the Romans to
+escape, by reason those behind them pressed them forward; besides which,
+the shame they were under for being mistaken, and the fear they were in
+of their commanders, engaged them to persevere in their mistake;
+wherefore they fought with their spears a great while, and received many
+blows from the Jews, though indeed they gave them as many blows again,
+and at last repelled those that had encompassed them about, while the
+Jews pursued them as they retired, and followed them, and threw darts at
+them as far as the monuments of Queen Helena.
+
+Now the warlike men that were in the city, and the multitude of the
+seditious that were with Simon, were ten thousand, besides the Idumeans.
+Those ten thousand had fifty commanders, over whom this Simon was
+supreme. The Idumeans that paid him homage were five thousand, and had
+eight commanders, among whom those of greatest fame were Jacob, the son
+of Sosas, and Simon, the son of Cathlas. John, who had seized upon the
+Temple, had six thousand armed men under twenty commanders; the Zealots
+also that had come over to him and left off their opposition were two
+thousand four hundred, and had the same commander that they had
+formerly, Eleazar, together with Simon, the son of Arinus. Now, while
+these factions fought one against another, the people were their prey on
+both sides, and that part of the people who would not join with them in
+their wicked practices were plundered by both factions.
+
+Simon held the upper city and the great wall as far as Cedron, and as
+much of the old wall as bent from Siloam to the east, and which went
+down to the palace of Monobazus, who was king of the Adiabeni, beyond
+Euphrates; he also held that fountain and the Acra, which was no other
+than the lower city; he also held all that reached to the palace of
+Queen Helena, the mother of Monobazus. But John held the Temple and the
+parts thereto adjoining, for a great way, as also Ophla, and the valley
+called "the Valley of Cedron"; and when the parts that were interposed
+between their possessions were burned by them, they left a space wherein
+they might fight with each other, for this internal sedition did not
+cease even when the Romans were encamped near their very walls. But
+although they had grown wiser at the first onset the Romans made upon
+them, this lasted but awhile, for they returned to their former madness,
+and separated one from another, and fought it out and did everything
+that the besiegers could desire them to do, for they never suffered
+anything that was worse from the Romans than they made each other
+suffer; nor was there any misery endured by the city, after these men's
+actions, that could be esteemed new. But it was most of all unhappy
+before it was overthrown, while those that took it did it a greater
+kindness; for I venture to affirm that the sedition destroyed the city,
+and the Romans destroyed the sedition, which it was a much harder thing
+to do than to destroy the walls; so that we may justly ascribe our
+misfortunes to our own people, and the just vengeance taken on them to
+the Romans; as to which matter let everyone determine by the actions on
+both sides.
+
+Now when affairs within the city were in this posture, Titus went round
+the city on the outside with some chosen horsemen and looked about for
+a proper place where he might make an impression upon the walls; but as
+he was in doubt where he could possibly make an attack on any side--for
+the place was no way accessible where the valleys were, and on the other
+side the first wall appeared too strong to be shaken by the engines--he
+thereupon thought it best to make his assault upon the monument of John,
+the high-priest, for there it was that the first fortification was
+lower, and the second was not joined to it, the builders neglecting to
+build strong where the new city was not much inhabited. Here also was an
+easy passage to the third wall, through which he thought to take the
+upper city and, through the tower of Antonia, the Temple itself. But at
+this time, as he was going round about the city, one of his friends,
+whose name was Nicanor, was wounded with a dart on his left shoulder, as
+he approached, together with Josephus, too near the wall, and attempted
+to discourse to those that were upon the wall about terms of peace, for
+he was a person known by them.
+
+On this account it was that Caesar, as soon as he knew their vehemence,
+that they would not bear even such as approached them to persuade them
+to what tended to their own preservation, was provoked to press on the
+siege. He also, at the same time, gave his soldiers leave to set the
+suburbs on fire, and ordered that they should bring timber together, and
+raise banks against the city. And when he had parted his army into three
+parts, in order to set about those works, he placed those that shot
+darts, and the archers in the midst of the banks that were then raising,
+before whom he placed those engines that threw javelins and darts and
+stones, that he might prevent the enemy from sallying out upon their
+works and might hinder those that were upon the wall from being able to
+obstruct them. So the trees were now cut down immediately and the
+suburbs left naked. But now while the timber was being carried to raise
+the banks, and the whole army was earnestly engaged in their works, the
+Jews were not, however, quiet. And it happened that the people of
+Jerusalem, who had been hitherto plundered and murdered, were now of
+good courage, and supposed they should have a breathing time, while the
+others were very busy in opposing their enemies without the city, and
+that they should now be avenged on those that had been the authors of
+their miseries, in case the Romans did but get the victory.
+
+However, John stayed behind, out of his fear of Simon, even while his
+own men were earnest in making a sally upon their enemies without. Yet
+did not Simon lie still, for he lay near the place of the siege; he
+brought his engines of war and disposed of them at due distances upon
+the wall, both those which they took from Cestius formerly, and those
+which they got when they seized the garrison that lay in the tower
+Antonia. But though they had these engines in their possession, they had
+so little skill in using them that they were in great measure useless to
+them; but a few there were who had been taught by deserters how to use
+them, which they did use, though after an awkward manner. So they cast
+stones and arrows at those that were making the banks; they also ran out
+upon them by companies and fought with them.
+
+Now those that were at work covered themselves with hurdles spread over
+their banks, and their engines were opposed to them when they made their
+excursions. The engines, that all the legions had ready prepared for
+them, were admirably contrived; but still more extraordinary ones
+belonged to the Tenth legion: those that threw darts and those that
+threw stones were more forcible and larger than the rest, by which they
+not only repelled the excursions of the Jews, but drove those away that
+were upon the walls also. Now the stones that were cast were of the
+weight of a talent, and were carried two furlongs and farther. The blow
+they gave was no way to be sustained, not only by those that stood first
+in the way, but by those that were beyond them for a great space.
+
+As for the Jews, they at first watched the coming of the stone, for it
+was of a white color, and could therefore not only be perceived by the
+great noise it made, but could be seen also before it came, by its
+brightness. Accordingly, the watchmen that sat upon the towers gave them
+notice when the engine was let go, and the stone came from it, and cried
+out aloud, in their own country language, "The son cometh!" so those
+that were in its way stood off, and threw themselves down upon the
+ground; by which means, and by their thus guarding themselves, the stone
+fell down and did them no harm. But the Romans contrived how to prevent
+that, by blacking the stone, who then could aim at them with success
+when the stone was not discerned beforehand as it had been till then;
+and so they destroyed many of them at one blow. Yet did not the Jews,
+under all this distress, permit the Romans to raise their banks in
+quiet, but they shrewdly and boldly exerted themselves, and repelled
+them both by night and by day.
+
+And now, upon the finishing the Roman works, the workmen measured the
+distance there was from the wall, and this by lead and a line which they
+threw to it from their banks, for they could not measure it any other
+wise, because the Jews would shoot at them, if they came to measure it
+themselves. And when they found that the engines could reach the wall
+they brought them thither. Then did Titus set his engines, at proper
+distances, so much nearer to the wall that the Jews might not be able to
+repel them, and gave orders they should go to work; and when, thereupon,
+a prodigious noise echoed round about from three places, and that on a
+sudden there was a great noise made by the citizens that were within the
+city, and no less a terror fell upon the seditious themselves. Whereupon
+both sorts, seeing the common danger they were in, contrived to make a
+like defence. So those of different factions cried out one to another
+that they acted entirely as in concert with their enemies, whereas they
+ought, however, notwithstanding God did not grant them a lasting concord
+in their present circumstances, to lay aside their enmities one against
+another and to unite together against the Romans. Accordingly, Simon
+gave those that came from the Temple leave, by proclamation, to go upon
+the wall; John also himself, though he could not believe Simon was in
+earnest, gave them the same leave.
+
+So on both sides they laid aside their hatred and their peculiar
+quarrels, and formed themselves into one body. They then ran round the
+walls, and having a vast number of torches with them threw them at the
+machines, and shot darts perpetually upon those that impelled those
+engines which battered the wall--nay, the bolder sort leaped out by
+troops upon the hurdles that covered the machines, and pulled them to
+pieces, and fell upon those that belonged to them, and beat them, not so
+much by any skill they had, as principally by the boldness of their
+attacks.
+
+However, Titus himself still sent assistance to those that were the
+hardest beset, and placed both horsemen and archers on the several sides
+of the engines, and thereby beat off those that brought the fire to
+them. He also thereby repelled those that shot stones or darts from the
+towers, and then set the engines to work in good earnest; yet did not
+the wall yield to these blows, excepting where the battering ram of the
+Fifteenth legion moved the corner of a tower, while the wall itself
+continued unhurt, for the wall was not presently in the same danger with
+the tower, which was extant far above it; nor could the fall of that
+part of the tower easily break down any part of the wall itself together
+with it.
+
+And now the Jews intermitted their sallies for a while, but when they
+observed the Romans dispersed all abroad at their works, and in their
+several camps--for they thought the Jews had retired out of weariness
+and fear--they all at once made a sally at the tower Hippicus, through
+an obscure gate, and at the same time brought fire to burn the works,
+and went boldly up to the Romans, and to their very fortifications
+themselves, where, at the cry they made, those that were near them came
+presently to their assistance, and those farther off came running after
+them. And here the boldness of the Jews was too hard for the good order
+of the Romans, and as they beat those whom they first fell upon, so they
+pressed upon those that were now gotten together. So this fight about
+the machines was very hot, while the one side tried hard to set them on
+fire, and the other side to prevent it. On both sides there was a
+confused cry made, and many of those in the forefront of the battle were
+slain.
+
+However, the Jews were now too hard for the Romans by the furious
+assaults they made like madmen, and the fire caught hold of the works,
+and both all those works, and the engines themselves, had been in danger
+of being burned, had not many of those select soldiers that came from
+Alexandria opposed themselves to prevent it, and had they not behaved
+themselves with greater courage than they themselves supposed they could
+have done, for they outdid those in this fight that had greater
+reputation than themselves. This was the state of things till Caesar took
+the stoutest of his horsemen and attacked the enemy, while he himself
+slew twelve of those that were in the forefront of the Jews, which death
+of these men, when the rest of the multitude saw, they gave way, and he
+pursued them, and drove them all into the city, and saved the works from
+the fire. Now it happened at this fight that a certain Jew was taken
+alive who, by Titus' order, was crucified before the wall, to see
+whether the rest of them would be affrighted and abate of their
+obstinacy. But after the Jews were retired, John,[38] who was commander
+of the Idumeans, and was talking to a certain soldier of his
+acquaintance before the wall, was wounded by a dart shot at him by an
+Arabian, and died immediately, leaving the greatest lamentation to the
+Jews, and sorrow to the seditious, for he was a man of great eminence,
+both for his actions and his conduct also.
+
+Now, on the next night, a surprising disturbance fell upon the Romans;
+for whereas Titus had given orders for the erection of three towers of
+fifty cubits high, that, by setting men upon them at every bank, he
+might from thence drive those away who were upon the wall, it so
+happened that one of these towers fell down about midnight, and as its
+fall made a very great noise, fear fell upon the army, and they,
+supposing that the enemy was coming to attack them, ran all to their
+arms. Whereupon a disturbance and a tumult arose among the legions, and
+as nobody could tell what had happened, they went on after a
+disconsolate manner; and seeing no enemy appear, they were afraid one of
+another, and every one demanded of his neighbor the watchword with great
+earnestness as though the Jews had invaded their camp. And now were they
+like people under a panic fear, until Titus was informed of what had
+happened, and gave orders that all should be acquainted with it; and
+then, though with some difficulty, they got clear of the disturbance
+they had been under.
+
+Now these towers were very troublesome to the Jews, who otherwise
+opposed the Romans very courageously, for they shot at them out of their
+lighter engines from those towers, as they did also by those that threw
+darts, and the archers, and those that flung stones. For neither could
+the Jews reach those that were over them, by reason of their height;
+and it was not practicable to take them, nor to overturn them, they were
+so heavy, nor to set them on fire, because they were covered with plates
+of iron. So they retired out of the reach of the darts, and did no
+longer endeavor to hinder the impression of their rams, which, by
+continually beating upon the wall, did gradually prevail against it; so
+that the wall already gave way to the Nico, for by that name did the
+Jews themselves call the greatest of their engines, because it conquered
+all things. And now they were for a long while grown weary of fighting
+and of keeping guards, and were retired to lodge in the night-time at a
+distance from the wall. It was on other accounts also thought by them to
+be superfluous to guard the wall, there being besides that two other
+fortifications still remaining, and they being slothful, and their
+counsels having been ill-concerted on all occasions; so a great many
+grew lazy and retired. Then the Romans mounted the breach, where Nico
+had made one, and all the Jews left the guarding that wall and retreated
+to the second wall; so those that had gotten over that wall opened the
+gates and received all the army within it. And thus did the Romans get
+possession of this first wall, on the fifteenth day of the siege, which
+was the seventh day of the month Artemisius (Jyar), when they demolished
+a great part of it, as well as they did of the northern parts of the
+city, which had been demolished also by Cestius formerly.
+
+And now Titus pitched his camp within the city, at that place which was
+called "the Camp of the Assyrians," having seized upon all that lay as
+far as Cedron, but took care to be out of the reach of the Jews' darts.
+He then presently began his attacks, upon which the Jews divided
+themselves into several bodies, and courageously defended that wall,
+while John[39] and his faction did it from the tower of Antonia, and
+from the northern cloister of the Temple, and fought the Romans before
+the monuments of King Alexander; and Simon's army also took for their
+share the spot of ground that was near John's monument,[40] and
+fortified it as far as to that gate where water was brought in to the
+tower Hippicus. However, the Jews made violent sallies, and that
+frequently also, and in bodies together out of the gates, and there
+fought the Romans; and when they were pursued all together to the wall,
+they were beaten in those fights, as wanting the skill of the Romans.
+But when they fought them from the walls they were too hard for them;
+the Romans being encouraged by their power, joined to their skill, as
+were the Jews by their boldness, which was nourished by the fear they
+were in, and that hardiness which is natural to our nation under
+calamities; they were also encouraged still by the hope of deliverance,
+as were the Romans by their hopes of subduing them in a little time.
+
+Nor did either side grow weary; but attacks and fightings upon the wall,
+and perpetual sallies out in bodies, were there all the day long; nor
+were there any sort of warlike engagements that were not then put in
+use. And the night itself had much ado to part them, when they began to
+fight in the morning--nay, the night itself was passed without sleep on
+both sides, and was more uneasy than the day to them, while the one was
+afraid lest the wall should be taken, and the other lest the Jews should
+make sallies upon their camps; both sides also lay in their armor during
+the night-time, and thereby were ready at the first appearance of light
+to go to the battle. Now among the Jews the ambition was who should
+undergo the first dangers, and thereby gratify their commanders. Above
+all, they had a great veneration and dread of Simon; and to that degree
+was he regarded by every one of those that were under him, that at his
+command they were very ready to kill themselves with their own hands.
+
+What made the Romans so courageous was their usual custom of conquering
+and disuse of being defeated, their constant wars, and perpetual warlike
+exercises, and the grandeur of their dominion. And what was now their
+chief encouragement--Titus, who was present everywhere with them
+all--for it appeared a terrible thing to grow weary while Caesar was
+there, and fought bravely as well as they did--was himself at once an
+eye-witness of such as behaved themselves valiantly, and he was to
+reward them also. It was, besides, esteemed an advantage at present to
+have anyone's valor known by Caesar; on which account many of them
+appeared to have more alacrity than strength to answer it. And now, as
+the Jews were about this time standing in array before the wall, and
+that in a strong body, and while both parties were throwing their darts
+at each other, Longinus, one of the equestrian order, leaped out of the
+army of the Romans, and leaped into the very midst of the army of the
+Jews; and as they dispersed themselves upon this attack, he slew two of
+their men of the greatest courage; one of them he struck in his mouth as
+he was coming to meet him, the other was slain by him by that very dart
+which he drew out of the body of the other, with which he ran this man
+through his side as he was running away from him; and when he had done
+this, he first of all ran out of the midst of his enemies to his own
+side.
+
+So this man signalized himself for his valor, and many there were who
+were ambitious of gaining the like reputation. And now the Jews were
+unconcerned at what they suffered themselves from the Romans, and were
+only solicitous about what mischief they could do them; and death itself
+seemed a small matter to them, if at the same time they could but kill
+any one of their enemies. But Titus took care to secure his own soldiers
+from harm, as well as to have them overcome their enemies. He also said
+that inconsiderate violence was madness, and that this alone was the
+true courage that was joined with good conduct. He therefore commanded
+his men to take care, when they fought their enemies, that they received
+no harm from them at the same time, and thereby show themselves to be
+truly valiant men.
+
+And now Titus brought one of his engines to the middle tower of the
+north part of the wall, in which a certain crafty Jew, whose name was
+Castor, lay in ambush, with ten others like himself, the rest being fled
+away by reason of the archers. These men lay still for a while, as in
+great fear, under their breastplates; but when the tower was shaken,
+they arose, and Castor did then stretch out his hand, as a petitioner,
+and called for Caesar, and by his voice moved his compassion, and begged
+of him to have mercy upon them; and Titus, in the innocency of his
+heart, believing him to be in earnest, and hoping that the Jews did now
+repent, stopped the working of the battering ram, and forbade them to
+shoot at the petitioners, and bid Castor say what he had a mind to say
+to him. He said that he would come down, if he would give him his right
+hand for his security.
+
+To which Titus replied that he was well pleased with such his agreeable
+conduct, and would be well pleased if all the Jews would be of his mind,
+and that he was ready to give the like security to the city. Now five of
+the ten dissembled with him, and pretended to beg for mercy, while the
+rest cried out aloud that they would never be slaves to the Romans,
+while it was in their power to die in a state of freedom. Now while
+these men were quarrelling for a long while the attack was delayed;
+Castor also sent to Simon, and told him that they might take some time
+for consultation about what was to be done, because he would elude the
+power of the Romans for a considerable time. And at the same time that
+he sent thus to him, he appeared openly to exhort those that were
+obstinate to accept of Titus' hand for their security; but they seemed
+very angry at it, and brandished their naked swords upon the
+breastworks, and struck themselves upon their breast, and fell down as
+if they had been slain. Hereupon Titus, and those with him, were amazed
+at the courage of the men; and as they were not able to see exactly what
+was done, they admired at their great fortitude and pitied their
+calamity.
+
+During this interval a certain person shot a dart at Castor, and wounded
+him in his nose; whereupon he presently pulled out the dart, and showed
+it to Titus, and complained that this was unfair treatment; so Caesar
+reproved him that shot the dart, and sent Josephus, who then stood by
+him, to give his right hand to Castor. But Josephus said that he would
+not go to him, because these pretended petitioners meant nothing that
+was good; he also restrained those friends of his who were zealous to go
+to him. But still there was one Eneas, a deserter, who said he would go
+to him. Castor also called to them, that somebody should come and
+receive the money which he had with him; this made Eneas the more
+earnestly to run to him with his bosom open. Then did Castor take up a
+great stone and threw it at him, which missed him, because he guarded
+himself against it; but still it wounded another soldier that was coming
+to him. When Caesar understood that this was a delusion, he perceived
+that mercy in war is a pernicious thing, because such cunning tricks
+have less place under the exercise of greater severity. So he caused the
+engine to work more strongly than before, on account of his anger at the
+deceit put upon him. But Castor and his companions set the tower on fire
+when it began to give way, and leaped through the flame into a hidden
+vault that was under it, which made the Romans further suppose that they
+were men of great courage, as having cast themselves into the fire.
+
+Now Caesar took this wall there on the fifth day after he had taken the
+first; and when the Jews had fled from him he entered into it with a
+thousand armed men, and those of his choice troops, and this at a place
+where were the merchants of wool, the braziers, and the market for
+cloth, and where the narrow streets led obliquely to the wall.
+Wherefore, if Titus had either demolished a larger part of the wall
+immediately, or had come in, and, according to the law of war, had laid
+waste what was left, his victory would not, I suppose, have been mixed
+with any loss to himself. But now, out of the hope he had that he should
+make the Jews ashamed of their obstinacy by not being willing, when he
+was able, to afflict them more than he needed to do, he did not widen
+the breach of the wall, in order to make a safer retreat upon occasion,
+for he did not think they would lay snares for him that did them such a
+kindness. When therefore, he came in, he did not permit his soldiers to
+kill any of those they caught, nor to set fire to their houses
+neither--nay, he gave leave to the seditious, if they had a mind, to
+fight without any harm to the people, and promised to restore the
+people's effects to them, for he was very desirous to preserve the city
+for his own sake, and the Temple for the sake of the city.
+
+As to the people, he had them of a long time ready to comply with his
+proposals; but as to the fighting men, this humanity of his seemed a
+mark of his weakness, and they imagined that he made these proposals
+because he was not able to take the rest of the city. They also
+threatened death to the people, if they should any one of them say a
+word about a surrender. They, moreover, cut the throats of such as
+talked of a peace, and then attacked those Romans that were come within
+the wall. Some of them they met in the narrow streets, and some they
+fought against from their houses, while they made a sudden sally out at
+the upper gates, and assaulted such Romans as were beyond the wall, till
+those that guarded the wall were so affrighted that they leaped down
+from their towers and retired to their several camps: upon which a great
+noise was made by the Romans that were within, because they were
+encompassed round on every side by their enemies; as also by them that
+were without, because they were in fear for those that were left in the
+city. Thus did the Jews grow more numerous perpetually, and had great
+advantages over the Romans, by their full knowledge of those narrow
+lanes; and they wounded a great many of them, and fell upon them, and
+drove them out of the city.
+
+Now these Romans were at present forced to make the best resistance they
+could, for they were not able, in great numbers, to get out at the
+breach in the wall, it was so narrow. It is also probable that all those
+that were gotten within had been cut to pieces, if Titus had not sent
+them succors, for he ordered the archers to stand at the upper ends of
+these narrow lanes, and he stood himself where was the greatest
+multitude of his enemies, and with his darts he put a stop to them; as
+with him did Domitius Sabinus also, a valiant man, and one that in this
+battle appeared so to be. Thus did Caesar continue to shoot darts at the
+Jews continually and to hinder them from coming upon his men, and this
+until all his soldiers had retreated out of the city.
+
+And thus were the Romans driven out, after they had possessed themselves
+of the second wall. Whereupon the fighting men that were in the city
+were lifted up in their minds and were elevated upon this their good
+success, and began to think that the Romans would never venture to come
+into the city any more; and that if they kept within it themselves they
+should not be any more conquered, for God had blinded their minds for
+the transgressions they had been guilty of, nor could they see how much
+greater forces the Romans had than those that were now expelled, no more
+than they could discern how a famine was creeping upon them, for
+hitherto they had fed themselves out of the public miseries and drank
+the blood of the city. But now poverty had for a long time seized upon
+the better part, and a great many had died already for want of
+necessaries, although the seditious indeed supposed the destruction of
+the people to be an easement to themselves, for they desired that none
+others might be preserved but such as were against a peace with the
+Romans, and were resolved to live in opposition to them, and they were
+pleased when the multitude of those of a contrary opinion were consumed,
+as being then freed from a heavy burden. And this was their disposition
+of mind with regard to those that were within the city, while they
+covered themselves with their armor, and prevented the Romans, when they
+were trying to get into the city again, and made a wall of their own
+bodies over against that part of the wall that was cast down.
+
+Thus did they valiantly defend themselves for three days; but on the
+fourth day they could not support themselves against the vehement
+assaults of Titus, but were compelled by force to fly whither they had
+fled before; so he quietly possessed himself again of that wall and
+demolished it entirely. And when he had put a garrison into the towers
+that were on the south parts of the city, he contrived how he might
+assault the third wall.
+
+A resolution was now taken by Titus to relax the siege for a little
+while, and to afford the seditious an interval for consideration, and to
+see whether the demolishing of their second wall would not make them a
+little more compliant, or whether they were not somewhat afraid of a
+famine, because the spoils they had gotten by rapine would not be
+sufficient for them long; so he made use of this relaxation in order to
+compass his own designs. Accordingly, as the usual appointed time when
+he must distribute subsistence money to the soldiers was now come, he
+gave orders that the commanders should put the army into battle array,
+in the face of the enemy, and then give every one of the soldiers his
+pay.
+
+The Romans spent four days in bringing this subsistence money to the
+several legions. But on the fifth day, when no signs of peace appeared
+to come from the Jews, Titus divided his legions and began to raise
+banks, both at the tower of Antonia and at John's monument. Now his
+designs were to take the upper city at that monument, and the Temple at
+the tower of Antonia, for if the Temple were not taken, it would be
+dangerous to keep the city itself; so at each of these parts he raised
+him banks, each legion raising one. As for those that wrought at John's
+monument, the Idumeans, and those that were in arms with Simon, made
+sallies upon them, and put some stop to them; while John's party, and
+the multitude of Zealots with them, did the like to those that were
+before the tower of Antonia.
+
+These Jews were now too hard for the Romans, not only in direct
+fighting, because they stood upon the higher ground, but because they
+had now learned to use their own engines, for their continual use of
+them one day after another did by degrees improve their skill about
+them, for of one sort of engines for darts they had three hundred, and
+forty for stones; by the means of which they made it more tedious for
+the Romans to raise their banks. But then Titus, knowing that the city
+would be either saved or destroyed for himself, did not only proceed
+earnestly in the siege, but did not omit to have the Jews exhorted to
+repentance; so he mixed good counsel with his works for the siege. And
+being sensible that exhortations are frequently more effectual than
+arms, he persuaded them to surrender the city, now in a manner already
+taken, and thereby to save themselves, and sent Josephus to speak to
+them in their own language, for he imagined they might yield to the
+persuasion of a countryman of their own.
+
+As Josephus was speaking thus with a loud voice, the seditious would
+neither yield to what he said, nor did they deem it safe for them to
+alter their conduct; but as for the people, they had a great inclination
+to desert to the Romans. Accordingly, some of them sold what they had,
+and even the most precious things that had been laid up as treasures by
+them, for a very small matter, and swallowed down pieces of gold, that
+they might not be found out by the robbers; and when they had escaped to
+the Romans, went to stool, and had wherewithal to provide plentifully
+for themselves, for Titus let a great number of them go away into the
+country, whither they pleased. And the main reasons why they were so
+ready to desert were these: That now they should be freed from those
+miseries which they had endured in that city, and yet should not be in
+slavery to the Romans. However John and Simon, with their factions, did
+more carefully watch these men's going out than they did the coming in
+of the Romans; and if any one did but afford the least shadow of
+suspicion of such an intention, his throat was cut immediately.
+
+But as for the richer sort, it proved all one to them whether they
+stayed in the city or attempted to get out of it, for they were equally
+destroyed in both cases, for every such person was put to death under
+this pretence, that they were going to desert, but in reality that the
+robbers might get what they had. The madness of the seditious did also
+increase together with their famine, and both those miseries were every
+day inflamed more and more, for there was no corn which anywhere
+appeared publicly, but the robbers came running into and searched men's
+private houses; and then, if they found any, they tormented them,
+because they had denied they had any; and if they found none, they
+tormented them worse, because they supposed they had more carefully
+concealed it. The indication they made use of whether they had any or
+not was taken from the bodies of these miserable wretches, which, if
+they were in good case, they supposed they were in no want at all of
+food; but if they were wasted away, they walked off without searching
+any further; nor did they think it proper to kill such as these, because
+they saw they would very soon die of themselves for want of food. Many
+there were indeed who sold what they had for one measure. It was of
+wheat, if they were of the richer sort; but of barley, if they were
+poorer. When these had so done, they shut themselves up in the inmost
+rooms of their houses, and ate the corn they had gotten. Some did it
+without grinding it, by reason of the extremity of the want they were
+in, and others baked bread of it, according as necessity and fear
+dictated to them. A table was nowhere laid for a distinct meal, but they
+snatched the bread out of the fire, half-baked, and ate it very hastily.
+
+It was now a miserable case, and a sight that would justly bring tears
+into our eyes, how men stood as to their food, while the more powerful
+had more than enough, and the weaker were lamenting [for want of it].
+But the famine was too hard for all other passions, and it is
+destructive to nothing so much as to modesty, for what was otherwise
+worthy of reverence was in this case despised; insomuch that children
+pulled the very morsels that their fathers were eating out of their very
+mouths, and what was still more to be pitied, so did the mothers do as
+to their infants; and when those that were most dear were perishing
+under their hands, they were not ashamed to take from them the very last
+drops that might preserve their lives; and while they ate after this
+manner, yet were they not concealed in so doing; but the seditious
+everywhere came upon them immediately and snatched away from them what
+they had gotten from others, for when they saw any house shut up this
+was to them a signal that the people within had gotten some food;
+whereupon they broke open the doors and ran in and took pieces of what
+they were eating almost up out of their very throats, and this by force;
+the old men who held their food fast were beaten; and if the women hid
+what they had within their hands, their hair was torn for so doing; nor
+was there any commiseration shown either to the aged or to the infants,
+but they lifted up children from the ground as they hung upon the
+morsels they had gotten and shook them down upon the floor. But still
+they were more barbarously cruel to those that had prevented their
+coming in, and had actually swallowed down what they were going to seize
+upon, as if they had been unjustly defrauded of their right.
+
+They also invented terrible methods of torments to discover where any
+food was, and they were these: to stop up the passages of the privy
+parts of the miserable wretches, and to drive sharp stakes up their
+fundaments; and a man was forced to bear what it is terrible even to
+hear, in order to make him confess that he had but one loaf of bread, or
+that he might discover a handful of barley meal that was concealed; and
+this was done when these tormentors were not themselves hungry, for the
+thing had been less barbarous had necessity forced them to it; but this
+was done to keep their madness in exercise, and as making preparation of
+provisions for themselves for the following days. These men went also to
+meet those that had crept out of the city by night, as far as the Roman
+guards, to gather some plants and herbs that grew wild; and when those
+people thought they had got clear of the enemy, they snatched from them
+what they had brought with them, even while they had frequently
+entreated them, and that by calling upon the tremendous name of God, to
+give them back some part of what they had brought, though these would
+not give them the least crumb, and they were to be well contented that
+they were only spoiled and not slain at the same time.
+
+It is impossible to go distinctly over every instance of these men's
+iniquity. I shall therefore speak my mind here at once briefly: That
+neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries, nor did any age
+ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, from
+the beginning of the world. Finally, they brought the Hebrew nation into
+contempt, that they might themselves appear comparatively less impious
+with regard to strangers. They confessed what was true, that they were
+the slaves, the scum, and the spurious and abortive offspring of our
+nation, while they overthrew the city themselves, and forced the Romans,
+whether they would or no, to gain a melancholy reputation, by acting
+gloriously against them, and did almost draw that fire upon the Temple
+which they seemed to think came too slowly; and indeed when they saw
+that Temple burning from the upper city, they were neither troubled at
+it nor did they shed any tears on that account, while yet these passions
+were discovered among the Romans themselves.
+
+So now Titus' banks were advanced a great way, notwithstanding his
+soldiers had been very much distressed from the wall. He then sent a
+party of horsemen and ordered they should lay ambushes for those that
+went out into the valleys to gather food. Some of these were indeed
+fighting men, who were not contented with what they got by rapine; but
+the greater part of them were poor people, who were deterred from
+deserting by the concern they were under for their own relations, for
+they could not hope to escape away, together with their wives and
+children, without the knowledge of the seditious; nor could they think
+of leaving these relations to be slain by the robbers on their account;
+nay, the severity of the famine made them bold in thus going out; so
+nothing remained but that, when they were concealed from the robbers,
+they should be taken by the enemy; and when they were going to be taken
+they were forced to defend themselves for fear of being punished; as
+after they had fought they thought it too late to make any supplications
+for mercy; so they were first whipped and then tormented with all sorts
+of tortures before they died, and were then crucified before the wall of
+the city. This miserable procedure made Titus greatly to pity them,
+while they caught every day five hundred Jews; nay, some days they
+caught more; yet it did not appear to be safe for him to let those that
+were taken by force go their way, and to set a guard over so many he saw
+would be to make such as guarded them useless to him. The main reason
+why he did not forbid that cruelty was this: that he hoped the Jews
+might perhaps yield at that sight, out of fear lest they might
+themselves afterward be liable to the same cruel treatment. So the
+soldiers, out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those
+they caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the
+crosses, by way of jest, when their multitude was so great that room was
+wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the bodies.
+
+But so far were the seditious from repenting at this sad sight that, on
+the contrary, they made the rest of the multitude believe otherwise, for
+they brought the relations of those that had deserted upon the wall,
+with such of the populace as were very eager to go over upon the
+security offered them, and showed them what miseries those underwent who
+fled to the Romans; and told them that those who were caught were
+supplicants to them, and not such as were taken prisoners. This sight
+kept many of those within the city who were so eager to desert, till the
+truth was known; yet did some of them run away immediately as unto
+certain punishment, esteeming death from their enemies to be a quiet
+departure, if compared with that by famine. So Titus commanded that the
+hands of many of those that were caught should be cut off, that they
+might not be thought deserters, and might be credited on account of the
+calamity they were under, and sent them in to John and Simon, with this
+exhortation, that they would now at length leave off (their madness),
+and not force him to destroy the city, whereby they would have those
+advantages of repentance, even in their utmost distress, that they would
+preserve their own lives, and so find a city of their own, and that
+Temple which was their peculiar. He then went round about the banks
+that were cast up, and hastened them, in order to show that his words
+should in no long time be followed by his deeds. In answer to which the
+seditious cast reproaches upon Caesar himself, and upon his father also,
+and cried out, with a loud voice, that they contemned death, and did
+well in preferring it before slavery; that they would do all the
+mischief to the Romans they could while they had breath in them; and
+that for their own city, since they were, as he said, to be destroyed,
+they had no concern about it, and that the world itself was a better
+temple to God than this. That yet this Temple would be preserved by Him
+that inhabited therein, whom they still had for their assistant in this
+war, and did therefore laugh at all his threatenings, which would come
+to nothing, because the conclusion of the whole depended upon God only.
+These words were mixed with reproaches, and with them they made a mighty
+clamor.
+
+In the mean time Antiochus Epiphanes came to the city, having with him a
+considerable number of other armed men, and a band called the Macedonian
+band about him, all of the same age, tall, and just past their
+childhood, armed, and instructed after the Macedonian manner, whence it
+was that they took that name. Antiochus with his Macedonians made a
+sudden assault upon the wall; and, indeed, for his own part, his
+strength and skill were so great that he guarded himself from the Jewish
+darts, and yet shot his darts at them, while yet the young men with him
+were almost all sorely galled, for they had so great a regard to the
+promises that had been made of their courage, that they would needs
+persevere in their fighting, and at length many of them retired, but not
+till they were wounded; and then they perceived that true Macedonians,
+if they were to be conquerors, must have Alexander's good fortune also.
+
+Now as the Romans began to raise their banks on the twelfth day of the
+month Artemisius [Jyar], so had they much ado to finish them by the
+twenty-ninth day of the same month, after they had labored hard for
+seventeen days continually, for there were now four great banks raised,
+one of which was at the tower Antonia. This was raised by the Fifth
+legion, over against the middle of that pool which was called Struthius.
+Another was cast up by the Twelfth legion at the distance of about
+twenty cubits from the other. But the labors of the Tenth legion, which
+lay a great way off these, were on the north quarter, and at the pool
+called Amygdalon; as was that of the Fifteenth legion about thirty
+cubits from it, and at the high-priest's monument. And now, when the
+engines were brought, John had from within undermined the space that was
+over against the tower of Antonia, as far as the banks themselves, and
+had supported the ground over the mine with beams laid across one
+another, whereby the Roman works stood upon an uncertain foundation.
+
+Then did he order such materials to be brought in as were daubed over
+with pitch and bitumen, and set them on fire; and as the cross-beams
+that supported the banks were burning, the ditch yielded on the sudden,
+and the banks were shaken down, and fell into the ditch with a
+prodigious noise. Now at the first, there arose a very thick smoke and
+dust, as the fire was choked with the fall of the bank; but as the
+suffocated materials were now gradually consumed, a plain flame brake
+out; on which sudden appearance of the flame a consternation fell upon
+the Romans, and the shrewdness of the contrivance discouraged them; and
+indeed this accident coming upon them at a time when they thought they
+had already gained their point, cooled their hopes for the time to come.
+They also thought it would be to no purpose to take the pains to
+extinguish the fire, since if it were extinguished the banks were
+swallowed up already [and become useless to them].
+
+Two days after this Simon and his party made an attempt to destroy the
+other banks, for the Romans had brought their engines to bear there, and
+began already to make the wall shake. And here one Tephtheus, of Garsis,
+a city of Galilee, and Megassarus, one who was derived from some of
+Queen Mariamne's servants, and with them one from Adiabene, he was the
+son of Nabateus, and called by the name of Chagiras, from the
+ill-fortune he had, the word signifying "a lame man," snatched some
+torches and ran suddenly upon the engines. Nor were there during this
+war any men that ever sallied out of the city who were their superiors,
+either in their boldness or in the terror they struck into their
+enemies, for they ran out upon the Romans, not as if they were enemies,
+but friends, without fear or delay; nor did they leave their enemies
+till they had rushed violently through the midst of them, and set their
+machines on fire. And though they had darts thrown at them on every side
+and were on every side assaulted with their enemies' swords, yet did
+they not withdraw themselves out of the dangers they were in till the
+fire had caught hold of the instruments; but when the flame went up the
+Romans came running from their camp to save their engines.
+
+Then did the Jews hinder their succors from the wall, and fought with
+those that endeavored to quench the fire, without any regard to the
+danger their bodies were in. So the Romans pulled the engines out of the
+fire, while the hurdles that covered them were on fire; but the Jews
+caught hold of the battering rams through the flame itself and held them
+fast, although the iron upon them was become red hot; and now the fire
+spread itself from the engines to the banks, and prevented those that
+came to defend them; and all this while the Romans were encompassed
+round about with the flame; and, despairing of saving their works from
+it, they retired to their camp. Then did the Jews become still more and
+more in number by the coming of those that were within the city to their
+assistance; and as they were very bold upon the good success they had
+had, their violent assaults were almost irresistible--nay, they
+proceeded as far as the fortifications of the enemies' camp, and fought
+with their guards.
+
+Now there stood a body of soldiers in array before that camp, which
+succeeded one another by turns in their armor; and as to those, the law
+of the Romans was terrible, that he who left his post there, let the
+occasion be whatsoever it might be, he was to die for it; so that body
+of soldiers, preferring rather to die in fighting courageously than as a
+punishment for their cowardice, stood firm; and at the necessity these
+men were in of standing to it, many of the others that had run away, out
+of shame, turned back again; and when they had set the engines against
+the wall they put the multitude from coming more of them out of the city
+(which they could the more easily do) because they had made no provision
+for preserving or guarding their bodies at this time; for the Jews
+fought now hand-to-hand with all that came in their way, and, without
+any caution, fell against the points of their enemies' spears, and
+attacked them bodies against bodies, for they were now too hard for the
+Romans, not so much by their other warlike actions, as by these
+courageous assaults they made upon them; and the Romans gave way more to
+their boldness than they did to the sense of the harm they had received
+from them.
+
+And now Titus was come from the tower of Antonia, whither he was gone to
+look out for a place for raising other banks, and reproached the
+soldiers greatly for permitting their own walls to be in danger, when
+they had taken the walls of their enemies, and sustained the fortune of
+men besieged, while the Jews were allowed to sally out against them,
+though they were already in a sort of prison. He then went round about
+the enemy with some chosen troops and fell upon their flank himself; so
+the Jews, who had been before assaulted in their faces, wheeled about to
+Titus and continued the fight.
+
+The armies also were now mixed one among another, and the dust that was
+raised so far hindered them from seeing one another, and the noise that
+was made so far hindered them from hearing one another, that neither
+side could discern an enemy from a friend. However, the Jews did not
+flinch, though not so much from their real strength as from their
+despair of deliverance. The Romans also would not yield, by reason of
+the regard they had to glory and to their reputation in war, and because
+Caesar himself went into the danger before them; insomuch that I cannot
+but think the Romans would in the conclusion have now taken even the
+whole multitude of the Jews, so very angry were they at them, had these
+not prevented the upshot of the battle, and retired into the city.
+However, seeing the banks of the Romans were demolished, these Romans
+were very much cast down upon the loss of what had cost them so long
+pains, and this in one hour's time. And many indeed despaired of taking
+the city with their usual engines of war only.
+
+And now did Titus consult with his commanders what was to be done. Those
+that were of the warmest tempers thought he should bring the whole army
+against the city and storm the wall. The opinion of Titus was, that if
+they aimed at quickness joined with security they must build a wall
+round about the whole city, and he gave orders that the army should be
+distributed to their several shares of this work. Titus began the wall
+from the camp of the Assyrians, where his own camp was pitched, and drew
+it down to the lower parts of Cenopolis; thence it went along the valley
+of Cedron to the Mount of Olives; it then bent toward the south, and
+encompassed the mountain as far as the rock called Peristereon, and that
+other hill which lies next it, and is over the valley which reaches to
+Siloam; whence it bended again to the west, and went down to the valley
+of the Fountain, beyond which it went up again at the monument of
+Ananus, the high-priest, and encompassing that mountain where Pompey had
+formerly pitched his camp, it returned back to the north side of the
+city, and was carried on as far as a certain village called "The House
+of the Erebinthi"; after which it encompassed Herod's monument, and
+there, on the east, was joined to Titus' own camp, where it began.
+
+Now the length of this wall was forty furlongs, one only abated. Now at
+this wall without were erected thirteen places to keep garrison in,
+whose circumferences, put together, amounted to ten furlongs; the whole
+was completed in three days; so that what would naturally have required
+some months was done in so short an interval as is incredible. When
+Titus had therefore encompassed the city with this wall and put
+garrisons into proper places, he went round the wall, at the first watch
+of the night, and observed how the guard was kept; the second watch he
+allotted to Alexander; the commanders of legions took the third watch.
+They also cast lots among themselves who should be upon the watch in the
+night-time, and who should go all night long round the spaces that were
+interposed between the garrisons.
+
+So all hope of escaping was now cut off from the Jews, together with
+their liberty of going out of the city. Then did the famine widen its
+progress and devoured the people by whole houses and families; the upper
+rooms were full of women and children that were dying by famine, and the
+lanes of the city were full of the dead bodies of the aged; the children
+also and the young men wandered about the market-places like shadows,
+all swelled with the famine, and fell down dead, wheresoever their
+misery seized them. As for burying them, those that were sick themselves
+were not able to do it; and those that were hearty and well were
+deterred from doing it by the great multitude of those dead bodies, and
+by the uncertainty there was how soon they should die themselves, for
+many died as they were burying others, and many went to their coffins
+before that fatal hour was come. Nor was there any lamentations made
+under these calamities, nor were heard any mournful complaints; but the
+famine confounded all natural passions, for those who were just going to
+die looked upon those that were gone to rest before them with dry eyes
+and open mouths.
+
+A deep silence also, and a kind of deadly night, had seized upon the
+city; while yet the robbers were still more terrible than these miseries
+were themselves, for they brake open those houses which were no other
+than graves of dead bodies, and plundered them of what they had; and
+carrying off the coverings of their bodies went out laughing, and tried
+the points of their swords in their dead bodies; and, in order to prove
+what metal they were made of, they thrust some of those through that
+still lay alive upon the ground; but for those that entreated them to
+lend them their right hand and their sword to despatch them, they were
+too proud to grant their requests, and left them to be consumed by the
+famine. Now every one of these died with their eyes fixed upon the
+Temple, and left the seditious alive behind them. Now the seditious at
+first gave orders that the dead should be buried out of the public
+treasury, as not enduring the stench of their dead bodies. But
+afterward, when they could not do that, they had them cast down from the
+walls into the valleys beneath.
+
+However, when Titus, in going his rounds along those valleys, saw them
+full of dead bodies, and the thick putrefaction running about them, he
+gave a groan; and, spreading out his hands to heaven, called God to
+witness that this was not his doing; and such was the sad case of the
+city itself. But the Romans were very joyful, since none of the
+seditious could now make sallies out of the city, because they were
+themselves disconsolate, and the famine already touched them also. These
+Romans besides had great plenty of corn and other necessaries out of
+Syria and out of the neighboring provinces; many of whom would stand
+near to the wall of the city and show the people what great quantities
+of provisions they had and so make the enemy more sensible of their
+famine, by the great plenty, even to satiety, which they had themselves.
+
+In the mean time Josephus, as he was going round the city, had his head
+wounded by a stone that was thrown at him; upon which he fell down as
+giddy. Josephus soon recovered of his wound and came out and cried out
+aloud, that it would not be long ere they should be punished for this
+wound they had given him. He also made a fresh exhortation to the people
+to come out upon the security that would be given them. This sight of
+Josephus encouraged the people greatly and brought a great consternation
+upon the seditious.
+
+Hereupon some of the deserters, having no other way, leaped down from
+the wall immediately, while others of them went out of the city with
+stones, as if they would fight them; but thereupon they fled away to the
+Romans. But here a worse fate accompanied these than what they had found
+within the city; and they met with a quicker despatch from the too great
+abundance they had among the Romans than they could have done from the
+famine among the Jews, for when they came first to the Romans they were
+puffed up by the famine and swelled like men in a dropsy; after which
+they all on the sudden overfilled those bodies that were before empty,
+and so burst asunder, excepting such only as were skilful enough to
+restrain their appetites, and by degrees took in their food into bodies
+unaccustomed thereto.
+
+Yet did another plague seize upon those that were thus preserved, for
+there was found among the Syrian deserters a certain person who was
+caught gathering pieces of gold out of the excrements of the Jews'
+bellies, for the deserters used to swallow such pieces of gold, as we
+told you before, when they came out, and for these did the seditious
+search them all; for there was a great quantity of gold in the city,
+insomuch that as much was now sold [in the Roman camp] for twelve Attic
+[drachmas] as was sold before for twenty-five. But when this contrivance
+was discovered in one instance, the fame of it filled their several
+camps, that the deserters came to them full of gold. So the multitude
+of the Arabians, with the Syrians, cut up those that came as
+supplicants, and searched their bellies. Nor does it seem to me that any
+misery befell the Jews that was more terrible than this, since in one
+night's time about two thousand of these deserters were thus dissected.
+
+When Titus came to the knowledge of this wicked practice, he threatened
+that he would put such men to death if any of them were discovered to be
+so insolent as to do so again. Moreover, he gave it in charge to the
+legions, that they should make a search after such as were suspected,
+and should bring them to him. But it appeared that the love of money was
+too great for all their dread of punishment, and a vehement desire of
+gain is natural to men, and no passion is so venturesome as
+covetousness. Otherwise such passions have certain bounds and are
+subordinate to fear. But in reality it was God who condemned the whole
+nation and turned every course that was taken for their preservation to
+their destruction. This, therefore, which was forbidden by Caesar under
+such a threatening, was ventured upon privately against the deserters,
+and these barbarians would go out still and meet those that ran away
+before any saw them, and looking about them to see that no Roman spied
+them, they dissected them and pulled this polluted money out of their
+bowels, which money was still found in a few of them, while yet a great
+many were destroyed by the bare hope there was of thus getting by them,
+which miserable treatment made many that were deserting to return back
+again into the city.
+
+And, indeed, why do I relate these particular calamities? while Manneus,
+the son of Lazarus, came running to Titus at this very time and told him
+that there had been carried out through that one gate, which was
+intrusted to his care, no fewer than a hundred and fifteen thousand
+eight hundred and eighty dead bodies in the interval between the
+fourteenth day of the month Xanthicus (Nisan), when the Romans pitched
+their camp by the city, and the first day of the month Panemus (Tamuz).
+This was itself a prodigious multitude; and though this man was not
+himself set as a governor at that gate, yet was he appointed to pay the
+public stipend for carrying these bodies out, and so was obliged of
+necessity to number them, while the rest were buried by their
+relations, though all their burial was but this, to bring them away and
+cast them out of the city.
+
+After this man there ran away to Titus many of the eminent citizens and
+told him the entire number of the poor that were dead, and that no fewer
+than six hundred thousand were thrown out at the gates, though still the
+number of the rest could not be discovered; and they told him further
+that when they were no longer able to carry out the dead bodies of the
+poor they laid their corpses on heaps in very large houses and shut them
+up therein; as also that a medimno of wheat was sold for a talent; and
+that when, a while afterward, it was not possible to gather herbs, by
+reason the city was all walled about, some persons were driven to that
+terrible distress as to search the common sewers and old dunghills of
+cattle, and to eat the dung which they got there, and what they of old
+could not endure so much as to see they now used for food. When the
+Romans barely heard all this they commiserated their case; while the
+seditious, who saw it also, did not repent, but suffered the same
+distress to come upon themselves, for they were blinded by that fate
+which was already coming upon the city, and upon themselves also.
+
+And now the Romans, although they were greatly distressed in getting
+together their materials, raised their banks in one-and-twenty days,
+after they had cut down all the trees that were in the country that
+adjoined to the city, and that for ninety furlongs round about. And when
+the banks were finished, they afforded a foundation for fear both to the
+Romans and to the Jews, for the Jews expected that the city would be
+taken unless they could burn those banks, as did the Romans expect that,
+if these were once burned down they should never be able to take it, for
+there was a mighty scarcity of materials, and the bodies of the soldiers
+began to fail with such hard labors, as did their souls faint with so
+many instances of ill-success.
+
+The Romans had an advantage, in that their engines for sieges cooperated
+with them in throwing darts and stones as far as the Jews, when they
+were coming out of the city; whereby the man that fell became an
+impediment to him that was next to him, as did the danger of going
+farther make them less zealous in their attempts; and for those that had
+run under the darts some of them were terrified by the good order and
+closeness of the enemies' ranks before they came to a close fight, and
+others were pricked with their spears and turned back again. At length
+they reproached one another for their cowardice, and retired without
+doing anything. This attack was made upon the first day of the month
+Panemus (Tamuz).
+
+So when the Jews were retreated the Romans brought their engines,
+although they had all the while stones thrown at them from the tower of
+Antonia, and were assaulted by fire and sword, and by all sorts of
+darts, which necessity afforded the Jews to make use of, for although
+these had great dependence on their own wall, and a contempt of the
+Roman engines, yet did they endeavor to hinder the Romans from bringing
+them. Now these Romans struggled hard, on the contrary, to bring them,
+as deeming that this zeal of the Jews was in order to avoid any
+impression to be made on the tower of Antonia, because its wall was but
+weak and its foundations rotten. However, that tower did not yield to
+the blows given it from the engines; yet did the Romans bear the
+impressions made by the enemies' darts which were perpetually cast at
+them, and did not give way to any of those dangers that came upon them
+from above, and so they brought their engines to bear. But then, as they
+were beneath the other, and were sadly wounded by the stones thrown down
+upon them, some of them threw their shields over their bodies, and
+partly with their hands and partly with their bodies and partly with
+crows they undermined its foundations, and with great pains they removed
+four of its stones. Then night came upon both sides, and put an end to
+this struggle for the present. However, that night the wall was so
+shaken by the battering rams in that place where John had used his
+stratagem before, and had undermined their banks, that the ground then
+gave way and the wall fell down suddenly.
+
+When this accident had unexpectedly happened, the minds of both parties
+were variously affected, for though one would expect that the Jews would
+be discouraged, because this fall of their wall was unexpected by them,
+and they had made no provision in that case, yet did they pull up their
+courage, because the tower of Antonia itself was still standing; as was
+the unexpected joy of the Romans at this fall of the wall soon quenched
+by the sight they had of another wall, which John and his party had
+built within it.
+
+Upon the fifth day of the month Panemus (Tamuz), twelve of those men
+that were on the forefront and kept watch upon the banks got together
+and called to them the standard-bearer of the Fifth legion, and two
+others of a troop of horsemen, and one trumpeter; these went without
+noise, about the ninth hour of the night, through the ruins, to the
+tower of Antonia; and when they had cut the throats of the first guards
+of the place, as they were asleep, they got possession of the wall and
+ordered the trumpeter to sound his trumpet. Upon which the rest of the
+guard got up on the sudden and ran away before anybody could see how
+many they were that were gotten up, for partly from the fear they were
+in and partly from the sound of the trumpet which they heard they
+imagined a great number of the enemy were gotten up. But as soon as
+Caesar heard the signal he ordered the army to put on their armor
+immediately, and came thither with his commanders, and first of all
+ascended, as did the chosen men that were with him. And as the Jews were
+flying away to the Temple they fell into that mine which John had dug
+under the Roman banks. Then did the seditious of both the bodies of the
+Jewish army, as well that belonging to John as that belonging to Simon,
+drive them away; and indeed were no way wanting as to the highest degree
+of force and alacrity; for they esteemed themselves entirely ruined if
+once the Romans got into the Temple, as did the Romans look upon the
+same thing as the beginning of their entire conquest.
+
+So a terrible battle was fought at the entrance of the Temple, while the
+Romans were forcing their way, in order to get possession of that
+Temple, and the Jews were driving them back to the tower of Antonia; in
+which battle the darts were on both sides useless, as well as the
+spears, and both sides drew their swords and fought it out hand-to-hand.
+Now during this struggle the positions of the men were undistinguished
+on both sides, and they fought at random, the men being intermixed one
+with another and confounded, by reason of the narrowness of the place;
+while the noise that was made fell on the ear after an indistinct
+manner, because it was so very loud. Great slaughter was now made on
+both sides, and the combatants trod upon the bodies and the armor of
+those that were dead, and dashed them to pieces. Accordingly, to which
+side soever the battle inclined, those that had the advantage exhorted
+one another to go on, as did those that were beaten make great
+lamentation. But still there was no room for flight nor for pursuit, but
+disorderly revolutions and retreats, while the armies were intermixed
+one with another; but those that were in the first ranks were under the
+necessity of killing or being killed, without any way for escaping, for
+those on both sides that came behind forced those before them to go on,
+without leaving any space between the armies.
+
+At length the Jews' violent zeal was too hard for the Romans' skill, and
+the battle already inclined entirely that way; for the fight had lasted
+from the ninth hour of the night till the seventh hour of the day, while
+the Jews came on in crowds, and had the danger the Temple was in for
+their motive; the Romans having no more here than a part of their army,
+for those legions, on which the soldiers on that side depended, were not
+come up to them. So it was at present thought sufficient by the Romans
+to take possession of the tower of Antonia.
+
+In the mean time the rest of the Roman army had, in seven days' time,
+overthrown [some] foundations of the tower of Antonia, and had made a
+ready and broad way to the Temple. Then did the legions come near the
+first court and began to raise their banks. The one bank was over
+against the northwest corner of the inner temple; another was at that
+northern edifice which was between the two gates; and of the other two,
+one was at the western cloister of the outer court of the Temple; the
+other against its northern cloister. However these works were thus far
+advanced by the Romans, not without great pains and difficulty, and
+particularly by being obliged to bring their materials from the distance
+of a hundred furlongs.
+
+They had further difficulties also upon them; sometimes by their
+over-great security they were in that they should overcome the Jewish
+snares laid for them, and by that boldness of the Jews which their
+despair of escaping had inspired them withal.
+
+In the mean time the Jews were so distressed by the fights they had been
+in, as the war advanced higher and higher, and creeping up to the holy
+house itself, that they, as it were, cut off those limbs of their body
+which were infected, in order to prevent the distemper's spreading
+further, for they set the northwest cloister, which was joined to the
+tower of Antonia, on fire, and after that brake off about twenty cubits
+of that cloister, and thereby made a beginning in burning the sanctuary;
+two days after which, or on the twenty-fourth day of the forenamed month
+[Panemus or Tamuz], the Romans set fire to the cloister that joined to
+the other, when the fire went fifteen cubits farther. The Jews, in like
+manner, cut off its roof; nor did they entirely leave off what they were
+about till the tower of Antonia was parted from the Temple, even when it
+was in their power to have stopped the fire--nay, they lay still while
+the Temple was first set on fire, and deemed this spreading of the fire
+to be for their own advantage. However, the armies were still fighting
+one against another about the Temple, and the war was managed by
+continual sallies of particular parties against one another.
+
+Now of those that perished by famine in the city the number was
+prodigious, and the miseries they underwent were unspeakable, for if so
+much as the shadow of any kind of food did anywhere appear a war was
+commenced presently, and the dearest friends fell a-fighting one with
+another about it, snatching from each other the most miserable supports
+of life. Nor would men believe that those who were dying had no food,
+but the robbers would search them when they were expiring, lest anyone
+should have concealed food in his bosom and counterfeited dying; nay,
+these robbers gaped for want, and ran about stumbling and staggering
+along like mad dogs, and reeling against the doors of the houses like
+drunken men; they would also, in the great distress they were in, rush
+into the very same houses two or three times in one and the same day.
+Moreover, their hunger was so intolerable that it obliged them to chew
+everything, while they gathered such things as the most sordid animals
+would not touch, and endured to eat them; nor did they at length
+abstain from girdles and shoes; and the very leather which belonged to
+their shields they pulled off and gnawed; the very wisps of old hay
+became food to some; and some gathered up fibres and sold a very small
+weight of them for four Attic [drachmas].
+
+But why do I describe the shameless impudence that the famine brought on
+men in their eating inanimate things, while I am going to relate a
+matter of fact, the like to which no history relates, either among the
+Greeks or barbarians? It is horrible to speak of it and incredible when
+heard. I had indeed willingly omitted this calamity of ours, that I
+might not seem to deliver what is so portentous to posterity, but that I
+have innumerable witnesses to it in my own age; and besides, my country
+would have had little reason to thank me for suppressing the miseries
+that she underwent at this time.
+
+There was a certain woman that dwelt beyond Jordan, her name was Mary;
+her father was Eleazar, of the village Bethezob, which signifies "the
+House of Hyssop." She was eminent for her family and her wealth, and had
+fled away to Jerusalem with the rest of the multitude, and was with them
+besieged therein at this time. The other effects of this woman had been
+already seized upon, such I mean as she had brought with her out of
+Perea, and removed to the city. What she had treasured up besides, as
+also what food she had contrived to save, had been also carried off by
+the rapacious guards, who came every day running into her house for that
+purpose. This put the poor woman into a very great passion, and by the
+frequent reproaches and imprecations she cast at these rapacious
+villains she had provoked them to anger against her; but none of them,
+either out of the indignation she had raised against herself, or out of
+commiseration of her case, would take away her life; and if she found
+any food, she perceived her labors were for others, and not for herself;
+and it was now become impossible for her any way to find any more food,
+while the famine pierced through her very bowels and marrow, when also
+her passion was fired to a degree beyond the famine itself; nor did she
+consult with anything but with her passion and the necessity she was in.
+She then attempted a most unnatural thing; and snatching up her son, who
+was a child sucking at her breast, she said: "O thou miserable infant!
+for whom shall I preserve thee in this war, this famine, and this
+sedition? As to the war with the Romans, if they preserve our lives we
+must be slaves. This famine also will destroy us even before that
+slavery comes upon us. Yet are these seditious rogues more terrible than
+both the other. Come on: be thou my food, and be thou a fury to these
+seditious varlets, and a by-word to the world, which is all that is now
+wanting to complete the calamities of us Jews."
+
+As soon as she had said this she slew her son, and then roasted him, and
+eat the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed. Upon
+this the seditious came in presently, and smelling the horrid scent of
+this food, they threatened her that they would cut her throat
+immediately if she did not show them what food she had gotten ready. She
+replied that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them, and
+withal uncovered what was left of her son. Hereupon they were seized
+with a horror and amazement of mind, and stood astonished at the sight,
+when she said to them: "This is mine own son, and what hath been done
+was mine own doing! Come, eat of this food, for I have eaten of it
+myself! Do not you pretend to be either more tender than a woman or more
+compassionate than a mother; but if you be so scrupulous and do
+abominate this my sacrifice, as I have eaten the one half, let the rest
+be reserved for me also." After which those men went out trembling,
+being never so much affrighted at anything as they were at this, and
+with some difficulty they left the rest of that meat to the mother. Upon
+which the whole city was full of this horrid action immediately; and
+while everybody laid this miserable case before their own eyes, they
+trembled, as if this unheard-of action had been done by themselves. So
+those that were thus distressed by the famine were very desirous to die,
+and those already dead were esteemed happy, because they had not lived
+long enough either to hear or to see such miseries.
+
+This sad instance was quickly told to the Romans, some of whom could not
+believe it, and others pitied the distress which the Jews were under;
+but there were many of them who were hereby induced to a more bitter
+hatred than ordinary against our nation. But for Caesar, he excused
+himself before God as to this matter, and said that he had proposed
+peace and liberty to the Jews, as well as an oblivion of all their
+former insolent practices; but that they, instead of concord, had chosen
+sedition; instead of peace, war; and before satiety and abundance, a
+famine. That they had begun with their own hands to burn down that
+Temple which we have preserved hitherto, and that therefore they
+deserved to eat such food as this was. That, however, this horrid action
+of eating an own child ought to be covered with the overthrow of their
+very country itself, and men ought not to leave such a city upon the
+habitable earth to be seen by the sun wherein mothers are thus fed,
+although such food be fitter for the fathers than for the mothers to eat
+of, since it is they that continue still in a state of war against us,
+after they have undergone such miseries as these. And at the same time
+that he said this, he reflected on the desperate condition these men
+must be in; nor could he expect that such men could be recovered to
+sobriety of mind after they had endured those very sufferings, for the
+avoiding whereof it only was probable they might have repented.
+
+And now two of the legions had completed their banks on the eighth day
+of the month Lous [Ab]. Whereupon Titus gave orders that the battering
+rams should be brought and set over against the western edifice of the
+inner temple; for before these were brought, the firmest of all the
+other engines had battered the wall for six days together without
+ceasing, without making any impression upon it; but the vast largeness
+and strong connection of the stones were superior to that engine and to
+the other battering rams also. Other Romans did indeed undermine the
+foundations of the northern gate, and after a world of pains removed the
+outermost stones, yet was the gate still upheld by the inner stones, and
+stood still unhurt; till the workmen, despairing of all such attempts by
+engines and crows, brought their ladders to the cloisters.
+
+Now the Jews did not interrupt them in so doing; but when they were
+gotten up, they fell upon them and fought with them; some of them they
+thrust down and threw them backward headlong; others of them they met
+and slew; they also beat many of those that went down the ladders again,
+and slew them with their swords before they could bring their shields
+to protect them; nay, some of the ladders they threw down from above
+when they were full of armed men. A great slaughter was made of the Jews
+also at the same time, while those that bare the ensigns fought hard for
+them, as deeming it a terrible thing, and what would tend to their great
+shame, if they permitted them to be stolen away. Yet did the Jews at
+length get possession of these engines, and destroyed those that had
+gone up the ladders, while the rest were so intimidated by what those
+suffered who were slain that they retired; although none of the Romans
+died without having done good service before his death. Of the
+seditious, those that had fought bravely in the former battles did the
+like now, as besides them did Eleazar, the brother's son of Simon the
+tyrant. But when Titus perceived that his endeavors to spare a foreign
+temple turned to the damage of his soldiers and made them be killed, he
+gave order to set the gates on fire.
+
+But then, on the next day, Titus commanded part of his army to quench
+the fire and to make a road for the more easy marching up of the
+legions, while he himself gathered the commanders together. Titus
+proposed to these that they should give him their advice what should be
+done about the holy house. Now some of these thought it would be the
+best way to act according to the rules of war [and demolish it], because
+the Jews would never leave off rebelling while that house was standing;
+at which house it was that they used to get all together. Others of them
+were of opinion that in case the Jews would leave it, and none of them
+would lay their arms up in it, he might save it; but that in case they
+got upon it and fought any more, he might burn it; because it must then
+be looked upon not as a holy house, but as a citadel; and that the
+impiety of burning it would then belong to those that forced this to be
+done, and not to them.
+
+But Titus said that "although the Jews should get upon that holy house
+and fight us thence, yet ought we not to revenge ourselves on things
+that are inanimate, instead of the men themselves"? and that he was not
+in any case for burning down so vast a work as that was, because this
+would be a mischief to the Romans themselves, as it would be an
+ornament to their government while it continued. So Fronto and
+Alexander and Cerealis grew bold upon that declaration, and agreed to
+the opinion of Titus. Then was this assembly dissolved, when Titus had
+given orders to the commanders that the rest of their forces should lie
+still; but that they should make use of such as were most courageous in
+this attack. So he commanded that the chosen men that were taken out of
+the cohorts should make their way through the ruins and quench the fire.
+
+Now it is true that on this day the Jews were so weary and under such
+consternation that they refrained from any attacks. But on the next day
+they gathered their whole force together, and ran upon those that
+guarded the outward court of the Temple very boldly, through the east
+gate, and this about the second hour of the day. These guards received
+their attack with great bravery, and by covering themselves with their
+shields before, as if it were with a wall, drew their squadron close
+together; yet was it evident that they could not abide there very long,
+but would be overborne by the multitude of those that sallied out upon
+them, and by the heat of their passion. However, Caesar seeing, from the
+tower of Antonia, that this squadron was likely to give way, sent some
+chosen horsemen to support them. Hereupon the Jews found themselves not
+able to sustain their onset, and, upon the slaughter of those in the
+forefront, many of the rest were put to flight. But as the Romans were
+going off, the Jews turned upon them and fought them; and as those
+Romans came back upon them, they retreated again, until about the fifth
+hour of the day they were overborne, and shut themselves up in the inner
+[court of the] Temple.
+
+So Titus retired into the tower of Antonia and resolved to storm the
+Temple the next day, early in the morning, with his whole army, and to
+encamp round about the holy house. But as for that house, God had, for
+certain, long ago doomed it to the fire; and now that fatal day was
+come, according to the revolution of ages. It was the tenth day of the
+month Lous [Ab] upon which it was formerly burned by the king of
+Babylon; although these flames took their rise from the Jews themselves,
+and were occasioned by them, for upon Titus' retiring the seditious lay
+still for a little while, and then attacked the Romans again when those
+that guarded the holy house fought with those that quenched the fire
+that was burning the inner [court of the] Temple; but these Romans put
+the Jews to flight and proceeded as far as the holy house itself. At
+which time one of the soldiers, without staying for any orders and
+without any concern or dread upon him at so great an undertaking and
+being hurried on by a certain divine fury, snatched somewhat out of the
+materials that were on fire, and being lifted up by another soldier he
+set fire to a golden window through which there was a passage to the
+rooms that were round about the holy house on the north side of it.
+
+As the flames went upward the Jews made a great clamor such as so mighty
+an affliction required and ran together to prevent it; and now they
+spared not their lives any longer nor suffered anything to restrain
+their force, since that holy house was perishing for whose sake it was
+that they kept such a guard about it.
+
+And now Caesar was no way able to restrain the enthusiastic fury of the
+soldiers, and the fire proceeded on more and more. He went into the holy
+place of the Temple with his commanders and saw it, with what was in it,
+which he found to be far superior to what the relations of foreigners
+contained, and not inferior to what we ourselves boasted of and believed
+about it. But as the flame had not as yet reached to its inward parts,
+but was still consuming the rooms that were about the holy house, and
+Titus supposing what the fact was, that the house itself might yet be
+saved, came in haste and endeavored to persuade the soldiers to quench
+the fire, and gave order to Liberalius the centurion, and one of those
+spearmen that were about him, to beat the soldiers that were refractory
+with their staves and to restrain them; yet were their passions too hard
+for the regards they had for Caesar, and the dread they had of him who
+forbade them, as was their hatred of the Jews, and a certain vehement
+inclination to fight them, too hard for them also. Moreover, the hope of
+plunder induced many to go on, as having this opinion, that all the
+places within were full of money, and as seeing that all round about it
+was made of gold. And besides, one of those that went into the place
+prevented Caesar, when he ran so hastily out to restrain the soldiers,
+and threw the fire upon the hinges of the gate, in the dark; whereby the
+flame burst out from within the holy house itself immediately, when the
+commanders retired, and Caesar with them, and when nobody any longer
+forbade those that were without to set fire to it. And thus was the holy
+house burned down without Caesar's approbation.
+
+While the holy house was on fire everything was plundered that came to
+hand, and ten thousand of those that were caught were slain; nor was
+there a commiseration of any age, or any reverence of gravity, but
+children, and old men, and profane persons, and priests were all slain
+in the same manner; so that this war went round all sorts of men, and
+brought them to destruction, and as well those that made supplication
+for their lives as those that defended themselves by fighting. The flame
+was also carried a long way, and made an echo, together with the groans
+of those that were slain; and because this hill was high, and the works
+at the Temple were very great, one would have thought the whole city had
+been on fire. Nor can one imagine anything either greater or more
+terrible than this noise, for there was at once a shout of the Roman
+legions, who were marching all together, and a sad clamor of the
+seditious, who were now surrounded with fire and sword.
+
+The people also that were left above were beaten back upon the enemy,
+and under a great consternation, and made sad moans at the calamity they
+were under; the multitude also that was in the city joined in this
+outcry with those that were upon the hill. And besides, many of those
+that were worn away by the famine and their mouths almost closed, when
+they saw the fire of the holy house they exerted their utmost strength
+and brake out into groans and outcries again. Perea did also return the
+echo, as well as the mountains round about [the city], and augmented the
+force of the entire noise. Yet was the misery itself more terrible than
+this disorder, for one would have thought that the hill itself, on which
+the Temple stood, was seething hot, as full of fire on every part of it,
+that the blood was larger in quantity than the fire, and those that were
+slain more in number than those that slew them, for the ground did
+nowhere appear visible for the dead bodies that lay on it; but the
+soldiers went over heaps of those bodies, as they ran upon such as fled
+from them.
+
+And now it was that the multitude of the robbers were thrust out [of the
+inner court of the Temple] by the Romans, and had much ado to get into
+the outward court, and from thence into the city, while the remainder of
+the populace fled into the cloister of that outer court. As for the
+priests, some of them plucked up from the holy house the spikes that
+were upon it, with their bases, which were made of lead, and shot them
+at the Romans instead of darts. But then as they gained nothing by so
+doing, and as the fire burst out upon them, they retired to the wall
+that was eight cubits broad, and there they tarried.
+
+And now the Romans, judging that it was in vain to spare what was round
+about the holy house, burned all those places, as also the remains of
+the cloisters and the gates, two excepted: the one on the east side and
+the other on the south; both which, however, they burned afterward. They
+also burned down the treasury chambers, in which was an immense quantity
+of money and an immense number of garments and other precious goods
+there reposited; and, to speak all in a few words, there it was that the
+entire riches of the Jews were heaped up together, while the rich people
+had there built themselves chambers (to contain such furniture). The
+soldiers also came to the rest of the cloisters that were in the outer
+(court of the) Temple, whither the women and children, and a great mixed
+multitude of the people, fled, in number about six thousand. But before
+Caesar had determined anything about these people, or given the
+commanders any orders relating to them, the soldiers were in such a rage
+that they set that cloister on fire; by which means it came to pass that
+some of these were destroyed by throwing themselves down headlong, and
+some were burned in the cloisters themselves. Nor did any one of them
+escape with his life.
+
+And now the Romans, upon the flight of the seditious into the city, and
+upon the burning of the holy house itself and of all the buildings round
+about it, brought their ensigns to the Temple and set them over against
+its eastern gate; and there did they offer sacrifices to them, and there
+did they make Titus imperator with the greatest acclamations of joy.
+And now all the soldiers had such vast quantities of the spoils which
+they had gotten by plunder that in Syria a pound weight of gold was sold
+for half its former value.
+
+But as for the tyrants themselves and those that were with them, when
+they found that they were encompassed on every side, and, as it were,
+walled round, without any method of escaping, they desired to treat with
+Titus by word of mouth. Accordingly, such was the kindness of his nature
+and his desire of preserving the city from destruction, joined to the
+advice of his friends, who now thought the robbers were come to a
+temper, that he placed himself on the western side of the outer (court
+of the) Temple, for there were gates on that side above the Xystus, and
+a bridge that connected the upper city to the Temple. This bridge it was
+that lay between the tyrants and Caesar, and parted them; while the
+multitude stood on each side; those of the Jewish nation about Simon and
+John, with great hopes of pardon; and the Romans about Caesar, in great
+expectation how Titus would receive their supplication.
+
+So Titus charged his soldiers to restrain their rage and to let their
+darts alone, and appointed an interpreter between them, which was a sign
+that he was the conqueror, and first began the discourse, and said: "I
+hope you, sirs, are now satiated with the miseries of your country, who
+have not had any just notions either of our great power or of your own
+great weakness, but have, like madmen, after a violent and inconsiderate
+manner, made such attempts as have brought your people, your city, and
+your holy house to destruction. You have been the men that have never
+left off rebelling since Pompey first conquered you, and have since that
+time made open war with the Romans.... And now, vile wretches, do you
+desire to treat with me by word of mouth? To what purpose is it that you
+would save such a holy house as this was which is now destroyed? What
+preservation can you now desire after the destruction of your Temple?
+Yet do you stand still at this very time in your armor; nor can you
+bring yourselves so much as to pretend to be supplicants even in this
+your utmost extremity. O miserable creatures! what is it you depend on?
+Are not your people dead? is not your holy house gone? is not your city
+in my power? and are not your own very lives in my hands? And do you
+still deem it a part of valor to die? However, I will not imitate your
+madness. If you throw down your arms and deliver up your bodies to me, I
+grant you your lives; and I will act like a mild master of a family;
+what cannot be healed shall be punished, and the rest I will preserve
+for my own use."
+
+To that offer of Titus they made this reply: That they could not accept
+of it, because they had sworn never to do so; but they desired they
+might have leave to go through the wall that had been made about them,
+with their wives and children; for that they would go into the desert
+and leave the city to him.
+
+At this Titus had great indignation, that when they were in the case of
+men already taken captives, they should pretend to make their own terms
+with him, as if they had been conquerors. So he ordered this
+proclamation to be made to them: That they should no more come out to
+him as deserters, nor hope for any further security, for that he would
+henceforth spare nobody, but fight them with his whole army; and that
+they must save themselves as well as they could, for that he would from
+henceforth treat them according to the laws of war. So he gave orders to
+the soldiers both to burn and to plunder the city; who did nothing
+indeed that day; but on the next day they set fire to the repository of
+the archives, to Acra, to the council house, and to the place called
+Ophlas; at which time the fire proceeded as far as the palace of Queen
+Helena, which was in the middle of Acra; the lanes also were burned
+down, as were also those houses that were full of the dead bodies of
+such as were destroyed by famine.
+
+On the same day it was that the sons and brethren of Izates the King,
+together with many others of the eminent men of the populace, got
+together there, and besought Caesar to give them his right hand for their
+security. Upon which, though he was very angry at all that were now
+remaining, yet did he not lay aside his old moderation, but received
+these men. At that time, indeed, he kept them all in custody, but still
+bound the King's sons and kinsmen, and led them with him to Rome, in
+order to make them hostages for their country's fidelity to the Romans.
+
+And now the seditious rushed into the royal palace, into which many had
+put their effects, because it was so strong, and drove the Romans away
+from it. They also slew all the people that had crowded into it, who
+were in number about eight thousand four hundred, and plundered them of
+what they had.
+
+On the next day the Romans drove the robbers out of the lower city and
+set all on fire as far as Siloam. These soldiers were indeed glad to see
+the city destroyed. But they missed the plunder, because the seditious
+had carried off all their effects, and were retired into the upper city,
+for they did not yet at all repent of the mischiefs they had done, but
+were insolent, as if they had done well; for, as they saw the city on
+fire, they appeared cheerful, and put on joyful countenances, in
+expectation, as they said, of death to end their miseries. Accordingly,
+as the people were now slain, the holy house was burned down, and the
+city was on fire, there was nothing further left for the enemy to do.
+Yet did not Josephus grow weary, even in this utmost extremity, to beg
+of them to spare what was left of the city; he spake largely to them
+about their barbarity and impiety, and gave them his advice in order to
+their escape, though he gained nothing thereby more than to be laughed
+at by them; and as they could not think of surrendering themselves up,
+because of the oath they had taken, nor were strong enough to fight with
+the Romans any longer upon the square, as being surrounded on all sides,
+and a kind of prisoners already, yet were they so accustomed to kill
+people that they could not restrain their right hands from acting
+accordingly.
+
+So they dispersed themselves before the city and laid themselves in
+ambush among its ruins, to catch those that attempted to desert to the
+Romans. Accordingly, many such deserters were caught by them and were
+all slain, for these were too weak, by reason of their want of food, to
+fly away from them; so their dead bodies were thrown to the dogs. Now
+every other sort of death was thought more tolerable than the famine,
+insomuch that, though the Jews despaired now of mercy, yet would they
+fly to the Romans, and would themselves, even of their own accord, fall
+among the murderous rebels also. Nor was there any place in the city
+that had no dead bodies in it, but what was entirely covered with those
+that were killed either by the famine or the rebellion; and all was full
+of the dead bodies of such as had perished, either by that sedition or
+by the famine.
+
+So now the last hope which supported the tyrants and that crew of
+robbers who were with them was in the caves and caverns underground;
+whither, if they could once fly, they did not expect to be searched for;
+but endeavored that, after the whole city should be destroyed and the
+Romans gone away, they might come out again and escape from them. This
+was no better than a dream of theirs, for they were not able to lie hid
+either from God or from the Romans. However, they depended on these
+underground subterfuges, and set more places on fire than did the Romans
+themselves; and those that fled out of their houses thus set on fire
+into the ditches they killed without mercy, and pillaged them also; and
+if they discovered food belonging to anyone they seized upon it and
+swallowed it down, together with their blood also--nay, they were now
+come to fight one with another about their plunder; and I cannot but
+think that, had not their destruction prevented it, their barbarity
+would have made them taste of even the dead bodies themselves.
+
+Now when Caesar perceived that the upper city was so steep that it could
+not possibly be taken without raising banks against it, he distributed
+the several parts of that work among his army, and this on the twentieth
+day of the month Lous [Ab].
+
+It was at this time that the commanders of the Idumeans got together
+privately and took counsel about surrendering up themselves to the
+Romans. Accordingly, they sent five men to Titus and entreated him to
+give them his right hand for their security. So Titus, thinking that the
+tyrants would yield, if the Idumeans, upon whom a great part of the war
+depended, were once withdrawn from them, after some reluctancy and delay
+complied with them, and gave them security for their lives, and sent the
+five men back. But as these Idumeans were preparing to march out, Simon
+perceived it, and immediately slew the five men that had gone to Titus,
+and took their commanders and put them in prison, of whom the most
+eminent was Jacob, the son of Sosas; but as for the multitude of the
+Idumeans, who did not at all know what to do, now their commanders were
+taken from them, he had them watched, and secured the walls by a more
+numerous garrison. Yet could not that garrison resist those that were
+deserting, for although a great number of them were slain, yet were the
+deserters many more in number. These were all received by the Romans,
+because Titus himself grew negligent as to his former orders for killing
+them, and because the very soldiers grew weary of killing them, and
+because they hoped to get some money by sparing them, for they left only
+the populace, and sold the rest of the multitude, with their wives and
+children, and every one of them at a very low price, and that because
+such as were sold were very many, and the buyers were few; and although
+Titus had made proclamation beforehand that no deserter should come
+alone by himself, that so they might bring out their families with them,
+yet did he receive such as these also.
+
+However, he set over them such as were to distinguish some from others,
+in order to see if any of them deserved to be punished. And indeed the
+number of those that were sold was immense; but of the populace above
+forty thousand were saved, whom Caesar let go whither every one of them
+pleased.
+
+But now at this time it was that one of the priests, the son of
+Thebuthus, whose name was Jesus, upon his having security given him, by
+the oath of Caesar, that he should be preserved upon condition that he
+should deliver to him certain of the precious things that had been
+deposited in the Temple, came out of it and delivered him from the wall
+of the holy house two candlesticks, like to those that lay in the holy
+house, with tables, and cisterns, and vials, all made of solid gold and
+very heavy. He also delivered to him the veils and the garments, with
+the precious stones, and a great number of other precious vessels that
+belonged to their sacred worship.
+
+The treasurer of the Temple also, whose name was Phineas, was seized on,
+and showed Titus the coats and girdles of the priests, with a great
+quantity of purple and scarlet, which were there deposited for the uses
+of the veil, as also a great deal of cinnamon and cassia, with a large
+quantity of other sweet spices, which used to be mixed together and
+offered as incense to God every day. A great many other treasures were
+also delivered to him, with sacred ornaments of the Temple not a few,
+which things thus delivered to Titus obtained of him for this man the
+same pardon that he had allowed to such as deserted of their own accord.
+
+And now were the banks finished on the seventh day of the month Gorpieus
+(Elul) in eighteen days' time, when the Romans brought their machines
+against the wall. But for the seditious, some of them, as despairing of
+saving the city, retired from the wall to the citadel. Others of them
+went down into the subterranean vaults, though still a great many of
+them defended themselves against those that brought the engines for the
+battery; yet did the Romans overcome them by their number and by their
+strength; and, what was the principal thing of all, by going cheerfully
+about their work, while the Jews were quite dejected and become weak.
+Now as soon as a part of the wall was battered down, and certain of the
+towers yielded to the impression of the battering rams, those that
+opposed themselves fled away, and such a terror fell upon the tyrants as
+was much greater than the occasion required, for before the enemy got
+over the breach they were quite stunned, and were immediately for flying
+away. And now one might see these men, who had hitherto been so insolent
+and arrogant in their wicked practices, to be cast down and to tremble,
+insomuch that it would pity one's heart to observe the change that was
+made in those vile persons.
+
+Accordingly, they ran with great violence upon the Roman wall that
+encompassed them, in order to force away those that guarded it, and to
+break through it and get away. But when they saw that those who had
+formerly been faithful to them had gone away--as indeed they were fled
+whithersoever the great distress they were in persuaded them to flee--as
+also when those that came running before the rest told them that the
+western wall was entirely overthrown, while others said the Romans were
+gotten in, and others that they were near and looking out for them,
+which were only the dictates of their fear, which imposed upon their
+sight, they fell upon their face and greatly lamented their own mad
+conduct; and their nerves were so terribly loosed that they could not
+flee away. And here one may chiefly reflect on the power of God
+exercised upon these wicked wretches, and on the good fortune of the
+Romans, for these tyrants did now wholly deprive themselves of the
+security they had in their own power, and came down from those very
+towers of their own accord, wherein they could have never been taken by
+force, nor indeed by any other way than by famine. And thus did the
+Romans, when they had taken such great pains about weaker walls, get by
+good fortune what they could never have gotten by their engines, for
+three of these towers were too strong for all mechanical engines
+whatsoever.
+
+So they now left these towers of themselves, or rather they were ejected
+out of them by God himself, and fled immediately to that valley which
+was under Siloam, where they again recovered themselves out of the dread
+they were in for a while, and ran violently against that part of the
+Roman wall which lay on that side; but as their courage was too much
+depressed to make their attacks with sufficient force, and their power
+was now broken with fear and affliction, they were repulsed by the
+guards, and dispersing themselves at distances from each other, went
+down into the subterranean caverns.
+
+So the Romans being now become masters of the walls, they both placed
+their ensigns upon the towers and made joyful acclamations for the
+victory they had gained, as having found the end of this war much
+lighter than its beginning, for when they had gotten upon the last wall,
+without any bloodshed, they could hardly believe what they found to be
+true; but seeing nobody to oppose them, they stood in doubt what such an
+unusual solitude could mean. But when they went in numbers into the
+lanes of the city with their swords drawn they slew those whom they
+overtook without mercy, and set fire to the houses whither the Jews were
+fled, and burned every soul in them, and laid waste a great many of the
+rest; and when they were come to the houses to plunder them they found
+in them entire families of dead men; and the upper rooms full of
+corpses, that is, of such as died by the famine. They stood in horror at
+this sight, and went out without touching anything.
+
+Although they had this commiseration for such as were destroyed in that
+manner, yet had they not the same for those that were still alive, but
+they ran every one through whom they met, and obstructed the very lanes
+with their dead bodies, and made the whole city run with blood, to such
+a degree indeed that the fire of many of the houses was quenched with
+these men's blood. And truly so it happened, that though the slayers
+left off at the evening, yet did the fire greatly prevail in the night;
+and as all was burning, came that eighth day of the month Gorpieus
+[Elul] upon Jerusalem, a city that had been liable to so many miseries
+during this siege, that, had it always enjoyed as much happiness from
+its first foundation, it would certainly have been the envy of the
+world. Nor did it on any other account so much deserve these sore
+misfortunes as by producing such a generation of men as were the
+occasion of this its overthrow.
+
+Now when Titus was come into this (upper) city, he admired not only some
+other places of strength in it, but particularly those strong towers
+which the tyrants in their mad conduct had relinquished, for when he saw
+their solid altitude, and the largeness of their several stones, and the
+exactness of their joints, as also how great was their breadth and how
+extensive their length, he expressed himself after the manner following:
+"We have certainly had God for our assistant in this war, and it was no
+other than God who ejected the Jews out of these fortifications, for
+what could the hands of men or any machines do toward overthrowing these
+towers?" At which time he had many such discourses to his friends; he
+also let such go free as had been bound by the tyrants, and were left in
+the prisons. To conclude, when he entirely demolished the rest of the
+city and overthrew its walls, he left these towers as a monument of his
+good fortune, which had proved his auxiliaries, and enabled him to take
+what could not otherwise have been taken by him.
+
+And now, since his soldiers were already quite tired with killing men,
+and yet there appeared to be a vast multitude still remaining alive,
+Caesar gave orders that they should kill none but those that were in arms
+and opposed them, but should take the rest alive. But, together with
+those whom they had orders to slay, they slew the aged and the infirm;
+but for those that were in their flourishing age and who might be
+useful to them they drove them together into the Temple and shut them up
+within the walls of the court of the women, over which Caesar set one of
+his freedmen, as also Fronto, one of his own friends, which last was to
+determine everyone's fate, according to his merits.
+
+So this Fronto slew all those that had been seditious and robbers, who
+were impeached one by another; but of the young men he chose out the
+tallest and most beautiful and reserved them for the triumph, and as for
+the rest of the multitude that were above seventeen years old he put
+them into bonds and sent them to the Egyptian mines. Titus also sent a
+great number into the provinces as a present to them, that they might be
+destroyed upon their theatres by the sword and by the wild beasts; but
+those that were under seventeen years of age were sold for slaves. Now
+during the days wherein Fronto was distinguishing these men there
+perished, for want of food, eleven thousand, some of whom did not taste
+any food, through the hatred their guards bore to them, and others would
+not take in any when it was given them. The multitude also was so very
+great that they were in want even of corn for their sustenance.
+
+Now the number of those that were carried captive during this whole war
+was collected to be ninety-seven thousand; as was the number of those
+that perished during the whole siege eleven hundred thousand, the
+greater part of whom was indeed of the same nation [with the citizens of
+Jerusalem], but not belonging to the city itself. They were come up from
+all the country to the feast of unleavened bread and were on a sudden
+shut up by an army, which, at the very first, occasioned so great a
+straitness among them that there came a pestilential destruction upon
+them, and soon afterward such a famine as destroyed them more suddenly.
+
+That this city could contain so many people in it is manifest by that
+number of them which was taken under Cestius, who, being desirous of
+informing Nero of the power of the city, who otherwise was disposed to
+contemn that nation, entreated the high-priests, if the thing were
+possible, to take the number of their whole multitude. So these
+high-priests, upon the coming of that feast which is called the
+Passover, when they slay their sacrifices, from the ninth hour till the
+eleventh, but so that a company not less than ten belong to every
+sacrifice (for it is not lawful for them to feast singly by themselves),
+and many of them were twenty in a company, found the number of
+sacrifices was two hundred and fifty-six thousand five hundred, which,
+upon the allowance of no more than ten that feast together, amounts to
+two millions seven hundred thousand and two hundred persons that were
+pure and holy; for as to those that have the leprosy, or the
+gonorrhoea, or women that have their monthly courses, or such as are
+otherwise polluted, it is not lawful for them to be partakers of this
+sacrifice; nor indeed for any foreigners neither, who come hither to
+worship.
+
+Now this vast multitude is indeed collected out of remote places, but
+the entire nation was now shut up by fate as in prison, and the Roman
+army encompassed the city when it was crowded with inhabitants.
+Accordingly, the multitude of those that therein perished exceeded all
+the destructions that either men or God ever brought upon the world;
+for, to speak only of what was publicly known, the Romans slew some of
+them, some they carried captives, and others they made a search for
+underground, and when they found where they were they broke up the
+ground and slew all they met with. There were also found slain there
+above two thousand persons, partly by their own hands and partly by one
+another, but chiefly destroyed by the famine; but then the ill-savor of
+the dead bodies was most offensive to those that lighted upon them,
+insomuch that some were obliged to get away immediately, while others
+were so greedy of gain that they would go in among the dead bodies that
+lay on heaps and tread upon them, for a great deal of treasure was found
+in these caverns, and the hope of gain made every way of getting it to
+be esteemed lawful.
+
+Many also of those that had been put in prison by the tyrants were now
+brought out, for they did not leave off their barbarous cruelty at the
+very last; yet did God avenge himself upon upon them both in a manner
+agreeable to justice. As for John, he wanted food, together with his
+brethren, in these caverns, and begged that the Romans would now give
+him their right hand for his security, which he had often proudly
+rejected before; but for Simon, he struggled hard with the distress he
+was in, till he was forced to surrender himself. So he was reserved for
+the triumph, and to be then slain, as was John condemned to perpetual
+imprisonment. And now the Romans set fire to the extreme parts of the
+city, and burned them down, and entirely demolished its walls.
+
+And thus was Jerusalem taken, in the second year of the reign of
+Vespasian, on the eighth day of the month Gorpieus (Elul). It had been
+taken five times before, though this was the second time of its
+desolation, for Shishak, the king of Egypt, and after him Antiochus, and
+after him Pompey, and after them Sosius and Herod, took the city, but
+still preserved it; but before all these the king of Babylon conquered
+it and made it desolate, one thousand four hundred and sixty-eight years
+and six months after it was built.
+
+But he who first built it was a potent man among the Canaanites, and is
+in our own tongue called (Melchisedek), the righteous king, for such he
+really was. On which account he was (there) the first priest of God, and
+first built a temple (there), and called the city Jerusalem, which was
+formerly called Salem. However, David, the king of the Jews, ejected the
+Canaanites, and settled his own people therein.
+
+It was demolished entirely by the Babylonians, four hundred and
+seventy-seven years and six months after him. And from King David, who
+was the first of the Jews who reigned therein, to this destruction under
+Titus, were one thousand one hundred and seventy-nine years; but from
+its first building till this last destruction were two thousand one
+hundred and seventy-seven years; yet hath not its great antiquity, nor
+its vast riches, nor the diffusion of its nation over all the habitable
+earth, nor the greatness of the veneration paid to it on a religious
+account, been sufficient to preserve it from being destroyed. And thus
+ended the siege of Jerusalem.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[38] Not to be confounded with John of Gischala, leader of one of the
+three factions.
+
+[39] John of Gischala.
+
+[40] Probably that of John Hyrcanus I, a Maccabaean, prince of Judea,
+B.C. 135-105.
+
+
+
+
+DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII
+
+A.D. 79
+
+PLINY             LYTTON
+
+     Among the historic calamities of the world none has gathered about
+     itself more of human interest, whether in connection with the study
+     of ancient cities and customs or in the calling forth of sympathy
+     through the magical treatment of imaginative literature, than the
+     destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum by the eruption of Mount
+     Vesuvius, which occurred at the beginning of the reign of Titus.
+     The eruption was accompanied by an earthquake, and the combination
+     of natural commotions caused the complete ruin and burial of the
+     two cities.
+
+     One of the most vivid descriptions of the catastrophe is that given
+     in the account of Dion Cassius. Among those who perished in the
+     disaster was the elder Pliny, the celebrated naturalist; and the
+     most famous narrative of the eruption is that here given of Pliny
+     the Younger, nephew of the other, in the two letters which he wrote
+     to Tacitus in order to supply that historian with accurate details.
+
+     Lytton's well-known _Last Days of Pompeii_, although a work of
+     imagination, deals with this subject in a manner which almost
+     simulates the realistic tale of an actual observer; and his
+     account, linking the calamity itself with the revelations of the
+     earlier explorers of the buried city, after so many centuries had
+     passed, well deserves a place in connection with the story of the
+     older and more circumstantial writer.
+
+     One of the earliest important discoveries at Pompeii, made in 1771,
+     was that of the "Villa of Diomedes," named from the tomb of Marcus
+     Arrius Diomedes across the street. Since then every decade has seen
+     some progress in the work of excavation, and among other buildings
+     brought to light are the "House of Pansa," the "House of the Tragic
+     Poet," the "House of Sallustius," the "Castor and Pollux," a double
+     house, and the "House of the Vettii"--the last, a recent discovery,
+     being left with all its furnishings as found. Many interesting
+     objects have been discovered lately, and a complete picture can now
+     be presented of a small Italian city and its life in the first
+     century A.D. Valuable finds are wall paintings, illustrative of
+     decorative art; floor mosaics, etc., which may be seen in the Royal
+     Museum of Naples. Another of the most recent discoveries is that of
+     the temple of Venus Pompeiana in the southern corner of the city;
+     others are the remains of persons who, carrying valuables, perished
+     in a wayside inn where they had sought refuge. At the present time
+     about one-half of the city has been excavated, and the circuit of
+     the walls has been found to be about two miles. The uncovering of
+     the whole city will probably require many years. Excavations now
+     being made in the adjacent country promise results as interesting
+     as those already obtained within the city limits.
+
+
+PLINY
+
+Your request that I would send you an account of my uncle's death, in
+order to transmit a more exact relation of it to posterity, deserves my
+acknowledgments; for, if this accident shall be celebrated by your pen,
+the glory of it, I am well assured, will be rendered forever
+illustrious. And notwithstanding he perished by a misfortune, which as
+it involved at the same time a most beautiful country in ruins, and
+destroyed so many populous cities, seems to promise him an everlasting
+remembrance; notwithstanding he has himself composed many and lasting
+works; yet I am persuaded, the mentioning of him in your immortal
+writings will greatly contribute to render his name immortal.
+
+Happy I esteem those to be to whom by provision of the gods has been
+granted the ability either to do such actions as are worthy of being
+related or to relate them in a manner worthy of being read; but
+peculiarly happy are they who are blessed with both these uncommon
+talents: in the number of which my uncle, as his own writings and your
+history will evidently prove, may justly be ranked. It is with extreme
+willingness, therefore, that I execute your commands; and should indeed
+have claimed the task if you had not enjoined it. He was at that time
+with the fleet under his command at Misenum.
+
+On the 24th of August, about one in the afternoon, my mother desired him
+to observe a cloud which appeared of a very unusual size and shape. He
+had just taken a turn in the sun,[41] and, after bathing himself in cold
+water, and making a light luncheon, gone back to his books: he
+immediately arose and went out upon a rising ground from whence he might
+get a better sight of this very uncommon appearance. A cloud, from which
+mountain was uncertain at this distance (but it was found afterward to
+come from Mount Vesuvius[42]) was ascending, the appearance of which I
+cannot give you a more exact description of than by likening it to that
+of a pine tree, for it shot up to a great height in the form of a very
+tall trunk, which spread itself out at the top into a sort of branches;
+occasioned, I imagine, either by a sudden gust of air that impelled it,
+the force of which decreased as it advanced upward, or the cloud itself,
+being pressed back again by its own weight, expanded in the manner I
+have mentioned; it appeared sometimes bright and sometimes dark and
+spotted, according as it was either more or less impregnated with earth
+and cinders.
+
+This phenomenon seemed to a man of such learning and research as my
+uncle extraordinary and worth further looking into. He ordered a light
+vessel to be got ready, and gave me leave, if I liked, to accompany him.
+I said I had rather go on with my work; and it so happened he had
+himself given me something to write out. As he was coming out of the
+house, he received a note from Rectina, the wife of Bassus, who was in
+the utmost alarm at the imminent danger which threatened her; for her
+villa lying at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, there was no way of escape
+but by sea; she earnestly entreated him therefore to come to her
+assistance.
+
+He accordingly changed his first intention, and what he had begun from a
+philosophical, he now carried out in a noble and generous, spirit. He
+ordered the galleys to put to sea, and went himself on board with an
+intention of assisting not only Rectina, but the several other towns
+which lay thickly strewn along that beautiful coast. Hastening then to
+the place from whence others fled with the utmost terror, he steered his
+course direct to the point of danger, and with so much calmness and
+presence of mind as to be able to make and dictate his observations upon
+the motion and all the phenomena of that dreadful scene. He was now so
+close to the mountain that the cinders, which grew thicker and hotter
+the nearer he approached, fell into the ships, together with
+pumice-stones and black pieces of burning rock: they were in danger too
+not only of being aground by the sudden retreat of the sea, but also
+from the vast fragments which rolled down from the mountain and
+obstructed all the shore. Here he stopped to consider whether he should
+turn back again; to which the pilot advising him, "Fortune," said he,
+"favors the brave; steer to where Pomponianus is." Pomponianus was then
+at Stabiae, separated by a bay, which the sea, after several insensible
+windings, forms with the shore. He had already sent his baggage on
+board; for though he was not at that time in actual danger, yet being
+within sight of it, and indeed extremely near, if it should in the least
+increase, he was determined to put to sea as soon as the wind, which was
+blowing dead in-shore, should go down. It was favorable, however, for
+carrying my uncle to Pomponianus, whom he found in the greatest
+consternation: he embraced him tenderly, encouraging and urging him to
+keep up his spirits, and, the more effectually to soothe his fears by
+seeming unconcerned himself, ordered a bath to be got ready, and then,
+after having bathed, sat down to supper with great cheerfulness, or at
+least--what is just as heroic--with every appearance of it.
+
+Meanwhile broad flames shone out in several places from Mount Vesuvius,
+which the darkness of the night contributed to render still brighter and
+clearer. But my uncle, in order to soothe the apprehensions of his
+friend, assured him it was only the burning of the villages, which the
+country people had abandoned to the flames. After this he retired to
+rest, and it is most certain he was so little disquieted as to fall into
+a sound sleep, for his breathing, which, on account of his corpulence,
+was rather heavy and sonorous, was heard by the attendants outside.
+
+The court which led to his apartment being now almost filled with stones
+and ashes, if he had continued there any time longer, it would have been
+impossible for him to have made his way out. So he was awoke and got up,
+and went to Pomponianus and the rest of his company, who were feeling
+too anxious to think of going to bed. They consulted together whether it
+would be most prudent to trust to the houses--which now rocked from side
+to side with frequent and violent concussions as though shaken from
+their very foundations--or fly to the open fields, where the calcined
+stones and cinders, though light indeed, yet fell in large showers and
+threatened destruction. In this choice of dangers they resolved for the
+fields: a resolution which, while the rest of the company were hurried
+into by their fears, my uncle embraced upon cool and deliberate
+consideration. They went out then, having pillows tied upon their heads
+with napkins; and this was their whole defence against the storm of
+stones that fell round them.
+
+It was now day everywhere else, but _there_ a deeper darkness prevailed
+than in the thickest night; which, however, was in some degree
+alleviated by torches and other lights of various kinds. They thought
+proper to go farther down upon the shore to see if they might safely put
+out to sea, but found the waves still running extremely high and
+boisterous. There my uncle, laying himself down upon a sail-cloth, which
+was spread for him, called twice for some cold water, which he drank,
+when immediately the flames, preceded by a strong whiff of sulphur,
+dispersed the rest of the party, and obliged him to rise. He raised
+himself up with the assistance of two of his servants, and instantly
+fell down dead; suffocated, as I conjecture, by some gross and noxious
+vapor, having always had a weak throat, which was often inflamed.
+
+As soon as it was light again, which was not till the third day after
+this melancholy accident, his body was found entire, and without any
+marks of violence upon it, in the dress in which he fell, and looking
+more like a man asleep than dead. During all this time my mother and I,
+who were at Misenum--but this has no connection with your history, and
+you did not desire any particulars besides those of my uncle's death, so
+I will end here, only adding that I have faithfully related to you what
+I was either an eye-witness of myself or received immediately after the
+accident happened, and before there was time to vary the truth. You will
+pick out of this narrative whatever is most important: for a letter is
+one thing, a history another; it is one thing writing to a friend,
+another thing writing to the public. Farewell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The letter which, in compliance with your request, I wrote to you
+concerning the death of my uncle has raised, it seems, your curiosity
+to know what terrors and dangers attended me while I continued at
+Misenum; for there, I think, my account broke off:
+
+    "Though my shock'd soul recoils, my tongue shall tell."
+
+My uncle having left us, I spent such time as was left on my studies--it
+was on their account indeed that I had stopped behind--till it was time
+for my bath. After which I went to supper, and then fell into a short
+and uneasy sleep. There had been noticed for many days before, a
+trembling of the earth, which did not alarm us much, as this is quite an
+ordinary occurrence in Campania; but it was so particularly violent that
+night that it not only shook but actually overturned, as it would seem,
+everything about us.
+
+My mother rushed into my chamber, where she found me rising in order to
+awaken her. We sat down in the open court of the house, which occupied a
+small space between the buildings and the sea. As I was at that time but
+eighteen years of age, I know not whether I should call my behavior, in
+this dangerous juncture, courage or folly; but I took up Livy, and
+amused myself with turning over that author, and even making extracts
+from him, as if I had been perfectly at my leisure. Just then, a friend
+of my uncle's, who had lately come to him from Spain, joined us, and
+observing me sitting by my mother with a book in my hand, reproved her
+for her calmness, and me at the same time for my careless security:
+nevertheless I went on with my author.
+
+Though it was now morning, the light was still exceedingly faint and
+doubtful; the buildings all around us tottered, and though we stood upon
+open ground, yet, as the place was narrow and confined, there was no
+remaining without imminent danger: we therefore resolved to quit the
+town. A panic-stricken crowd followed us, and--as to a mind distracted
+with terror every suggestion seems more prudent than its own--pressed on
+us in dense array to drive us forward as we came out. Being at a
+convenient distance from the houses, we stood still, in the midst of a
+most dangerous and dreadful scene.
+
+The chariots, which we had ordered to be drawn out, were so agitated
+backward and forward, though upon the most level ground, that we could
+not keep them steady, even by supporting them with large stones. The sea
+seemed to roll back upon itself, and to be driven from its banks by the
+convulsive motion of the earth; it is certain at least the shore was
+considerably enlarged, and several sea animals were left upon it. On the
+other side, a black and dreadful cloud, broken with rapid, zig-zag
+flashes, revealed behind it variously shaped masses of flame: these last
+were like sheet lightning, but much larger. Upon this our Spanish
+friend, whom I mentioned above, addressing himself to my mother and me
+with great energy and urgency: "If your brother," he said, "if your
+uncle be safe, he certainly wishes you may be so too; but if he
+perished, it was his desire, no doubt, that you might both survive him:
+why therefore do you delay your escape a moment?"
+
+We could never think of our own safety, we said, while we were uncertain
+of his. Upon this our friend left us, and withdrew from the danger with
+the utmost precipitation. Soon afterward, the cloud began to descend and
+cover the sea. It had already surrounded and concealed the island of
+Capreae[43] and the promontory of Misenum.
+
+My mother now besought, urged, even commanded me to make my escape at
+any rate, which, as I was young, I might easily do; as for herself, she
+said, her age and corpulency rendered all attempts of that sort
+impossible; however, she would willingly meet death if she could have
+the satisfaction of seeing that she was not the occasion of mine. But I
+absolutely refused to leave her, and, taking her by the hand, compelled
+her to go with me. She complied with great reluctance, and not without
+many reproaches to herself for retarding my flight. The ashes now began
+to fall upon us, though in no great quantity. I looked back; a dense,
+dark mist seemed to be following us, spreading itself over the country
+like a cloud. "Let us turn out of the high-road," I said, "while we can
+still see, for fear that, should we fall in the road, we should be
+pressed to death in the dark by the crowds that are following us."
+
+We had scarcely sat down when night came upon us, not such as we have
+when the sky is cloudy, or when there is no moon, but that of a room
+when it is shut up and all the lights put out. You might hear the
+shrieks of women, the screams of children, and the shouts of men; some
+calling for their children, others for their parents, others for their
+husbands, and seeking to recognize each other by the voices that
+replied; one lamenting his own fate, another that of his family; some
+wishing to die, from the very fear of dying; some lifting their hands to
+the gods; but the greater part convinced that there were now no gods at
+all, and that the final endless night of which we have heard had come
+upon the world.[44] Among these there were some who augmented the real
+terrors by others imaginary or wilfully invented. I remember some who
+declared that one part of Misenum had fallen, that another was on fire;
+it was false, but they found people to believe them. It now grew rather
+lighter, which we imagined to be rather the forerunner of an approaching
+burst of flames--as in truth it was--than the return of day: however,
+the fire fell at a distance from us: then again we were immersed in
+thick darkness, and a heavy shower of ashes rained upon us, which we
+were obliged every now and then to stand up to shake off, otherwise we
+should have been crushed and buried in the heap.
+
+I might boast that, during all this scene of horror, not a sigh or
+expression of fear escaped me, had not my support been grounded in that
+miserable, though mighty, consolation, that all mankind were involved in
+the same calamity, and that I was perishing with the world itself. At
+last this dreadful darkness was dissipated by degrees, like a cloud or
+smoke; the real day returned, and even the sun shone out, though with a
+lurid light, like when an eclipse is coming on. Every object that
+presented itself to our eyes--which were extremely weakened--seemed
+changed, being covered deep with ashes as if with snow.
+
+We returned to Misenum, where we refreshed ourselves as well as we
+could, and passed an anxious night between hope and fear; though,
+indeed, with a much larger share of the latter; for the earthquake still
+continued, while many frenzied persons ran up and down, heightening
+their own and their friends' calamities by terrible predictions.
+However, my mother and I, notwithstanding the danger we had passed and
+that which still threatened us, had no thoughts of leaving the place
+till we could receive some news of my uncle.
+
+And now you will read this narrative without any view of inserting it in
+your history, of which it is not in the least worthy; and indeed you
+must put it down to your own request if it should appear not worth even
+the trouble of a letter. Farewell.
+
+
+LORD EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
+
+The Amphitheatre at Pompeii was crowded to the doors. A lion was at
+large in the arena, and the populace surged toward an Egyptian priest,
+Arbaces, demanding that he be thrown down to be devoured. As the mob
+rolled around him, intent on his death, Arbaces noted a strange and
+awful apparition. His craft made him courageous; he stretched forth his
+hand.
+
+"Behold!" he shouted with a voice of thunder, which stilled the roar of
+the crowd; "behold how the gods protect the guiltless! The fires of the
+avenging Orcus burst forth against the false witness of my accusers!"
+
+The eyes of the crowd followed the gesture of the Egyptian, and beheld,
+with ineffable dismay, a vast vapor shooting from the summit of
+Vesuvius, in the form of a gigantic pine tree; the trunk, blackness--the
+branches, fire!--a fire that shifted and wavered in its hues with every
+moment, now fiercely luminous, now of a dull and dying red, that again
+blazed terrifically forth with intolerable glare!
+
+There was a dead, heart-sunken silence--through which there suddenly
+broke the roar of the lion, which was echoed back from within the
+building by the sharper and fiercer yells of its fellow-beast. Dread
+seers were they of the burden of the atmosphere, and wild prophets of
+the wrath to come!
+
+Then there arose on high the universal shrieks of women; the men stared
+at each other, but were dumb. At that moment they felt the earth shake
+beneath their feet; the walls of the theatre trembled, and beyond, in
+the distance, they heard the crash of falling roofs; an instant more and
+the mountain-cloud seemed to roll toward them, dark and rapid, like a
+torrent; at the same time it cast forth from its bosom a shower of ashes
+mixed with vast fragments of burning stone. Over the crushing
+vines--over the desolate streets--over the Amphitheatre itself--far and
+wide--with many a mighty splash in the agitated sea--fell that awful
+shower!
+
+No longer thought the crowd of justice or of Arbaces; safety for
+themselves was their sole thought. Each turned to fly--each dashing,
+pressing, crushing, against the other. Trampling recklessly over the
+fallen--amid groans and oaths and prayers and sudden shrieks, the
+enormous crowd vomited itself forth through the numerous passages.
+Whither should they fly? Some, anticipating a second earthquake,
+hastened to their homes to load themselves with their more costly goods,
+and escape while it was yet time; others, dreading the showers of ashes
+that now fell fast, torrent upon torrent, over the streets, rushed under
+the roofs of the nearest houses or temples or sheds--shelter of any
+kind--for protection from the terrors of the open air. But darker and
+larger and mightier spread the cloud above them. It was a sudden and
+more ghastly Night rushing upon the realm of Noon!
+
+Meanwhile the streets were already thinned; the crowd had hastened to
+disperse itself under shelter; the ashes began to fill up the lower
+parts of the town; but, here and there, you heard the steps of fugitives
+cranching them warily, or saw their pale and haggard faces by the blue
+glare of the lightning or the more unsteady glare of torches, by which
+they endeavored to steer their steps. But ever and anon the boiling
+water, or the straggling ashes, mysterious and gusty winds, rising and
+dying in a breath, extinguished these wandering lights, and with them
+the last living hope of those who bore them.
+
+Amid the other horrors, the mighty mountain now cast up columns of
+boiling water. Blent and kneaded with the half-burning ashes, the
+streams fell like seething mud over the streets in frequent intervals.
+And full, where the priests of Isis had now cowered around the altars,
+on which they had vainly sought to kindle fires and pour incense, one of
+the fiercest of those deadly torrents, mingled with immense fragments
+of scoria, had poured its rage. Over the bended forms of the priests it
+dashed: that cry had been of death--that silence had been of eternity!
+The ashes--the pitchy stream--sprinkled the altars, covered the
+pavement, and half concealed the quivering corpses of the priests!
+
+In proportion as the blackness gathered did the lightnings around
+Vesuvius increase in their vivid and scorching glare. Nor was their
+horrible beauty confined to the usual hues of fire; no rainbow ever
+rivalled their varying and prodigal dyes. Now brightly blue as the most
+azure depth of a southern sky--now of a livid and snakelike green,
+darting restlessly to and fro as the folds of an enormous serpent--now
+of a lurid and intolerable crimson, gushing forth through the columns of
+smoke, far and wide, and lighting up the whole city from arch to
+arch--then suddenly dying into a sickly paleness, like the ghost of
+their own life!
+
+In the pauses of the showers you heard the rumbling of the earth beneath
+and the groaning waves of the tortured sea; or, lower still, and audible
+but to the watch of intensest fear, the grinding and hissing murmur of
+the escaping gases through the chasms of the distant mountain. Sometimes
+the cloud appeared to break from its solid mass, and, by the lightning,
+to assume quaint and vast mimicries of human or of monster shapes,
+striding across the gloom, hurtling one upon the other, and vanishing
+swiftly into the turbulent abyss of shade; so that to the eyes and
+fancies of the affrighted wanderers the unsubstantial vapors were as the
+bodily forms of gigantic foes--the agents of terror and of death.
+
+The ashes in many places were already knee-deep; and the boiling showers
+which came from the steaming breath of the volcano forced their way into
+the houses, bearing with them a strong and suffocating vapor. In some
+places immense fragments of rock, hurled upon the house roofs, bore down
+along the streets masses of confused ruin, which yet more and more, with
+every hour, obstructed the way; and, as the day advanced, the motion of
+the earth was more sensibly felt--the footing seemed to slide and
+creep--nor could chariot or litter be kept steady, even on the most
+level ground.
+
+Sometimes the huger stones, striking against each other as they fell,
+broke into countless fragments, emitting sparks of fire, which caught
+whatever was combustible within their reach; and along the plains beyond
+the city the darkness was now terribly relieved, for several houses, and
+even vineyards, had been set on flames; and at various intervals the
+fires rose sullenly and fiercely against the solid gloom. To add to this
+partial relief of the darkness, the citizens had, here and there, in the
+more public places, as the porticoes of temples and the entrances to the
+forum, endeavored to place rows of torches; but these rarely continued
+long; the showers and the winds extinguished them, and the sudden
+darkness into which their sudden birth was converted had something in it
+doubly terrible and doubly impressing on the impotence of human hopes,
+the lesson of despair.
+
+Frequently, by the momentary light of these torches, parties of
+fugitives encountered each other, some hurrying toward the sea, others
+flying from the sea back to the land; for the ocean had retreated
+rapidly from the shore--an utter darkness lay over it, and upon its
+groaning and tossing waves the storm of cinders and rock fell without
+the protection which the streets and roofs afforded to the land.
+Wild--haggard--ghastly with supernatural fears, these groups encountered
+each other, but without the leisure to speak, to consult, to advise; for
+the showers fell now frequently, though not continuously, extinguishing
+the lights, which showed to each band the death-like faces of the other,
+and hurrying all to seek refuge beneath the nearest shelter.
+
+The whole elements of civilization were broken up. Ever and anon, by the
+flickering lights, you saw the thief hastening by the most solemn
+authorities of the law, laden with and fearfully chuckling over the
+produce of his sudden gains. If, in the darkness, wife was separated
+from husband, or parent from child, vain was the hope of reunion. Each
+hurried blindly and confusedly on. Nothing in all the various and
+complicated machinery of social life was left save the primal law of
+self-preservation!
+
+In parts, where the ashes lay dry and uncommixed with the boiling
+torrents, cast upward from the mountain at capricious intervals, the
+surface of the earth presented a leprous and ghastly white. In other
+places cinder and rock lay matted in heaps, from beneath which emerged
+the half-hid limbs of some crushed and mangled fugitive.
+
+The groans of the dying were broken by wild shrieks of women's
+terror--now near, now distant--which, when heard in the utter darkness,
+were rendered doubly appalling by the crushing sense of helplessness and
+the uncertainty of the perils around; and clear and distinct through all
+were the mighty and various noises from the fatal mountain; its rushing
+winds; its whirling torrents; and, from time to time, the burst and roar
+of some more fiery and fierce explosion. And ever as the winds swept
+howling along the street, they bore sharp streams of burning dust, and
+such sickening and poisonous vapors as took away, for the instant,
+breath and consciousness, followed by a rapid revulsion of the arrested
+blood, and a tingling sensation of agony trembling through every nerve
+and fibre of the frame.
+
+Suddenly all became lighted with an intense and lurid glow. Bright and
+gigantic through the darkness, which closed around it like the walls of
+hell, the mountain shone--a pile of fire! Its summit seemed riven in
+two; or rather, above its surface there seemed to rise two monster
+shapes, each confronting each, as demons contending for a world. These
+were of one deep blood-red hue of fire, which lighted up the whole
+atmosphere far and wide; but _below_, the nether part of the mountain
+was still dark and shrouded, save in three places, adown which flowed,
+serpentine and irregular, rivers of molten lava. Darkly red through the
+profound gloom of their banks they flowed slowly on, as toward the
+devoted city. Over the broadest there seemed to spring a cragged and
+stupendous arch, from which, as from the jaws of hell, gushed the
+sources of the sudden Phlegethon. And through the still air was heard
+the rattling of the fragments of rock, hurtling one upon another as they
+were borne down the fiery cataracts--darkening, for one instant, the
+spot where they fell, and suffused the next, in the burnished hues of
+the flood in which they floated!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nearly seventeen centuries had rolled away when the city of Pompeii was
+disinterred from its silent tomb,[45] all vivid with undimmed hues; its
+walls fresh as if painted yesterday--not a hue faded on the rich mosaic
+of its floors--in its forum the half-finished columns as left by the
+workman's hand--in its gardens the sacrificial tripod--in its halls the
+chest of treasure--in its baths the _strigil_--in its theatres the
+counter of admission--in its saloons the furniture and the lamp--in its
+_triclinia_ the fragments of the last feast--in its _cubicula_ the
+perfumes and the rouge of faded beauty--and everywhere the bones and
+skeletons of those who once moved the springs of that minute yet
+gorgeous machine of luxury and of life!
+
+In the house of Diomed, in the subterranean vaults, twenty skeletons
+(one of a babe) were discovered in one spot by the door, covered by a
+fine ashen dust, that had evidently been wafted slowly through the
+apertures, until it had filled the whole space. There were jewels and
+coins, candelabra for unavailing light, and wine hardened in the
+_amphorae_ for the prolongation of agonized life. The sand, consolidated
+by damps, had taken the forms of the skeletons as in a cast; and the
+traveller may yet see the impression of a female neck and bosom of young
+and round proportions. It seems to the inquirer as if the air had been
+gradually changed into a sulphurous vapor; the inmates of the vaults had
+rushed to the door, to find it closed and blocked up by the scoria
+without, and, in their attempts to force it, had been suffocated with
+the atmosphere.
+
+In the garden was found a skeleton with a key by its bony hand, and near
+it a bag of coins. This is believed to have been the master of the
+house, who had probably sought to escape by the garden, and been
+destroyed either by the vapors or some fragment of stone. Beside some
+silver vases lay another skeleton, probably that of a slave.
+
+Various theories as to the exact mode by which Pompeii was destroyed
+have been invented by the ingenious; I have adopted that which is the
+most generally received, and which, upon inspecting the strata, appears
+the only one admissible by common sense; namely, a destruction by
+showers of ashes and boiling water, mingled with frequent irruptions of
+large stones, and aided by partial convulsions of the earth.
+Herculaneum, on the contrary, appears to have received not only the
+showers of ashes, but also inundations from molten lava; and the streams
+referred to must be considered as destined for that city rather than for
+Pompeii. Volcanic lightnings were evidently among the engines of ruin at
+Pompeii. Papyrus, and other of the more inflammable materials, are found
+in a burned state. Some substances in metal are partially melted; and a
+bronze statue is completely shivered, as by lightning. Upon the
+whole--excepting only the inevitable poetic license of shortening the
+time which the destruction occupied--I believe my description of that
+awful event is very little assisted by invention, and will be found not
+the less accurate for its appearance in a romance.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[41] The Romans used to lie or walk naked in the sun, after anointing
+their bodies with oil, which was esteemed as greatly contributing to
+health, and therefore daily practised by them. This custom, however, of
+anointing themselves, is inveighed against by the satirists as in the
+number of their luxurious indulgences; but since we find the elder Pliny
+here, and the amiable Spurinna in a former letter, practising this
+method, we cannot suppose the thing itself was esteemed unmanly, but
+only when it was attended with some particular circumstances of an
+over-refined delicacy.
+
+[42] About six miles distant from Naples.
+
+[43] An island near Naples, now called Capri.
+
+[44] The Stoic and Epicurean philosophers held that the world was to be
+destroyed by fire, and all things fall again into original chaos; not
+excepting even the national gods themselves from the destruction of this
+general conflagration.
+
+[45] Destroyed A.D. 79; first discovered A.D. 1750.
+
+
+
+
+THE JEWS' LAST STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM: THEIR FINAL DISPERSION
+
+A.D. 132
+
+CHARLES MERIVALE
+
+     The successful revolt of the Maccabees against the bloody
+     persecutions of the Assyrian king Antiochus Epiphanes, about B.C.
+     164, inaugurated a glorious epoch in Jewish history. From that time
+     the Jews enjoyed their freedom under the dynasty of their
+     priest-kings till, B.C. 63, the Romans under Pompey took possession
+     of Jerusalem. A period of Roman tyranny and oppression followed. In
+     A.D. 66-70 a great revolt of the Jews occurred. The Romans burned
+     Jerusalem to the ground. Josephus says the number killed in this
+     revolt was one million one hundred thousand, and the number of
+     prisoners ninety-seven thousand. Of those who survived, "all above
+     seventeen years old were sent to Egypt to work in the mines, or
+     distributed among the provinces to be exhibited as gladiators in
+     the public theatres and in the combats against wild beasts."
+
+     About fifty years later, A.D., 116, a tremendous uprising occurred
+     among the Jews of the eastern Mediterranean, in which many lives
+     were lost. It was quickly suppressed by the emperor Trajan, and the
+     punishments were similar in cruelty to those which followed the
+     previous insurrection.
+
+     But this dauntless people were not yet conquered. When the emperor
+     Hadrian, A.D., 130, arrived at Jerusalem on his tour of the empire,
+     he resolved that the holy city of the Jews should be rebuilt as a
+     Roman colony, and its name changed to AElia Capitolina; and the Jews
+     were forbidden to sojourn in the new city. By this and other
+     measures the spark of revolt was once more kindled among the
+     religious and patriotic spirits of the Jewish nation. The Jews in
+     Palestine flew to arms, A.D., 132, encouraged by the prayers, the
+     vows, and the material support of their compatriots in Rome,
+     Byzantium, Alexandria, and Babylon. The Jewish war-cry echoed
+     around the civilized world.
+
+     A fitting leader for the insurrectionists soon appeared in the
+     person of Simon Barcochebas. Julius Severus, who was in Britain
+     ordering the affairs of that distant province, was summoned to the
+     East to quell the disturbance, which had swollen to the dimensions
+     of a revolution and threatened to abolish Roman authority in
+     Palestine. The conflict which ensued lasted from A.D. 132 to 135,
+     and was very bitterly contested on both sides. It was not before
+     the Hebrew leader fell amid thousands of his followers that the
+     Jewish forces were defeated. We are told that in this last
+     revolution the Romans took fifty fortresses, nine hundred and
+     eighty-five villages were occupied, and that the people killed
+     numbered five hundred and eighty thousand. The Jews were dispersed
+     to every quarter of the known world and remain so to this day. The
+     new city of Hadrian continued to exist, but did not prosper; and
+     the Jews were prohibited under penalty of death from ever setting
+     foot in Jerusalem.
+
+
+The thread of imperial life could hardly snap without a jar which would
+be felt throughout the whole extent of the empire. Trajan, like
+Alexander, had been cut off suddenly in the Far East, and, like
+Alexander, he had left no avowed successor. Several of his generals
+abroad might advance nearly equal claims to the sword of Trajan; some of
+the senators at home might deem themselves not unworthy of the purple of
+Nerva.
+
+On every side there was an army or faction ready to devote itself to the
+service of its favorite or its champion.
+
+The provinces lately annexed were at the same time in a state of ominous
+agitation; along one half of the frontiers Britons, Germans, and
+Sarmatians were mustering their forces for invasion; a virulent
+insurrection was still glowing throughout a large portion of the empire.
+Nevertheless, the compact body of the Roman Commonwealth was still held
+firmly together by its inherent self-attraction. There was no tendency
+to split in pieces, as in the ill-cemented masses of the Macedonian
+conquest; and the presence of mind of a clever woman was well employed
+in effecting the peaceful transfer of power and relieving the State from
+the stress of disruption.
+
+Of the accession of Publius AElius Hadrianus, A.D., 117, to the empire;
+of the means by which it was effected; of the character and reputation
+he brought with him to the throne; of the first measures of his reign,
+by which he renounced the latest conquests of his predecessor, while he
+put forth all his power to retain the realms bequeathed him from an
+earlier period--is matter for another story.
+
+But let us turn to a review of eastern affairs; to the great Jewish
+insurrection, and the important consequences which followed from it.
+Trajan was surely fortunate in the moment of his death. Vexed, as he
+doubtless was, by the frustration of his grand designs for incorporating
+the Parthian monarchy with the Roman, and fulfilling the idea of
+universal empire which had flitted through the mind of Pompius or
+Julius, but had been deliberately rejected by Augustus and Vespasian,
+his proud spirit would have been broken indeed had he lived to witness
+the difficulties in which Rome was plunged at his death, the spread of
+the Jewish revolt in Asia and Palestine, the aggressions of the Moors,
+the Scythians, and the Britons at the most distant points of his
+dominions.
+
+The momentary success of the insurgents of Cyprus and Cyrene had
+prompted a general assurance that the conquering race was no longer
+invincible, and the last great triumphs of its legions were followed by
+a rebound of fortune still more momentous.
+
+The first act of the new reign was the formal relinquishment of the new
+provinces beyond the Euphrates. The Parthian tottered back with feeble
+step to his accustomed frontiers. Arabia was left unmolested; India was
+no longer menaced. Armenia found herself once more suspended between two
+rival empires, of which the one was too weak to seize, the other too
+weak to retain her.
+
+All the forces of Rome in the East were now set free to complete the
+suppression of the Jewish disturbances. The flames of insurrection which
+had broken out in so many remote quarters were concentrated, and burned
+more fiercely than ever in the ancient centre of the Jewish nationality.
+
+Martius Turbo, appointed to command in Palestine, was equally amazed at
+the fanaticism and the numbers of people whose faith had been mocked,
+whose hopes frustrated, whose young men had been decimated, whose old
+men, women, and children had been enslaved and exiled. Under the
+teaching of the doctors of Tiberia faith had been cherished and hope had
+revived. Despised and unmolested for fifty years, a new generation had
+risen from the soil of their ancestors, recruited by the multitudes who
+flocked homeward, year by year, with an unextinguishable love of
+country, and reenforced by the fugitives from many scenes of
+persecution, all animated with a growing conviction that the last
+struggle of their race was at hand, to be contested on the site of their
+old historic triumphs.
+
+It is not perhaps wholly fanciful to imagine that the Jewish leaders,
+after the fall of their city and Temple and the great dispersion of
+their people, deliberately invented new means for maintaining their
+cherished nationality. Their conquerors, as they might observe, were
+scattered like themselves over the face of the globe and abode wherever
+they conquered; but the laws, the manners, and the traditions of Rome
+were preserved almost intact amid alien races by the consciousness that
+there existed a visible centre of their nation, the source, as it were,
+to which they might repair to draw the waters of political life. But the
+dispersions of the Jews seemed the more irremediable as the destruction
+of their central home was complete.
+
+To preserve the existence of their nation one other way presented
+itself. In their sacred books they retained a common bond of law and
+doctrine, such as no other people could boast. In these venerated
+records they possessed, whether on the Tiber or the Euphrates, an elixir
+of unrivalled virtue. With a sudden revulsion of feeling the popular
+orators and captains betook themselves to the study of law, its history
+and antiquities, its actual text and its inner meaning. The schools of
+Tiberias resounded with debate on the rival principles of
+interpretation, the ancient and the modern, the stricter and the laxer,
+known respectively by the names of their teachers, Schammai and Hillel.
+
+The doctors decided in favor of the more accommodating system, by which
+the stern exclusiveness of the original letter was extenuated, and the
+law of the rude tribes of Palestine moulded to the varied taste and
+temper of a cosmopolitan society, while the text itself was embalmed in
+the _Masora_, an elaborate system of punctuation and notation, to every
+particle of which, to insure its uncorrupted preservation, a mystical
+significance was attached. By this curious contrivance the letter of the
+Law, the charter of Judaism, was sanctified forever, while its spirit
+was remodelled to the exigencies of the present or the future, till it
+would have been no longer recognized by its authors, or even by very
+recent disciples. To this new learning of traditions and glosses the
+ardent youth of the nation devoted itself with a fanaticism not less
+vehement than that which had fought and bled half a century before. The
+name of the rabbi Akiba is preserved as a type of the hierophant of
+restored Judaism.
+
+The stories depicting him are best expounded as myths and figures. He
+reached, it was said, the age of a hundred and twenty years, the period
+assigned in the sacred records to his prototype, the law-giver Moses.
+
+Like David, in his youth he kept sheep on the mountains; like Jacob, he
+served a master, a rich citizen of Jerusalem, for Jerusalem in his youth
+was still standing. His master's daughter cast the eyes of affection
+upon him and offered him a secret marriage; but this damsel was no other
+than Jerusalem itself, so often imaged to the mind of the Jewish people
+by the figure of a maiden, a wife, or a widow.
+
+This mystic bride required him to repair to the schools, acquire
+knowledge and wisdom, surround himself with disciples; and such, as we
+have seen, was the actual policy of the new defenders of Judaism.
+
+The damsel was rebuked by her indignant father; but when, after the
+lapse of twelve years, Akiba returned to claim his bride, with twelve
+thousand scholars at his heels, he heard her replying that, long as he
+had been absent, she only wished him to prolong his stay twice over, so
+as to double his knowledge; whereupon he returned patiently to his
+studies, and frequented the schools twelve years longer. Twice twelve
+years thus passed, he returned once more with twice twelve thousand
+disciples, and then his wife received him joyfully, and, covered as she
+was with rags, an outcast and a beggar, he presented her to his
+astonished followers as the being to whom he owed his wisdom, his fame,
+and his fortune.
+
+Such were the legends with which the new learning was consecrated to the
+defence of Jewish nationality.
+
+The concentration of the Roman forces on the soil of Palestine seems to
+have repressed for a season all overt attempts at insurrection.
+
+The Jewish leaders restrained their followers from action as long as it
+was possible to feed their spirit with hopes only. It was not till about
+the fourteenth year of Hadrian's reign that the final revolt broke out.
+
+When the Jews of Palestine launched forth upon the war, the doctor
+Akiba gave place to the warrior Barcochebas. This gallant warrior, the
+last of the national heroes, received or assumed his title, "the Son of
+the Star," given successively to several leaders of the Jewish people,
+in token of the fanatic expectations of divine deliverance by which his
+countrymen did not yet cease to be animated. Many were the legends which
+declared this champion's claims to the leadership of the national cause.
+His size and strength were vaunted as more than human. "It was the arm
+of God, not of man," said Hadrian when he saw at last the corpse
+encircled by a serpent, "that could alone strike down the giant." Flame
+and smoke were seen to issue from his lips in speaking, a portent which
+was rationalized centuries later into a mere conjurer's artifice. The
+concourse of the Jewish nation at his summons was symbolized, with a
+curious reference to the prevalent idea of Israel as a school and the
+Law as a master, by the story that at Bethar, the appointed rendezvous
+and last stronghold of the national defence, were four hundred
+academies, each ruled by four hundred teachers, each teacher boasting a
+class of four hundred pupils.
+
+Akiba, now at the extreme point of his protracted existence, like Samuel
+of old, nominated the new David to the chiefship of the people. He
+girded Barcochebas with the sword of Jehovah, placed the staff of
+command in his hand, and held himself the stirrup by which he vaulted
+into the saddle.
+
+The last revolt of the Jewish people was precipitated apparently by the
+increased severity of the measures which the rebellion under Trajan had
+drawn down. They complained that Hadrian had enrolled himself as a
+proselyte of the Law, and were doubly incensed against him as a
+persecutor and a renegade.
+
+This assertion, indeed, may have no foundation. On the other hand, it is
+not unlikely that this prince, a curious explorer of religions of
+opinions, had sought initiation into some of the mysteries of the Jewish
+faith and ritual.
+
+But however this may be, he gave them mortal offence by perceiving the
+clear distinction between Judaism and Christianity, and by forbidding
+the Jews to sojourn in the town which he was again raising on the ruins
+of Jerusalem, while he allowed free access to their rivals. He is said
+to have even prohibited the rite of circumcision by which they jealously
+maintained their separation from the nations of the West.
+
+At last, when they rose in arms, he sent his best generals against them.
+Tinnius Rufus was long baffled and often defeated; but Julius Severus,
+following the tactics of Vespasian, constantly refused the battle they
+offered him, and reduced their strongholds in succession by superior
+discipline and resources. Barcochebas struggled with the obstinacy of
+despair. Every excess of cruelty was committed on both sides, and it is
+well, perhaps, that the details of this mortal spasm are almost wholly
+lost to us.
+
+The later Christian writers, while they allude with unseemly exultation
+to the overthrow of one inveterate enemy by another who proved himself
+in the end not less inveterate, affirmed that the barbarities of the
+Jewish leader were mainly directed against themselves.
+
+On such interested assertions we shall place little reliance. In the
+counter-narration of the Jews even the name of Christian is
+contemptuously disregarded. It relates, however, how at the storming of
+Bethar, when Barcochebas perished in the field, ten of the most learned
+of the rabbis were taken and put cruelly to death, while Akiba, reserved
+to expire last, and torn in pieces with hot pincers, continued to attest
+the great principle of the Jewish doctrine, still exclaiming in his
+death throes, _Jehovah Erhad_! ("God is one").
+
+The Jews who fell in these their latest combats are counted by hundreds
+of thousands, and we may conclude that the suppression of the revolt was
+followed by sanguinary proscriptions, by wholesale captivity and general
+banishment. The dispersion of the unhappy race, particularly in the
+West, was now complete and final. The sacred soil of Jerusalem was
+occupied by a Roman colony, which received the name of AElia Capitolina,
+with reference to the Emperor who founded it, and to the supreme God of
+the pagan mythology, installed on the desecrated summits of Zion and
+Moriah.
+
+The fane of Jupiter was erected on the site of the holy Temple, and a
+shrine of Venus planted, we are assured, on the very spot hallowed to
+Christians by our Lord's crucifixion. But Hadrian had no purpose of
+insulting the disciples of Jesus, and this desecration, if the tradition
+be true, was probably accidental. A Jewish legend affirms that the
+figure of a swine was sculptured, in bitter mockery, over a gate of the
+new city. The Jews have retorted with equal scorn that the effigy of the
+unclean animal, which represented to their minds every low and bestial
+appetite, was a fitting emblem of the colony and its founder, of the
+lewd worship of its gods, and the vile propensities of its Emperor.
+
+The fancy of later Christian writers that Hadrian regarded their
+coreligionists with special consideration seems founded on
+misconception. We hear, indeed, of the graciousness with which he
+allowed them, among other sectarians, to defend their usages and expound
+their doctrines in his presence; and doubtless his curiosity, if no
+worthier feeling, was moved by the fact, which he fully appreciated, of
+the interest they excited in certain quarters of the empire. But there
+is no evidence that his favor extended further than to the recognition
+of their independence of the Jews, from whom they now formally separated
+themselves, and the discouragement of the local persecutions to which
+they were occasionally subjected.
+
+So far the bigoted hostility of their enemies was overruled at last in
+their favor.
+
+In another way they learned to profit by the example of their rivals.
+From the recent policy of the Jews they might understand the advantage
+to a scattered community, without a local centre or a political status,
+of erecting in a volume of sacred records their acknowledged standard of
+faith and practice.
+
+The scriptures of the New Testament, like the _Nuschua_ of the Jewish
+rabbis, took the place of the holy of holies as the tabernacle of their
+God and the pledge of their union with him.
+
+The canon of their sacred books, however casual its apparent formation,
+was indeed a providential development. The habitual references of
+bishops and doctors to the words of their Founder, and the writings of
+the first disciples, guided them to the proper sources of their faith
+and taught them justly to discriminate the genuine from the spurious.
+
+Meagre as are the remains of Christian literature of the second century,
+they tend to confirm our assurance that the scriptures of the new
+dispensation were known and recognized as divine at that early period,
+and that the Church of Christ, the future mistress of the world, was
+already become a great social fact, an empire within the empire.
+
+
+
+
+MARTYRDOM OF POLYCARP AND JUSTIN MARTYR
+
+POLYCARP'S EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS
+
+A.D. 155
+
+H. COX           POLYCARP
+
+     The Roman emperor Antoninus Pius, who died A.D. 161, had been
+     tolerant to the new Judaic sect known as Christians. Under his mild
+     _regime_, although he did not encourage them, the faithful had
+     greatly multiplied. The Christians had become a body great enough
+     to be reckoned with in a political sense. The populace were
+     generally hostile to them as "enemies of the gods." More than one
+     of the apostolic fathers had suffered martyrdom, among them
+     Ignatius, a disciple of St. John and bishop of Antioch, who is said
+     to have been thrown to the lions in the Circus about A.D. 107. But
+     the account of the martyrdom of Polycarp is probably the first
+     authentic description we have.
+
+     Polycarp was born about A.D. 60, probably of Christian parents. He
+     bridges the little-known period between the age of his master, the
+     apostle John, and that of his own disciple, Irenaeus. During the
+     earlier half of the second century he was bishop of Smyrna. Ephesus
+     had become the new hope of the faith, and in that city Polycarp had
+     received his education and "lived in familiar intercourse with many
+     who had seen Christ." He was also intimate with Papias and
+     Ignatius. The only writing of Polycarp extant is the Epistle to the
+     Philippians, which follows. It is of great value for questions of
+     the canon, the origin of the Church, and the Ignatian epistles. Of
+     the authenticity of Polycarp's epistle Rev. Father W. O'B. Pardow,
+     S.J., says, "There are long and learned controversies about some of
+     these [apocryphal] books." Of that in question he says: "Probably
+     authentic; not inspired." Archbishop Wake was fully convinced of
+     its genuineness, and his translation has been here used.
+
+     Justin, surnamed "the Martyr," was born at Sichen, Samaria, about
+     A.D. 100. After his conversion to Christianity he wandered about
+     arguing for the truth of the new faith. He was of a bold,
+     aggressive nature, and scorned to temporize in things spiritual.
+     His language and mode of address were borrowed from the Stoics, but
+     were the "true utterance of his own manly soul. 'You can kill us;
+     you cannot harm us,'" was his answer when condemned for being a
+     Christian. The words proceeded from a believer ready and destined
+     to give his life for the faith.
+
+     Truly did the blood of the martyrs prove the seed of the Church.
+     Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians, hereto annexed, is taken
+     from a rare work which contains the uncanonical books of the period
+     of Christ's infancy and the early days of the Church, entitled _The
+     Apocryphal Books of the New Testament_. The laity have little
+     knowledge of it, but it is well known by the clergy.
+
+
+HOMERSHAM COX
+
+Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, was undoubtedly a companion of the apostle
+John, and received instruction from other apostles. "About this time,"
+says Eusebius, referring to the commencement of the second century,
+"flourished Polycarp in Asia, an intimate disciple of the apostles, who
+received the episcopate of the Church of Smyrna at the hands of
+eye-witnesses and servants of the Lord."
+
+The lengthened life of the apostle John, who attained to an extreme old
+age, connects the fathers of the second century with the immediate
+followers of Christ. Polycarp must have been a contemporary of St. John
+for about twenty years.
+
+A letter of Irenaeus, who was a pupil of Polycarp, has been preserved,
+which gives a graphic and remarkably interesting account of the familiar
+intercourse of Polycarp with the apostle. The letter is addressed by
+Irenaeus to a friend named Florinus, with whom he remonstrates for
+holding erroneous doctrines:
+
+"These doctrines, O Florinus, to say the least, are not of a sound
+understanding. These doctrines are inconsistent with the Church, and
+calculated to thrust those that follow them into the greatest impiety;
+these doctrines not even the heretics out of the Church ever attempted
+to assert; these doctrines were never delivered to thee by the
+presbyters before us, those who also were the immediate disciples of the
+apostles.
+
+"For I saw thee when I was yet a boy in Lower Asia with Polycarp moving
+in great splendor at court, and endeavoring by all means to gain his
+esteem. I remember the events of those times much better than those of
+more recent occurrence, as the studies of our youth growing with our
+minds unite with them so firmly that I can tell also the very place
+where the blessed Polycarp was accustomed to sit and discourse, and also
+his entrances, his walks, his manner of life, the form of his body, his
+conversations with the people and familiar intercourse with John, as he
+was accustomed to tell, as also his familiarity with those that had
+seen the Lord; also concerning his miracles, his doctrine; all these
+were told by Polycarp in consistency with the Holy Scriptures, and he
+had received them from the eye-witnesses of the doctrine of salvation.
+
+"These things, by the mercy of God and the opportunity then afforded me,
+I attentively heard, noting them down, not on paper, but in my heart;
+and these same facts I am always in the habit, by the grace of God, of
+recalling faithfully to mind; and I can bear witness in the sight of God
+that, if that blessed and apostolic presbyter had heard any such thing
+as this, he would have exclaimed and stopped his ears, and, according to
+his custom, would have said: 'O good God! unto what things hast thou
+reserved me, that I should tolerate these things?' He would have fled
+from the place in which he had sat or stood hearing doctrines like
+these.
+
+"From his epistles also, which he wrote to the neighboring churches in
+order to confirm them, or to some of the brethren in order to admonish
+or exhort them, the same thing may be clearly shown."
+
+In another place Irenaeus states that Polycarp was appointed bishop of
+Smyrna by the apostles themselves:
+
+"Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with
+many who had seen Christ, but was also by apostles in Asia appointed
+bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for
+he lived a very long time; and when a very old man, gloriously and most
+nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught
+those things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the
+Church has handed down, and which alone are true."
+
+Of the numerous letters which Polycarp as bishop of Smyrna wrote to the
+neighboring churches only one is extant. It is addressed by "Polycarp
+and the presbyters with him to the Church of God sojourning at
+Philippi," and probably was written about the middle of the second
+century. In this epistle he praises the Philippians for their firm
+Christian faith, and exhorts them to adhere to the doctrine which St.
+Paul had taught them by word of mouth and by his epistle. After various
+exhortations to presbyters, deacons, and other members of the Church,
+Polycarp refers to the martyrdom of Ignatius, but apparently was
+ignorant of the circumstances attending it, for the epistle concludes
+with a request for information respecting him.
+
+The martyrdom of Polycarp himself is described in an epistle addressed
+by the Church of Smyrna, of which he was bishop, to the Church of
+Philomelium, a city of the neighboring province of Phrygia. There are
+probably some interpolations; but, excepting these, the document can
+hardly be of much later date than the death of the martyr. There are
+several reasons for this conclusion.
+
+In the first place, the general tenor shows that it is intended to give
+information of events which had recently happened; secondly, a
+postscript states that a copy of it belonged to Irenaeus, a disciple of
+Polycarp; and thirdly, a large part of it is transcribed by Eusebius,
+who treats it as an authentic document.
+
+The date of the death of Polycarp is well ascertained to be A.D. 167, in
+the reign of Marcus Aurelius. For some time previously there had been a
+cruel persecution of the Christians at Smyrna, in which both the Gentile
+and Jewish inhabitants took part. Against Polycarp especially, as the
+chief minister of the Christian Church, their hostility was directed.
+After several Christians had been tortured and thrown to the lions, the
+multitude clamored for the death of the bishop.
+
+Yielding to the urgent entreaties of those around him Polycarp quitted
+the city; but he was pursued and brought back. The proconsul, who had
+reluctantly allowed him to be arrested, was anxious to save him.
+
+"When he was led forward, a great tumult arose among those that heard he
+was taken. At length, as he advanced, the proconsul asked him whether he
+was Polycarp, and, he answering that he was, he urged him to deny
+Christ, saying, 'Have a regard for your age,' and adding similar
+expressions such as are usual for them to employ.
+
+"'Swear,' he said, 'by the genius of Caesar. Repent. Say, "Away with
+those that deny the gods."'
+
+"But Polycarp, with a countenance grave and serious, and contemplating
+the whole multitude that were collected in the stadium, beckoned with
+his hand to them, and with a sigh looked up to heaven and said, 'Away
+with the atheists.'
+
+"The governor continued to urge him again, saying: 'Swear, and I will
+dismiss you. Revile Christ.'
+
+"'Revile Christ!' Polycarp replied. 'Eighty-and-six years have I served
+him and he never did me wrong; and how can I now blaspheme my King who
+has saved me?'"
+
+The governor continued to urge him, and in vain threatened him with the
+wild beasts. At length a herald was ordered to proclaim in the midst of
+the stadium that "Polycarp confesses he is a Christian." Thereupon the
+multitude cried out, "This is that teacher of Asia, the father of the
+Christians, the destroyer of our gods," and demanded that he should be
+burned alive; and the governor gave sentence accordingly.
+
+According to the horrid custom of the times the executioners were about
+to fasten his hands to the stake by spikes, when he begged that he might
+be bound merely, saying that He who gave him strength to bear the flames
+would also give him strength to remain unmoved on the pyre.
+
+This last request was granted; and being bound to the stake, he uttered
+this beautiful prayer:
+
+"Father of thy well-beloved and blessed Son, Jesus Christ, through whom
+we have received the knowledge of thee, the God of angels and powers and
+all creation, and of all the family of the righteous that live before
+thee, I bless thee that thou hast thought me worthy of the present day
+and hour, to have a share in the number of the martyrs and in the cross
+of Christ unto the resurrection of eternal life, both of the soul and
+body, in the incorruptible felicity of the Holy Spirit, among whom may I
+be received in thy sight this day as a rich and acceptable sacrifice, as
+thou, the faithful and true God, hast prepared, hast revealed, and
+fulfilled. Wherefore, on this account and for all things, I praise thee,
+I bless thee, I glorify thee through the eternal High Priest, Jesus
+Christ, thy well-beloved Son, through whom glory be to thee with him in
+the Holy Ghost, both now and evermore. Amen."
+
+The flames did not immediately seize upon his body; so one of the
+executioners--in mercy perhaps--plunged a sword into his body, and so
+ended his sufferings. The centurion then placed the body in the midst of
+the fire and burned it, "according to the custom of the Gentiles."
+
+"Thus at last, taking up his bones, valued more than precious stones,
+more tried than gold, we deposited them where they should be. There
+also, as far as we can, the Lord will grant us to celebrate the natal
+day of his martyrdom in joy and gladness, both in commemoration of those
+who finished their contest before, and to prepare those that shall be
+hereafter."
+
+There is something wonderfully touching in this reference to the "natal
+day of his martyrdom." Those who wrote it thought that the day on which
+Polycarp was pierced by the sword was not the day of his death, but the
+birthday of a new and happier life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Justin, who from the manner of his death is often called Justin Martyr,
+was a native of Samaria. He was of Roman parentage, and was born early
+in the second century, and therefore must have been contemporary with
+many persons who had seen some of the apostles.
+
+Justin, who was addicted to philosophical pursuits, has given in one of
+his works a very curious account of his studies and search after
+religious truth. First, he thought to find it in the Stoic philosophy:
+
+"I surrendered myself to a certain Stoic, and, having spent a
+considerable time with him, when I had not acquired any further
+knowledge of God--for he did not know it himself, and said such
+instruction was unnecessary--I left him and betook myself to another,
+who was called a Peripatetic, and, as he fancied, shrewd. And this man,
+after having entertained me for a few days, requested me to settle the
+fee, in order that our intercourse might not be unprofitable. Him, too,
+for this reason I abandoned, believing him to be no philosopher at all."
+
+Disgusted with the mercenary spirit of the Peripatetic, the inquirer
+next determined to make a trial of Pythagorean philosophy. But the
+celebrated Pythagorean teacher whom he consulted wished him to learn
+music, astronomy, and geometry. Those kinds of knowledge, however, were
+not what Justin wanted, and besides he thought that they would take up
+too much time. So he next resolved to make a trial of Platonism; and
+this time he was more successful.
+
+"In my helpless condition it occurred to me to have a meeting with the
+Platonists, for their fame was great. I thereupon spent as much of my
+time as possible with one who had lately settled in our city--a
+sagacious man holding a high position among the Platonists--and I
+progressed and made the greatest improvements daily. And the perception
+of immaterial things quite overpowered me, and the contemplation of
+ideas furnished my mind with wings, so that in a little while I supposed
+that I had become wise; and such was my folly that I expected forthwith
+to look upon God, for this is the end of Plato's philosophy."
+
+Justin then proceeds to give a remarkably interesting and graphic
+account of his conversion to Christianity:
+
+"And while I was thus disposed, when I wished to be filled with great
+quietness and to shun the path of men, I used to go into a certain field
+not far from the sea. And when I was near that spot one day where I
+purposed to be by myself, a certain old man of dignified appearance,
+exhibiting meek and venerable manners, followed me at a little distance.
+And when I turned around on him, having halted, I fixed my eyes rather
+keenly upon him."
+
+Justin gets into conversation with the old man and says that he delights
+in solitary spots, where his attention is not distracted and where his
+converse with himself is uninterrupted, and proceeds to a fervid
+laudation of philosophy.
+
+"'Does philosophy, then, make happiness?' said he, interrupting.
+'Assuredly,' said I, 'and it alone.' 'What, then, is philosophy?' he
+said, 'and what is happiness? Pray tell me, unless something hinders you
+from saying.'
+
+"'Philosophy,' said I, 'is a knowledge of that which really exists and a
+clear perception of truth, and happiness is the reward of such knowledge
+and wisdom.' 'But what do you call God?' said he. 'That which always
+maintains the same nature and is the cause of all other things--that,
+indeed, is God.' So I answered him, and he listened with pleasure."
+
+The conversation, which is too long to be fully transcribed, turns on
+the attributes of the soul. Justin discourses on that topic after the
+manner of the Platonists. The old man, on the other hand, urges him to
+study the prophets of the Old Testament, for they predicted the coming
+of Christ, and their prophecies have been fulfilled. "'They,' said he,
+'both glorified the Creator, the God and Father of all, and proclaimed
+his Son the Christ sent by him. But,' he added, 'pray that, above all
+things, the gates of light may be opened to you, for these things cannot
+be perceived or understood by all, but only by him to whom God and his
+Christ have imparted wisdom.'
+
+"When he had spoken these and many other things which there is no time
+for mentioning at present, he went away, bidding me attend to them, and
+I have not seen him since. But straightway a flame was kindled in my
+soul, and a love of the prophets and of those men who are friends of
+Christ possessed me; and whilst revolving his words in my mind I found
+this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable. Thus and for this
+reason I am a philosopher. Moreover, I would that all, making a
+resolution similar to my own, would regard the words of the Saviour, for
+they possess a terrible power in themselves, and are sufficient to
+inspire those who turn aside from the path of rectitude with awe, while
+the sweetest rest is afforded to those who diligently observe them."
+
+The _Dialogue_ from which these passages are taken is a real or
+imaginary disputation with Trypho, a learned Jew at Ephesus, respecting
+the principles of Christianity, and contains an elaborate demonstration
+that Christ is the Messiah of the Old Testament. The controversy is
+carried on with courtesy on both sides, and each disputant is equally
+earnest in his attempt to convert the other.
+
+Justin was a very copious writer. The two most important of his writings
+now remaining are the two _Apologies_. These are certainly the two
+earliest of the numerous ancient pleas for toleration of Christianity
+now extant. The first _Apologia_ is addressed to the emperor Antoninus
+Pius and the Roman senate and the "whole people of the Romans"; and the
+purport of it may be inferred from the commencement, in which Justin
+says that he presents this "address and petition in behalf of all
+nations who are unjustly hated and wantonly abused, myself being one of
+them."
+
+The second _Apologia_ was addressed to the Roman senate, probably in the
+reign of Antoninus Marcus Aurelius, and successor of Antoninus Pius. In
+this work Justin appeals indignantly to the Roman senate against the
+unjust conduct of one Urbicus, who at Rome had condemned several persons
+to death simply because they professed to be Christians. This Urbicus
+seems to have held the office of prefect of the city--a magistrate from
+whom there was no appeal except to the prince himself, or, as this
+_Apologia_ would suggest, to the senate.
+
+The two _Apologies_ contain the most vehement invectives against the
+whole system of heathen idolatry, and accuse Jupiter and the other gods
+whom the Romans revered of ineffable vices.
+
+Of course the man who could thus tell the Roman senate and people that
+all that they held sacred was unspeakably and hideously wicked could
+expect but one fate. Justin threw down the gauntlet, and the constituted
+authorities very quietly took it up, with a result which, as the human
+power was all with them, it was not difficult to foresee.
+
+Some time in the reign of Aurelius, but in what year is not known,
+Justin and several other Christians were accused before Rusticus,
+prefect of Rome, of disobedience to certain decrees then in force, by
+which Christians who refused to sacrifice to the gods were liable to be
+put to death. It is difficult to reconcile the passing of these decrees
+with the known character of Aurelius, who is universally described as a
+humane, as a benevolent king. The probable explanation is that, like his
+predecessor Trajan, he was actuated by motives of state policy, and
+regarded Christianity as rebellion against the authority of the State.
+
+Eusebius has given an account of the martyrdom of Justin upon the
+authority of Tatian, who was a disciple of the martyr. This account
+substantially agrees with the very ancient _Martyrdom of Justin_, which
+concludes thus:
+
+"The prefect says to Justin: 'Hearken, you who are called learned and
+think that you know true doctrines: if you are scourged and beheaded, do
+you believe that you will ascend into heaven?'
+
+"Justin said, 'I hope that if I endure these things I shall have this
+gift, for I know that to all who have thus lived there abides the divine
+favor until the completion of the world.'
+
+"Rusticus, the prefect, said, 'Do you suppose that you will ascend into
+heaven to receive such a recompense?' Justin said, 'I do not suppose it,
+but I know and am fully persuaded of it.'
+
+"Thus also said the other Christians, 'Do what you will, for we are
+Christians and do not sacrifice to idols.'
+
+"Rusticus, the prefect, pronounced sentence, saying, 'Let those who have
+refused to sacrifice to the gods and to yield to the command of the
+Emperor be scourged and led away to suffer decapitation according to the
+law.'
+
+"The holy martyrs, having glorified God and having gone forth to the
+accustomed place, were beheaded, and perfected their testimony in the
+confession of the Saviour. And some of the faithful, having secretly
+removed their bodies, laid them in a suitable place, the grace of our
+Lord Jesus Christ having wrought along with them, to whom be glory
+forever and ever. Amen."
+
+
+THE EPISTLE OF POLYCARP TO THE PHILIPPIANS
+
+Polycarp, and the presbyters that are with him, to the Church of God
+which is at Philippi: mercy unto you and peace from God Almighty and the
+Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour, be multiplied. I rejoiced greatly with
+you in our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye received the images of a true
+love, and accompanied, as it is behooved you, those who were in bonds,
+becoming saints; which are the crowns of such as are truly chosen by God
+and our Lord: as also that the root of the faith which was preached from
+ancient times remains firm in you to this day; and brings forth fruit to
+our Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered himself to be brought even to the
+death for our sins. Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of
+death; whom, having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him
+not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
+
+Into which many desire to enter; knowing that by grace ye are saved; not
+by works, but by the will of God through Jesus Christ. Wherefore girding
+up the loins of your minds, serve the Lord with fear and in truth;
+laying aside all empty and vain speech, and the error of many; believing
+in him that raised up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and hath
+given him glory and a throne at his right hand. To whom all things are
+made subject, both that are in heaven and that are in earth; whom every
+living creature shall worship; who shall come to be the judge of the
+quick and dead: whose blood God shall require of them that believe in
+him.
+
+But he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also raise up us in
+like manner, if we do his will and walk according to his commandments;
+and love those things which he loved; abstaining from all
+unrighteousness, inordinate affection, and love of money; from evil
+speaking; false witness; not rendering evil for evil, or railing for
+railing, or striking for striking, or cursing for cursing. But
+remembering what the Lord has taught us, saying, Judge not, and ye shall
+not be judged; forgive and ye shall be forgiven; be merciful, and ye
+shall obtain mercy; for with the same measure that ye mete withal, it
+shall be measured to you again. And again, that blessed are the poor and
+they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake; for theirs is the
+kingdom of God.
+
+These things, my brethren, I took not the liberty of myself to write
+unto you concerning righteousness, but you yourselves before encouraged
+me to it. For neither can I, nor any other such as I am, come up to the
+wisdom of the blessed and renowned Paul: who, being himself in person
+with those who then lived, did with all exactness and soundness teach
+the word of truth; and being gone from you wrote an epistle to you. Into
+which, if you look, you will be able to edify yourselves in the faith
+that has been delivered unto you; which is the mother of us all; being
+followed with hope, and led on by a general love, both toward God and
+toward Christ and toward our neighbor.
+
+For if any man has these things he has fulfilled the law of
+righteousness: for he that has charity is far from all sin. But the love
+of money is the root of all evil. Knowing therefore that as we brought
+nothing into this world, so neither may we carry anything out; let us
+arm ourselves with the armor of righteousness. And teach ourselves first
+to walk according to the commandments of the Lord; and then your wives
+to walk likewise according to the faith that is given to them; in
+charity, and in purity; loving their own husbands with all sincerity,
+and all others alike with all temperance; and to bring up their children
+in the instruction and fear of the Lord. The widows likewise teach that
+they be sober as to what concerns the faith of the Lord: praying always
+for all men; being far from all detraction, evil speaking, false
+witness; from covetousness, and from all evil. Knowing that they are the
+altars of God, who sees all blemishes, and from whom nothing is hid; who
+searches out the very reasonings, and thoughts, and secrets of our
+hearts.
+
+Knowing, therefore, that God is not mocked, we ought to walk worthy both
+of his command and of his glory. Also the deacons must be blameless
+before him, as the ministers of God in Christ, and not of men. Not false
+accusers; not double-tongued; not lovers of money; but moderate in all
+things, compassionate, careful; walking according to the truth of the
+Lord, who was the servant of all. Whom if we please in this present
+world we shall also be made partakers of that which is to come,
+according as he has promised to us, that he will raise us from the dead;
+and that if we shall walk worthy of him, we shall also reign together
+with him, if we believe.
+
+In like manner the younger men must be unblamable in all things; above
+all, taking care of their purity, and to restrain themselves from all
+evil. For it is good to be cut off from the lusts that are in the world,
+because every such lust warreth against the Spirit; and neither
+fornicators, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
+shall inherit the kingdom of God; nor they who do such things as are
+foolish and unreasonable. Wherefore ye must needs abstain from all these
+things, being subject to the priests and deacons, as unto God and
+Christ. The virgins admonish to walk in a spotless and pure conscience.
+And let the elders be compassionate and merciful toward all; turning
+them from their errors; seeking out those that are weak; not forgetting
+the widows, the fatherless, and the poor; but always providing what is
+good both in the sight of God and man. Abstaining from all wrath,
+respect of persons, and unrighteous judgment; and especially being free
+from all covetousness. Not easy to believe anything against any; not
+severe in judgment; knowing that we are all debtors in point of sin.
+
+If, therefore, we pray to the Lord that he would forgive us, we ought
+also to forgive others; for we are all in the sight of our Lord and God;
+and must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ; and shall every
+one give an account of himself. Let us, therefore, serve him in fear,
+and with all reverence as both himself hath commanded, and as the
+apostles who have preached the gospel unto us, and the prophets who have
+foretold the coming of our Lord have taught us. Being zealous of what is
+good; abstaining from all offence, and from false brethren; and from
+those who bear the name of Christ in hypocrisy; who deceive vain men.
+
+For whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh,
+he is antichrist; and whoever does not confess his suffering upon the
+cross is from the devil. And whosoever perverts the oracles of the Lord
+to his own lusts, and says that there shall neither be any resurrection,
+nor judgment, he is the first-born of Satan. Wherefore, leaving the
+vanity of many and their false doctrines, let us return to the word that
+was delivered to us from the beginning. Watching unto prayer, and
+persevering in fasting. With supplication beseeching the all-seeing God
+not to lead us into temptation; as the Lord hath said, The spirit is
+truly willing, but the flesh is weak. Let us, therefore, without ceasing
+hold steadfastly to him who is our hope, and the earnest of our
+righteousness, even Jesus Christ; who his own self bare our sins in his
+own body on the tree; who did no sin, neither was guile found in his
+mouth. But suffered all for us that we might live through him. Let us,
+therefore, imitate his patience; and if we suffer for his name, let us
+glorify him; for this example he has given us by himself, and so have we
+believed.
+
+Wherefore I exhort all of you that ye obey the word of righteousness,
+and exercise all patience; which ye have seen set forth before our eyes,
+not only in the blessed Ignatius and Zosimus and Rufus, but in others
+among ourselves; and in Paul himself, and the rest of the apostles.
+Being confident of this, that all these have not run in vain, but in
+faith and righteousness, and are gone to the place that was due to them
+from the Lord, with whom they also suffered; for they loved not this
+present world, but him who died, and was raised again by God for us.
+Stand, therefore, in these things and follow the example of the Lord;
+being firm and immutable in the faith, lovers of the brotherhood, lovers
+of one another, companions together in the truth, being kind and gentle
+toward each other, despising none. When it is in your power to do good,
+defer it not, for charity delivered from death. Be all of you subject
+one to another, having your conversation honest among the Gentiles; that
+by your good works both ye yourselves may receive praise and the Lord
+may not be blasphemed through you. But woe be to him by whom the name of
+the Lord is blasphemed. Therefore teach all men sobriety; in which do ye
+also exercise yourselves.
+
+I am greatly afflicted for Valens, who was once a presbyter among you;
+that he should so little understand the place that was given to him in
+the Church. Wherefore I admonish you that ye abstain from covetousness,
+and that ye be chaste, and true of speech. Keep yourselves from all
+evil; for he that in these things cannot govern himself, how shall he be
+able to prescribe them to another? If a man does not keep himself from
+covetousness he shall be polluted with idolatry and be judged as if he
+were a Gentile. But who of you are ignorant of the judgment of God? Do
+we not know that the saints shall judge the world, as Paul teaches? But
+I have neither perceived nor heard anything of this kind in you, among
+whom the blessed Paul labored, and who are named in the beginning of his
+epistle. For he glories of you in all the churches who then only knew
+God; for we did not then know him. Wherefore, my brethren, I am
+exceedingly sorry both for him and for his wife; to whom God grant a
+true repentance.
+
+And be ye also moderate upon this occasion, and look not upon such as
+enemies, but call them back as suffering and erring members, that ye may
+save your whole body; for by so doing ye shall edify your own selves.
+For I trust that ye are well exercised in the Holy Scriptures, and that
+nothing is hid from you; but at present it is not granted unto me to
+practise that which is written, Be angry and sin not; and again, Let not
+the sun go down upon your wrath. Blessed be he that believeth and
+remembereth these things, which also I trust you do.
+
+Now the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and he himself who is
+our everlasting high-priest, the Son of God, even Jesus Christ, build
+you up in faith and in truth and in all meekness and lenity; in
+patience and long-suffering, in forbearance and chastity. And grant unto
+you a lot and portion among his saints; and us with you, and to all that
+are under the heavens, who shall believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, and
+in his Father who raised him from the dead. Pray for all the saints;
+pray also for kings, and all that are in authority; and for those who
+persecute you, and hate you, and for the enemies of the cross; that your
+fruit may be manifest in all, and that ye may be perfect in Christ. Ye
+wrote to me, both ye and also Ignatius, that if anyone went from hence
+into Syria he should bring your letters with him, which also I will take
+care of, as soon as I shall have a convenient opportunity, either by
+myself or him whom I shall send upon your account. The Epistles of
+Ignatius, which he wrote unto us, together with what others of his have
+come to our hands, we have sent to you, according to your order, which
+are subjoined to this epistle. By which we may be greatly profited; for
+they treat of faith and patience, and of all things that pertain to
+edification in the Lord Jesus. What you know certainly of Ignatius and
+those that are with him signify to us.
+
+These things have I written unto you by Crescens, whom by this present
+epistle I have recommended to you, and do now again commend. For he has
+had his conversation without blame among us, and I suppose also with
+you. Ye will also have regard unto his sister when she shall come unto
+you. Be ye safe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in favor with all yours.
+Amen.
+
+
+
+
+PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS IN GAUL
+
+A.D. 177
+
+FRANCOIS P. G. GUIZOT
+
+     That the persecutions of Christians under the Roman Empire should
+     have been inaugurated by a Nero is not a subject of wonder in view
+     of that Emperor's character as depicted in history through all ages
+     since his own. But it is difficult to understand how an emperor
+     like Trajan--an enlightened and humane ruler--if he was powerless
+     to prevent, could have brought himself to give countenance to a
+     policy at once so intolerant and cruel, and in the end to prove so
+     short-sighted. A great cause prospers by persecution. The
+     martyr-spirit is strengthened by blows and fagots. History has well
+     proved the truth of that saying of the Church Fathers, tersely
+     given by St. Jerome: _Est sanguis martyrium seminarium Ecclesiarum_
+     ("The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church").
+
+     Still more incomprehensible to modern students is the fact that
+     Marcus Aurelius, the imperial philosopher and benevolent man,
+     should also be stained with the infamy of the persecutions. The
+     charges brought against him as a cruel persecutor of the Christians
+     have given rise to much dispute among historical scholars. Among
+     modern Christian writers of favorable disposition toward Marcus, F.
+     W. Farrar has perhaps as clearly as any set forth the views that
+     explain his conduct and vindicate his reputation for humanity:
+     "That he shared the profound dislike with which Christians were
+     regarded is very probable. That he was a cold-blooded and virulent
+     persecutor is utterly unlike his whole character. The deep
+     calamities in which during his whole reign the empire was involved
+     caused widespread distress, and roused into peculiar fury the
+     feelings of the provincials against men whose atheism (for such
+     they considered it to be) had kindled the anger of the gods.
+     Marcus, when appealed to, simply let the existing law take its
+     course." In like manner the purely official or legal view of human
+     affairs often leads the most kindly and conscientious of men to
+     pursue or acquiesce in policies against which, in different
+     situations, their moral nature would rebel.
+
+     There were many reasons which led the populace to hate Christians,
+     whom, first of all, they regarded as being unpatriotic. While among
+     Romans it was considered the highest honor to possess the
+     privileges of Roman citizenship, the Christians announced that they
+     were citizens of heaven. They shrank from public office and
+     military service.
+
+     Again, the ancient religion of Rome was an adjunct of state dignity
+     and ceremonial. It was hallowed by a thousand traditional and
+     patriotic associations. The Christians regarded its rites and its
+     popular assemblies with contempt and abhorrence. The Romans viewed
+     the secret meetings of the Christians with suspicion, and accused
+     them of abominable excesses and crime. They were known to have
+     representatives in every important city of Gaul, Spain, Italy, and
+     Asia; and the more their communities grew, the more the Roman
+     populace raged against them. Only such considerations appear to
+     mitigate the historical judgments against Aurelius for marring the
+     splendor of his reign by persecutions. The tragedies enacted in the
+     churches of Lyons and Vienne, as described in the following pages,
+     form one of the most melancholy records of history.
+
+
+When Christianity began to penetrate into Gaul, it encountered there two
+religions very different one from the other, and infinitely more
+different from the Christian religion; these were Druidism and
+paganism--hostile one to the other, but with a hostility political only,
+and unconnected with those really religious questions that Christianity
+was coming to raise.
+
+Druidism, considered as a religion, was a mass of confusion, wherein the
+instinctive notions of the human race concerning the origin and destiny
+of the world and of mankind were mingled with the oriental dreams of
+metempsychosis--that pretended transmigration, at successive periods, of
+immortal souls into divers creatures. This confusion was worse
+confounded by traditions borrowed from the mythologies of the East and
+the North, by shadowy remnants of a symbolical worship paid to the
+material forces of nature, and by barbaric practices, such as human
+sacrifices, in honor of the gods or of the dead.
+
+People who are without the scientific development of language and the
+art of writing do not attain to systematic and productive religious
+creeds. There is nothing to show that, from the first appearance of the
+Gauls in history to their struggle with victorious Rome, the religious
+influence of Druidism had caused any notable progress to be made in
+Gallic manners and civilization. A general and strong, but vague and
+incoherent, belief in the immortality of the soul was its noblest
+characteristic. But with the religious elements, at the same time coarse
+and mystical, were united two facts of importance: the Druids formed a
+veritable ecclesiastical corporation, which had, throughout Gallic
+society, fixed attributes, special manners and customs, an existence at
+the same time distinct and national; and in the wars with Rome this
+corporation became the most faithful representatives and the most
+persistent defenders of Gallic independence and nationality.
+
+The Druids were far more a clergy than Druidism was a religion; but it
+was an organized and a patriotic clergy. It was especially on this
+account that they exercised in Gaul an influence which was still
+existent, particularly in Northwestern Gaul, at the time when
+Christianity reached the Gallic provinces of the South and Centre.
+
+The Graeco-Roman paganism was, at this time, far more powerful than
+Druidism in Gaul, and yet more lukewarm and destitute of all religious
+vitality. It was the religion of the conquerors and of the State, and
+was invested, in that quality, with real power; but, beyond that, it had
+but the power derived from popular customs and superstitions. As a
+religious creed, the Latin paganism was at bottom empty, indifferent,
+and inclined to tolerate all religions in the State, provided only that
+they, in their turn, were indifferent at any rate toward itself, and
+that they did not come troubling the State, either by disobeying her
+rulers or by attacking her old deities, dead and buried beneath their
+own still standing altars.
+
+Such were the two religions with which in Gaul nascent Christianity had
+to contend. Compared with them it was, to all appearance, very small and
+very weak; but it was provided with the most efficient weapons for
+fighting and beating them, for it had exactly the moral forces which
+they lacked. Christianity, instead of being, like Druidism, a religion
+exclusively national and hostile to all that was foreign, proclaimed a
+universal religion, free from all local and national partiality,
+addressing itself to all men in the name of the same God, and offering
+to all the same salvation. It is one of the strangest and most
+significant facts in history that the religion most universally _human_,
+most dissociated from every consideration but that of the rights and
+well-being of the human race in its entirety--that such a religion, be
+it repeated, should have come forth from the womb of the most exclusive,
+most rigorously and obstinately national religion that ever appeared in
+the world, that is, Judaism. Such, nevertheless, was the birth of
+Christianity; and this wonderful contrast between the essence and the
+earthly origin of Christianity was without doubt one of its most
+powerful attractions and most efficacious means of success.
+
+Against paganism Christianity was armed with moral forces not a whit
+less great. Confronting mythological traditions and poetical or
+philosophical allegories, appeared a religion truly religious, concerned
+solely with the relations of mankind to God and with their eternal
+future. To the pagan indifference of the Roman world the Christians
+opposed the profound conviction of their faith, and not only their
+firmness in defending it against all powers and all dangers, but also
+their ardent passion for propagating it without any motive but the
+yearning to make their fellows share in its benefits and its hopes. They
+confronted, nay, they welcomed martyrdom, at one time to maintain their
+own Christianity, at another to make others Christians around them;
+propagandism was for them a duty almost as imperative as fidelity.
+
+And it was not in memory of old and obsolete mythologies, but in the
+name of recent deeds and persons, in obedience to laws proceeding from
+God, One and Universal, in fulfilment and continuation of a contemporary
+and superhuman history--that of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of
+Man--that the Christians of the first two centuries labored to convert
+to their faith the whole Roman world. Marcus Aurelius was contemptuously
+astonished at what he called the obstinacy of the Christians; he knew
+not from what source these nameless heroes drew a strength superior to
+his own, though he was at the same time emperor and sage. It is
+impossible to assign with exactness the date of the first footprints and
+first labors of Christianity in Gaul. It was not, however, from Italy,
+nor in the Latin tongue and through Latin writers, but from the East and
+through the Greeks, that it first came and began to spread. Marseilles
+and the different Greek colonies, originally from Asia Minor and settled
+upon the shores of the Mediterranean or along the Rhone, mark the route
+and were the places whither the first Christian missionaries carried
+their teaching: on this point the letters of the apostles and the
+writings of the first two generations of their disciples are clear and
+abiding proof.
+
+In the West of the empire, especially in Italy, the Christians at their
+first appearance were confounded with the Jews, and comprehended under
+the same name. "The emperor Claudius," says Suetonius, "drove from Rome
+(A.D. 52) the Jews who, at the instigation of Christus, were in
+continual commotion." After the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus (A.D.
+70), the Jews, Christian or not, dispersed throughout the empire; but
+the Christians were not slow to signalize themselves by their religious
+fervor, and to come forward everywhere under their own true name.
+
+Lyons became the chief centre of Christian preaching and association in
+Gaul. As early as the first half of the second century there existed
+there a Christian congregation, regularly organized as a church, and
+already sufficiently important to be in intimate and frequent
+communication with the Christian churches of the East and West. There is
+a tradition, generally admitted, that St. Pothinus, the first bishop of
+Lyons, was sent thither from the East by the bishop of Smyrna, St.
+Polycarp, himself a disciple of St. John. One thing is certain, that the
+Christian Church of Lyons produced Gaul's first martyrs, among whom was
+the bishop, St. Pothinus.
+
+It was under Marcus Aurelius, the most philosophical and most
+conscientious of the emperors, that there was enacted for the first time
+in Gaul, against nascent Christianity, that scene of tyranny and
+barbarity which was to be renewed so often and during so many centuries
+in the midst of Christendom itself. In the eastern provinces of the
+empire and in Italy the Christians had already been several times
+persecuted, now with cold-blooded cruelty, now with some slight
+hesitation and irresolution. Nero had caused them to be burned in the
+streets of Rome, accusing them of the conflagration himself had kindled,
+and, a few months before his fall, St. Peter and St. Paul had undergone
+martyrdom at Rome. Domitian had persecuted and put to death Christians
+even in his own family, and though invested with the honors of the
+consulate.
+
+Righteous Trajan, when consulted by Pliny the Younger on the conduct he
+should adopt in Bithynia toward the Christians, had answered: "It is
+impossible, in this sort of matter, to establish any certain general
+rule; there must be no quest set on foot against them, and no unsigned
+indictment must be accepted; but if they be accused and convicted, they
+must be punished." To be punished, it sufficed that they were convicted
+of being Christians; and it was Trajan himself who condemned St.
+Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, to be brought to Rome and thrown to the
+beasts, for the simple reason that he was highly Christian. Marcus
+Aurelius, not only by virtue of his philosophical conscientiousness, but
+by reason of an incident in his history, seemed bound to be further than
+any other from persecuting the Christians.
+
+During one of his campaigns on the Danube, A.D. 174, his army was
+suffering cruelly from fatigue and thirst; and at the very moment when
+they were on the point of engaging in a great battle against the
+barbarians, the rain fell in abundance, refreshed the Roman soldiers,
+and conduced to their victory. There was in the Roman army a legion, the
+Twelfth, called the _Melitine_ or the _Thundering_, which bore on its
+roll many Christian soldiers. They gave thanks for the rain and the
+victory to the one omnipotent God who had heard their prayers, while the
+pagans rendered like honor to Jupiter, the Rain-giver and the Thunderer.
+The report about these Christians got spread abroad and gained credit in
+the empire, so much so that there was attributed to Marcus Aurelius a
+letter, in which by reason, no doubt, of this incident, he forbade
+persecution of the Christians.
+
+Tertullian, a contemporary witness, speaks of this letter in perfect
+confidence; and the Christian writers of the following century did not
+hesitate to regard it as authentic. Nowadays, a strict examination of
+its existing text does not allow such a character to be attributed to
+it. At any rate the persecutions of the Christians were not forbidden,
+for in the year 177, that is, only three years after the victory of
+Marcus Aurelius over the Germans, there took place, undoubtedly by his
+orders, the persecution which caused at Lyons the first Gallic
+martyrdom. This was the fourth, or, according to others, the fifth great
+imperial persecution of the Christians.
+
+Most tales of the martyrs were written long after the event, and came to
+be nothing more than legends laden with details often utterly puerile or
+devoid of proof. The martyrs of Lyons in the second century wrote, so
+to speak, their own history; for it was their comrades, eye-witnesses of
+their sufferings and their virtue, who gave an account of them in a long
+letter addressed to their friends in Asia Minor, and written with
+passionate sympathy and pious prolixity, but bearing all the
+characteristics of truth. It seems desirable to submit for perusal that
+document, which has been preserved almost entire in the _Ecclesiastical
+History_ of Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea in the third century, and which
+will exhibit, better than any modern representations, the state of facts
+and of souls in the midst of the imperial persecutions, and the mighty
+faith, devotion, and courage with which the early Christians faced the
+most cruel trials:
+
+"The servants of Christ, dwelling at Vienne and Lyons in Gaul, to the
+brethren settled in Asia and Phrygia, who have the same faith and hope
+of redemption that we have, peace, grace, and glory from God the Father
+and Jesus Christ our Lord!
+
+"None can tell to you in speech or fully set forth to you in writing the
+weight of our misery, the madness and rage of the Gentiles against the
+saints, and all that hath been suffered by the blessed martyrs. Our
+enemy doth rush upon us with all the fury of his powers, and already
+giveth us a foretaste and the first-fruits of all the license with which
+he doth intend to set upon us. He hath omitted nothing for the training
+of his agents against us, and he doth exercise them in a sort of
+preparatory work against the servants of the Lord. Not only are we
+driven from the public buildings, from the baths, and from the Forum,
+but it is forbidden to all our people to appear publicly in any place
+whatsoever.
+
+"The grace of God hath striven for us against the devil: at the same
+time that it hath sustained the weak, it hath opposed to the Evil One,
+as it were, pillars of strength--men strong and valiant, ready to draw
+on themselves all his attacks. They have had to bear all manner of
+insult; they have deemed but a small matter that which others find hard
+and terrible; and they have thought only of going to Christ, proving by
+their example that the sufferings of this world are not worthy to be put
+in the balance with the glory which is to be manifested in us. They
+have endured, in the first place, all the outrages that could be heaped
+upon them by the multitude, outcries, blows, thefts, spoliation,
+stoning, imprisonment, all that the fury of the people could devise
+against hated enemies. Then, dragged to the Forum by the military
+tribune and the magistrates of the city, they have been questioned
+before the people and cast into prison until the coming of the governor.
+He, from the moment our people appeared before him, committed all manner
+of violence against them.
+
+"Then stood forth one of our brethren, Vettius Epagathus, full of love
+toward God and his neighbor, living a life so pure and strict that,
+young as he was, men held him to be the equal of the aged Zacharias. He
+could not bear that judgment so unjust should go forth against us, and,
+moved with indignation, he asked leave to defend his brethren, and to
+prove that there was in them no kind of irreligion or impiety. Those
+present at the tribunal, among whom he was known and celebrated, cried
+out against him, and the governor himself, enraged at so just a demand,
+asked him no more than this question, 'Art thou a Christian?'
+Straightway with a loud voice he declared himself a Christian, and was
+placed among the number of the martyrs.
+
+"Afterward, the rest began to be examined and classed. The first, firm
+and well prepared, made hearty and solemn confession of their faith.
+Others, ill prepared and with little firmness, showed that they lacked
+strength for such a fight. About ten of them fell away, which caused us
+incredible pain and mourning. Their example broke down the courage of
+others, who, not being yet in bonds, though they had already had much to
+suffer, kept close to the martyrs, and withdrew not out of their sight.
+Then were we all stricken with dread for the issue of the trial: not
+that we had great fear of the torments inflicted, but because,
+prophesying the result according to the degree of courage of the
+accused, we feared much falling away. They took, day by day, those of
+our brethren who were worthy to replace the weak; so that all the best
+of the two churches, those whose care and zeal had founded them, were
+taken and confined.
+
+"They took, likewise, some of our slaves, for the governor had ordered
+that they should be all summoned to attend in public; and they, fearing
+the torments they saw the saints undergo, and instigated by the
+soldiers, accused us falsely of odious deeds, such as the banquet of
+Thyestes, the incest of Oedipus, and other crimes which must not be
+named or even thought of, and which we cannot bring ourselves to believe
+that men were ever guilty of. These reports having once spread among the
+people, even those persons who had hitherto by reason, perhaps, of
+relationship, shown moderation toward us, burst forth into bitter
+indignation against our people. Thus was fulfilled that which had been
+prophesied by the Lord: 'The time cometh when whosoever shall kill you
+shall think that he doeth God service.' Since that day the holy martyrs
+have suffered tortures that no words can express.
+
+"The fury of the multitude, of the governor, and of the soldiers fell
+chiefly upon Sanctus, a deacon of Vienne; upon Maturus, a neophyte
+still, but already a valiant champion of Christ; upon Attalus also, born
+at Pergamus, but who hath ever been one of the pillars of our Church;
+upon Blandina, lastly, in whom Christ hath made it appear that persons
+who seem vile and despised of men are just those whom God holds in the
+highest honor by reason of the excellent love they bear him, which is
+manifested in their firm virtue and not in vain show. All of us, and
+even Blandina's mistress here below, who fought valiantly with the other
+martyrs, feared that this poor slave, so weak of body, would not be in a
+condition to freely confess her faith; but she was sustained by such
+vigor of soul that the executioners, who from morn till eve put her to
+all manner of torture, failed in their efforts, and declared themselves
+beaten, not knowing what further punishment to inflict, and marvelling
+that she still lived, with her body pierced through and through, and
+torn piecemeal by so many tortures, of which a single one should have
+sufficed to kill her. But that blessed saint, like a valiant athlete,
+took fresh courage and strength from the confession of her faith; all
+feeling of pain vanished, and ease returned to her at the mere utterance
+of the words, 'I am a Christian, and no evil is wrought among us.'
+
+"As for Sanctus, the executioners hoped that in the midst of the
+tortures inflicted upon him--the most atrocious which man could
+devise--they would hear him say something unseemly or unlawful; but so
+firmly did he resist them, that, without even saying his name, or that
+of his nation or city, or whether he was bond or free, he only replied
+in the Roman tongue, to all questions, 'I am a Christian.' Therein was,
+for him, his name, his country, his condition, his whole being; and
+never could the Gentiles wrest from him another word. The fury of the
+governor and the executioners was redoubled against him; and, not
+knowing how to torment him further, they applied to his most tender
+members bars of red-hot iron. His members burned; but he, upright and
+immovable, persisted in his profession of faith, as if living waters
+from the bosom of Christ flowed over him and refreshed him. Some days
+after, these infidels began again to torture him, believing that if they
+inflicted upon his blistering wounds the same agonies, they would
+triumph over him, who seemed unable to bear the mere touch of their
+hands; and they hoped, also, that the sight of his torturing alive would
+terrify his comrades. But, contrary to general expectation, the body of
+Sanctus, rising suddenly up, stood erect and firm amid these repeated
+torments, and recovered its old appearance and the use of its members,
+as if, by divine grace, this second laceration of his flesh had caused
+healing rather than suffering.
+
+"When the tyrants had thus expended and exhausted their tortures against
+the firmness of the martyrs sustained by Christ, the devil devised other
+contrivances. They were cast into the darkest and most unendurable place
+in their prison; their feet were dragged out and compressed to the
+utmost tension of the muscles; the jailers, as if instigated by a demon,
+tried every sort of torture, insomuch that several of them, for whom God
+willed such an end, died of suffocation in prison. Others, who had been
+tortured in such a manner that it was thought impossible they should
+long survive, deprived as they were of every remedy and aid from men,
+but supported nevertheless by the grace of God, remained sound and
+strong in body as in soul, and comforted and reanimated their brethren.
+
+"The blessed Pothinus, who held at that time the bishopric of Lyons,
+being upward of ninety, and so weak in body that he could hardly
+breathe, was himself brought before the tribunal, so worn with old age
+and sickness that he seemed nigh to extinction; but he still possessed
+his soul, wherewith to subserve the triumph of Christ. Being brought by
+the soldiers before the tribunal, whither he was accompanied by all the
+magistrates of the city and the whole populace, that pursued him with
+hootings, he offered, as if he had been the very Christ, the most
+glorious testimony. At a question from the governor, who asked what the
+God of the Christians was, he answered, 'If thou be worthy, thou shalt
+know.' He was immediately raised up, without any respect or humanity,
+and blows were showered upon him; those who happened to be nearest to
+him assaulted him grievously with foot and fist, without the slightest
+regard for his age; those who were farther off cast at him whatever was
+to their hand; they would all have thought themselves guilty of the
+greatest default if they had not done their best, each on his own score,
+to insult him brutally. They believed they were avenging the wrongs of
+their gods. Pothinus, still breathing, was cast again into prison, and
+two days after yielded up his spirit.
+
+"Then were manifested a singular dispensation of God and the
+immeasurable compassion of Jesus Christ: an example rare among brethren,
+but in accord with the intentions and the justice of the Lord. All those
+who, at their first arrest, had denied their faith, were themselves cast
+into prison and given over to the same sufferings as the other martyrs,
+for their denial did not serve them at all. Those who had made
+profession of being what they really were--that is, Christians--were
+imprisoned without being accused of other crimes. The former, on the
+contrary, were confined as homicides and wretches, thus suffering double
+punishment. The one sort found repose in the honorable joys of
+martyrdom, in the hope of promised blessedness, in the love of Christ,
+and in the spirit of God the Father; the other were a prey to the
+reproaches of conscience. It was easy to distinguish the one from the
+other by their looks. The one walked joyously, bearing on their faces a
+majesty mingled with sweetness, and their very bonds seemed unto them an
+ornament, even as the broidery that decks a bride; the other, with
+downcast eyes and humble and dejected air, were an object of contempt to
+the Gentiles themselves, who regarded them as cowards who had forfeited
+the glorious and saving name of Christians. And so they who were present
+at this double spectacle were thereby signally strengthened, and whoever
+among them chanced to be arrested confessed the faith without doubt or
+hesitation.
+
+"Things having come to this pass, different kinds of death were
+inflicted on the martyrs, and they offered to God a crown of divers
+flowers. It was but right that the most valiant champions, those who had
+sustained a double assault and gained a signal victory, should receive a
+splendid crown of immortality. The neophyte Maturus and the deacon
+Sanctus, Blandina and Attalus, then, were led into the amphitheatre, and
+thrown to the beasts, as a sight to please the inhumanity of the
+Gentiles. Maturus and Sanctus there underwent all kinds of tortures, as
+if they had hitherto suffered nothing; or, rather, like athletes who had
+already been several times victorious, and were contending for the crown
+of crowns, they braved the stripes with which they were beaten, the
+bites of the beasts that dragged them to and fro, and all that was
+demanded by the outcries of an insensate mob, so much the more furious
+because it could by no means overcome the firmness of the martyrs or
+extort from Sanctus any other speech than that which, on the first day,
+he had uttered--'I am a Christian.' After this fearful contest, as life
+was not extinct, their throats were at last cut, when they alone had
+thus been offered as a spectacle to the public instead of the variety
+displayed in the combat of gladiators.
+
+"Blandina, in her turn, tied to a stake, was given to the beasts; she
+was seen hanging, as it were, on a sort of cross, calling upon God with
+trustful fervor, and the brethren present were reminded, in the person
+of a sister, of Him who had been crucified for their salvation. As none
+of the beasts would touch the body of Blandina, she was released from
+the stake, taken back to prison, and reserved for another occasion.
+
+"Attalus, whose execution, seeing that he was a man of mark, was
+furiously demanded by the people, came forward ready to brave
+everything, as a man deriving confidence from the memory of his life,
+for he had courageously trained himself to discipline, and had always
+among us borne witness for the truth. He was led all round the
+Amphitheatre, preceded by a board bearing this inscription in Latin:
+'This is Attalus the Christian.' The people pursued him with the most
+furious hootings; but the governor, having learned that he was a Roman
+citizen, had him taken back to prison with the rest. Having subsequently
+written to Caesar, he waited for his decision as to those who were thus
+detained.
+
+"This delay was neither useless nor unprofitable, for then shone forth
+the boundless compassion of Christ. Those of the brethren who had been
+but dead members of the Church were recalled to life by the pains and
+help of the living; the martyrs obtained grace for those who had fallen
+away; and great was the joy in the Church, at the same time virgin and
+mother, for she once more found living those whom she had given up for
+dead. Thus revived and strengthened by the goodness of God, who willeth
+not the death of the sinner, but rather inviteth him to repentance, they
+presented themselves before the tribunal, to be questioned afresh by the
+governor. Caesar had replied that they who confessed themselves to be
+Christians should be put to the sword, and they who denied sent away
+safe and sound. When the time for the great market had fully come, there
+assembled a numerous multitude from every nation and every province. The
+governor had the blessed martyrs brought up before his judgment-seat,
+showing them before the people with all the pomp of a theatre. He
+questioned them afresh; and those who were discovered to be Roman
+citizens were beheaded, the rest were thrown to the beasts.
+
+"Great glory was gained for Christ by means of those who had at first
+denied their faith, and who now confessed it contrary to the expectation
+of the Gentiles. Those who, having been privately questioned, declared
+themselves Christians were added to the number of the martyrs. Those in
+whom appeared no vestige of faith and no fear of God, remained without
+the pale of the Church. When they were dealing with those who had been
+reunited to it, one Alexander, a Phrygian by nation, a physician by
+profession, who had for many years been dwelling in Gaul, a man well
+known to all for his love of God and open preaching of the faith, took
+his place in the hall of judgment, exhorting by signs all who filled it
+to confess their faith, even as if he had been called in to deliver
+them of it. The multitude, enraged to see that those who had at first
+denied turned round and proclaimed their faith, cried out against
+Alexander, whom they accused of the conversion.
+
+"The governor forthwith asked him what he was, and at the answer, 'I am
+a Christian,' condemned him to the beasts. On the morrow Alexander was
+again brought up, together with Attalus, whom the governor, to please
+the people, had once more condemned to the beasts. After they had both
+suffered in the Amphitheatre all the torments that could be devised,
+they were put to the sword. Alexander uttered not a complaint, not a
+word; he had the air of one who was talking inwardly with God. Attalus,
+seated on an iron seat, and waiting for the fire to consume his body,
+said, in Latin, to the people: 'See what ye are doing; it is in truth
+devouring men; as for us, we devour not men, and we do no evil at all.'
+He was asked what was the name of God: 'God,' said he, 'is not like us
+mortals; he hath no name.'
+
+"After all these martyrs, on the last day of the shows, Blandina was
+again brought up, together with a young lad, named Ponticus, about
+fifteen years old. They had been brought up every day before that they
+might see the tortures of their brethren. When they were called upon to
+swear by the altars of the Gentiles, they remained firm in their faith,
+making no account of those pretended gods, and so great was the fury of
+the multitude against them that no pity was shown for the age of the
+child or the sex of the woman. Tortures were heaped upon them; they were
+made to pass through every kind of torment, but the desired end was not
+gained.
+
+"Supported by the exhortations of his sister, who was seen and heard by
+the Gentiles, Ponticus, after having endured all magnanimously, gave up
+the ghost. Blandina, last of all--like a noble mother that hath roused
+the courage of her sons for the fight, and sent them forth to conquer
+for their king--passed once more through all the tortures they had
+suffered, anxious to go and rejoin them, and rejoicing at each step
+toward death. At length, after she had undergone fire, the talons of
+beasts, and agonizing aspersion, she was wrapped in a network and thrown
+to a bull that tossed her in the air; she was already unconscious of
+all that befell her, and seemed altogether taken up with watching for
+the blessings that Christ had in store for her. Even the Gentiles
+allowed that never a woman had suffered so much or so long.
+
+"Still their fury and their cruelty toward the saints were not appeased.
+They devised another way of raging against them; they cast to the dogs
+the bodies of those who had died of suffocation in prison, and watched
+night and day that none of our brethren might come and bury them. As for
+what remained of the martyrs' half-mangled or devoured corpses, they
+left them exposed under a guard of soldiers, coming to look on them with
+insulting eyes, and saying: 'Where is now their God? Of what use to them
+was this religion for which they laid down their lives?' We were
+overcome with grief that we were not able to bury these poor corpses;
+nor the darkness of night, nor gold, nor prayers could help us to
+succeed therein. After being thus exposed for six days in the open air,
+given over to all manner of outrage, the corpses of the martyrs were at
+last burned, reduced to ashes, and cast hither and thither by the
+infidels upon the waters of the Rhone, that there might be left no trace
+of them on earth. They acted as if they had been more mighty than God,
+and could rob our brethren of their resurrection: ''Tis in that hope,'
+said they, 'that these folk bring among us a new and strange religion,
+that they set at naught the most painful torments, and that they go
+joyfully to face death: let us see if they will rise again, if their God
+will come to their aid and will be able to tear them from our hands.'"
+
+It is not without a painful effort that, even after so many centuries,
+we can resign ourselves to be witnesses, in imagination only, of such a
+spectacle. We can scarce believe that among men of the same period and
+the same city so much ferocity could be displayed in opposition to so
+much courage, the passion for barbarity against the passion for virtue.
+Nevertheless, such is history; and it should be represented as it really
+was: first of all, for truth's sake; then for the due appreciation of
+virtue and all it costs of effort and sacrifice; and, lastly, for the
+purpose of showing what obstacles have to be surmounted, what struggles
+endured, and what sufferings borne, when the question is the
+accomplishment of great moral and social reforms. Marcus Aurelius was,
+without any doubt, a virtuous ruler, and one who had it in his heart to
+be just and humane; but he was an absolute ruler, that is to say, one
+fed entirely on his own ideas, very ill-informed about the facts on
+which he had to decide, and without a free public to warn him of the
+errors of his ideas or the practical results of his decrees. He ordered
+the persecution of the Christians without knowing what the Christians
+were or what the persecution would be, and this conscientious
+philosopher let loose at Lyons, against the most conscientious of
+subjects, the zealous servility of his agents, and the atrocious
+passions of the mob.
+
+The persecution of the Christians did not stop at Lyons or with Marcus
+Aurelius; it became, during the third century, the common practice of
+the emperors in all parts of the empire: from A.D. 202 to 312, under the
+reigns of Septimius Severus, Maximinus the First, Decius, Valerian,
+Aurelian, Diocletian, Maximian, and Galerius, there are reckoned six
+great general persecutions, without counting others more circumscribed
+or less severe. The emperors Alexander Severus, Philip the Arabian, and
+Constantius Chlorus were almost the only exceptions to this cruel
+system; and nearly always, wherever it was in force, the pagan mob, in
+its brutality or fanatical superstition, added to imperial rigor its own
+atrocious and cynical excesses.
+
+But Christian zeal was superior in perseverance and efficacy to pagan
+persecution. St. Pothinus the Martyr was succeeded as bishop at Lyons by
+St. Irenaeus, the most learned, most judicious, and most illustrious of
+the early heads of the Church in Gaul. Originally from Asia Minor,
+probably from Smyrna, he had migrated to Gaul, at what particular date
+is not known, and had settled as a simple priest in the diocese of
+Lyons, where it was not long before he exercised vast influence, as well
+on the spot as also during certain missions intrusted to him, and among
+them one, they say, to the pope, St. Eleutherius, at Rome.
+
+While bishop of Lyons, from A.D. 177 to 202, he employed the
+five-and-twenty years in propagating the Christian faith in Gaul, and in
+defending, by his writings, the Christian doctrines against the discord
+to which they had already been subjected in the East, and which was
+beginning to penetrate the West.
+
+In 202, during the persecution instituted by Septimius Severus, St.
+Irenaeus crowned by martyrdom his active and influential life. It was in
+his episcopate that there began what may be called the swarm of
+Christian missionaries who, toward the end of the second and during the
+third century, spread over the whole of Gaul, preaching the faith and
+forming churches. Some went from Lyons at the instigation of St.
+Irenaeus; others from Rome, especially under the pontificate of Pope St.
+Fabian, himself martyred in 249; St. Felix and St. Fortunatus to
+Valence, St. Ferreol to Besancon, St. Marcellus to Chalons-sur-Saone,
+St. Benignus to Dijon, St. Trophimus to Arles, St. Paul to Narbonne, St.
+Saturninus to Toulouse, St. Martial to Limoges, St. Andeol and St.
+Privatus to the Cevennes, St. Austremoine to Clermont-Ferrand, St.
+Galian to Tours, St. Denis to Paris, and so many others that their names
+are scarcely known beyond the pages of erudite historians, or the very
+spots where they preached, struggled, and conquered, often at the price
+of their lives.
+
+Such were the founders of the faith and of the Christian Church in
+France. At the commencement of the fourth century their work was, if not
+accomplished, at any rate triumphant; and when, A.D. 312, Constantine
+declared himself a Christian, he confirmed the fact of the conquest of
+the Roman world, and of Gaul in particular, by Christianity. No doubt
+the majority of the inhabitants were not as yet Christians; but it was
+clear that the Christians were in the ascendant and had command of the
+future.
+
+Of the two grand elements which were to meet together on the ruins of
+Roman society, for the formation of modern society, the moral element,
+the Christian religion, had already taken possession of souls; the
+devastated territory awaited the coming of new peoples, known to history
+under the general name of Germans, whom the Romans called the
+Barbarians.
+
+
+
+
+BEGINNING OF ROME'S DECLINE: COMMODUS
+
+A.D. 180
+
+EDWARD GIBBON
+
+     That a ruler of such noble character as the Roman philosopher
+     Marcus Aurelius should have had for his son and successor a man
+     like Commodus is one of the strange contrasts of history. The
+     succession of Commodus, marking as it does the beginning of the
+     decline of the great empire, may be regarded as one of the most
+     critical moments in the existence of Rome. How folly and cruelty,
+     shameless vice and unbridled ferocity, may be associated in the
+     same character has often been illustrated in the careers of the
+     world's rulers, and nowhere more conspicuously than in some of the
+     Roman emperors; and in the case of Commodus the combination of
+     these qualities led to acts which involved not only the Emperor
+     himself, but also the empire over which he ruled, in fatal
+     consequences.
+
+     This vast empire, composed of many different peoples, was under the
+     rule and subject to the caprice of one man. The form of the
+     government imposed practically no checks on his power. With such
+     able emperors as Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and Marcus Aurelius the
+     State was safe; but the wise men of Rome had foreseen that a tyrant
+     or weak and inexperienced ruler, under this system, might plunge
+     the empire into confusion and ruin. Yet they had made no provision
+     against such a contingency. In the death of such a ruler and the
+     accession of an abler and juster one lay their only hope of
+     amelioration.
+
+     The course of events during the bloody reign of the degenerate
+     Commodus was such as surely to forecast the decline of Roman power
+     and supremacy. In the next hundred years there were twenty-three
+     emperors, thirteen of whom were murdered by their own soldiers or
+     servants--a tragic period of cruelty, licentiousness, and decay.
+
+
+If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world
+during which the condition of the human race was most happy and
+prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from
+the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of
+the Roman Empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of
+virtue and wisdom. The armies were restrained by the firm but gentle
+hand of four successive emperors, whose characters and authority
+commanded involuntary respect. The forms of the civil administration
+were carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines,
+who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with considering
+themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws. Such princes
+deserved the honor of restoring the republic, had the Romans of their
+days been capable of enjoying a rational freedom.
+
+The labors of these monarchs were overpaid by the immense reward that
+inseparably waited on their success, by the honest pride of virtue, and
+by the exquisite delight of beholding the general happiness of which
+they were the authors. A just but melancholy reflection imbittered,
+however, the noblest of human enjoyments. They must often have
+recollected the instability of a happiness which depended on the
+character of a single man. The fatal moment was perhaps approaching when
+some licentious youth or some jealous tyrant would abuse, to the
+destruction, that absolute power which they had exerted for the benefit
+of their people. The ideal restraints of the senate and the laws might
+serve to display the virtues, but could never correct the vices, of the
+emperor. The military force was a blind and irresistible instrument of
+oppression, and the corruption of Roman manners would always supply
+flatterers eager to applaud, and ministers prepared to serve, the fear
+or the avarice, the lust or the cruelty, of their masters.
+
+These gloomy apprehensions had been already justified by the experience
+of the Romans. The annals of the emperors exhibit a strong and various
+picture of human nature, which we should vainly seek among the mixed and
+doubtful characters of modern history. In the conduct of those monarchs
+we may trace the utmost lines of vice and virtue; the most exalted
+perfection, and the meanest degeneracy of our own species.
+
+The mildness of Marcus Aurelius, which the rigid discipline of the
+Stoics was unable to eradicate, formed, at the same time, the most
+amiable, and the only defective, part of his character. His excellent
+understanding was often deceived by the unsuspecting goodness of his
+heart. Artful men, who study the passions of princes, and conceal their
+own, approached his person in the disguise of philosophic sanctity, and
+acquired riches and honors by affecting to despise them. His excessive
+indulgence to his brother,[46] his wife, and his son exceeded the bounds
+of private virtue, and became a public injury, by the example and
+consequences of their vices.
+
+Faustina, the daughter of Pius and the wife of Marcus, has been as much
+celebrated for her gallantries as for her beauty. The grave simplicity
+of the philosopher was ill-calculated to engage her wanton levity, or to
+fix that unbounded passion for variety which often discovered personal
+merit in the meanest of mankind. The Cupid of the ancients was, in
+general, a very sensual deity; and the amours of an empress, as they
+exact on her side the plainest advances, are seldom susceptible of much
+sentimental delicacy. Marcus was the only man in the empire who seemed
+ignorant or insensible of the irregularities of Faustina, which,
+according to the prejudices of every age, reflected some disgrace on the
+injured husband. He promoted several of her lovers to posts of honor and
+profit, and, during a connection of thirty years, invariably gave her
+proofs of the most tender confidence and of a respect which ended not
+with her life. In his _Meditations_ he thanks the gods, who had bestowed
+on him a wife so faithful, so gentle, and of such a wonderful simplicity
+of manners. The obsequious senate, at his earnest request, declared her
+a goddess. She was represented in her temples with the attributes of
+Juno, Venus, and Ceres; and it was decreed that, on the day of their
+nuptials, the youth of either sex should pay their vows before the altar
+of their chaste patroness.
+
+The monstrous vices of the son have cast a shade on the purity of the
+father's virtues. It has been objected to Marcus that he sacrificed the
+happiness of millions to a fond partiality for a worthless boy; and that
+he chose a successor in his own family rather than in the empire.
+Nothing, however, was neglected by the anxious father, and by the men of
+virtue and learning whom he summoned to his assistance, to expand the
+narrow mind of young Commodus, to correct his growing vices, and to
+render him worthy of the throne for which he was designed. But the power
+of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy
+dispositions where it is almost superfluous. The distasteful lesson of
+a grave philosopher was, in a moment, obliterated by the whisper of a
+profligate favorite; and Marcus himself blasted the fruits of this
+labored education by admitting his son, at the age of fourteen or
+fifteen, to a full participation of the imperial power. He lived but
+four years afterward; but he lived long enough to repent a rash measure
+which raised the impetuous youth above the restraint of reason and
+authority.
+
+Most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of society are
+produced by the restraints which the necessary but unequal laws of
+property have imposed on the appetites of mankind by confining to a few
+the possession of those objects that are coveted by many. Of all our
+passions and appetites the love of power is of the most imperious and
+unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of
+the multitude. In the tumult of civil discord, the laws of society lose
+their force, and their place is seldom supplied by those of humanity.
+The ardor of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of success,
+the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future dangers all
+contribute to inflame the mind and to silence the voice of pity. From
+such motives almost every page of history has been stained with civil
+blood; but these motives will not account for the unprovoked cruelties
+of Commodus, who had nothing to wish and everything to enjoy.
+
+The beloved son of Marcus succeeded to his father, amid the acclamations
+of the senate and armies; and when he ascended the throne the happy
+youth saw round him neither competitor to remove nor enemies to punish.
+In this calm, elevated station it was surely natural that he should
+prefer the love of mankind to their detestation, the mild glories of his
+five predecessors to the ignominious fate of Nero and Domitian.
+
+Yet Commodus was not, as he has been represented, a tiger born with an
+insatiate thirst of human blood, and capable, from his infancy, of the
+most inhuman actions. Nature had formed him of a weak rather than a
+wicked disposition. His simplicity and timidity rendered him the slave
+of his attendants, who gradually corrupted his mind. His cruelty, which
+at first obeyed the dictates of others, degenerated into habit, and at
+length became the ruling passion of his soul.
+
+Upon the death of his father, Commodus found himself embarrassed with
+the command of a great army, and the conduct of a difficult war against
+the Quadi and Marcomanni. The servile and profligate youths whom Marcus
+had banished soon regained their station and influence about the new
+Emperor. They exaggerated the hardships and dangers of a campaign in the
+wild countries beyond the Danube; and they assured the indolent prince
+that the terror of his name and the arms of his lieutenants would be
+sufficient to complete the conquest of the dismayed barbarians, or to
+impose such conditions as were more advantageous than any conquest. By a
+dexterous application to his sensual appetites they compared the
+tranquillity, the splendor, the refined pleasures of Rome with the
+tumult of a Pannonian camp, which afforded neither leisure nor materials
+for luxury. Commodus listened to the pleasing advice, but while he
+hesitated between his own inclination and the awe which he still
+retained for his father's counsellors, the summer insensibly elapsed,
+and his triumphal entry into the capital was deferred till the autumn.
+His graceful person, popular address, and imagined virtues attracted the
+public favor; the honorable peace which he had recently granted to the
+barbarians diffused a universal joy; his impatience to revisit Rome was
+fondly ascribed to the love of his country; and his dissolute course of
+amusements was faintly condemned in a prince of nineteen years of age.
+
+During the three first years of his reign the forms, and even the
+spirit, of the old administration were maintained by those faithful
+counsellors to whom Marcus had recommended his son, and for whose wisdom
+and integrity Commodus still entertained a reluctant esteem. The young
+prince and his profligate favorites revelled in all the license of
+sovereign power; but his hands were yet unstained with blood; and he had
+even displayed a generosity of sentiment which might perhaps have
+ripened into solid virtue.[47] A fatal incident decided his fluctuating
+character.
+
+One evening, as the Emperor was returning to the palace through a dark
+and narrow portico in the Amphitheatre, an assassin, who waited his
+passage, rushed upon him with a drawn sword, loudly exclaiming, "_The
+senate sends you this_." The menace prevented the deed; the assassin was
+seized by the guards, and immediately revealed the authors of the
+conspiracy. It had been formed, not in the state, but within the walls
+of the palace. Lucilla, the Emperor's sister, and widow of Lucius Verus,
+impatient of the second rank, and jealous of the reigning empress, had
+armed the murderer against her brother's life. She had not ventured to
+communicate the black design to her second husband, Claudius Pompeianus,
+a senator of distinguished merit and unshaken loyalty; but among the
+crowd of her lovers--for she imitated the manners of Faustina--she found
+men of desperate fortunes and wild ambition, who were prepared to serve
+her more violent as well as her tender passions. The conspirators
+experienced the rigor of justice, and the abandoned princess was
+punished, first with exile, and afterward with death.
+
+But the words of the assassin sunk deep into the mind of Commodus, and
+left an indelible impression of fear and hatred against the whole body
+of the senate. Those whom he had dreaded as importunate ministers he now
+suspected as secret enemies. The delators, a race of men discouraged and
+almost extinguished under the former reigns, again became formidable, as
+soon as they discovered that the Emperor was desirous of finding
+disaffection and treason in the senate. That assembly, whom Marcus had
+ever considered as the great council of the nation, was composed of the
+most distinguished of the Romans; and distinction of every kind soon
+became criminal. The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of
+the informers; rigid virtue implied a tacit censure of the
+irregularities of Commodus; important services implied a dangerous
+superiority of merit; and the friendship of the father always insured
+the aversion of the son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof; trial to
+condemnation. The execution of a considerable senator was attended with
+the death of all who might lament or revenge his fate, and when Commodus
+had once tasted human blood he became incapable of pity or remorse.
+
+Of these innocent victims of tyranny none died more lamented than the
+two brothers of the Quintilian family, Maximus and Condianus, whose
+fraternal love has saved their names from oblivion and endeared their
+memory to posterity. Their studies and their occupations, their pursuits
+and their pleasures, were still the same. In the enjoyment of a great
+estate they never admitted the idea of a separate interest: some
+fragments are now extant of a treatise which they composed in common;
+and in every action of life it was observed that their two bodies were
+animated by one soul. The Antonines, who valued their virtues and
+delighted in their union, raised them, in the same year, to the
+consulship; and Marcus afterward intrusted to their joint care the civil
+administration of Greece, and a great military command, in which they
+obtained a signal victory over the Germans. The kind cruelty of Commodus
+united them in death.
+
+The tyrant's rage, after having shed the noblest blood of the senate, at
+length recoiled on the principal instrument of his cruelty. While
+Commodus was immersed in blood and luxury, he devolved the detail of the
+public business on Perennis, a servile and ambitious minister, who had
+obtained his post by the murder of his predecessor, but who possessed a
+considerable share of vigor and ability. By acts of extortion and the
+forfeited estates of the nobles sacrificed to his avarice he had
+accumulated an immense treasure. The praetorian guards were under his
+immediate command; and his son, who already discovered a military
+genius, was at the head of the Illyrian legions. Perennis aspired to the
+empire; or what, in the eyes of Commodus, amounted to the same crime, he
+was capable of aspiring to it, had he not been prevented, surprised, and
+put to death.
+
+The fall of a minister is a very trifling incident in the general
+history of the empire; but it was hastened by an extraordinary
+circumstance, which proved how much the nerves of discipline were
+already relaxed. The legions of Britain, discontented with the
+administration of Perennis, formed a deputation of fifteen hundred
+select men, with instructions to march to Rome and lay their complaints
+before the Emperor. These military petitioners, by their own determined
+behavior, by inflaming the divisions of the guards, by exaggerating the
+strength of the British army, and by alarming the fears of Commodus,
+exacted and obtained the minister's death, as the only redress of their
+grievances. This presumption of a distant army, and their discovery of
+the weakness of government, were a sure presage of the most dreadful
+convulsions.
+
+The negligence of the public administration was betrayed, soon
+afterward, by a new disorder, which arose from the smallest beginnings.
+A spirit of desertion began to prevail among the troops; and the
+deserters, instead of seeking their safety in flight or concealment,
+infested the highways. Maternus, a private soldier, of a daring boldness
+above his station, collected those bands of robbers into a little army,
+set open the prisons, invited the slaves to assert their freedom, and
+plundered with impunity the rich and defenceless cities of Gaul and
+Spain. The governors of the provinces, who had long been the spectators,
+and perhaps the partners, of his depredations, were at length roused
+from their supine indolence by the threatening commands of the Emperor.
+Maternus found that he was encompassed, and foresaw that he must be
+overpowered. A great effort of despair was his last resource. He ordered
+his followers to disperse, to pass the Alps in small parties and various
+disguises, and to assemble at Rome, during the licentious tumult of the
+festival of Cybele. To murder Commodus, and to ascend the vacant throne,
+were the ambition of no vulgar robber. His measures were so ably
+concerted that his concealed troops already filled the streets of Rome.
+The envy of an accomplice discovered and ruined this singular enterprise
+in the moment when it was ripe for execution.
+
+Suspicious princes often promote the last of mankind from a vain
+persuasion that those who have no dependence, except on their favor,
+will have no attachment, except to the person of their benefactor.
+Cleander, the successor of Perennis, was a Phrygian by birth; of a
+nation over whose stubborn but servile temper blows only could prevail.
+He had been sent from his native country to Rome, in the capacity of a
+slave. As a slave he entered the imperial palace, rendered himself
+useful to his master's passions, and rapidly ascended to the most
+exalted station which a subject could enjoy. His influence over the
+mind of Commodus was much greater than that of his predecessor; for
+Cleander was devoid of any ability or virtue which could inspire the
+Emperor with envy or distrust.
+
+Avarice was the reigning passion of his soul and the great principle of
+his administration. The rank of consul, of patrician, of senator, was
+exposed to public sale; and it would have been considered as
+disaffection if anyone had refused to purchase these empty and
+disgraceful honors, with the greatest part of his fortune. In the
+lucrative provincial employments the minister shared with the governor
+the spoils of the people. The execution of the laws was venal and
+arbitrary. A wealthy criminal might obtain not only the reversal of the
+sentence by which he was justly condemned, but might likewise inflict
+whatever punishment he pleased on the accuser, the witnesses, and the
+judge.
+
+By these means Cleander, in the space of three years, had accumulated
+more wealth than had ever yet been possessed by any freedman. Commodus
+was perfectly satisfied with the magnificent presents which the artful
+courtier laid at his feet in the most seasonable moments. To divert the
+public envy, Cleander, under the Emperor's name, erected baths,
+porticoes, and places of exercise for the use of the people. He
+flattered himself that the Romans, dazzled and amused by this apparent
+liberality, would be less affected by the bloody scenes which were daily
+exhibited; that they would forget the death of Byrrhus, a senator to
+whose superior merit the late Emperor had granted one of his daughters;
+and that they would forgive the execution of Arrius Antoninus, the last
+representative of the name and virtues of the Antonines. The former,
+with more integrity than prudence, had attempted to disclose, to his
+brother-in-law, the true character of Cleander. An equitable sentence
+pronounced by the latter, when proconsul of Asia, against a worthless
+creature of the favorite proved fatal to him. After the fall of
+Perennis, the terrors of Commodus had for a short time assumed the
+appearance of a return to virtue. He repealed the most odious of his
+acts, loaded his memory with the public execration, and ascribed to the
+pernicious counsels of that wicked minister all the errors of his
+inexperienced youth. But his repentance lasted only thirty days; and,
+under Cleander's tyranny, the administration of Perennis was often
+regretted.
+
+Pestilence and famine contributed to fill up the measure of the
+calamities of Rome. The first could be only imputed to the just
+indignation of the gods; but a monopoly of corn, supported by the riches
+and power of the minister, was considered as the immediate cause of the
+second. The popular discontent, after it had long circulated in
+whispers, broke out in the assembled Circus. The people quitted their
+favorite amusements for the more delicious pleasure of revenge, rushed
+in crowds toward a palace in the suburbs, one of the Emperor's
+retirements, and demanded, with angry clamors, the head of the public
+enemy. Cleander, who commanded the praetorian guards, ordered a body of
+cavalry to sally forth and disperse the seditious multitude. The
+multitude fled with precipitation toward the city; several were slain,
+and many more were trampled to death; but when the cavalry entered the
+streets their pursuit was checked by a shower of stones and darts from
+the roofs and windows of the houses.
+
+The foot-guards, who had been long jealous of the prerogatives and
+insolence of the praetorian cavalry, embraced the party of the people.
+The tumult became a regular engagement, and threatened a general
+massacre. The praetorians at length gave way, oppressed with numbers; and
+the tide of popular fury returned with redoubled violence against the
+gates of the palace, where Commodus lay, dissolved in luxury, and alone
+unconscious of the civil war. It was death to approach his person with
+the unwelcome news. He would have perished in this supine security had
+not two women, his eldest sister Fadilla, and Marcia, the most favored
+of his concubines, ventured to break into his presence. Bathed in tears,
+and with dishevelled hair, they threw themselves at his feet, and, with
+all the pressing eloquence of fear, discovered to the affrighted Emperor
+the crimes of the minister, the rage of the people, and the impending
+ruin which, in a few minutes, would burst over his palace and person.
+Commodus started from his dream of pleasure and commanded that the head
+of Cleander should be thrown out to the people. The desired spectacle
+instantly appeased the tumult; and the son of Marcus might even yet have
+regained the affection and confidence of his subjects.
+
+But every sentiment of virtue and humanity was extinct in the mind of
+Commodus. While he thus abandoned the reins of empire to these unworthy
+favorites, he valued nothing in sovereign power except the unbounded
+license of indulging his sensual appetites. The influence of a polite
+age and the labor of an attentive education had never been able to
+infuse into his rude and brutish mind the least tincture of learning;
+and he was the first of the Roman emperors totally devoid of taste for
+the pleasures of the understanding. Nero himself excelled, or affected
+to excel, in the elegant arts of music and poetry; nor should we despise
+his pursuits, had he not converted the pleasing relaxation of a leisure
+hour into the serious business and ambition of his life. But Commodus,
+from his earliest infancy, discovered an aversion to whatever was
+rational or liberal, and a fond attachment to the amusements of the
+populace; the sports of the Circus and Amphitheatre, the combats of
+gladiators, and the hunting of wild beasts. The masters in every branch
+of learning, whom Marcus provided for his son, were heard with
+inattention and disgust, while the Moors and Parthians, who taught him
+to dart the javelin and to shoot with the bow, found a disciple who
+delighted in his application, and soon equalled the most skilful of his
+instructors in the steadiness of the eye and the dexterity of the hand.
+
+The servile crowd, whose fortune depended on their master's vices,
+applauded these ignoble pursuits. The perfidious voice of flattery
+reminded him that by exploits of the same nature, by the defeat of the
+Nemaean lion, and the slaughter of the wild boar of Erymanthus, the
+Grecian Hercules had acquired a place among the gods and an immortal
+memory among men. They only forgot to observe that in the first ages of
+society, when the fiercer animals often dispute with man the possession
+of an unsettled country, a successful war against those savages is one
+of the most innocent and beneficial labors of heroism. In the civilized
+state of the Roman Empire the wild beasts had long since retired from
+the face of man and the neighborhood of populous cities. To surprise
+them in their solitary haunts and to transport them to Rome that they
+might be slain in pomp by the hand of an emperor was an enterprise
+equally ridiculous for the prince and oppressive for the people.
+
+Ignorant of these distinctions, Commodus eagerly embraced the glorious
+resemblance and styled himself (as we still read on his medals) the
+Roman Hercules. The club and the lion's hide were placed by the side of
+the throne, among the ensigns of sovereignty, and statues were erected
+in which Commodus was represented in the character and with the
+attributes of the god whose valor and dexterity he endeavored to emulate
+in the daily course of his ferocious amusements.
+
+Elated with these praises, which gradually extinguished the innate sense
+of shame, Commodus resolved to exhibit before the eyes of the Roman
+people those exercises which till then he had decently confined within
+the walls of his palace and to the presence of a few favorites. On the
+appointed day the various motives of flattery, fear, and curiosity
+attracted to the Amphitheatre an innumerable multitude of spectators;
+and some degree of applause was deservedly bestowed on the uncommon
+skill of the imperial performer. Whether he aimed at the head or heart
+of the animal, the wound was alike certain and mortal. With arrows whose
+point was shaped into the form of a crescent Commodus often intercepted
+the rapid career and cut asunder the long, bony neck of the ostrich.
+
+A panther was let loose, and the archer waited till he had leaped upon a
+trembling malefactor. In the same instant the shaft flew, the beast
+dropped dead, and the man remained unhurt. The dens of the Amphitheatre
+disgorged at once a hundred lions: a hundred darts from the unerring
+hand of Commodus laid them dead as they ran raging round the arena.
+Neither the huge bulk of the elephant nor the scaly hide of the
+rhinoceros could defend them from his stroke. AEthiopia and India yielded
+their most extraordinary productions; and several animals were slain in
+the Amphitheatre which had been seen only in the representations of art
+or perhaps of fancy. In all these exhibitions the securest precautions
+were used to protect the person of the Roman Hercules from the desperate
+spring of any savage, who might possibly disregard the dignity of the
+Emperor and the sanctity of the god.
+
+But the meanest of the populace were affected with shame and indignation
+when they beheld their sovereign enter the lists as a gladiator, and
+glory in a profession which the laws and manners of the Romans had
+branded with the justest note of infamy.[48] He chose the habit and arms
+of the _secutor_, whose combat with the _retiarius_ formed one of the
+most lively scenes in the bloody sports of the Amphitheatre. The secutor
+was armed with a helmet, sword, and buckler; his naked antagonist had
+only a large net and a trident; with the one he endeavored to entangle,
+with the other to despatch his enemy. If he missed the first throw, he
+was obliged to fly from the pursuit of the secutor till he had prepared
+his net for a second cast.
+
+The Emperor fought in this character seven hundred and thirty-five
+several times. These glorious achievements were carefully recorded in
+the public acts of the empire; and that he might omit no circumstance of
+infamy, he received from the common fund of gladiators a stipend so
+exorbitant that it became a new and most ignominious tax upon the Roman
+people. It may be easily supposed that in these engagements the master
+of the world was always successful; in the Amphitheatre his victories
+were not often sanguinary; but when he exercised his skill in the school
+of gladiators or his own palace, his wretched antagonists were
+frequently honored with a mortal wound from the hand of Commodus, and
+obliged to seal their flattery with their blood.
+
+He now disdained the appellation of Hercules. The name of Paulus, a
+celebrated secutor, was the only one which delighted his ear. It was
+inscribed on his colossal statues and repeated in the redoubled
+acclamations of the mournful and applauding senate. Claudius Pompeianus,
+the virtuous husband of Lucilla, was the only senator who asserted the
+honor of his rank. As a father, he permitted his sons to consult their
+safety by attending the Amphitheatre. As a Roman he declared that his
+own life was in the Emperor's hands, but that he would never behold the
+son of Marcus prostituting his person and dignity. Notwithstanding his
+manly resolution, Pompeianus escaped the resentment of the tyrant, and,
+with his honor, had the good fortune to preserve his life.
+
+Commodus had now attained the summit of vice and infamy. Amid the
+acclamations of a flattering court he was unable to disguise from
+himself that he had deserved the contempt and hatred of every man of
+sense and virtue in his empire. His ferocious spirit was irritated by
+the consciousness of that hatred, by the envy of every kind of merit, by
+the just apprehension of danger, and by the habit of slaughter which he
+contracted in his daily amusements. History has preserved a long list of
+consular senators sacrificed to his wanton suspicion, which sought out,
+with peculiar anxiety, those unfortunate persons connected, however
+remotely, with the family of the Antonines, without sparing even the
+ministers of his crimes or pleasures.
+
+His cruelty proved at last fatal to himself. He had shed with impunity
+the noblest blood of Rome: he perished as soon as he was dreaded by his
+own domestics. Marcia, his favorite concubine, Eclectus, his
+chamberlain, and Laetus, his praetorian prefect, alarmed by the fate of
+their companions and predecessors, resolved to prevent the destruction
+which every hour hung over their heads, either from the mad caprice of
+the tyrant or the sudden indignation of the people. Marcia seized the
+occasion of presenting a draught of wine to her lover, after he had
+fatigued himself with hunting some wild beasts. Commodus retired to
+sleep; but while he was laboring with the effects of poison and
+drunkenness, a robust youth, by profession a wrestler, entered his
+chamber and strangled him without resistance. The body was secretly
+conveyed out of the palace, before the least suspicion was entertained
+in the city, or even in the court, of the Emperor's death. Such was the
+fate of the son of Marcus, and so easy was it to destroy a hated tyrant,
+who, by the artificial powers of government, had oppressed, during
+thirteen years, so many millions of subjects, each of whom was equal to
+their master in personal strength and personal abilities.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[46] His brother by adoption, and his colleague, L. Verus. Marcus
+Aurelius had no other brother.
+
+[47] Manilius, the confidential secretary of Avidius Cassius, was
+discovered after he had lain concealed several years. The Emperor nobly
+relieved the public anxiety by refusing to see him, and burning his
+papers without opening them.
+
+[48] The virtuous and even the wise princes forbade the senators and
+knights to embrace this scandalous profession, under pain of infamy, or,
+what was more dreaded by those profligate wretches, of exile. The
+tyrants allured them to dishonor by threats and rewards. Nero once
+produced in the arena forty senators and sixty knights.
+
+
+
+
+EVENTFUL REIGN OF SAPOR I, KING OF PERSIA
+
+A.D. 240
+
+GEORGE RAWLINSON
+
+     Under Mithradates I the Parthian empire rose to great power, and
+     that monarch, about B.C. 163, began to make conquests toward the
+     west. By B.C. 150 he had added to his possessions Media Magna,
+     Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria proper, and Persia. The Persians appear
+     to have yielded without resistance to his rule, and he governed
+     them with a fair degree of moderation, allowing them, as was the
+     Parthian policy toward subject peoples, a large measure of
+     self-government under their hereditary native kings, the "King of
+     Kings" exacting little from them besides regular tribute and the
+     required number of men for his armies.
+
+     The Parthian empire was in turn overthrown by Ardashir or
+     Artaxerxes, who about B.C. 226 defeated and killed Ardavan, the
+     last Parthian king, and became the chief founder of the Sassanian
+     dynasty, which ruled Persia until the Mahometan invasion.
+
+     The victories of Artaxerxes had fatal results for the Roman power
+     in the East, for the new head of the Persian monarchy was no sooner
+     established on his throne than he sent an embassy to the Roman
+     Emperor, Alexander Severus, to demand from him the surrender of all
+     Asia and the withdrawal of Roman arms and authority to the western
+     shores of the AEgean Sea and of the Propontis, as the Sea of Marmora
+     was anciently called. From this began a series of wars which
+     continued at intervals for four centuries, and which ended only
+     with the Mahometan conquests that overwhelmed Roman and Persian
+     power alike. The first campaigns of the Romans against Artaxerxes
+     were indecisive, but the renewal of the war in the reign of his
+     son, Sapor I, was followed by disasters to the Roman arms which
+     Rawlinson describes in his most lucid and vigorous manner, together
+     with the other feats of this remarkable man.
+
+
+Artaxerxes appears to have died in A.D. 240. He was succeeded by his son
+Shahpuhri, or Sapor, the first Sassanian prince of that name. According
+to the Persian historians, the mother of Sapor was a daughter of the
+last Parthian king, Artabanus, whom Artaxerxes had taken to wife after
+his conquest of her father. But the facts known of Sapor throw doubt on
+this story, which has too many parallels in oriental romance to claim
+implicit credence. Nothing authentic has come down to us respecting
+Sapor during his father's lifetime, but from the moment that he mounted
+the throne we find him engaged in a series of wars, which show him to
+have been of a most active and energetic character.
+
+Armenia, which Artaxerxes had subjected, attempted, it would seem, to
+regain its independence at the commencement of the reign; but Sapor
+easily crushed the nascent insurrection, and the Armenians made no
+further effort to free themselves till several years after his death.
+Contemporaneously with this revolt in the mountain region of the North a
+danger showed itself in the plains country of the South, where Manizen,
+king of Hatra, or El Hadhr, not only declared himself independent, but
+assumed dominion over the entire tract between the Euphrates and the
+Tigris, the Jezireh of the Arabian geographers.
+
+The strength of Hatra was great, as had been proved by Trajan and
+Severus; its thick walls and valiant inhabitants would probably have
+defied every attempt of the Persian prince to make himself master of it
+by force. He, therefore, resorted to stratagem. Manizen had a daughter
+who cherished ambitious views. On obtaining a promise from Sapor that if
+she gave Hatra into his power he would make her his queen, this
+unnatural child turned against her father, betrayed him into Sapor's
+hands, and thus brought the war to an end. Sapor recovered his lost
+territory; but he did not fulfil his bargain. Instead of marrying the
+traitoress, he handed her over to an executioner, to receive the death
+that she had deserved, though scarcely at his hands.
+
+Encouraged by his success in these two lesser contests, Sapor resolved
+(apparently in A.D. 241) to resume the bold projects of his father, and
+engage in a great war with Rome. The confusion and troubles which
+afflicted the Roman Empire at this time were such as might well give him
+hopes of obtaining a decided advantage. Alexander, his father's
+adversary, had been murdered in A.D. 235 by Maximin, who from the
+condition of a Thracian peasant had risen into the higher ranks of the
+army. The upstart had ruled like the savage that he was, and after three
+years of misery the whole Roman world had risen against him. Two
+emperors had been proclaimed in Africa. On their fall two others had
+been elected by the senate; a third, a mere boy, had been added at the
+demand of the Roman populace. All the pretenders except the last had met
+with violent deaths; and after the shocks of a year, unparalleled since
+A.D. 69, the administration of the greatest kingdom in the world was in
+the hands of a youth of fifteen. Sapor, no doubt, thought he saw in this
+condition of things an opportunity that he ought not to miss, and
+rapidly matured his plans lest the favorable moment should pass away.
+
+Crossing the middle Tigris into Mesopotamia, the bands of Sapor first
+attacked the important city of Nisibis. Nisibis, at the time a Roman
+colony, was strongly situated on the outskirts of the mountain range
+which traverses Northern Mesopotamia between the thirty-seventh and
+thirty-eighth parallels. The place was well fortified and well defended;
+it offered a prolonged resistance; but the walls were breached and it
+was forced to yield itself. The advance was then made along the southern
+flank of the mountains by Carrhae (Harran) and Edessa to the Euphrates,
+which was probably reached in the neighborhood of Birehjik. The hordes
+then poured into Syria, and, spreading themselves over that fertile
+region, surprised and took the metropolis of the Roman East, the rich
+and luxurious city of Antioch. But meantime the Romans had shown a
+spirit which had not been expected from them.
+
+Gordian, young as he was, had quitted Rome and marched through Moesia
+and Thrace into Asia, accompanied by a formidable army and by at least
+one good general. Timesitheus, whose daughter Gordian had recently
+married, though his life had hitherto been that of a civilian, exhibited
+on his elevation to the dignity of praetorian prefect considerable
+military ability. The army, nominally commanded by Gordian, really acted
+under his orders. With it Timesitheus attacked and beat the bands of
+Sapor in a number of engagements, recovered Antioch, crossed the
+Euphrates, retook Carrhae, defeated the Persian monarch in a pitched
+battle near Resaina (Ras-el-Ain), recovered Nisibis, and once more
+planted the Roman standards on the banks of the Tigris. Sapor hastily
+evacuated most of his conquests, and retired first across the Euphrates,
+and then across the more eastern river, while the Romans advanced as he
+retreated, placed garrisons in the various Mesopotamian towns, and even
+threatened the great city of Ctesiphon.
+
+Gordian was confident that his general would gain further triumphs, and
+wrote to the senate to that effect; but either disease or the arts of a
+rival cut short the career of the victor, and from the time of his death
+the Romans ceased to be successful. The legions had, it would seem,
+invaded Southern Mesopotamia when the praetorian prefect who had
+succeeded Timesitheus brought them intentionally into difficulties by
+his mismanagement of the commissariat, and at last retreat was
+determined on.
+
+The young Emperor had almost reached his own frontier, when the
+discontent of the army, fomented by the prefect, Philip, came to a head.
+Gordian was murdered at a place called Zaitha, about twenty miles south
+of Circesium, and was buried where he fell, the soldiers raising a
+tumulus in his honor. His successor, Philip, was glad to make peace on
+any tolerable terms with the Persians; he felt himself insecure upon his
+throne, and was anxious to obtain the senate's sanction of his
+usurpation. He therefore quitted the East in A.D. 244, having concluded
+a treaty with Sapor by which Armenia seems to have been left to the
+Persians, while Mesopotamia returned to its old condition of a Roman
+province.
+
+The peace made between Philip and Sapor was followed by an interval of
+fourteen years, during which scarcely anything is known of the condition
+of Persia. We may suspect that troubles in the northeast of his empire
+occupied Sapor during this period, for at the end of it we find Bactria,
+which was certainly subject to Persia during the earlier years of the
+monarchy, occupying an independent position, and even assuming an
+attitude of hostility toward the Persian monarch. Bactria had, from a
+remote antiquity, claims to preeminence among the Aryan nations. She was
+more than once inclined to revolt from the Achaemenidae, and during the
+later Parthian period she had enjoyed a sort of semi-independence. It
+would seem that she now succeeded in detaching herself altogether from
+her southern neighbor and becoming a distinct and separate power. To
+strengthen her position she entered into relations with Rome, which
+gladly welcomed any adhesions to her cause in this remote region.
+
+Sapor's second war with Rome was, like his first, provoked by himself.
+After concluding his peace with Philip he had seen the Roman world
+governed successively by six weak emperors, of whom four had died
+violent deaths, while at the same time there had been a continued series
+of attacks upon the northern frontiers of the empire by Alamanni, Goths,
+and Franks, who had ravaged at will a number of the finest provinces,
+and threatened the absolute destruction of the great monarchy of the
+West. It was natural that the chief kingdom of Western Asia should note
+these events, and should seek to promote its own interests by taking
+advantage of the circumstances of the time. Sapor, in A.D. 258,
+determined on a fresh invasion of the Roman provinces, and once more
+entering Mesopotamia carried all before him, became master of Nisibis,
+Carrhae, and Edessa, and, crossing the Euphrates, surprised Antioch,
+which was wrapped in the enjoyment of theatrical and other
+representations, and only knew its fate on the exclamation of a couple
+of actors that "the Persians were in possession of the town!" The aged
+Emperor, Valerian, hastened to the protection of his more eastern
+territories, and at first gained some successes, retaking Antioch, and
+making that city his head-quarters during his stay in the East.
+
+But after this the tide turned. Valerian intrusted the whole conduct of
+the war to Macrianus, his praetorian prefect, whose talents he admired,
+and of whose fidelity he did not entertain a suspicion. Macrianus,
+however, aspired to the empire, and intentionally brought Valerian into
+difficulties in the hope of disgracing or removing him. His tactics were
+successful. The Roman army in Mesopotamia was betrayed into a situation
+whence escape was impossible and where its capitulation was only a
+question of time. A bold attempt made to force a way through the enemy's
+lines failed utterly, after which famine and pestilence began to do
+their work. In vain did the aged Emperor send envoys to propose a peace
+and offer to purchase escape by the payment of an immense sum in gold.
+Sapor, confident of victory, refused the overture, and, waiting
+patiently till his adversary was at the last gasp, invited him to a
+conference, and then treacherously seized his person. The army
+surrendered or dispersed. Macrianus, the praetorian prefect, shortly
+assumed the title of emperor and marched against Gallienus, the son and
+colleague of Valerian, who had been left to direct affairs in the West.
+But another rival started up in the East. Sapor conceived the idea of
+complicating the Roman affairs by himself putting forward a pretender;
+and an obscure citizen of Antioch, a certain Miriades, or Cyriades, a
+refugee in his camp, was invested with the purple and assumed the title
+of Caesar.
+
+The blow struck at Edessa laid the whole of Roman Asia open to attack,
+and the Persian monarch was not slow to seize the occasion. His troops
+crossed the Euphrates in force, and, marching on Antioch, once more
+captured that unfortunate town, from which the more prudent citizens had
+withdrawn, but where the bulk of the people, not displeased at the turn
+of affairs, remained and welcomed the conqueror. Miriades was installed
+in power, while Sapor himself, at the head of his irresistible
+squadrons, pressed forward, bursting "like a mountain torrent" into
+Cilicia, and thence into Cappadocia. Tarsus, the birthplace of St. Paul,
+at once a famous seat of learning and a great emporium of commerce,
+fell; Cilicia Campestris was overrun, and the passes of Taurus, deserted
+or weakly defended by the Romans, came into Sapor's hand.
+
+Penetrating through them and entering the campaign country beyond, his
+bands soon began the siege of Caesarea Mazaca, the greatest city of these
+parts, estimated at this time to have contained a population of four
+hundred thousand souls. Demosthenes, the governor of Caesarea, defended
+it bravely, and, had force only been used against him, might have
+prevailed; but Sapor found friends within the walls, and by their help
+made himself master of the place, while its bold defender was obliged to
+content himself with escaping by cutting his way through the victorious
+host. All Asia Minor now seemed open to the conqueror; and it is
+difficult to understand why he did not at any rate attempt a permanent
+occupation of the territory which he had so easily overrun. But it seems
+certain that he entertained no such idea.
+
+Devastation and plunder, revenge and gain, not permanent conquest, were
+his objects; and hence his course was everywhere marked by ruin and
+carnage, by smoking towns, ravaged fields, and heaps of slain. His
+cruelties have no doubt been exaggerated; but when we hear that he
+filled the ravines and valleys of Cappadocia with dead bodies, and so
+led his cavalry across them; that he depopulated Antioch, killing or
+carrying off into slavery almost the whole population; that he suffered
+his prisoners in many cases to perish of hunger, and that he drove them
+to water once a day like beasts, we may be sure that the guise in which
+he showed himself to the Romans was that of a merciless scourge--an
+avenger bent on spreading the terror of his name, not of one who really
+sought to enlarge the limits of his empire. During the whole course of
+this plundering expedition, until the retreat began, we hear but of one
+check that the bands of Sapor received. It had been determined to attack
+Emesa, one of the most important of the Syrian towns, where the temple
+of Venus was known to contain a vast treasure. The invaders approached,
+scarcely expecting to be resisted; but the high-priest of the temple,
+having collected a large body of peasants, appeared in his sacerdotal
+robes at the head of a fanatic multitude armed with slings, and
+succeeded in beating off the assailants. Emesa, its temple, and its
+treasure escaped the rapacity of the Persians; and an example of
+resistance was set, which was not perhaps without important
+consequences.
+
+For it seems certain that the return of Sapor across the Euphrates was
+not effected without considerable loss and difficulty. On his advance
+into Syria he had received an embassy from a certain Odenathus, a
+Syrian, or Arab chief, who occupied a position of semi-independence at
+Palmyra, which through the advantages of its situation, had lately
+become a flourishing commercial town. Odenathus sent a long train of
+camels laden with gifts, consisting in part of rare and precious
+merchandise, to the Persian monarch, begging him to accept them, and
+claiming his favorable regard on the ground that he had hitherto
+refrained from all acts of hostility against the Persians. It appears
+that Sapor took offence at the tone of the communication, which was not
+sufficiently humble to please him. Tearing the letter to fragments and
+trampling it beneath his feet he exclaimed: "Who is this Odenathus, and
+of what country, that he ventures thus to address his lord? Let him now,
+if he would lighten his punishment, come here and fall prostrate before
+me with his hands tied behind his back. Should he refuse, let him be
+well assured that I will destroy himself, his race, and his land." At
+the same time he ordered his servants to cast the costly presents of the
+Palmyrene prince into the Euphrates.
+
+This arrogant and offensive behavior naturally turned the willing friend
+into an enemy. Odenathus, finding himself forced into a hostile
+position, took arms and watched his opportunity. So long as Sapor
+continued to advance he kept aloof. As soon, however, as the retreat
+commenced, and the Persian army, encumbered with its spoil and captives,
+proceeded to make its way back slowly and painfully to the Euphrates,
+Odenathus, who had collected a large force--in part from the Syrian
+villages, in part from the wild tribes of Arabia--made his appearance in
+the field. His light and agile horsemen hovered about the Persian host,
+cut off their stragglers, made prize of much of their spoil, and even
+captured a portion of the seraglio of the great king.
+
+The harassed troops were glad when they had placed the Euphrates between
+themselves and their pursuer, and congratulated each other on their
+escape. So much had they suffered and so little did they feel equal to
+further conflicts that on their march through Mesopotamia they consented
+to purchase the neutrality of the people of Edessa by making over to
+them all the coined money that they had carried off in their Syrian
+raid. After this it would seem that the retreat was unmolested, and
+Sapor succeeded in conveying the greater part of his army, together with
+his illustrious prisoner, to his own country.
+
+With regard to the treatment that Valerian received at the hands of his
+conqueror it is difficult to form a decided opinion. The writers nearest
+to the time speak vaguely and moderately, merely telling us that he grew
+old in his captivity and was kept in the condition of a slave. It is
+reserved for authors of the next generation to inform us that he was
+exposed to the constant gaze of the multitude, fettered, but clad in the
+imperial purple; and that Sapor, whenever he mounted on horseback,
+placed his foot upon his prisoner's neck. Some add that when the
+unhappy captive died, about the year A.D. 265 or 266, his body was
+flayed and the skin inflated and hung up to view in one of the most
+frequented temples of Persia, where it was seen by Roman envoys on their
+visits to the great king's court.
+
+It is impossible to deny that oriental barbarism may conceivably have
+gone to these lengths; and it is in favor of the truth of the details
+that Roman vanity would naturally have been opposed to their invention.
+But, on the other hand, we have to remember that in the East the person
+of a king is generally regarded as sacred, and that self-interest
+restrains the conquering monarch from dishonoring one of his own class.
+We have also to give due weight to the fact that the earlier authorities
+are silent with respect to any such atrocities, and that they are first
+related half a century after the time when they are said to have
+occurred.
+
+Under these circumstances the scepticism of Gibbon with respect to them
+is perhaps worthy of commendation.
+
+It may be added that oriental monarchs, when they are cruel, do not show
+themselves ashamed of their cruelties, but usually relate them openly in
+their inscriptions or represent them in their bas-reliefs. The remains
+ascribed on good grounds to Sapor do not, however, contain anything
+confirmatory of the stories which we are considering. Valerian is
+represented on them in a humble attitude, but not fettered, and never in
+the posture of extreme degradation commonly associated with his name. He
+bends his knee, as no doubt he would be required to do, on being brought
+into the great king's presence; but otherwise he does not appear to be
+subjected to any indignity. It seems thus to be on the whole most
+probable that the Roman Emperor was not more severely treated than the
+generality of captive princes, and that Sapor has been unjustly taxed
+with abusing the rights of conquest.
+
+The hostile feeling of Odenathus against Sapor did not cease with the
+retreat of the latter across the Euphrates. The Palmyrene prince was
+bent on taking advantage of the general confusion of the times to carve
+out for himself a considerable kingdom, of which Palmyra should be the
+capital. Syria and Palestine, on the one hand, Mesopotamia, on the
+other, were the provinces that lay most conveniently near to him and
+that he especially coveted. But Mesopotamia had remained in the
+possession of the Persians as the prize of their victory over Valerian,
+and could only be obtained by wresting it from the hands into which it
+had fallen. Odenathus did not shrink from this contest. It has been,
+with some reason, conjectured that Sapor must have been at this time
+occupied with troubles which had broken out on the eastern side of his
+empire. At any rate, it appears that Odenathus, after a short contest
+with Macrianus and his son, Quietus, turned his arms once more, about
+A.D. 263, against the Persians, crossed the Euphrates into Mesopotamia,
+took Carrhae and Nisibis, defeated Sapor and some of his sons in a
+battle, and drove the entire Persian host in confusion to the gates of
+Ctesiphon. He even returned to lay siege to that city; but it was not
+long before effectual relief arrived; from all the provinces flocked in
+contingents for the defence of the western capital; several engagements
+were fought, in some of which Odenathus was defeated; and at last he
+found himself involved in difficulties through his ignorance of the
+localities, and so thought it best to retire. Apparently his retreat was
+undisturbed; he succeeded in carrying off his booty and his prisoners,
+among whom were several satraps, and he retained possession of
+Mesopotamia, which continued to form a part of the Palmyrene kingdom
+until the capture of Zenobia by Aurelian, A.D. 273.
+
+The successes of Odenathus, in A.D. 263, were followed by a period of
+comparative tranquillity. That ambitious prince seems to have been
+content with ruling from the Tigris to the Mediterranean, and with the
+title of "Augustus," which he received from the Roman emperor Gallienus,
+and "King of Kings," which he assumed upon his coins. He did not press
+further upon Sapor, nor did the Roman Emperor make any serious attempt
+to recover his father's person or revenge his defeat upon the Persians.
+An expedition which he sent out to the East, professedly with this
+object, in the year A.D. 267, failed utterly, its commander,
+Heraclianus, being signally defeated by Zenobia, the widow and successor
+of Odenathus. Odenathus himself was murdered by a kinsman three or four
+years after his great successes, and though Zenobia ruled his kingdom
+almost with a man's vigor, the removal of his powerful adversary must
+have been felt as a relief by the Persian monarch. It is evident, too,
+that from the time of the accession of Zenobia the relations between
+Rome and Palmyra had become unfriendly; the old empire grew jealous of
+the new kingdom which had sprung up upon its borders; and the effect of
+this jealousy, while it lasted, was to secure Persia from any attack on
+the part of either.
+
+It appears that Sapor, relieved from any further necessity of defending
+his empire in arms, employed the remaining years of his life in the
+construction of great works, and especially in the erection and
+ornamentation of a new capital. The ruins of Shapur, which still exist
+near Kazerun, in the province of Fars, commemorate the name and afford
+some indication of the grandeur of the second Persian monarch. Besides
+remains of buildings, they comprise a number of bas-reliefs and rock
+inscriptions, some of which were, beyond a doubt, set up by Sapor I. In
+one of the most remarkable, the Persian monarch is represented on
+horseback, wearing the crown usual upon his coins, and holding by the
+hand a tunicked figure, probably Miriades, whom he is presenting to the
+captured Romans as their sovereign. Foremost to do him homage is the
+kneeling figure of a chieftain, probably Valerian, behind whom are
+arranged in a double line seventeen persons, representing probably the
+different corps of the Roman army. All these persons are on foot, while
+in contrast with them are arranged behind Sapor ten guards on horseback,
+who represent his irresistible cavalry. Another bas-relief at the same
+place gives us a general view of Sapor on his return to Persia with his
+illustrious prisoners. Here fifty-seven guards are ranged behind him,
+while in front are thirty-three tribute bearers having with them an
+elephant and a chariot. In the centre is a group of seven figures,
+comprising: Sapor, who is on horseback in his usual costume; Valerian,
+who is under the horse's feet; Miriades, who stands by Sapor's side;
+three principal tribute bearers in front of the main figure; and a
+_Victory_, which floats in the sky.
+
+Another important work, assigned by tradition to Sapor I, is the great
+dike at Shuster. This is a dam across the river Karun, formed of cut
+stones, cemented by lime and fastened together by cramps of iron; it is
+twenty feet broad and no less than twelve hundred feet in length. The
+whole is a solid mass except in the centre, where two small arches have
+been constructed for the purpose of allowing a part of the stream to
+flow in its natural bed. The greater portion of the water is directed
+eastward into a canal cut for it; and the town of Shuster is thus
+defended on both sides by a water barrier, whereby the position becomes
+one of great strength. Tradition says that Sapor used his power over
+Valerian to obtain Roman engineers for this work; and the great dam is
+still known as the "Dam of Caesar" to the inhabitants of the neighboring
+country.
+
+Sapor died, having reigned thirty-one years, from A.D. 240 to A.D. 271.
+He was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable princes of the Sassanian
+series. In military talent, indeed, he may not have equalled his father,
+for though he defeated Valerian he had to confess himself inferior to
+Odenathus. But in general governmental ability he is among the foremost
+of the Neo-Persian monarchs, and may compare favorably with almost any
+prince of the series. He baffled Odenathus, when he was not able to
+defeat him, by placing himself behind walls, and by bringing into play
+those advantages which naturally belonged to the position of a monarch
+attacked in his own country. He maintained, if he did not permanently
+advance, the power of Persia in the West, while in the East it is
+probable that he considerably extended the bounds of his dominion.
+
+To the internal administration of his empire he united works of
+usefulness with the construction of memorials which had only a
+sentimental and aesthetic value. He was a liberal patron of art and is
+thought not to have confined his patronage to the encouragement of
+native talent. On the subject of religion he did not suffer himself to
+be permanently led away by the enthusiasm of a young and bold
+freethinker. He decided to maintain the religious system that had
+descended to him from his ancestors, and turned a deaf ear to
+persuasions that would have led him to revolutionize the religious
+opinion of the East without placing it upon a satisfactory footing. The
+orientals add to these commendable features of character that he was a
+man of remarkable beauty, of great personal courage, and of a noble and
+princely liberality. According to them, "he only desired wealth that he
+might use it for good and great purposes."
+
+
+
+
+CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE
+
+DECLINE OF PAGANISM
+
+A.D. 300-337
+
+JOHANN LORENZ VON MOSHEIM
+
+     A new epoch in the history of the Roman Empire began with the
+     accession of Diocletian to the throne in A.D. 284. From that time
+     the old names of consul, tribune, etc., belonging to the republic
+     lost their significance, and even the senate was practically
+     abolished. Thenceforth the empire became an oriental sovereignty.
+     In the year 292, having previously associated with himself one
+     colleague, Maximianus Herculius, Diocletian created two Caesars: the
+     one, Galerius Maximianus, to act as his subordinate in the East;
+     the other, Constantius Chlorus, to divide the government of the
+     western provinces with Maximianus Herculius. Each of these emperors
+     ruled with vigor in his own territory, defending the frontiers of
+     the empire and also suppressing such revolts as broke out within
+     its borders.
+
+     But these transformations in the empire were preparing the way for
+     events of unprecedented nature and importance, and for the rise of
+     an emperor destined to play a part in the history of the world
+     quite different from that performed by any of his predecessors.
+     This was Constantine, in whose character, throughout his life,
+     opposing elements seemed to contend for mastery, as was shown in
+     his treatment of the perplexing questions that arose during his
+     reign concerning Christianity, which was persecuted under
+     Diocletian and the old Roman religion. Of his statesmanship and his
+     further transformation of the empire, in ways which Diocletian
+     could not have foreseen, history has made an impressive record.
+
+     But the great events of his reign, which caused it to be regarded
+     as the inauguration of a new era, were his conversion to
+     Christianity and the acts whereby he secured its toleration and
+     then its supremacy in the empire. In the account which follows it
+     is clearly shown by what steps these results were attained, and how
+     the work of Constantine the Great became the chief agency by which
+     Christianity mounted the throne of the Caesars.
+
+
+In the beginning of the fourth century the Roman Empire had four
+sovereigns, of whom two were superior to the others and bore the title
+of Augustus, namely, Diocletian and Maximianus Herculius; the two
+inferior sovereigns, who bore the title of Caesars, were Constantius
+Chlorus and Galerius Maximianus. Under these four emperors the state of
+the Church was peaceful and happy. Diocletian, though superstitious,
+indulged no hatred toward the Christians. Constantius Chlorus, following
+only the dictates of reason in matters of religion, was averse to the
+popular idolatry, and friendly to the Christians. The pagan priests,
+therefore, from well-grounded fears lest Christianity, to their great
+and lasting injury, should spread far and wide its triumphs, endeavored
+to excite Diocletian, whom they knew to be both timid and credulous, by
+means of feigned oracles and other impositions, to engage in persecuting
+the Christians.
+
+These artifices not succeeding very well, they made use of the other
+emperor, Galerius Maximianus, who was son-in-law to Diocletian, in order
+to effect their purpose. This Emperor, who was of a ferocious character
+and ill-informed in everything except the military art, continued to
+work upon his father-in-law, being urged on partly by his own
+inclination, partly by the instigation of his mother, a most
+superstitious woman, and partly by that of the pagan priests, till at
+last, when Diocletian was at Nicomedia, in the year 303, he obtained
+from him an edict by which the temples of the Christians were to be
+demolished, their sacred books committed to the flames, and themselves
+deprived of all their civil rights and honors. This first edict spared
+the lives of the Christians; for Diocletian was averse from slaughter
+and bloodshed. Yet it caused many Christians to be put to death,
+particularly those who refused to deliver up their sacred books to the
+magistrates. Seeing this operation of the law, many Christians, and
+several even of the bishops and clergy, in order to save their lives,
+voluntarily surrendered the sacred books in their possession. But they
+were regarded by their more resolute brethren as guilty of sacrilege.
+
+Not long after the publication of this first edict, there were two
+conflagrations in the palace of Nicomedia; and the enemies of the
+Christians persuaded Diocletian to believe that Christian hands had
+kindled them. He therefore ordered many Christians of Nicomedia to be
+put to the torture and to undergo the penalties due to incendiaries.
+Nearly at the same time there were insurrections in Armenia and in
+Syria; and as their enemies charged the blame of these also upon the
+Christians, the Emperor by a new edict ordered all bishops and ministers
+of Christ to be thrown into prison; and by a third edict, soon after, he
+ordered that all these prisoners should be compelled by tortures and
+punishments to offer sacrifice to the gods; for he hoped, if the bishops
+and teachers were once brought to submission, the Christian churches
+would follow their example. A great multitude, therefore, of excellent
+men, in every part of the Roman Empire, Gaul only excepted, which was
+subject to Constantius Chlorus, were either punished capitally or
+condemned to the mines.
+
+In the second year of the persecution, A.D. 304, Diocletian published a
+fourth edict, at the instigation of his son-in-law and other enemies of
+the Christians. By this edict the magistrates were directed to compel
+all Christians to offer sacrifices to the gods, and to use tortures for
+that purpose. And as the governors yielded strict obedience to these
+orders, the Christian Church was reduced to the last extremity. Galerius
+Maximianus therefore no longer hesitated to disclose the secret designs
+he had long entertained. He required his father-in-law, Diocletian,
+together with his colleague, Maximianus Herculius, to divest themselves
+of their power, and constituted himself emperor of the East; leaving the
+West to Constantius Chlorus, whose health he knew to be very infirm. He
+also associated with him in the government two assistants of his own
+choosing, namely, Caius Galerius Maximinus, his sister's son, and
+Flavius Severus; excluding altogether Constantine, the son of
+Constantius Chlorus. This revolution in the Roman Government restored
+peace to Christians in the Western provinces, which were under
+Constantius; but in the Eastern provinces the persecution raged with
+greater severity than before.
+
+But divine Providence frustrated the whole plan of Galerius Maximianus.
+For, Constantius Chlorus dying in Britain, in the year 306, the soldiery
+by acclamation made his son Constantine, who afterward by his
+achievements obtained the title of "the Great," Augustus or Emperor; and
+the tyrant Galerius was obliged to submit, and even to approve this
+adverse event. Soon after a civil war broke out. For Maxentius, the
+son-in-law of Galerius Maximianus, being indignant that Galerius should
+prefer Severus before him, and invest him with imperial power, himself
+assumed the purple, and took his father, Maximianus Herculius, for his
+colleague in the empire. In the midst of these commotions Constantine,
+beyond all expectation, made his way to the imperial throne. The western
+Christians, those of Italy and Africa excepted, enjoyed a good degree of
+tranquillity and liberty during these civil wars. But the oriental
+churches experienced various fortune, adverse or tolerable, according to
+the political changes from year to year. At length Galerius Maximianus,
+who had been the author of the heaviest calamities, being brought low by
+a terrific and protracted disease, and finding himself ready to die, in
+the year 311, issued a decree which restored peace to them, after they
+had endured almost unbounded sufferings.
+
+After the death of Galerius Maximianus, Caius Galerius Maximianus and
+Caius Valerius Licinius divided between themselves the provinces which
+had been governed by Galerius. At the same time Maxentius, who held
+Africa and Italy, determined to make war upon Constantine, who governed
+in Spain and Gaul, in order to bring all the West under his authority.
+Constantine anticipated his designs, marched his army into Italy in the
+year 312, and in a battle fought at the Milvian bridge, near Rome,
+routed the army of Maxentius. In the flight the bridge broke down, and
+Maxentius fell into the Tiber and was drowned. After this victory
+Constantine, with his colleague Licinius, immediately gave full liberty
+to the Christians of living according to their own institutions and
+laws; and this liberty was more clearly defined the following year, A.D.
+313, in a new edict drawn up at Milan. Caius Galerius Maximinus, indeed,
+who reigned in the East, was projecting new calamities for the
+Christians, and menacing the emperors of the West with war; but being
+vanquished by Licinius, he put an end to his own life, in the year 313,
+by swallowing poison, at Tarsus.
+
+About this time Constantine the Great, who was previously a man of no
+religion, is said to have embraced Christianity, being induced thereto
+principally by the miracle of a cross appearing to him in the heavens.
+But this story is liable to much doubt. His first edict in favor of the
+Christians, and many other things, sufficiently evince that he was
+indeed at that time well disposed toward the Christians and their
+worship, but that he by no means regarded Christianity as the only true
+and saving religion; on the contrary, it appears that he regarded other
+religions, and among them the old Roman religion, as likewise true and
+useful to mankind; and he therefore wished all religions to be freely
+practised throughout the Roman Empire. But as he advanced in life,
+Constantine made progress in religious knowledge, and gradually came to
+regard Christianity as the only true and saving religion, and to
+consider all others as false and impious. Having learned this, he now
+began to exhort his subjects to embrace Christianity; and at length he
+proclaimed war against the ancient superstitions. At what time this
+change in the views of the Emperor took place, and he began to look upon
+all religions but the Christian as false, cannot be determined. This,
+however, is certain, that the change in his views was first made
+manifest by his laws and edicts in the year 324, after the death of
+Licinius, when Constantine became sole emperor. His purpose, however, of
+abolishing the ancient religion of the Romans, and of tolerating only
+the Christian religion, he did not disclose till a little before his
+death, when he published his edicts for pulling down the pagan temples
+and abolishing the sacrifices.
+
+That the Emperor was sincere, and not a dissembler, in regard to his
+conversion to Christianity, no person can doubt who believes that men's
+actions are an index of their real feelings. It is indeed true that
+Constantine's life was not such as the precepts of Christianity
+required; and it is also true that he remained a catechumen all his
+life, and was received to full membership in the Church, by baptism,
+only a few days before his death, at Nicomedia. But neither of these is
+adequate proof that the Emperor had not a general conviction of the
+truth of the Christian religion, or that he only feigned himself a
+Christian. For in that age many persons deferred baptism till near the
+close of life, that they might pass into the other world altogether pure
+and undefiled with sin; and it is but too notorious that many persons
+who look upon the Christian religion as indubitably true and of divine
+origin, yet do not conform their lives to all its holy precepts. It is
+another question whether worldly motives might not have contributed in
+some degree to induce Constantine to prefer the Christian religion to
+the ancient Roman, and to all other religions, and to recommend the
+observance of it to his subjects. Indeed, it is no improbable conjecture
+that the Emperor had discernment to see that Christianity possessed
+great efficacy, and idolatry none at all, to strengthen public
+authority, and to bind citizens to their duty.
+
+The sign of the cross, which Constantine most solemnly affirmed he saw
+in the heavens, near midday, is a subject involved in the greatest
+obscurities and difficulties. It is, however, an easy thing to refute
+those who regard this prodigy as a cunning fiction of the Emperor, or
+who rank it among fables; and also those who refer the phenomenon to
+natural causes, ingeniously conjecturing that the form of a cross
+appeared in a solar halo, or in the moon; and likewise those who ascribe
+the transaction to the power of God, who intended by a miracle to
+confirm the wavering faith of the Emperor. Now these suppositions being
+rejected, the only conclusion that remains is that Constantine saw, in a
+dream while asleep, the appearance of a cross, with the inscription, _In
+hoc signo vinces_ ("By this sign thou shalt conquer"). Nor is this
+opinion unsupported by competent authorities of good credit.
+
+The happiness anticipated by the Christians from the edicts of
+Constantine and Licinius was a little afterward interrupted by Licinius,
+who waged war against his kinsman Constantine. Being vanquished in the
+year 314, he was quiet for about nine years. But in the year 324 this
+restless man again attacked Constantine, being urged on both by his own
+inclination and by the instigation of the pagan priests. That he might
+secure himself a victory, he attached the pagans to his cause by
+severely oppressing the Christians, and putting not a few of their
+bishops to death. But all his plans failed; for, after several
+unsuccessful battles, he was obliged to throw himself upon the mercy of
+the victor, who, nevertheless, ordered him to be strangled, in the year
+325. After his victory over Licinius, Constantine reigned sole emperor
+till his death; and by his plans, his enactments, his regulations, and
+his munificence he endeavored as much as possible to obliterate
+gradually the ancient superstitions and to establish Christian worship
+throughout the Roman Empire. He had undoubtedly learned from the wars
+and the machinations of Licinius that neither himself nor the Roman
+Empire could remain secure while the ancient superstition continued
+prevalent; and therefore, from this time onward, he openly opposed the
+pagan deities and their worship, as being prejudicial to the interests
+of the State.
+
+After the death of Constantine, which happened in the year 337, his
+three surviving sons, Constantine II, Constantius, and Constans, assumed
+the empire, and were all proclaimed emperors by the Roman senate. There
+were still living two brothers of Constantine the Great, namely,
+Constantius Dalmatius and Julius Constans, and they had several sons.
+But nearly all of these were slain by the soldiers at the command of
+Constantine's sons, who feared lest their thirst for power might lead
+them to make insurrections and disturb the Commonwealth. Only Gallus and
+Julian, sons of Julius Constans, escaped the massacre; and the latter of
+these afterward became emperor. Constantine II held Britain, Gaul, and
+Spain, but lost his life, A.D. 340, in a war with his brother Constans,
+who at first governed only Illyricum, Italy, and Africa; but after the
+fall of his brother, Constantine II, he annexed his provinces to his
+empire, and thus became emperor of all the West, until he lost his life,
+A.D. 350, in the war with Maxentius, a usurper. After the death of
+Constans, Maxentius being subdued, the third brother, Constantius, who
+had before governed Asia, Syria, and Egypt, in the year 353 became sole
+emperor, and governed the whole empire till the year 361, when he died.
+Neither of these brothers possessed the disposition or the discernment
+of their father; yet they all pursued their father's purpose of
+abolishing the ancient superstitions of the Romans and other pagans, and
+of propagating the Christian religion throughout the Roman Empire. The
+thing itself was commendable and excellent; but in the means employed
+there was much that was censurable.
+
+Rhetoricians and philosophers, whose schools were supposed to be so
+profitable to the community, exhausted all their ingenuity, both before
+the days of Constantine the Great and afterward, to arrest the progress
+of Christianity. In the beginning of this century Hierocles, the great
+ornament of the Platonic school, composed two books against the
+Christians, in which he had the audacity to compare our Saviour with
+Apollonius Tyanaeus, and for which he was chastised by Eusebius in a
+tract written expressly against him. Lactantius speaks of another
+philosopher who endeavored to convince the Christians they were in
+error; but his name is not mentioned. After the reign of Constantine the
+Great, Julian wrote a large volume against the Christians, and Himerius
+and Libanius in their public declamations, and Eunapius in his lives of
+the philosophers, zealously decried the Christian religion. Yet no one
+of these persons was punished at all for the licentiousness of his
+tongue or of his pen.
+
+How much harm these sophists or philosophers, who were full of the pride
+of imaginary knowledge and of hatred to the Christian name, did to the
+cause of Christianity in this century appears from many examples, and
+especially from the apostasy of Julian, who was seduced by men of this
+stamp. Among those who wished to appear wise, and to take moderate
+ground, many were induced by the arguments and explanations of these men
+to devise a kind of reconciling religion, intermediate between the old
+superstition and Christianity, and to imagine that Christ had enjoined
+the very same thing which had long been represented by the pagan priests
+under the envelope of their ceremonies and fables. Of these views were
+Ammianus Marcellinus, a very prudent and discreet man; Chalcidius, a
+philosopher; Themistius, a very celebrated orator, and others, who
+conceived that both religions were in unison, as to all the more
+important points, if they were rightly understood, and therefore held
+that Christ was neither to be contemned nor to be honored to the
+exclusion of the pagan deities.
+
+As Constantine the Great and his sons and successors took much pains to
+enlarge the Christian Church, it is not strange that many nations,
+before barbarous and uncivilized, became subject to Christ. Many
+circumstances make it probable that the light of Christianity cast some
+of its rays into both Armenias, the Greater and the Less, soon after the
+establishment of the Christian Church. But the Armenian Church first
+received due organization and firm establishment in this century; in
+the beginning of which Gregory, the son of Anax, commonly called "the
+Illuminator," because he dispelled the mists of superstition which
+beclouded the minds of the Athenians, first persuaded some private
+individuals, and afterward Tiridates, the king of the Armenians, as well
+as his nobles, to embrace and observe the Christian religion. He was
+therefore ordained the first bishop of Armenia, by Leontius, bishop of
+Cappadocia, and gradually diffused the principles of Christianity
+throughout that country.
+
+In the European provinces of the Roman Empire there still remained a
+vast number of idolaters; and though the Christian bishops endeavored to
+convert them to Christ, the business went on but slowly. In Gaul, the
+great Martin, bishop of Tours, was not unsuccessful in this work; but
+travelling through the provinces of Gaul, he everywhere persuaded many
+to renounce their idols and embrace Christ, and he destroyed their
+temples and threw down their statues. He therefore merited the title
+"Apostle of the Gauls."
+
+It is very evident that the victories of Constantine the Great, and both
+the fear of punishment and the desire of pleasing the Roman emperors,
+were cogent reasons, in the view of whole nations as well as of
+individuals, for embracing the Christian religion. Yet no person well
+informed in the history of this period will ascribe the extension of
+Christianity wholly to these causes. For it is manifest that the
+untiring zeal of the bishops and other holy men, the pure and devout
+lives which many of the Christians exhibited, the translations of the
+sacred volume, and the excellence of the Christian religion were as
+efficient motives with many persons as the arguments from worldly
+advantage and disadvantage were with some others.
+
+Although the Christian Church within the Roman Empire was involved in no
+severe calamities from the times of Constantine the Great onward, except
+during the commotion of Licinius and the short reign of Julian, yet
+slight tempests sometimes beat upon them in certain places. Athanaric,
+for instance, a king of the Goths, fiercely assailed for a time that
+portion of the Gothic nation which had embraced Christianity. In the
+more remote provinces, also, the adherents to idolatry often defended
+their hereditary superstitions with the sword, and murdered the
+Christians, who in propagating their religion were not always as gentle
+or as prudent as they ought to have been. Beyond the limits of the Roman
+Empire, Sapor II, the king of Persia, waged three bloody wars against
+the Christians in his dominions. The first was in the eighteenth year of
+his reign; the second was in the thirtieth year; and the third, which
+was the most cruel and destroyed an immense number of Christians,
+commenced in his thirty-first year, A.D. 330, and lasted forty years, or
+till A.D. 370. Yet religion was not the ostensible cause of this
+dreadful persecution, but a suspicion of treasonable practices among the
+Christians; for the Magi and the Jews persuaded the King to believe that
+all Christians were in the interests of the Roman Empire.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST NICENE COUNCIL
+
+RISE AND DECLINE OF ARIANISM
+
+A.D. 325
+
+J. L. VON MOSHEIM     A. P. STANLEY
+
+     Controversies in the Christian Church concerning the mystery of the
+     Trinity began in the second century, prior to which the word
+     trinity--a term not found in the Scriptures--had scarcely been used
+     in Christian writings. It was prominently introduced by theologians
+     of the second century, who employed new metaphysical methods in
+     their attempts to explain the divine nature. The dispute turned
+     upon the questions whether Christ was God or man or an intermediate
+     being, whether or not he was created, and like inquiries. Arius, a
+     deacon of Alexandria, early in the fourth century, held that Christ
+     was a created being, though superior to all other created beings.
+     The Son, he maintained, is of a nature similar to--not the same
+     as--that of the Father, to whom the Son is subordinate. This heresy
+     obtained such currency in the Church that, in 321, a provincial
+     synod at Alexandria excommunicated Arius, who in his learned
+     writings had set them forth since 318. Once started among the
+     people, the controversy begun in the schools became very bitter,
+     and in many of the churches partisans of the heretical view
+     equalled in number those of the orthodox. Meanwhile Arius continued
+     to publish his doctrines.
+
+     The emperor Constantine, having become the patron of Christianity,
+     conceived that the controversy might be settled by an assembly of
+     the whole Church, and in the year 325 he convoked the first council
+     of Nicaea, which was also the first ecumenical or general council.
+     At this council, before which Arius defended his views, over three
+     hundred bishops were in attendance, and pronounced in favor of the
+     orthodox doctrine--that of the equality of the Son with the
+     Father--and condemned the Arians to exile and their books to be
+     burned. This council also promulgated the Nicene Creed in its early
+     form. The chief opponent of the Arians was Athanasius, the "Father
+     of Orthodoxy," whose name was given to a modified creed later
+     adopted into the Greek, Roman, and English services. The Arian
+     heresy, however, continued to spread in the East, and had the
+     strong support of Constantine and his son Constantius. The
+     controversy was renewed again and again, and for a long time
+     Arianism was an important factor in theological and political
+     affairs. Some phases of its peculiar doctrine have reappeared in
+     various teachings and sects of modern times. But the orthodox
+     doctrine affirmed at Nicaea has prevailed in the great branches of
+     the Christian Church, and the acceptance of its fundamental
+     principle--that of the Incarnation--in the post-apostolic age was
+     destined to have an incalculable influence upon the development of
+     individual and national life, civil as well as religious,
+     throughout the world.
+
+
+JOHANN LORENZ VON MOSHEIM
+
+In the year 317 a storm arose in Egypt which spread its ravages over the
+whole Christian world. The ground of this controversy was the doctrine
+of three persons in the Godhead, which during the three preceding
+centuries had not been in all respects defined. The doctors explained
+this subject in different ways, and gave various representations of the
+difference between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, without offence
+being taken.
+
+Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria--it is uncertain on what
+occasion--expressed himself very freely on this subject in a meeting of
+his presbyters, and maintained, among other things, that the Son
+possesses not only the same dignity as the Father, but also the same
+essence. But Arius, one of the presbyters, a man of an acute mind and
+fluent, at first denied the truth of Alexander's positions, on the
+ground that they were allied to the Sabellian errors, which were
+condemned by the Church; and then, going to the opposite extreme, he
+maintained that the Son is totally and essentially distinct from the
+Father; that he was only the first and noblest of those created beings
+whom God the Father formed out of nothing, and the instrument which the
+Father used in creating the material universe, and therefore that he was
+inferior to the Father both in nature and in dignity. No one of the
+ancients has left us a connected and systematic account of the religion
+professed by Arius and his associates.
+
+The opinions of Arius were no sooner divulged than they found very many
+abettors, and among them men of distinguished talents and rank, both in
+Egypt and the neighboring provinces. Alexander, on the other hand,
+accused Arius of blasphemy before two councils assembled at Alexandria,
+and cast him out of the Church. He was not discouraged by this disgrace;
+but retiring to Palestine he wrote various letters to men of
+distinction, in which he labored to demonstrate the truth of his
+doctrines, and with so much success that he drew over immense numbers to
+his side, and in particular Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, who was a man
+of vast influence. The emperor Constantine, who considered the
+discussion as relating to a matter of little importance and remote from
+the fundamentals of religion, at first addressed the disputants by
+letter, admonishing them to desist from contention. But when he found
+that nothing was effected by this measure, and that greater commotion
+was daily rising throughout the empire, he in the year 325 summoned that
+famous council of the whole Church which met at Nice in Bithynia, to put
+an end to this controversy. In this council, after various altercations
+and conflicts of the bishops, the doctrine of Arius was condemned,
+Christ was pronounced to be of the same essence with the Father, Arius
+was sent into exile in Illyricum, and his followers were compelled to
+assent to a creed or confession of faith composed by the council.
+
+No part of church history, perhaps, has acquired more celebrity than
+this assembly of bishops at Nice to settle the affairs of the Church;
+and yet it is very singular that scarcely any part of ecclesiastical
+history has been investigated and explained more negligently. The
+ancient writers are not agreed as to the time and year, nor the place,
+nor the number of the judges, nor the president of this council, nor as
+to many other particulars. No written journal of the proceedings of this
+venerable tribunal was kept--at least none has reached us. How many and
+what canons or ecclesiastical laws were enacted is not agreed on by the
+Eastern and Western Christians. The latter tell us they were only twenty
+in number, but the orientals make them far more numerous. From the
+canons universally received, and from the other monuments of the
+council, it appears not only that Arius was condemned, but that other
+things were decreed, with a view to settle the affairs of the Church. In
+particular, the controversy respecting the time of celebrating Easter,
+which had long perplexed Christians, was terminated; the jurisdiction of
+the greater bishops was defined, and several other matters of a like
+nature were determined.
+
+But the passions of men were more efficient than either the decrees of
+the Nicene Council or the authority of the Emperor; for there were those
+who, though they did not fall in with the doctrine of Arius, yet were
+dissatisfied with some things in the decrees and the creed of the
+council, and the Arians left no means untried to free themselves from
+the evils inflicted on them by those decrees. And the issue was
+favorable to their wishes; for in a few years after the Nicene Council
+an Arian presbyter whom Constantia, the Emperor's sister, at her death
+had recommended to the care of her brother, succeeded in persuading
+Constantine the Great that Arius had been wrongfully condemned from
+personal enmity. Accordingly, in the year 330, the Emperor recalled
+Arius from exile, rescinded the decrees passed against his associates
+and friends, and permitted Eusebius of Nicomedia, the principal
+supporter of Arius, and his powerful faction, now thirsting for revenge,
+to persecute the defenders of the Nicene Council. They assailed no one
+more fiercely than Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria. When he could
+in no way be brought to restore Arius to his former honors and
+ecclesiastical standing, Athanasius was first deprived of his office, in
+a council held at Tyre, A.D. 335, and then banished to Gaul, while in
+the same year, by a numerous council held at Jerusalem, Arius and his
+friends were solemnly admitted to the communion of the Church. But by
+none of these proceedings could the Alexandrians be induced to receive
+Arius among their presbyters. Accordingly the Emperor called him to
+Constantinople, in the year 336, and ordered Alexander, the bishop of
+that city, to open the doors of his church to him. But before that could
+take place Arius died at Constantinople in a tragical manner;[49] and
+the Emperor himself closed life shortly after.
+
+After the death of Constantine the Great, one of his sons, Constantius,
+the Emperor of the East, with his wife and his court, was very partial
+to the Arian cause, but Constantine and Constans supported in the
+western parts, where they governed, the decisions of the Nicene Council.
+Hence the broils, the commotions, the plots, the injuries had neither
+measure nor bounds, and on both sides councils were assembled to oppose
+councils. Constans died in the year 350, and two years afterward a great
+part of the West, particularly Italy and Rome, came under the dominion
+of his brother Constantius. This revolution was most disastrous to the
+friends of the Nicene Council; for this Emperor, being devoted to the
+Arians, involved the others in numerous evils and calamities, and by
+threats and punishments compelled many of them to apostatize to that
+sect to which he was himself attached. The Nicene party made no
+hesitation to return the same treatment as soon as time, place, and
+opportunity were afforded them, and the history of Christianity under
+Constantius presents the picture of a most stormy period, and of a war
+among brethren which was carried on without religion or justice or
+humanity.
+
+On the death of Constantius, in the year 362, the prosperous days of the
+Arians were at an end. Julian had no partiality for either, and
+therefore patronized neither the Arians nor the orthodox. Jovian
+espoused the orthodox sentiments, and therefore all the West, with no
+small part of the East, rejecting Arian views, reverted to the doctrines
+of the Nicene Council. But the scene was changed under the two brothers
+Valentinian and Valens, who were advanced to the government of the
+Empire in the year 364. Valentinian adhered to the decisions at Nice,
+and therefore in the West the Arian sect, a few churches excepted, was
+wholly extirpated. Valens, on the contrary, took sides with the Arians,
+and hence in the eastern provinces many calamities befell the orthodox.
+But when this Emperor had fallen in a war with the Goths, A.D. 378,
+Gratian--who succeeded Valentinian in the West, in the year 376, and
+became master of the whole empire in 378--restored peace to the
+orthodox. After him Theodosius the Great, by depriving the Arians of all
+their churches and enacting severe laws against them, caused the
+decisions of the Nicene Council to triumph everywhere, and none could
+any longer publicly profess Arian doctrines except among the barbarous
+nations, the Goths, the Vandals, and the Burgundians. That there were
+great faults on both sides in this long and violent contest no candid
+person can deny, but which party was guilty of the greatest wrong it is
+difficult to say.
+
+The Arians would have done much more harm to the Church if they had not
+become divided among themselves, after the Nicene Council, and split
+into sects which could not endure each other. Unhappily the Arian
+contests produced, as was very natural, some new sects. Some persons,
+while eager to avoid and to confute the opinions of Arius, fell into
+opinions equally dangerous. Others, after treading in the footsteps of
+Arius, ventured on far beyond him and became still greater errorists.
+The human mind, weak and subject to the control of the senses and the
+imagination, seldom exerts all its energies to comprehend divine
+subjects in such a manner as to be duly guarded against extremes. In the
+former class I would reckon Apollinaris the Younger, bishop of Laodicea,
+though otherwise a man of great merit, and one who in various ways
+rendered important service to the Church. He manfully asserted the
+divinity of Christ against the Arians, but by philosophizing too freely
+and too eagerly he almost set aside the human nature of the Saviour.
+This great man was led astray, not merely by the ardor of debate, but
+likewise by his immoderate attachment to the Platonic doctrine
+concerning a twofold soul, from which if the divines of the age had been
+free they would have formed more wise and more correct judgments on many
+points. The doctrine of Apollinaris met the approbation of many in
+nearly all the eastern provinces, and, being explained in different
+ways, it became a source of new sects. But as it was assailed by the
+laws of the emperors, the decrees of councils, and the writings of
+learned men, it gradually sunk under these united assaults.
+
+At the head of those whom the contests with Arius led into still greater
+errors may undoubtedly be placed Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, who in the
+year 343 advanced opinions concerning God equally remote from those of
+the orthodox and those of the Arians. The temerity of the man was
+chastened not only by the orthodox, in their councils of Antioch in 345,
+of Milan in 347, and of Sirmium, but also by the Arians in a council
+held at Sirmium in 351. He was deprived of his office, and died in
+exile in the year 372. After him Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople, a
+distinguished semi-Arian teacher, being deprived of his office by the
+Council of Constantinople, in the year 360, in his exile founded the
+sect of the Pneumatomachi. He openly professed that the Holy Spirit is a
+divine energy diffused throughout the universe, and not a person
+distinct from the Father and the Son. This doctrine was embraced by many
+in the Asiatic provinces; but the Council of Constantinople, assembled
+by Theodosius the Great, in the year 381, and which is commonly
+considered as the second ecumenical council, early dissipated by its
+authority this young and immature sect. One hundred and fifty bishops
+present in this council defined fully and perfectly the doctrine of
+three persons and one God, as it is still professed by the great body of
+Christians, which the Nicene Council had only in part performed. They
+also anathematized all the heresies then known.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the fifth century the Arians, oppressed and persecuted by the
+imperial edicts, took refuge among those barbarous nations who gradually
+overturned the Roman Empire in the West; and found among the Goths,
+Heruli, Suevi, Vandals, and Burgundians a fixed residence and a quiet
+retreat. Being now safe, they treated the orthodox with the same
+violence which the orthodox had employed against them and other
+heretics, and had no hesitation about persecuting the adherents to the
+Nicene doctrines in a variety of ways. The Vandals, who had established
+their kingdom in Africa, surpassed all the rest in cruelty and
+injustice. At first Genseric, their king, and then Huneric, his son,
+demolished the temples of such Christians as maintained the divinity of
+the Saviour, sent their bishops into exile, mutilated many of the more
+firm and decided, and tortured them in various ways; and they expressly
+stated that they were authorized to do so by the example of the
+emperors, who had enacted similar laws against the Donatists in Africa,
+the Arians, and others who dissented from them in religion.
+
+At the beginning of the sixth century the Arians were triumphant in some
+parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe. Not a few of the Asiatic bishops
+favored them. The Vandals in Africa, the Goths in Italy, many of the
+Gauls, the Suevi, the Burgundians, and the Spaniards openly espoused
+their interests. The Greeks indeed, who approved of the Nicene Council,
+oppressed and also punished them wherever they were able; but the Arians
+returned the like treatment, especially in Africa and Italy. Yet this
+prosperity of the Arians wholly terminated when, under the auspices of
+Justinian, the Vandals were driven from Africa and the Goths from Italy.
+For the other Arian kings, Sigismund, king of the Burgundians,
+Theodimir, king of the Suevi in Lusitania, and Receared, king of Spain,
+without violence and war, suffered themselves to be led to a
+renunciation of the Arian doctrine, and to efforts for its extirpation
+among their subjects by means of legal enactments and councils. Whether
+reason and arguments or hope and fear had the greater influence in the
+conversion of these kings, it is difficult to say; but it is certain
+that the Arian sect was from this time dispersed and could never after
+recover any strength.
+
+
+ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY
+
+The delegates to the council assembled in the first instance in one of
+the chief buildings of Nicaea, apparently for the purpose of a
+thanksgiving and a religious reunion. Whether it was an actual church
+may be questioned. Christians, no doubt, there had been in Bithynia for
+some generations. Already in the second century Pliny had found them in
+such numbers that the temples were deserted and the sacrifices
+neglected. But it would seem that on this occasion a secular building
+was fitted up as a temporary house of prayer. At least the traditional
+account of the place where their concluding prayers were held exactly
+agrees with Strabo's account of the ancient gymnasium of Nicaea.
+
+It was a large building, shaped like a basilica, with an apsis at one
+end, planted in the centre of the town, and thus commanding down each of
+the four streets a view of the four gates, and therefore called
+_Mesomphalos_, the "Navel" of the city. Whether, however, this edifice
+actually was a church or not, its use as such on this occasion served as
+a precedent for most of the later councils. From the time of the Council
+of Chalcedon, they have usually been held within the walls of churches.
+But for this the first council, the church, so far as it was a church,
+was only used as the beginning and the end. After these thanksgivings
+were over, the members of the assembly must have been collected
+according to the divisions which shall now be described.
+
+The group which, above the rest, attracts our attention, is the
+deputation from the Church of Egypt. Shrill above all other voices,
+vehement above all other disputants, "brandishing their arguments," as
+it was described by one who knew them well, "like spears, against those
+who sate under the same roof and ate off the same table as themselves,"
+were the combatants from Alexandria, who had brought to its present pass
+the question which the council was called to decide. Foremost in the
+group in dignity, though not in importance or in energy, was the aged
+Alexander, whose imprudent sermon had provoked the quarrel, and whose
+subsequent vacillation had encouraged it. He was the bishop, not indeed
+of the first, but of the most learned, see of Christendom. He was known
+by a title which he alone officially bore in that assembly. He was "the
+Pope." "The Pope of Rome" was a phrase which had not yet emerged in
+history. But "Pope of Alexandria" was a well-known dignity. _Papa_, that
+strange and universal mixture of familiar endearment and of reverential
+awe, extended in a general sense to all Greek presbyters and all Latin
+bishops, was the special address which, long before the name of
+patriarch or of archbishop, was given to the head of the Alexandrian
+Church.
+
+In the Patriarchal Treasury at Moscow is a very ancient scarf or
+_omophorion_, said to have been given by the bishop of Nicaea in the
+seventeenth century to the czar Alexis, and to have been left to the
+Church of Nicaea by Alexander of Alexandria. It is white, and is rudely
+worked with a representation of the Ascension; possibly an allusion to
+the first Sunday of their meeting. This relic, true or false, is the
+nearest approach we can now make to the bodily presence of the old
+theologian. The shadow of death is already upon him; in a few months he
+will be beyond the reach of controversy.
+
+But close beside the pope Alexander is a small insignificant young man,
+of hardly twenty-five years of age, of lively manners and speech, and of
+bright, serene countenance. Though he is but the deacon, the chief
+deacon, or archdeacon, of Alexander, he has closely riveted the
+attention of the assembly by the vehemence of his arguments. He is
+already taking the words out of the bishop's mouth, and briefly acting
+in reality the part he had before, as a child, acted in name, and that
+in a few months he will be called to act both in name and in reality. In
+some of the conventional pictures of the council his humble rank as a
+deacon does not allow of his appearance. But his activity and prominence
+behind the scenes made enemies for him there, who will never leave him
+through life. Anyone who had read his passionate invectives afterward
+may form some notion of what he was when in the thick of his youthful
+battles. That small, insignificant deacon is the great Athanasius.
+
+Next after the pope and deacon of Alexandria we must turn to one of its
+most important presbyters--the parish priest of its principal church,
+which bore the name of Baucalis, and marked the first beginnings of what
+we should call a parochial system. In appearance he is the very opposite
+of Athanasius. He is sixty years of age, very tall and thin, and
+apparently unable to support his stature; he has an odd way of
+contorting and twisting himself, which his enemies compare to the
+wrigglings of a snake. He would be handsome but for the emaciation and
+deadly pallor of his face, and a downcast look, imparted by a weakness
+of eyesight. At times his veins throb and swell and his limbs tremble,
+as if suffering from some violent internal complaint--the same, perhaps,
+that will terminate one day in his sudden and frightful death. There is
+a wild look about him, which at first sight is startling. His dress and
+demeanor are those of a rigid ascetic. He wears a long coat with short
+sleeves, and a scarf of only half size, such as was the mark of an
+austere life; and his hair hangs in a tangled mass over his head. He is
+usually silent, but at times breaks out into fierce excitement, such as
+will give the impression of madness. Yet with all this there are a
+sweetness in his voice and a winning, earnest manner which fascinates
+those who come across him. Among the religious ladies of Alexandria he
+is said to have had from the first a following of not less than seven
+hundred. This strange, captivating, moon-struck giant is the heretic
+Arius, or, as his adversaries called him, the madman of Ares or Mars.
+Close beside him was a group of his countrymen, of whom we know little,
+except their fidelity to him through good report and evil: Saras, like
+himself a presbyter, from the Libyan province; Euzoius, a deacon of
+Egypt; Achillas, a reader; Theonas, bishop of Marmarica in the
+Cyrenaica; and Secundus, bishop of Ptolemais in the Delta.
+
+These were the most remarkable deputies from the Church of Alexandria.
+But from the interior of Egypt came characters of quite another stamp;
+not Greeks, nor Grecized Egyptians, but genuine Copts, speaking the
+Greek language not at all, or with great difficulty; living half or the
+whole of their lives in the desert; their very names taken from the
+heathen gods of the times of the ancient Pharaohs. One was Potammon,
+bishop of Heracleopolis, far up the Nile; the other, Paphnutius, bishop
+of the Upper Thebaid. Both are famous for the austerity of their lives.
+Potammon--that is, "dedicated to Ammon"--had himself visited the hermit
+Antony; Paphnutius--that is, "dedicated to his God"--had been brought up
+in a hermitage. Both, too, had suffered in the persecutions. Each
+presented the frightful spectacle of the right eye dug out with iron.
+Paphnutius, besides, came limping on one leg, his left having been
+hamstrung.
+
+Next in importance must be reckoned the bishop of Syria and of the
+interior of Asia; or, as they are sometimes called in the later
+councils, the _Eastern_ bishops, as distinguished from the Church of
+Egypt. Then, as afterward, there was a rivalry between those branches of
+oriental Christendom; each, from long neighborhood, knowing each, yet
+each tending in an opposite direction till, after the Council of
+Chalcedon, a community of heresy drew them together again. Here, as in
+Egypt, we find two classes of representatives--scholars from the more
+civilized cities of Syria; wild ascetics from the remoter East. The
+first in dignity was the orthodox Eustathius, who either was, or was on
+the point of being made, bishop of the capital of Syria, the metropolis
+of the Eastern Church, Antioch, then called "the city of God." He had
+suffered in heathen persecutions, and was destined to suffer in
+Christian persecutions also. But he was chiefly known for his learning
+and eloquence, which was distinguished by an antique simplicity of
+style. One work alone has come down to us on the "Witch of Endor."
+
+Next in rank and far more illustrious was his chief suffragan, the
+metropolitan of Palestine, the bishop of Caesarea, Eusebius. We honor him
+as the father of ecclesiastical history, as the chief depositary of the
+traditions which connect the fourth with the first century. But in the
+bishops of Nicaea his presence awakened feelings of a very different
+kind. He alone of the eastern prelates could tell what was in the mind
+of the Emperor; he was the clerk of the imperial closet; he was the
+interpreter, the chaplain, the confessor of Constantine. And yet he was
+on the wrong side. Two especially, we may be sure, of the Egyptian
+Church, were on the watch for any slip that he might make.
+Athanasius--whatever may have been the opinions of later times
+respecting the doctrines of Eusebius--was convinced that he was at heart
+an Arian. Potammon of the one eye had known him formerly in the days of
+persecution, and was ready with that most fatal taunt, which, on a later
+occasion, he threw out against him, that, while he had thus suffered for
+the cause of Christ, Eusebius had escaped by sacrificing to an idol.
+
+If Eusebius was suspected of Arianism, he was supported by most of his
+suffragan bishops in Palestine, of whom Paulinus of Tyre, and
+Patrophilus of Bethshan (Scythopolis) were the most remarkable. One,
+however, a champion of orthodoxy, was distinguished, not in himself, but
+for the see which he occupied--once the highest in Christendom, in a few
+years about to claim something of its former grandeur, but at the time
+of the council known only as a second-rate Syro-Roman city--Macarius,
+bishop of AElia Capitolina, that is, "Jerusalem."
+
+From Neocaesarea, a border fortress on the Euphrates, came its confessor
+bishop, Paul, who, like Paphnutius and Potammon, had suffered in the
+persecutions, but more recently under Licinius. His hands were paralyzed
+by the scorching of the muscles of all the fingers with red-hot iron.
+Along with him were the orthodox representatives of four famous
+churches, who, according to the Armenian tradition, travelled in
+company. Their leader was the marvel, "the Moses" as he was termed, of
+Mesopotamia, James, or Jacob, bishop of Nisibis. He had lived for years
+as a hermit on the mountains--in the forests during the summer, in
+caverns during the winter--browsing on roots and leaves like a wild
+beast, and like a wild beast clothed in a rough goat-hair cloak. This
+dress and manner of life, even after he became bishop, he never laid
+aside; and the mysterious awe which his presence inspired was increased
+by the stories of miraculous powers which, we are told, he exercised in
+a manner as humane and playful as it was grotesque; as when he turned
+the washerwoman's hair white, detected the impostor who pretended to be
+dead, and raised an army of gnats against the Persians. His fame as a
+theologian rests on disputed writings.
+
+The second was Ait-allaha--"the brought of God," like the Greek
+"Theophorus"--who had just occupied the see of Edessa, and finished the
+building of the cemetery of his cathedral.
+
+The third was Aristaces, said to be the cousin of Jacob of Bisibis and
+son of Gregory the Illuminator, founder of the Armenian Church. He
+represented both his father and the bishop and Tiridates, the king of
+Armenia; the bishop and King having received a special invitation from
+Constantine, and sent their written professions of faith by the hands of
+Aristaces.
+
+The fourth came from beyond the frontier, the sole representative
+of the more distant East, "John the Persian," who added to his
+name the more sounding title--here appearing for the first time,
+but revived in our own days as the designation of our own bishops
+of Calcutta--"Metropolitan of India."
+
+A curious tradition related that this band, including eleven other names
+from the remote East, were the only members of the Nicene Council who
+had not sustained some bodily mutilation or injury.
+
+As this little band advanced westward, they encountered a remarkable
+personage, who stands at the head of the next group which we meet--the
+prelates of Asia Minor and Greece. This was Leontius of Caesarea in
+Cappadocia. From his hands, it was said, Gregory of Armenia had
+received ordination, and from his successors in the see of Caesarea had
+desired that every succeeding bishop of Armenia should receive
+ordination likewise. For this reason, it may be, Aristaces and his
+company sought them out. They found Leontius already on his journey, and
+they overtook him at a critical moment. He was on the point of baptizing
+another Gregory, father of a much more celebrated Gregory, the future
+bishop of Nazianzen. A light, it was believed, shone from the water,
+which was only discerned by the sacred travellers.
+
+Leontius was claimed by the Arians, but still more decidedly by the
+orthodox. Others, of the same side, are usually named as from the same
+region, among them Hypatius of Gangra, whose end we shall witness at the
+close of these events, and Hermogenes the deacon, afterward bishop of
+Caesarea, who acted as secretary of the council.
+
+Eusebius of Nicomedia, afterward of Constantinople, Theognis of Nicaea,
+Maris of Chalcedon, and Menophantus of Ephesus, were among the most
+resolute defenders of Arius. It is curious to reflect that they
+represent the four sees of the four orthodox councils of the Church. The
+three last named soon vanish away from history. But Eusebius of
+Nicomedia, friend, namesake, perhaps even brother of the bishop of
+Caesarea, was a personage of high importance both then and afterward. As
+Athanasius was called "the Great" by the orthodox, so was Eusebius by
+the Arians. Even miracles were ascribed to him. Originally bishop of
+Beyruth (Berytus), he had been translated to the see of Nicomedia, then
+the capital of the Eastern Empire. He had been a favorite of the
+Emperor's rival Licinius, and had thus become intimate with Constantia,
+the Emperor's sister, the wife, now the widow of Licinius. Through her
+and through his own distant relationship with the imperial family he
+kept a hold on the court which he never lost, even to the moment when he
+stood by the dying bed of the Emperor, years afterward, and received him
+into the Church. We must not be too hard on the Christianity of
+Eusebius, if we wish to vindicate the baptism of Constantine.
+
+Not far from the great prelate of the capital of the East would be the
+representative of what was now a small Greek town, but in five years
+from that time would supersede altogether the glories of Nicomedia.
+Metrophanes, bishop of Byzantium, was detained by old age and sickness,
+but Alexander, his presbyter, himself seventy years of age, was there
+with a little secretary of the name of Paul, not more than twelve years
+old, one of the readers and collectors of the Byzantine Church.
+Alexander had already corresponded with his namesake on the Arian
+controversy, and was apparently attached firmly to the orthodox side.
+
+Besides their more regular champions the orthodox party of Greece and
+Asia Minor had a few very eccentric allies. One was Acesius, the
+Novatian, "the Puritan," summoned by Constantine from Byzantium with
+Alexander, from the deep respect entertained by the Emperor for his
+ascetic character. He was attended by a boy, Auxanon, who lived to a
+great age afterward as a presbyter in the same sect. This child was then
+living with a hermit, Eutychianus, on the heights of the neighboring
+mountain of the Bithynian Olympus, and he descended from these solitudes
+to attend upon Acesius. From him we have obtained some of the most
+curious details of the council.
+
+Marcellus, Bishop of Ancyra, was among the bishops, the fiercest
+opponent of Arius, and, when the active deacon of Alexandria was not
+present, seems to have borne the brunt of the arguments. Yet, if we may
+judge from his subsequent history, Athanasius could never have been
+quite at ease in leaving the cause in his hands. He was one of those
+awkward theologians who never could attack Arianism without falling into
+Sabellianism; and in later life he was twice deposed from his see for
+heresy, once excommunicated by Athanasius himself; and in the present
+form of the Nicene Creed one clause--that which asserts that "the
+kingdom of Christ shall have no end"--is said to have been expressly
+aimed at his exaggerated language.
+
+And now come two, who in the common pictures of the council always
+appear together, of whom the one probably left the deepest impression on
+his contemporaries; and the other, if he were present at all, on the
+subsequent traditions of the council. From the island of Cyprus there
+arrived the simple shepherd Spyridion, a shepherd both before and after
+his elevation to the episcopate. Strange stories were told by his
+fellow-islanders to the historian Socrates of the thieves who were
+miraculously caught in attempting to steal his sheep, and of Spyridion's
+good-humored reply when he found them in the morning, and gave them a
+ram, that they might not have sat up all night for nothing.
+
+Another tale, exactly similar to the fantastic Mussulman legends which
+hand about stories of Jerusalem, told how he had gained an answer from
+his dead daughter Irene to tell where a certain deposit was hidden. Two
+less marvellous, but more instructive, stories bring out the simplicity
+of his character. He rebuked a celebrated preacher at Cyprus for
+altering, in a quotation from the gospels, the homely word for "bed"
+into "couch." "What! are you better than He who said 'bed,' that you are
+ashamed to use his words?" On occasion of a way-worn traveller coming to
+him in Lent, finding no other food in the house, he presented him with
+salted pork; and when the stranger declined, saying that he could not as
+a Christian break his fast: "So much the less reason," he said, "have
+you for scruple; to the pure all things are pure."
+
+A characteristic legend attaches to the account of his journey to the
+council. It was his usual practice to travel on foot. But on this
+occasion the length of the journey, as well as the dignity of his
+office, induced him to ride, in company with his deacon, on two mules, a
+white and a chestnut. One night at his arrival at a caravansary where a
+cavalcade of orthodox bishops were already assembled, the mules were
+turned out to pasture, while he retired to his devotions. The bishops
+had conceived an alarm lest the cause of orthodoxy should suffer in the
+council by the ignorance or awkwardness of the Shepherd of Cyprus when
+opposed to the subtleties of the Alexandrian heretic. Accordingly,
+taking advantage of his encounter, they determined to throw a decisive
+impediment in his way. They cut off the heads of his two mules, and
+then, as is the custom in oriental travelling, started on their journey
+before sunrise. Spyridion also rose, but was met by his terrified deacon
+announcing the unexpected disaster. On arriving at the spot the saint
+bade the deacon attach the heads to the dead bodies. He did so, and at a
+sign from the bishop the two mules with their restored heads shook
+themselves as if from a deep sleep, and started to their feet. Spyridion
+and the deacon mounted and soon overtook the travellers. As the day
+broke the prelates and the deacon were alike astonished at seeing that
+he, performing the annexation in the dark and in haste, had fixed the
+heads on the wrong shoulders, so that the white mule had now a chestnut
+head, and the chestnut mule had the head of its white companion. Thus
+the miracle was doubly attested, the bishops doubly discomfited, and the
+simplicity of Spyridion doubly exemplified.
+
+Many more stories might be told of him, but, to use the words of an
+ancient writer who has related some of them, "from the claws you can
+make out the lion." Of all the Nicene fathers, it may yet be said that
+in a certain curious sense he is the only one who has survived the decay
+of time. After resting for many years in his native Cyprus his body was
+transferred to Constantinople, where it remained till a short time
+before the fall of the empire. It was thence conveyed to Corfu, where it
+is still preserved. Hence by a strange resuscitation of fame he has
+become the patron saint, one might almost say the divinity, of the
+Ionian Islands. Twice a year in solemn procession he is carried round
+the streets of Corfu. Hundreds of Corfutes bear his name, now abridged
+into the familiar diminutive of "Spiro." The superstitious veneration
+entertained for the old saint is a constant source of quarrel between
+the English residents and the native Ionians. But the historian may be
+pardoned for gazing with a momentary interest on the dead hands, now
+black and withered, that subscribed the Creed of Nicaea.
+
+Still more famous--and still more apocryphal, at least in his attendance
+at Nicaea--is Nicolas, bishop of Myra. Not mentioned by a single ancient
+historian, he yet figures in the traditional pictures of the council as
+the foremost figure of all. Type as he is of universal benevolence to
+sailors, to thieves, to the victims of thieves, to children--known by
+his broad red face and flowing white hair--the traditions of the East
+always represent him as standing in the midst of the assembly, and
+suddenly roused by righteous indignation to assail the heretic Arius
+with a tremendous box on the ear.
+
+One more group of deputies closes the arrivals. The Nicene Council was a
+council of the Eastern Church, and Eastern seemingly were at least three
+hundred and ten of the three hundred and eighteen bishops. But the West
+was not entirely unrepresented. Nicasius from France, Marcus from
+Calabria, Capito from Sicily, Eustorgius from Milan--where a venerable
+church is still dedicated to his memory--Domnus of Stridon in Pannonia
+were the less conspicuous deputies of the western provinces.
+
+But there were five men whose presence must have been full of interest
+to their Eastern brethren. Corresponding to John the Persian from the
+Extreme East was Theophilus the Goth from the extreme North. His light
+complexion doubtless made a marked contrast with the tawny hue and dark
+hair of almost all the rest. They rejoiced to think that they had a
+genuine Scythian among them. From all future generations of his Teutonic
+countrymen he may claim attention as the predecessor and teacher of
+Ulphilas, the great missionary of the Gothic nation.
+
+Out of the province of Northern Africa, the earliest cradle of the Latin
+Church, came Caecilian, bishop of Carthage. A few years ago he had
+himself been convened before the two Western councils of the Lateran and
+of Arles, and had there been acquitted of the charges brought against
+him by the Donatists.
+
+If any of the distant orientals had hoped to catch a sight of the bishop
+of the "Imperial City," they were doomed to disappointment. Doubtless
+had he been there his position as prelate of the capital would have
+been, if not first, at least among the first. But Sylvester was now far
+advanced in years; and in his place came the two presbyters, who,
+according to the arrangement laid down by the Emperor, would have
+accompanied him had he been able to make the journey. In this simple
+deputation later writers have seen--and perhaps by a gradual process the
+connection might be traced--the first germ of _legati a latere_. But it
+must have been a very far-seeing eye which in Victor and Vincentius, the
+two unknown elders, representing their sick old bishop, could have
+detected the predecessors of Pandulf or of Wolsey. With them, however,
+was a man who, though now long forgotten, was then an object of deeper
+interest to Christendom than any bishop of Rome could at that time have
+been. It was the world-renowned Spaniard, as he is called by Eusebius;
+the magician from Spain, as he is called by Zosimus; Hosius, bishop of
+Cordova. He was the representative of the westernmost of European
+churches; but, as Eusebius of Caesarea was the chief counsellor of the
+Emperor in the Greek Church, so was Hosius in the Latin, as shown in the
+darkest and most mysterious crisis of Constantine's life.
+
+It was probably by degrees that these different arrivals took place, and
+the lapse of two or three weeks must be supposed for the preparatory
+arrangements before the council was formally opened. This interval was
+occupied by eager discussions on the questions likely to be debated. The
+first assemblage had been, as we have seen, within the walls of a public
+building. But the other preliminary meetings were held, as was natural,
+in the streets or colonnades in the open air. The novelty of the
+occasion had collected many strangers to the spot. Laymen, philosophers,
+heathen as well as Christians, might be seen joining in the arguments on
+either side, orthodox as well as heretical. There were also discussions
+among the orthodox themselves as to the principle on which the debates
+should be conducted. The enumeration of the characters just given shows
+that there were two very different elements in the assembly, such indeed
+as will always constitute the main difficulty in making any general
+statements of theology which shall be satisfactory at once to the few
+and to the many. A large number, perhaps the majority, consisted of
+rough, simple, almost illiterate men, like Spyridion the shepherd,
+Potammon the hermit, Acesius the puritan, who held their faith earnestly
+and sincerely, but without conscious knowledge of the grounds on which
+they maintained it, incapable of arguing themselves, or of entering into
+the arguments of their opponents. These men, when suddenly brought into
+collision with the acutest and most learned disputants of the age,
+naturally took up the position that the safest course was to hold by
+what had been handed down, without any further inquiry or explanation.
+
+A story somewhat variously told is related of an encounter of one of
+these simple characters with the more philosophical combatants, which,
+in whatever way it be taken, well illustrates the mixed character of the
+council, and the choice of the courses open before it. As Socrates
+describes the incident, the disputes were running so high, from the mere
+pleasure of argument, that there seemed likely to be no end to the
+controversy, when suddenly a simple-minded layman, who by his sightless
+eye or limping leg bore witness of his zeal for the Christian faith,
+stepped among them and abruptly said, "Christ and the apostles left us
+not a system of logic nor a vain deceit, but a naked truth to be guided
+by faith and good works." "There has," says Bishop Kaye in recording the
+story, "been hardly any age of the Church in which its members have not
+required to be reminded of this lesson." On the present occasion the
+bystanders, at least for the moment, were struck by its happy
+application. The disputants, after hearing this plain word of truth,
+took their differences more good-humoredly and the hubbub of controversy
+subsided.
+
+The tradition grew in later times into the form which it bears in all
+the pictures of the council, and which is commemorated in the services
+of the Greek Church. Aware of his incapacity of argument he took a brick
+and said: "You deny that three can be one. Look at this: it is one, and
+yet it is composed of the three elements of fire, earth, and water." As
+he spoke the brick resolved itself into its component parts; the fire
+flew upward, the clay remained in his hand, and the water fell to the
+ground. The philosopher, or, according to some accounts, Arius himself
+was so confounded as to declare himself converted on the spot.
+
+These tales represent probably the feeling of a large portion of the
+council--the sound, unprofessional, untheological, lay element which lay
+at the basis of all their weakness and their strength. The historian
+Socrates is very anxious to prove that the assembly was not entirely
+composed of men of this kind, and he points triumphantly to the presence
+of such men as Eusebius of Caesarea. No proof was necessary. The
+subsequent history of the council itself is a sufficient indication
+that, however small a minority might be the dialecticians and
+theologians, yet they constitute the life and movement of the whole.
+Socrates dwells with evident pleasure on the circumstance that the
+ultimate decisions were only made after long inquiry, and that
+everything was stirred to the bottom.
+
+We may wish with Bishop Jeremy Taylor and Bishop Kaye that it had been
+otherwise. But there is a point of view in which we may fully sympathize
+with the course that was taken. All the elements which go to make up the
+interest of theology were involved: love of free inquiry, desire of
+precision in philosophical statements, research into Christian
+antiquity, comparison of the texts of Scripture one with another.
+Traditional and episcopal authority was regarded as insufficient for the
+establishment of the faith. The well-known clause of the Twenty-first
+Article does but express the principle of the Nicene Fathers themselves:
+"Things ordained by them as necessary for salvation have neither
+strength nor authority unless it may be declared that they are taken out
+of Holy Scripture." The battle was fought and won by quotations, not
+from tradition, but from the Old and New Testaments. The overruling
+sentiment was that even ancient opinions were not to be received without
+sifting and inquiry. The chief combatant and champion of the faith was
+not the bishop of Antioch or of Rome, nor the pope of Alexandria, but
+the deacon Athanasius. The eager discussions of Nicaea present the first
+grand precedent for the duty of private judgment, and the free,
+unrestrained exercise of biblical and historical criticism.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[49] Some of the old writers declared that Arius died by the falling out
+of his bowels, as if by a miracle. The matter became a subject of much
+controversy. Mosheim thinks it most probable that Arius was poisoned by
+his enemies. Most recorders of the present day are content to say simply
+that "he died suddenly."
+
+
+
+
+FOUNDATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE
+
+A.D. 330
+
+EDWARD GIBBON
+
+     On the eastern part of the site of Constantinople stood the ancient
+     Greek city of Byzantium, said to have been founded in the seventh
+     century B.C. From its situation on the Bosporus it enjoyed great
+     advantages as a trading centre, and was especially noted for its
+     control of the corn supply. There also were fisheries from which
+     vast wealth was derived. After the battle of Plataea (B.C. 479),
+     which put an end to the Persian invasion of Greece, Byzantium was
+     recolonized. In the later Grecian wars it was many times taken,
+     being besieged in the year B.C. 339 by Philip of Macedon and
+     relieved by Phocion. Soon after this it formed an alliance with
+     Alexander the Great; but the city was thenceforth continually
+     harassed by enemies, and never regained its former prosperity.
+     About the year B.C. 277 it was menaced by the Gauls, to whom the
+     Byzantines were forced to pay tribute. When those invaders had been
+     driven back by the Thracian tribes, these in turn exacted from
+     Byzantium like payments, and to increase its revenues the city
+     taxed all vessels entering the Euxine. This led, B.C. 220, to a war
+     with Rhodes, instigated by aggrieved merchants in different parts
+     of the world, the result of which was that the Byzantines levied no
+     more tribute on ships.
+
+     By treaty, B.C. 148, Byzantium entered into relations with Rome,
+     then engaged in eastern wars, and from that time the Byzantines
+     sought Roman favor, and long maintained an alliance with the
+     empire. After this, little is told of Byzantium until the war of
+     the emperor Septimius Severus with his great rival, Niger, governor
+     of Syria. Byzantium adhered to the cause of Niger. Confident in
+     their future if he should be victorious, the Byzantines indulged
+     dreams of becoming the head of an eastern empire. Their city was
+     strongly fortified, they had a powerful fleet, and for three years
+     they held out against the Roman besiegers, then, after untold
+     sufferings and slaughter, yielded under the distress of famine. "At
+     last they were reduced to chewing leather hides soaked in water,
+     and finally to the horrible extremity in which the weak become
+     literally the prey of the strong." The Romans destroyed the
+     magnificent city walls and deprived Byzantium of municipal and
+     political liberties.
+
+     The fall of Byzantium was accomplished in A.D. 194-196, and when
+     next its site became the scene of historic events a wholly new
+     order of things had been inaugurated in the world. After his
+     successful war with his colleague Licinius, sole ruler of the
+     East, Constantine had him put to death in A.D. 325. Constantine
+     then became sole augustus, and in 330 he transferred the capital of
+     the empire from Rome to Byzantium, which was henceforth called
+     Constantinople.
+
+
+The unfortunate Licinius was the last rival who opposed the greatness,
+and the last captive who adorned the triumph, of Constantine. After a
+tranquil and prosperous reign, the conqueror bequeathed to his family
+the inheritance of the Roman Empire; a new capital, a new policy, and a
+new religion; and the innovations which he established have been
+embraced and consecrated by succeeding generations.
+
+After the defeat and abdication of Licinius, his victorious rival
+proceeded to lay the foundations of a city destined to reign in future
+times, the mistress of the East, and to survive the empire and religion
+of Constantine. The motives, whether of pride or of policy, which first
+induced Diocletian to withdraw himself from the ancient seat of
+government, had acquired additional weight by the example of his
+successors and the habits of forty years. Rome was insensibly confounded
+with the dependent kingdoms which had once acknowledged her supremacy;
+and the country of the Caesars was viewed with cold indifference by a
+martial prince, born in the neighborhood of the Danube, educated in the
+courts and armies of Asia, and invested with the purple by the legions
+of Britain. The Italians, who had received Constantine as their
+deliverer, submissively obeyed the edicts which he sometimes
+condescended to address to the senate and people of Rome; but they were
+seldom honored with the presence of their new sovereign.
+
+During the vigor of his age, Constantine, according to the various
+exigencies of peace and war, moved with slow dignity, or with active
+diligence, along the frontiers of his extensive dominions, and was
+always prepared to take the field either against a foreign or a domestic
+enemy. But as he gradually reached the summit of prosperity and the
+decline of life, he began to meditate the design of fixing in a more
+permanent station the strength as well as majesty of the throne. In the
+choice of an advantageous situation, he preferred the confines of Europe
+and Asia; to curb with a powerful arm the barbarians who dwelt between
+the Danube and the Tanais; to watch with an eye of jealousy the conduct
+of the Persian monarch, who indignantly supported the yoke of an
+ignominious treaty. With these views, Diocletian had selected and
+embellished the residence of Nicomedia: but the memory of Diocletian was
+justly abhorred by the protector of the Church; and Constantine was not
+insensible to the ambition of founding a city which might perpetuate the
+glory of his own name. During the late operations of the war against
+Licinius, he had sufficient opportunity to contemplate, both as a
+soldier and as a statesman, the incomparable position of Byzantium, and
+to observe how strongly it was guarded by nature against a hostile
+attack, while it was accessible on every side to the benefits of
+commercial intercourse.
+
+Many ages before Constantine, one of the most judicious historians of
+antiquity had described the advantages of a situation, from whence a
+feeble colony of Greeks derived the command of the sea and the honors of
+a flourishing and independent republic.[50]
+
+The harbor of Constantinople, which may be considered as an arm of the
+Bosporus, obtained, in a very remote period, the denomination of the
+"Golden Horn." The curve which it describes might be compared to the
+horn of a stag, or as it should seem, with more propriety, to that of an
+ox. The epithet of _golden_ was expressive of the riches which every
+wind wafted from the most distant countries into the secure and
+capacious port of Constantinople. The river Lycus, formed by the conflux
+of two little streams, pours into the harbor a perpetual supply of fresh
+water, which serves to cleanse the bottom and to invite the periodical
+shoals of fish to seek their retreat in that convenient recess. As the
+vicissitudes of tides are scarcely felt in those seas, the constant
+depth of the harbor allows goods to be landed on the quays without the
+assistance of boats; and it has been observed that in many places the
+largest vessels may rest their prows against the houses, while their
+sterns are floating in the water. From the mouth of the Lycus to that
+of the harbor, this arm of the Bosporus is more than seven miles in
+length. The entrance is about five hundred yards broad, and a strong
+chain could be occasionally thrown across it, to guard the port and city
+from the attack of a hostile navy.
+
+The geographers who, with the most skilful accuracy, have surveyed the
+form and extent of the Hellespont, assign about sixty miles for the
+winding course, and about three miles for the ordinary breadth, of those
+celebrated straits. But the narrowest part of the channel is found to
+the northward of the old Turkish castles between the cities of Sestus
+and Abydus. It was here that the adventurous Leander braved the passage
+of the flood for the possession of his mistress.[51] It was here
+likewise, in a place where the distance between the opposite banks
+cannot exceed five hundred paces, that Xerxes imposed a stupendous
+bridge of boats, for the purpose of transporting into Europe a hundred
+and seventy myriads of barbarians. A sea contracted within such narrow
+limits may seem but ill to deserve the singular epithet of _broad_,
+which Homer, as well as Orpheus, has frequently bestowed on the
+Hellespont. But our ideas of greatness are of a relative nature: the
+traveller, and especially the poet, who sailed along the Hellespont, who
+pursued the windings of the stream, and contemplated the rural scenery,
+which appeared on every side to terminate the prospect, insensibly lost
+the remembrance of the sea: and his fancy painted those celebrated
+straits, with all the attributes of a mighty river flowing with a swift
+current, in the midst of a woody and inland country, and at length,
+through a wide mouth, discharging itself into the AEgean or Archipelago.
+
+Ancient Troy, seated on an eminence at the foot of Mount Ida, overlooked
+the mouth of the Hellespont, which scarcely received an accession of
+waters from the tribute of those immortal rivulets, the Simois and
+Scamander. The Grecian camp had stretched twelve miles along the shore
+from the Sigaean to the Rhaetean promontory; and the flanks of the army
+were guarded by the bravest chiefs who fought under the banners of
+Agamemnon.
+
+The first of those promontories was occupied by Achilles with his
+invincible myrmidons, and the dauntless Ajax pitched his tents on the
+other. After Ajax had fallen a sacrifice to his disappointed pride and
+to the ingratitude of the Greeks, his sepulchre was erected on the
+ground where he had defended the navy against the rage of Jove and of
+Hector; and the citizens of the rising town of Rhaeteum celebrated his
+memory with divine honors. Before Constantine gave a just preference to
+the situation of Byzantium, he had conceived the design of erecting the
+seat of empire on this celebrated spot, from whence the Romans derived
+their fabulous origin. The extensive plain which lies below ancient
+Troy, toward the Rhaetean promontory and the tomb of Ajax, was first
+chosen for his new capital; and though the undertaking was soon
+relinquished, the stately remains of unfinished walls and towers
+attracted the notice of all who sailed through the straits of the
+Hellespont.
+
+We are at present qualified to view the advantageous position of
+Constantinople; which appears to have been formed by nature for the
+centre and capital of a great monarchy. Situated in the forty-first
+degree of latitude, the imperial city commanded, from her seven hills,
+the opposite shores of Europe and Asia; the climate was healthy and
+temperate, the soil fertile, the harbor secure and capacious; and the
+approach on the side of the Continent was of small extent and easy
+defence. The Bosporus and the Hellespont may be considered as the two
+gates of Constantinople; and the prince who possessed these important
+passages could always shut them against a naval enemy and open them to
+the fleets of commerce. The preservation of the eastern provinces may,
+in some degree, be ascribed to the policy of Constantine, as the
+barbarians of the Euxine, who in the preceding age had poured their
+armaments into the heart of the Mediterranean, soon desisted from the
+exercise of piracy and despaired of forcing this insurmountable barrier.
+
+When the gates of the Hellespont and Bosporus were shut, the capital
+still enjoyed within their spacious enclosure every production which
+could supply the wants or gratify the luxury of its numerous
+inhabitants. The sea-coasts of Thrace and Bithynia, which languish under
+the weight of Turkish oppression, still exhibit a rich prospect of
+vineyards, of gardens, and of plentiful harvests; and the Propontis has
+ever been renowned for an inexhaustible store of the most exquisite
+fish, that are taken in their stated seasons, without skill and almost
+without labor. But when the passages of the straits were thrown open for
+trade, they alternately admitted the natural and artificial riches of
+the north and south, of the Euxine, and of the Mediterranean. Whatever
+rude commodities were collected in the forests of Germany and Scythia,
+as far as the sources of the Tanais and the Borysthenes; whatsoever was
+manufactured by the skill of Europe or Asia; the corn of Egypt, and the
+gems and spices of the farthest India, were brought by the varying winds
+into the port of Constantinople, which for many ages attracted the
+commerce of the ancient world.
+
+The prospect of beauty, of safety, and of wealth, united in a single
+spot, was sufficient to justify the choice of Constantine. But as some
+decent mixture of prodigy and fable has, in every age, been supposed to
+reflect a becoming majesty on the origin of great cities, the Emperor
+was desirous of ascribing his resolution, not so much to the uncertain
+counsels of human policy as to the infallible and eternal decrees of
+divine wisdom. In one of his laws he has been careful to instruct
+posterity that, in obedience to the commands of God, he laid the
+everlasting foundations of Constantinople: and though he has not
+condescended to relate in what manner the celestial inspiration was
+communicated to his mind, the defect of his modest silence has been
+liberally supplied by the ingenuity of succeeding writers, who describe
+the nocturnal vision which appeared to the fancy of Constantine, as he
+slept within the walls of Byzantium. The tutelar genius of the city, a
+venerable matron sinking under the weight of years and infirmities, was
+suddenly transformed into a blooming maid, whom his own hands adorned
+with all the symbols of imperial greatness. The monarch awoke,
+interpreted the auspicious omen, and obeyed, without hesitation, the
+will of heaven.
+
+The day which gave birth to a city or colony was celebrated by the
+Romans with such ceremonies as had been ordained by a generous
+superstition; and though Constantine might omit some rites which savored
+too strongly of their pagan origin, yet he was anxious to leave a deep
+impression of hope and respect on the minds of the spectators. On foot,
+with a lance in his hand, the Emperor himself led the solemn procession,
+and directed the line which was traced as the boundary of the destined
+capital: till the growing circumference was observed with astonishment
+by the assistants, who, at length, ventured to observe that he had
+already exceeded the most ample measure of a great city. "I shall still
+advance," replied Constantine, "till He, the invisible guide who marches
+before me, thinks proper to stop." Without presuming to investigate the
+nature or motives of this extraordinary conductor, we shall content
+ourselves with the more humble task of describing the extent and limits
+of Constantinople.
+
+In the actual state of the city, the palace and gardens of the seraglio
+occupy the eastern promontory, the first of the seven hills, and cover
+about one hundred and fifty acres of our own measure. The seat of
+Turkish jealousy and despotism is erected on the foundations of a
+Grecian republic; but it may be supposed that the Byzantines were
+tempted by the conveniency of the harbor to extend their habitations on
+that side beyond the modern limits of the seraglio. The new walls of
+Constantine stretched from the port to the Propontis across the enlarged
+breadth of the triangle, at a distance of fifteen stadia from the
+ancient fortification; and with the city of Byzantium they enclosed five
+of the seven hills, which, to the eyes of those who approach
+Constantinople, appear to rise above each other in beautiful order.
+About a century after the death of the founder the new buildings,
+extending on one side up the harbor, and on the other along the
+Propontis, already covered the narrow ridge of the sixth and the broad
+summit of the seventh hill.
+
+The necessity of protecting those suburbs from the incessant inroads of
+the barbarians engaged the younger Theodosius to surround his capital
+with an adequate and permanent enclosure of walls. From the eastern
+promontory to the Golden Gate, the extreme length of Constantinople was
+about three Roman miles; the circumference measured between ten and
+eleven; and the surface might be computed as equal to about two thousand
+acres. It is impossible to justify the vain and credulous exaggerations
+of modern travellers, who have sometimes stretched the limits of
+Constantinople over the adjacent villages of the European and even of
+the Asiatic coast.[52] But the suburbs of Pera and Galata, though
+situate beyond the harbor, may deserve to be considered as a part of the
+city; and this addition may perhaps authorize the measure of a Byzantine
+historian, who assigns sixteen Greek, about fourteen Roman, miles for
+the circumference of his native city. Such an extent may seem not
+unworthy of an imperial residence. Yet Constantinople must yield to
+Babylon and Thebes, to ancient Rome, to London, and even to Paris.
+
+The master of the Roman world, who aspired to erect an eternal monument
+of the glories of his reign, could employ in the prosecution of that
+great work the wealth, the labor, and all that yet remained of the
+genius of obedient millions. Some estimate may be formed of the expense
+bestowed with imperial liberality on the foundation of Constantinople,
+by the allowance of about two million five hundred thousand pounds for
+the construction of the walls, the porticos, and the aqueducts. The
+forests that overshadowed the shores of the Euxine, and the celebrated
+quarries of white marble in the little island of Proconnesus, supplied
+an inexhaustible stock of materials, ready to be conveyed, by the
+convenience of a short water-carriage, to the harbor of Byzantium. A
+multitude of laborers and artificers urged the conclusion of the work
+with incessant toil; but the impatience of Constantine soon discovered
+that, in the decline of the arts, the skill as well as numbers of his
+architects bore a very unequal proportion to the greatness of his
+designs. The magistrates of the most distant provinces were therefore
+directed to institute schools, to appoint professors, and by the hopes
+of rewards and privileges to engage in the study and practice of
+architecture a sufficient number of ingenious youths who had received a
+liberal education. The buildings of the new city were executed by such
+artificers as the reign of Constantine could afford; but they were
+decorated by the hands of the most celebrated masters of the age of
+Pericles and Alexander. To revive the genius of Phidias and Lysippus
+surpassed indeed the power of a Roman emperor; but the immortal
+productions which they had bequeathed to posterity were exposed without
+defence to the rapacious vanity of a despot.
+
+By his commands the cities of Greece and Asia were despoiled of their
+most valuable ornaments. The trophies of memorable wars, the objects of
+religious veneration, the most finished statues of the gods and heroes,
+of the sages and poets, of ancient times, contributed to the splendid
+triumph of Constantinople, and gave occasion to the remark of the
+historian Cedrenus, who observes, with some enthusiasm, that nothing
+seemed wanting except the souls of the illustrious men whom those
+admirable monuments were intended to represent. But it is not in the
+city of Constantine, nor in the declining period of an empire, when the
+human mind was depressed by civil and religious slavery, that we should
+seek for the souls of Homer and of Demosthenes.
+
+During the siege of Byzantium the conqueror had pitched his tent on the
+commanding eminence of the second hill. To perpetuate the memory of his
+success, he chose the same advantageous position for the principal
+forum, which appears to have been of a circular or rather elliptical
+form. The two opposite entrances formed triumphal arches; the porticos,
+which enclosed it on every side, were filled with statues; and the
+centre of the forum was occupied by a lofty column, of which a mutilated
+fragment is now degraded by the appellation of the "burnt pillar." This
+column was erected on a pedestal of white marble twenty feet high, and
+was composed of ten pieces of porphyry, each of which measured about ten
+feet in height and about thirty-three in circumference. On the summit of
+the pillar, above one hundred and twenty feet from the ground, stood the
+colossal statue of Apollo. It was of bronze, had been transported either
+from Athens or from a town of Phrygia, and was supposed to be the work
+of Phidias. The artist had represented the god of day, or, as it was
+afterward interpreted, the emperor Constantine himself, with a sceptre
+in his right hand, the globe of the world in his left, and a crown of
+rays glittering on his head.[53]
+
+The Circus, or Hippodrome, was a stately building about four hundred
+paces in length and one hundred in breadth. The space between the two
+_metae_ or goals was filled with statues and obelisks; and we may still
+remark a very singular fragment of antiquity, the bodies of three
+serpents, twisted into one pillar of brass. Their triple heads had once
+supported the golden tripod which, after the defeat of Xerxes, was
+consecrated in the temple of Delphi by the victorious Greeks. The beauty
+of the hippodrome has been long since defaced by the rude hands of the
+Turkish conquerors; but, under the similar appellation of Atmeidan, it
+still serves as a place of exercise for their horses. From the throne,
+whence the emperor viewed the Circensian games, a winding staircase
+descended to the palace; a magnificent edifice, which scarcely yielded
+to the residence of Rome itself, and which, together with the dependent
+courts, gardens, and porticos, covered a considerable extent of ground
+upon the banks of the Propontis between the Hippodrome and the Church of
+St. Sophia. We might likewise celebrate the baths, which still retained
+the name of Zeuxippus,[54] after they had been enriched, by the
+munificence of Constantine, with lofty columns, various marbles, and
+above threescore statues of bronze. But we should deviate from the
+design of this history if we attempted minutely to describe the
+different buildings or quarters of the city. It may be sufficient to
+observe that whatever could adorn the dignity of a great capital, or
+contribute to the benefit or pleasure of its numerous inhabitants, was
+contained within the walls of Constantinople. A particular description,
+composed about a century after its foundation, enumerates a capitol or
+school of learning, a circus, two theatres, eight public and one hundred
+and fifty-three private baths, fifty-two porticos, five granaries, eight
+aqueducts or reservoirs of water, four spacious halls for the meetings
+of the senate or courts of justice, fourteen churches, fourteen palaces,
+and four thousand three hundred and eighty-eight houses, which, for
+their size or beauty, deserved to be distinguished from the multitude of
+plebeian habitations.
+
+The populousness of his favored city was the next and most serious
+object of the attention of its founder. In the dark ages which succeeded
+the translation of the empire, the remote and the immediate consequences
+of that memorable event were strangely confounded by the vanity of the
+Greeks and the credulity of the Latins. It was asserted, and believed,
+that all the noble families of Rome, the senate, and the equestrian
+order, with their innumerable attendants, had followed their Emperor to
+the banks of the Propontis; that a spurious race of strangers and
+plebeians was left to possess the solitude of the ancient capital; and
+that the lands of Italy, long since converted into gardens, were at once
+deprived of cultivation and inhabitants. Since the growth of
+Constantinople cannot be ascribed to the general increase of mankind and
+of industry, it must be admitted that this artificial colony was raised
+at the expense of the ancient cities of the empire.
+
+Many opulent senators of Rome, and of the eastern provinces, were
+probably invited by Constantine to adopt for their country the fortunate
+spot which he had chosen for his own residence. The invitations of a
+master are scarcely to be distinguished from commands; and the
+liberality of the Emperor obtained a ready and cheerful obedience. He
+bestowed on his favorites the palaces which he had built in the several
+quarters of the city, assigned them lands and pensions for the support
+of their dignity, and alienated the demesnes of Pontus and Asia to grant
+hereditary estates by the easy tenure of maintaining a house in the
+capital. But these encouragements and obligations soon became
+superfluous and were gradually abolished. Wherever the seat of
+government is fixed, a considerable part of the public revenue will be
+expended by the prince himself, by his ministers, by the officers of
+justice, and by the domestics of the palace. The most wealthy of the
+provincials will be attracted by the powerful motives of interest and
+duty, of amusement and curiosity. A third and more numerous class of
+inhabitants will insensibly be formed, of servants, of artificers, and
+of merchants, who derive their subsistence from their own labor and from
+the wants or luxury of the superior ranks. In less than a century
+Constantinople disputed with Rome itself the preeminence of riches and
+numbers. New piles of buildings, crowded together with too little regard
+to health or convenience, scarcely allowed the intervals of narrow
+streets for the perpetual throng of men, of horses, and of carriages.
+The allotted space of ground was insufficient to contain the increasing
+people; and the additional foundations, which, on either side, were
+advanced into the sea, might alone have composed a very considerable
+city.
+
+The frequent and regular distributions of wine and oil, of corn or
+bread, of money or provisions, had almost exempted the poorer citizens
+of Rome from the necessity of labor. The magnificence of the first
+Caesars was in some measure imitated by the founder of Constantinople;
+but his liberality, however it might excite the applause of the people,
+has incurred the censure of posterity. A nation of legislators and
+conquerors might assert their claim to the harvests of Africa, which had
+been purchased with their blood; and it was artfully contrived by
+Augustus that, in the enjoyment of plenty, the Romans should lose the
+memory of freedom. But the prodigality of Constantine could not be
+excused by any consideration either of public or private interest; and
+the annual tribute of corn imposed upon Egypt for the benefit of his new
+capital was applied to feed a lazy and insolent populace at the expense
+of the husbandmen of an industrious province. Some other regulations of
+this Emperor are less liable to blame, but they are less deserving of
+notice. He divided Constantinople into fourteen regions or quarters,
+dignified the public council with the appellation of senate,
+communicated to the citizens the privileges of Italy, and bestowed on
+the rising city the title of colony, the first and most favored daughter
+of ancient Rome. The venerable parent still maintained the legal and
+acknowledged supremacy which was due to her age, to her dignity, and to
+the remembrance of her former greatness.
+
+As Constantine urged the progress of the work with the impatience of a
+lover, the walls, the porticos, and the principal edifices were
+completed in a few years, or, according to another account, in a few
+months; but this extraordinary diligence should excite the less
+admiration, since many of the buildings were finished in so hasty and
+imperfect a manner that, under the succeeding reign, they were preserved
+with difficulty from impending ruin. But while they displayed the vigor
+and freshness of youth, the founder prepared to celebrate the dedication
+of his city. The games and largesses which crowned the pomp of this
+memorable festival may easily be supposed; but there is one circumstance
+of a more singular and permanent nature, which ought not entirely to be
+overlooked. As often as the birthday of the city returned, the statue of
+Constantine, framed by his order, of gilt wood, and bearing in its right
+hand a small image of the genius of the place, was erected on a
+triumphal car. The guards, carrying white tapers, and clothed in their
+richest apparel, accompanied the solemn procession as it moved through
+the Hippodrome. When it was opposite to the throne of the reigning
+Emperor, he rose from his seat, and with grateful reverence adored the
+memory of his predecessor. At the festival of the dedication, an edict,
+engraved on a column of marble, bestowed the title of "Second or New
+Rome" on the city of Constantine. But the name of Constantinople has
+prevailed over that honorable epithet; and after the revolution of
+fourteen centuries, still perpetuates the fame of its author.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[50] The navigator Byzas, who was styled the Son of Neptune, founded the
+city 656 years before the Christian era. His followers were drawn from
+Argos and Megara. Byzantium was afterward rebuilt and fortified by the
+Spartan general Pausanias.
+
+[51] The practical illustration of the possibility of Leander's feat by
+Lord Byron is too well known to need particular reference.
+
+[52] The accurate Thevenot walked in one hour and three-quarters round
+two of the sides of the triangle, from the Kiosk of the Seraglio to the
+seven towers. D'Anville examines with care, and receives with
+confidence, this decisive testimony, which gives a circumference of ten
+or twelve miles. The extravagant computation of Tournefort of
+thirty-four or thirty miles, without including Scutari, is a strange
+departure from his usual character.
+
+[53] On this column Constantine, with singular shamelessness, placed his
+own statue with the attributes of Apollo and Christ. He substituted the
+nails of the Passion for the rays of the sun. Constantine was replaced
+by the "great and religious" Julian; Julian, by Theodosius. A.D. 1412
+the keystone was loosened by an earthquake. The statue fell in the reign
+of Alexius Comnenus, and was replaced by the cross. The palladium was
+said to be buried under the pillar.
+
+[54] Zeuxippus was an epithet of Jupiter, and the baths were a part of
+old Byzantium.
+
+
+
+
+JULIAN THE APOSTATE BECOMES EMPEROR OF ROME
+
+A.D. 360
+
+EDWARD GIBBON
+
+     The great reign of Constantine was ended. The new capital,
+     Constantinople, which after fifteen centuries still perpetuates the
+     name of its imperial founder, had outrivalled Rome. The heirs of
+     Constantine, the sons of Fausta, had all been called Caesar, and
+     were appointed to succeed to imperial power. Constantine,
+     Constantius, and Constans they were named. They held court in
+     different parts of the realm during their father's life, although
+     he reserved for himself the title of Augustus.
+
+     The last years of his reign of thirty years had been peaceful,
+     disturbed only by the insurrection in Cyprus and the wars of the
+     Goths and Sarmatians. And so he died, and the purple and diadem
+     were but empty symbols, as he lay in state upon his golden bed.
+
+     The great Emperor was no sooner dead than the sons made haste to
+     rid themselves of all possible rivals in a family that seemed too
+     numerous for peace. Two uncles and seven cousins were quickly put
+     out of the way under one pretence and another.
+
+     The provinces were divided between the three brothers, and they
+     reigned peacefully for three years, until Constantine demanded the
+     surrender to him of a part of the dominions of Constans. In the war
+     which ensued Constantine was killed, and Constans took possession
+     of his brother's provinces, refusing any share of them to
+     Constantius.
+
+     He reigned ten years longer, when he was destroyed, A.D. 350, by a
+     conspiracy in Gaul headed by one Magnentius. This soldier, of
+     barbarian extraction, was soon defeated by Constantius, who now
+     became sole Emperor.
+
+     He soon found his burden of power too great, and decided to share
+     it with the two young nephews who had been permitted to live when
+     the massacre of the house of Constantine occurred.
+
+     To Gallus, the elder, he gave the title of caesar, and invested him
+     with the government of the East. Gallus conducted himself like a
+     Nero and was disgraced and executed about three years later.
+
+     The younger nephew, Julian, had been brought up in the Christian
+     faith, and received an excellent education, which was finished in
+     the philosophical schools of Athens. He was created caesar by
+     Constantius, whose sister Helena he married, and was invested with
+     the government of Gaul, Spain, and Britain.
+
+     Julian's wise civil administration was very acceptable to the
+     people, and his brilliant military exploits established his fame
+     throughout the empire and won the affection of his soldiers. He
+     repulsed the Alemanns and the Franks, sending captives to the court
+     of Constantius. His expeditions beyond the Rhine were crowned with
+     success. He restored the cities of Gaul and stemmed the tide of
+     barbarian invasion.
+
+     All these triumphs had awakened the jealousy of the emperor
+     Constantius, who was practically ruled by the eunuchs and bishops
+     at his court. The rising fortunes of Julian had caused envy among
+     many, who set about to poison the mind of Constantius with
+     innuendoes and false suggestions. They resolved to disarm Julian
+     and to separate him from his army. The Emperor ordered Julian to
+     send his best troops to the war in Persia. But they forgot that the
+     troops adored Julian. They overlooked the fact that the soldiers
+     would see through such a scheme to humiliate their commander. The
+     Gauls also feared the departure of Julian's men, for they dreaded
+     the attacks of the Germans. This then was the situation. Julian
+     attempted to follow the orders of the Emperor. But fate ordained
+     otherwise. The army proclaimed him emperor. He refused the honor at
+     first, but was forced to assume the dangerous title. The war which
+     immediately followed was cut short by the sudden death of
+     Constantius, and Julian became sole ruler of the Roman Empire. He
+     renounced Christianity and is known in history as Julian the
+     Apostate.
+
+
+While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of eunuchs and
+bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with transport in every
+part of the empire, except in the palace of Constantius. The barbarians
+of Germany had felt and still dreaded the arms of the young caesar; his
+soldiers were the companions of his victory; the grateful provincials
+enjoyed the blessings of his reign; but the favorites, who had opposed
+his elevation, were offended by his virtues; and they justly considered
+the friend of the people as the enemy of the court. As long as the fame
+of Julian was doubtful the buffoons of the palace, who were skilled in
+the language of satire, tried the efficacy of those arts which they had
+so often practised with success. They easily discovered that his
+simplicity was not exempt from affectation; the ridiculous epithets of a
+hairy savage, of an ape invested with the purple, were applied to the
+dress and person of the philosophic warrior; and his modest despatches
+were stigmatized as the vain and elaborate fictions of a loquacious
+Greek, a speculative soldier, who had studied the art of war amid the
+groves of the academy.
+
+The voice of malicious folly was at length silenced by the shouts of
+victory; the conqueror of the Franks and Alemanni could no longer be
+painted as an object of contempt; and the monarch himself was meanly
+ambitious of stealing from his lieutenant the honorable reward of his
+labors. In the letters crowned with laurel, which, according to ancient
+custom, were addressed to the provinces, the name of Julian was omitted.
+"Constantius had made his dispositions in person; _he_ had signalized
+his valor in the foremost ranks; _his_ military conduct had secured the
+victory; and the captive king of the barbarians was presented to _him_
+on the field of battle," from which he was at that time distant about
+forty days' journey. So extravagant a fable was incapable, however, of
+deceiving the public credulity, or even of satisfying the pride of the
+Emperor himself. Secretly conscious that the applause and favor of the
+Romans accompanied the rising fortunes of Julian, his discontented mind
+was prepared to receive the subtle poison of those artful sycophants,
+who colored their mischievous designs with the fairest appearances of
+truth and candor. Instead of depreciating the merits of Julian, they
+acknowledged, and even exaggerated, his popular fame, superior talents,
+and important services. But they darkly insinuated that the virtues of
+the caesar might instantly be converted into the most dangerous crimes if
+the inconstant multitude should prefer their inclinations to their duty;
+or if the general of a victorious army should be tempted from his
+allegiance by the hopes of revenge and independent greatness. The
+personal fears of Constantius were interpreted by his council as a
+laudable anxiety for the public safety; while in private, and perhaps in
+his own breast, he disguised, under the less odious appellation of fear,
+the sentiments of hatred and envy, which he had secretly conceived for
+the inimitable virtues of Julian.
+
+The apparent tranquillity of Gaul, and the imminent danger of the
+eastern provinces, offered a specious pretence for the design which was
+artfully concerted by the imperial ministers. They resolved to disarm
+the caesar; to recall those faithful troops who guarded his person and
+dignity; and to employ, in a distant war against the Persian monarch,
+the hardy veterans who had vanquished, on the banks of the Rhine, the
+fiercest nations of Germany. While Julian used the laborious hours of
+his winter quarters at Paris in the administration of power, which, in
+his hands, was the exercise of virtue, he was surprised by the hasty
+arrival of a tribune and a notary, with positive orders from the
+Emperor, which _they_ were directed to execute and _he_ was commanded
+not to oppose.
+
+Constantius signified his pleasure that four entire legions, the Celtae,
+and Petulants, the Heruli, and the Batavians, should be separated from
+the standard of Julian, under which they had acquired their fame and
+discipline; that in each of the remaining bands three hundred of the
+bravest youths should be selected; and that this numerous detachment,
+the strength of the Gallic army, should instantly begin their march, and
+exert their utmost diligence to arrive, before the opening of the
+campaign, on the frontiers of Persia. The caesar foresaw and lamented the
+consequences of this fatal mandate. Most of the auxiliaries, who engaged
+their voluntary service, had stipulated that they should never be
+obliged to pass the Alps. The public faith of Rome, and the personal
+honor of Julian, had been pledged for the observance of this condition.
+Such an act of treachery and oppression would destroy the confidence and
+excite the resentment of the independent warriors of Germany, who
+considered truth as the noblest of their virtues, and freedom as the
+most valuable of their possessions.
+
+The legionaries who enjoyed the title and privileges of Romans were
+enlisted for the general defence of the republic; but those mercenary
+troops heard with cold indifference the antiquated names of the republic
+and of Rome. Attached, either from birth or long habit, to the climate
+and manners of Gaul, they loved and admired Julian; they despised, and
+perhaps hated, the Emperor; they dreaded the laborious march, the
+Persian arrows, and the burning deserts of Asia. They claimed as their
+own the country which they had saved, and excused their want of spirit,
+by pleading the sacred and more immediate duty of protecting their
+families and friends. The apprehensions of the Gauls were derived from
+the knowledge of the impending and inevitable danger. As soon as the
+provinces were exhausted of their military strength the Germans would
+violate a treaty which had been imposed on their fears; and
+notwithstanding the abilities and valor of Julian, the general of a
+nominal army, to whom the public calamities would be imputed, must find
+himself, after a vain resistance, either a prisoner in the camp of the
+barbarians or a criminal in the palace of Constantius.
+
+If Julian complied with the orders which he had received, he subscribed
+his own destruction and that of a people who deserved his affection. But
+a positive refusal was an act of rebellion and a declaration of war. The
+inexorable jealousy of the Emperor, the peremptory and perhaps insidious
+nature of his commands, left not any room for a fair apology or candid
+interpretation; and the dependent station of the caesar scarcely allowed
+him to pause or to deliberate. Solitude increased the perplexity of
+Julian; he could no longer apply to the faithful counsels of Sallust,
+who had been removed from his office by the judicious malice of the
+eunuchs; he could not even enforce his representations by the
+concurrence of the ministers, who would have been afraid or ashamed to
+approve the ruin of Gaul. The moment had been chosen when Lupicinus, the
+general of the cavalry, was despatched into Britain to repulse the
+inroads of the Scots and Picts; and Florentius was occupied at Vienne by
+the assessment of the tribute. The latter, a crafty and corrupt
+statesman, declining to assume a responsible part on this dangerous
+occasion, eluded the pressing and repeated invitations of Julian, who
+represented to him that in every important measure the presence of the
+prefect was indispensable in the council of the prince.
+
+In the mean while the caesar was oppressed by the rude and importunate
+solicitations of the imperial messengers, who presumed to suggest that
+if he expected the return of his ministers, he would charge himself with
+the guilt of the delay, and reserve for them the merit of the execution.
+Unable to resist, unwilling to comply, Julian expressed, in the most
+serious terms, his wish, and even his intention, of resigning the
+purple, which he could not preserve with honor, but which he could not
+abdicate with safety.
+
+After a painful conflict, Julian was compelled to acknowledge that
+obedience was the virtue of the most eminent subject, and that the
+sovereign alone was entitled to judge of the public welfare. He issued
+the necessary orders for carrying into execution the commands of
+Constantius; a part of the troops began their march for the Alps; and
+the detachments from the several garrisons moved toward their respective
+places of assembly. They advanced with difficulty through the trembling
+and affrighted crowds of provincials, who attempted to excite their pity
+by silent despair or loud lamentations; while the wives of the soldiers,
+holding their infants in their arms, accused the desertion of their
+husbands, in the mixed language of grief, of tenderness, and of
+indignation. This scene of general distress afflicted the humanity of
+the caesar; he granted a sufficient number of post-wagons to transport
+the wives and families of the soldiers, endeavored to alleviate the
+hardships which he was constrained to inflict, and increased, by the
+most laudable arts, his own popularity and the discontent of the exiled
+troops.
+
+The grief of an armed multitude is soon converted into rage; their
+licentious murmurs, which every hour were communicated from tent to tent
+with more boldness and effect, prepared their minds for the most daring
+acts of sedition; and by the connivance of their tribunes, a seasonable
+libel was secretly dispersed, which painted in lively colors the
+disgrace of the caesar, the oppression of the Gallic army, and the feeble
+vices of the tyrant of Asia. The servants of Constantius were astonished
+and alarmed by the progress of this dangerous spirit. They pressed the
+caesar to hasten the departure of the troops; but they imprudently
+rejected the honest and judicious advice of Julian, who proposed that
+they should not march through Paris, and suggested the danger and
+temptation of a last interview.
+
+As soon as the approach of the troops was announced the caesar went out
+to meet them, and ascended his tribunal, which had been erected in a
+plain before the gates of the city. After distinguishing the officers
+and soldiers who by their rank or merit deserved a peculiar attention,
+Julian addressed himself in a studied oration to the surrounding
+multitude: he celebrated their exploits with grateful applause;
+encouraged them to accept, with alacrity, the honor of serving under the
+eyes of a powerful and liberal monarch; and admonished them that the
+commands of Augustus required an instant and cheerful obedience.
+
+The soldiers, who were apprehensive of offending their general by an
+indecent clamor, or of belying their sentiments by false and venal
+acclamations, maintained an obstinate silence, and after a short pause
+were dismissed to their quarters. The principal officers were
+entertained by the caesar, who professed, in the warmest language of
+friendship, his desire and his inability to reward, according to their
+deserts, the brave companions of his victories. They retired from the
+feast, full of grief and perplexity, and lamented the hardship of their
+fate, which tore them from their beloved general and their native
+country. The only expedient which could prevent their separation was
+boldly agitated and approved; the popular resentment was insensibly
+moulded into a regular conspiracy; their just reasons of complaint were
+heightened by passion, and their passions were inflamed by wine, as, on
+the eve of their departure, the troops were indulged in licentious
+festivity. At the hour of midnight, the impetuous multitude, with swords
+and bows and torches in their hands, rushed into the suburbs,
+encompassed the palace, and, careless of future dangers, pronounced the
+fatal and irrevocable words "JULIAN AUGUSTUS!"
+
+The prince, whose anxious suspense was interrupted by their disorderly
+acclamations, secured the doors against their intrusion, and, as long as
+it was in his power, secluded his person and dignity from the accidents
+of a nocturnal tumult. At the dawn of day the soldiers, whose zeal was
+irritated by opposition, forcibly entered the palace, seized, with
+respectful violence, the object of their choice, guarded Julian with
+drawn swords through the streets of Paris, placed him on the tribunal,
+and with repeated shouts saluted him as their emperor. Prudence, as well
+as loyalty, inculcated the propriety of resisting their treasonable
+designs, and of preparing, for his oppressed virtue, the excuse of
+violence. Addressing himself by turns to the multitude and to
+individuals, he sometimes implored their mercy, and sometimes expressed
+his indignation; conjured them not to sully the fame of their immortal
+victories; and ventured to promise, that if they would immediately
+return to their allegiance, he would undertake to obtain from the
+Emperor not only a free and gracious pardon, but even the revocation of
+the orders which had excited their resentment.
+
+But the soldiers, who were conscious of their guilt, chose rather to
+depend on the gratitude of Julian than on the clemency of the Emperor.
+Their zeal was insensibly turned into impatience, and their impatience
+into rage. The inflexible caesar sustained, till the third hour of the
+day, their prayers, their reproaches, and their menaces; nor did he
+yield till he had been repeatedly assured that if he wished to live he
+must consent to reign. He was exalted on a shield in the presence and
+amid the unanimous acclamations of the troops; a rich military collar,
+which was offered by chance, supplied the want of a diadem; the ceremony
+was concluded by the promise of a moderate donative; and the new
+Emperor, overwhelmed with real or affected grief, retired into the most
+secret recesses of his apartment.
+
+The grief of Julian could proceed only from his innocence, but his
+innocence must appear extremely doubtful in the eyes of those who have
+learned to suspect the motives and the professions of princes. His
+lively and active mind was susceptible of the various impressions of
+hope and fear, of gratitude and revenge, of duty and of ambition, of the
+love of fame, and of the fear of reproach. But it is impossible for us
+to calculate the respective weight and operation of these sentiments; or
+to ascertain the principles of action which might escape the
+observation, while they guided, or rather impelled, the steps of Julian
+himself.
+
+The discontent of the troops was produced by the malice of his enemies;
+their tumult was the natural effect of interest and of passion; and if
+Julian had tried to conceal a deep design under the appearances of
+chance, he must have employed the most consummate artifice without
+necessity, and probably without success. He solemnly declares, in the
+presence of Jupiter, of the Sun, of Mars, of Minerva, and of all the
+other deities, that till the close of the evening which preceded his
+elevation he was utterly ignorant of the designs of the soldiers; and it
+may seem ungenerous to distrust the honor of a hero and the truth of a
+philosopher. Yet the superstitious confidence that Constantius was the
+enemy, and that he himself was the favorite, of the gods, might prompt
+him to desire, to solicit, and even to hasten the auspicious moment of
+his reign, which was predestined to restore the ancient religion of
+mankind. When Julian had received the intelligence of the conspiracy he
+resigned himself to a short slumber, and afterward related to his
+friends that he had seen the Genius of the Empire waiting with some
+impatience at his door, pressing for admittance, and reproaching his
+want of spirit and ambition. Astonished and perplexed, he addressed his
+prayers to the great Jupiter, who immediately signified, by a clear and
+manifest omen, that he should submit to the will of heaven and of the
+army.
+
+The conduct which disclaims the ordinary maxims of reason excites our
+suspicion and eludes our inquiry. Whenever the spirit of fanaticism, at
+once so credulous and so crafty, has insinuated itself into a noble
+mind, it insensibly corrodes the vital principles of virtue and
+veracity.
+
+To moderate the zeal of his party, to protect the persons of his
+enemies, to defeat and to despise the secret enterprises which were
+formed against his life and dignity, were the cares which employed the
+first days of the reign of the new emperor. Although he was firmly
+resolved to maintain the station which he had assumed, he was still
+desirous of saving his country from the calamities of civil war, of
+declining a contest with the superior forces of Constantius, and of
+preserving his own character from the reproach of perfidy and
+ingratitude. Adorned with the ensigns of military and imperial pomp,
+Julian showed himself in the field of Mars to the soldiers, who glowed
+with ardent enthusiasm in the cause of their pupil, their leader, and
+their friend. He recapitulated their victories, lamented their
+sufferings, applauded their resolution, animated their hopes, and
+checked their impetuosity; nor did he dismiss the assembly till he had
+obtained a solemn promise from the troops, that if the emperor of the
+East would subscribe an equitable treaty, they would renounce any views
+of conquest and satisfy themselves with the tranquil possession of the
+Gallic provinces.
+
+On this foundation he composed, in his own name, and in that of the
+army, a specious and moderate epistle, which was delivered to Pentadius,
+his master of the offices, and to his chamberlain Eutherius, two
+ambassadors whom he appointed to receive the answer and observe the
+dispositions of Constantius. This epistle is inscribed with the modest
+appellation of caesar; but Julian solicits, in a peremptory, though
+respectful, manner, the confirmation of the title of augustus. He
+acknowledges the irregularity of his own election, while he justifies,
+in some measure, the resentment and violence of the troops which had
+extorted his reluctant consent. He allows the supremacy of his brother
+Constantius, and engages to send him an annual present of Spanish
+horses, to recruit his army with a select number of barbarian youths,
+and to accept from his choice a praetorian prefect of approved discretion
+and fidelity. But he reserves for himself the nomination of his other
+civil and military officers, with the troops, the revenue, and the
+sovereignty of the provinces beyond the Alps. He admonishes the Emperor
+to consult the dictates of justice; to distrust the arts of those venal
+flatterers, who subsist only by the discord of princes, and to embrace
+the offer of a fair and honorable treaty, equally advantageous to the
+republic and to the house of Constantine.
+
+In this negotiation Julian claimed no more than he already possessed.
+The delegated authority which he had long exercised over the provinces
+of Gaul, Spain, and Britain was still obeyed under a name more
+independent and august. The soldiers and the people rejoiced in a
+revolution which was not stained even with the blood of the guilty.
+Florentius was a fugitive; Lupicinus a prisoner. The persons who were
+disaffected to the new government were disarmed and secured; and the
+vacant offices were distributed, according to the recommendation of
+merit, by a prince who despised the intrigues of the palace and the
+clamors of the soldiers.
+
+The negotiations of peace were accompanied and supported by the most
+vigorous preparations for war. The army, which Julian held in readiness
+for immediate action, was recruited and augmented by the disorders of
+the times. The cruel persecution of the faction of Magnentius had filled
+Gaul with numerous bands of outlaws and robbers. They cheerfully
+accepted the offer of a general pardon from a prince whom they could
+trust, submitted to the restraints of military discipline, and retained
+only their implacable hatred to the person and government of
+Constantius.
+
+As soon as the season of the year permitted Julian to take the field, he
+appeared at the head of his legions; threw a bridge over the Rhine in
+the neighborhood of Cleves; and prepared to chastise the perfidy of the
+Attuarii, a tribe of Franks, who presumed that they might ravage, with
+impunity, the frontiers of a divided empire. The difficulty, as well as
+glory, of this enterprise consisted in a laborious march; and Julian had
+conquered, as soon as he could penetrate into a country which former
+princes had considered as inaccessible. After he had given peace to the
+barbarians, the emperor carefully visited the fortifications along the
+Rhine from Cleves to Basel; surveyed, with peculiar attention, the
+territories which he had recovered from the hands of the Alemanni,
+passed through Besancon, which had severely suffered from their fury,
+and fixed his head-quarters at Vienne for the ensuing winter.
+
+The barrier of Gaul was improved and strengthened with additional
+fortifications; and Julian entertained some hopes that the Germans, whom
+he had so often vanquished, might, in his absence, be restrained by the
+terror of his name. Vadomair was the only prince of the Alemanni whom he
+esteemed or feared; and while the subtle barbarian affected to observe
+the faith of treaties, the progress of his arms threatened the State
+with an unseasonable and dangerous war. The policy of Julian
+condescended to surprise the prince of the Alemanni by his own arts: and
+Vadomair, who, in the character of a friend, had incautiously accepted
+an invitation from the Roman governors, was seized in the midst of the
+entertainment, and sent away prisoner into the heart of Spain. Before
+the barbarians were recovered from their amazement the Emperor appeared
+in arms on the banks of the Rhine, and, once more crossing the river,
+renewed the deep impressions of terror and respect which had been
+already made by four preceding expeditions.
+
+The ambassadors of Julian had been instructed to execute, with the
+utmost diligence, their important commission. But, in their passage
+through Italy and Illyricum, they were detained by the tedious and
+affected delays of the provincial governors; they were conducted by slow
+journeys from Constantinople to Caesarea in Cappadocia; and when at
+length they were admitted to the presence of Constantius, they found
+that he had already conceived, from the despatches of his own officers,
+the most unfavorable opinion of the conduct of Julian and of the Gallic
+army. The letters were heard with impatience; the trembling messengers
+were dismissed with indignation and contempt; and the looks, the
+gestures, the furious language of the monarch expressed the disorder of
+his soul. The domestic connection, which might have reconciled the
+brother and the husband of Helena, was recently dissolved by the death
+of that princess, whose pregnancy had been several times fruitless, and
+was at last fatal to herself. The empress Eusebia had preserved, to the
+last moment of her life, the warm, and even jealous, affection which she
+had conceived for Julian; and her mild influence might have moderated
+the resentment of a prince, who, since her death, was abandoned to his
+own passions, and to the arts of his eunuchs.
+
+But the terror of a foreign invasion obliged him to suspend the
+punishment of a private enemy; he continued his march toward the
+confines of Persia, and thought it sufficient to signify the conditions
+which might entitle Julian and his guilty followers to the clemency of
+their offended sovereign. He required that the presumptuous caesar should
+expressly renounce the appellation and rank of augustus, which he had
+accepted from the rebels; that he should descend to his former station
+of a limited and dependent minister; that he should vest the powers of
+the State and army in the hands of those officers who were appointed by
+the imperial court; and that he should trust his safety to the
+assurances of pardon, which were announced by Epictetus, a Gallic
+bishop, and one of the Arian favorites of Constantius. Several months
+were ineffectually consumed in a treaty which was negotiated at the
+distance of three thousand miles between Paris and Antioch; and, as soon
+as Julian perceived that his modest and respectful behavior served only
+to irritate the pride of an implacable adversary, he boldly resolved to
+commit his life and fortune to the chance of a civil war.
+
+He gave a public and military audience to the quaestor Leonas; the
+haughty epistle of Constantius was read to the attentive multitude; and
+Julian protested, with the most flattering deference, that he was ready
+to resign the title of augustus, if he could obtain the consent of those
+whom he acknowledged as the authors of his elevation. The faint proposal
+was impetuously silenced; and the acclamations of "Julian Augustus,
+continue to reign, by the authority of the army, of the people, of the
+republic which you have saved," thundered at once from every part of the
+field, and terrified the pale ambassador of Constantius. A part of the
+letter was afterward read, in which the Emperor arraigned the
+ingratitude of Julian, whom he had invested with the honors of the
+purple; whom he had educated with so much care and tenderness; whom he
+had preserved in his infancy, when he was left a helpless orphan.
+
+"An orphan!" interrupted Julian, who justified his cause by indulging
+his passions: "does the assassin of my family reproach me that I was
+left an orphan? He urges me to revenge those injuries which I have long
+studied to forget." The assembly was dismissed; and Leonas, who, with
+some difficulty, had been protected from the popular fury, was sent back
+to his master with an epistle, in which Julian expressed, in a strain of
+the most vehement eloquence, the sentiments of contempt, of hatred, and
+of resentment, which had been suppressed and imbittered by the
+dissimulation of twenty years. After this message, which might be
+considered as a signal of irreconcilable war, Julian, who, some weeks
+before, had celebrated the Christian festival of the Epiphany, made a
+public declaration that he committed the care of his safety to the
+IMMORTAL GODS, and thus publicly renounced the religion as well as the
+friendship of Constantius.
+
+The situation of Julian required a vigorous and immediate resolution. He
+had discovered, from intercepted letters, that his adversary,
+sacrificing the interest of the State to that of the monarch, had again
+excited the barbarians to invade the provinces of the West. The position
+of two magazines, one of them collected on the banks of the Lake of
+Constance, the other formed at the foot of the Cottian Alps, seemed to
+indicate the march of two armies; and the size of those magazines, each
+of which consisted of six hundred thousand quarters of wheat, or rather
+flour, was a threatening evidence of the strength and numbers of the
+enemy who prepared to surround him. But the imperial legions were still
+in their distant quarters of Asia; the Danube was feebly guarded; and if
+Julian could occupy, by a sudden incursion, the important provinces of
+Illyricum, he might expect that a people of soldiers would resort to his
+standard, and that the rich mines of gold and silver would contribute
+to the expenses of the civil war.
+
+He proposed this bold enterprise to the assembly of the soldiers;
+inspired them with a just confidence in their general and in themselves;
+and exhorted them to maintain their reputation of being terrible to the
+enemy, moderate to their fellow-citizens, and obedient to their
+officers. His spirited discourse was received with the loudest
+acclamations, and the same troops which had taken up arms against
+Constantius, when he summoned them to leave Gaul, now declared with
+alacrity that they would follow Julian to the farthest extremities of
+Europe or Asia. The oath of fidelity was administered; and the soldiers,
+clashing their shields, and pointing their drawn swords to their
+throats, devoted themselves, with horrid imprecations, to the service of
+a leader whom they celebrated as the deliverer of Gaul and the conqueror
+of the Germans. This solemn engagement, which seemed to be dictated by
+affection rather than by duty, was singly opposed by Nebridius, who had
+been admitted to the office of praetorian prefect.
+
+That faithful minister, alone and unassisted, asserted the rights of
+Constantius in the midst of an armed and angry multitude, to whose fury
+he had almost fallen an honorable but useless sacrifice. After losing
+one of his hands by the stroke of a sword, he embraced the knees of the
+prince whom he had offended. Julian covered the prefect with his
+imperial mantle, and, protecting him from the zeal of his followers,
+dismissed him to his own house, with less respect than was perhaps due
+to the virtue of an enemy. The high office of Nebridius was bestowed on
+Sallust; and the provinces of Gaul, which were now delivered from the
+intolerable oppression of taxes, enjoyed the mild and equitable
+administration of the friend of Julian, who was permitted to practise
+those virtues which he had instilled into the mind of his pupil.
+
+The hopes of Julian depended much less on the number of his troops than
+on the celerity of his motions. In the execution of a daring enterprise,
+he availed himself of every precaution, as far as prudence could
+suggest; and where prudence could no longer accompany his steps, he
+trusted the event to valor and to fortune. In the neighborhood of Basel
+he assembled and divided his army. One body, which consisted of ten
+thousand men, was directed under the command of Nevitta, general of the
+cavalry, to advance through the midland parts of Rhaetia and Noricum. A
+similar division of troops, under the orders of Jovius and Jovinus,
+prepared to follow the oblique course of the highways, through the Alps
+and the northern confines of Italy. The instructions to the generals
+were conceived with energy and precision: to hasten their march in close
+and compact columns, which, according to the disposition of the ground,
+might readily be changed into any order of battle; to secure themselves
+against the surprises of the night by strong posts and vigilant guards;
+to prevent resistance by their unexpected arrival; to elude examination
+by their sudden departure; to spread the opinion of their strength and
+the terror of his name; and to join their sovereign under the walls of
+Sirmium.
+
+For himself Julian had reserved a more difficult and extraordinary part.
+He selected three thousand brave and active volunteers, resolved, like
+their leader, to cast behind them every hope of a retreat: at the head
+of this faithful band he fearlessly plunged into the recesses of the
+Marcian, or Black Forest, which conceals the sources of the Danube; and,
+for many days, the fate of Julian was unknown to the world. The secrecy
+of his march, his diligence and vigor, surmounted every obstacle; he
+forced his way over mountains and morasses, occupied the bridges or swam
+the rivers, pursued his direct course, without reflecting whether he
+traversed the territory of the Romans or of the barbarians, and at
+length emerged, between Ratisbon and Vienna, at the place where he
+designed to embark his troops on the Danube. By a well-concerted
+stratagem, he seized a fleet of light brigantines as it lay at anchor;
+secured a supply of coarse provisions sufficient to satisfy the
+indelicate but voracious appetite of a Gallic army; and boldly committed
+himself to the stream of the Danube.
+
+The labors of his mariners, who plied their oars with incessant
+diligence, and the steady continuance of a favorable wind, carried his
+fleet above seven hundred miles in eleven days; and he had already
+disembarked his troops at Bononia, only nineteen miles from Sirmium,
+before his enemies could receive any certain intelligence that he had
+left the banks of the Rhine. In the course of this long and rapid
+navigation, the mind of Julian was fixed on the object of his
+enterprise; and though he accepted the deputations of some cities, which
+hastened to claim the merit of an early submission, he passed before the
+hostile stations, which were placed along the river, without indulging
+the temptation of signalizing a useless and ill-timed valor. The banks
+of the Danube were crowded on either side with spectators, who gazed on
+the military pomp, anticipated the importance of the event, and diffused
+through the adjacent country the fame of a young hero, who advanced with
+more than mortal speed at the head of the innumerable forces of the
+West. Lucilian, who, with the rank of general of the cavalry, commanded
+the military powers of Illyricum, was alarmed and perplexed by the
+doubtful reports, which he could neither reject nor believe.
+
+He had taken some slow and irresolute measures for the purpose of
+collecting his troops, when he was surprised by Dagalaiphus, an active
+officer, whom Julian, as soon as he landed at Bononia, had pushed
+forward with some light infantry. The captive general, uncertain of his
+life or death, was hastily thrown upon a horse, and conducted to the
+presence of Julian; who kindly raised him from the ground, and dispelled
+the terror and amazement which seemed to stupefy his faculties. But
+Lucilian had no sooner recovered his spirits than he betrayed his want
+of discretion, by presuming to admonish his conqueror that he had rashly
+ventured, with a handful of men, to expose his person in the midst of
+his enemies. "Reserve for your master Constantius these timid
+remonstrances," replied Julian, with a smile of contempt: "when I gave
+you my purple to kiss, I received you not as a counsellor, but as a
+suppliant." Conscious that success alone could justify his attempt, and
+that boldness only could command success, he instantly advanced, at the
+head of three thousand soldiers, to attack the strongest and most
+populous city of the Illyrian provinces.
+
+As he entered the long suburb of Sirmium, he was received by the joyful
+acclamations of the army and people, who, crowned with flowers, and
+holding lighted tapers in their hands, conducted their acknowledged
+sovereign to his imperial residence. Two days were devoted to the
+public joy, which was celebrated by the games of the Circus; but, early
+on the morning of the third day, Julian marched to occupy the narrow
+pass of Succi, in the defiles of Mount Haemus; which, almost in the
+midway between Sirmium and Constantinople, separates the provinces of
+Thrace and Dacia, by an abrupt descent toward the former, and a gentle
+declivity on the side of the latter. The defence of this important post
+was intrusted to the brave Nevitta; who, as well as the generals of the
+Italian division, successfully executed the plan of the march and
+junction which their master had so ably conceived.
+
+The homage which Julian obtained, from the fears or the inclination of
+the people, extended far beyond the immediate effect of his arms. The
+prefectures of Italy and Illyricum were administered by Taurus and
+Florentius, who united that important office with the vain honors of the
+consulship; and, as those magistrates had retired with precipitation to
+the court of Asia, Julian, who could not always restrain the levity of
+his temper, stigmatized their flight by adding, in all the Acts of the
+Year, the epithet of _fugitive_ to the names of the two consuls.
+
+The provinces which had been deserted by their first magistrates
+acknowledged the authority of an emperor who, conciliating the qualities
+of a soldier with those of a philosopher, was equally admired in the
+camps of the Danube and in the cities of Greece. From his palace, or,
+more properly, from his head-quarters of Sirmium and Naissus, he
+distributed, to the principal cities of the empire, a labored apology
+for his own conduct; published the secret despatches of Constantius, and
+solicited the judgment of mankind between two competitors, the one of
+whom had expelled, and the other had invited, the barbarians. Julian,
+whose mind was deeply wounded by the reproach of ingratitude, aspired to
+maintain, by argument as well as by arms, the superior merits of his
+cause; and to excel, not only in the arts of war, but in those of
+composition. His epistle to the senate and people of Athens seems to
+have been dictated by an elegant enthusiasm; which prompted him to
+submit his actions and his motives to the degenerate Athenians of his
+own times, with the same humble deference as if he had been pleading,
+in the days of Aristides, before the tribunal of the Areopagus. His
+application to the senate of Rome, which was still permitted to bestow
+the titles of imperial power, was agreeable to the forms of the expiring
+republic. An assembly was summoned by Tertullus, prefect of the city;
+the epistle of Julian was read; and, as he appeared to be master of
+Italy, his claims were admitted without a dissenting voice.
+
+His oblique censure of the innovations of Constantine, and his
+passionate invective against the vices of Constantius, were heard with
+less satisfaction; and the senate, as if Julian had been present,
+unanimously exclaimed, "Respect, we beseech you, the author of your own
+fortune"--an artful expression, which, according to the chance of war,
+might be differently explained; as a manly reproof of the ingratitude of
+the usurper, or as a flattering confession that a single act of such
+benefit to the State ought to atone for all the failings of Constantius.
+
+The intelligence of the march and rapid progress of Julian was speedily
+transmitted to his rival, who, by the retreat of Sapor, had obtained
+some respite from the Persian war. Disguising the anguish of his soul
+under the semblance of contempt, Constantius professed his intention of
+returning into Europe, and of giving chase to Julian; for he never spoke
+of his military expedition in any other light than that of a hunting
+party. In the camp of Hierapolis, in Syria, he communicated this design
+to his army; slightly mentioned the guilt and rashness of the caesar, and
+ventured to assure them that if the mutineers of Gaul presumed to meet
+them in the field they would be unable to sustain the fire of their eyes
+and the irresistible weight of their shout of onset.
+
+The speech of the Emperor was received with military applause, and
+Theodotus, the president of the council of Hierapolis, requested, with
+tears of adulation, that _his_ city might be adorned with the head of
+the vanquished rebel. A chosen detachment was despatched away in
+post-wagons, to secure, if it were yet possible, the pass of Succi; the
+recruits, the horses, the arms, and the magazines, which had been
+prepared against Sapor, were appropriated to the service of the civil
+war; and the domestic victories of Constantius inspired his partisans
+with the most sanguine assurances of success. The notary Gaudentius had
+occupied in his name the provinces of Africa; the subsistence of Rome
+was intercepted; and the distress of Julian was increased by an
+unexpected event, which might have been productive of fatal
+consequences. Julian had received the submission of two legions and a
+cohort of archers, who were stationed at Sirmium; but he suspected with
+reason the fidelity of those troops which had been distinguished by the
+Emperor; and it was thought expedient, under the pretence of the exposed
+state of the Gallic frontier, to dismiss them from the most important
+scene of action.
+
+They advanced, with reluctance, as far as the confines of Italy; but as
+they dreaded the length of the way and the savage fierceness of the
+Germans, they resolved, by the instigation of one of their tribunes, to
+halt at Aquileia, and to erect the banners of Constantius on the walls
+of that impregnable city. The vigilance of Julian perceived at once the
+extent of the mischief, and the necessity of applying an immediate
+remedy. By his order, Jovinus led back a part of the army into Italy;
+and the siege of Aquileia was formed with diligence and prosecuted with
+vigor. But the legionaries, who seemed to have rejected the yoke of
+discipline, conducted the defence of the place with skill and
+perseverance; invited the rest of Italy to imitate the example of their
+courage and loyalty; and threatened the retreat of Julian, if he should
+be forced to yield to the superior numbers of the armies of the East.
+
+But the humanity of Julian was preserved from the cruel alternative
+which he pathetically laments, of destroying or of being himself
+destroyed; and the seasonable death of Constantius delivered the Roman
+Empire from the calamities of civil war. The approach of winter could
+not detain the monarch at Antioch; and his favorites durst not oppose
+his impatient desire of revenge. A slight fever, which was perhaps
+occasioned by the agitation of his spirits, was increased by the
+fatigues of the journey; and Constantius was obliged to halt at the
+little town of Mopsucrene, twelve miles beyond Tarsus, where he expired,
+after a short illness, in the forty-fifth year of his age and the
+twenty-fourth of his reign. Julian thus became master of the Roman
+world.
+
+
+
+
+THE HUNS AND THEIR WESTERN MIGRATION
+
+A.D. 374-376
+
+MARCELLINUS
+
+     The Huns, whose incursions into Europe constituted the first
+     "yellow peril," were a nomadic Mongolian race. In the fourth
+     century before Christ they successfully invaded China. From that
+     country, about A.D. 90, they were driven by Hiong-nu, and the Huns
+     then proceeded, joined by hordes of their fellows from the steppes
+     of Tartary, to make their way to the Caspian Sea.
+
+     Previous to the incursion of the Huns another Tartar tribe, the
+     Alani--the first of that race known to the Romans--had ravaged
+     Media and Armenia, A.D. 75, carrying off a vast number of prisoners
+     and an enormous booty. They later settled themselves in the country
+     between the Volga and the Tanais, at an equal distance from the
+     Black Sea and the Caspian. The Huns, having crossed the Volga,
+     drove the Alani before them to the Danube. Valens, the then Emperor
+     of the East, was a weak, incapable ruler; he failed to recognize
+     the peril by which his empire would ere long be threatened, and
+     permitted the Alani to find a refuge in his dominions. These were
+     in turn followed and absorbed by the Huns, and the whole Roman
+     Empire was finally faced by Mongol foes.
+
+     The historian Ammianus Marcellinus wrote racily of these events at
+     the time of their occurrence.
+
+
+The swift wheel of fortune, which continually alternates adversity with
+prosperity, was giving Bellona the Furies for her allies, and arming her
+for war; and now transferred our disasters to the east, as many presages
+and portents foreshowed by undoubted signs.
+
+For after many true prophecies uttered by diviners and augurs, dogs were
+seen to recoil from howling wolves, and the birds of night constantly
+uttered querulous and mournful cries; and lurid sunrises made the
+mornings dark. Also, at Antioch, among the tumults and squabbles of the
+populace, it had come to be a custom for anyone who fancied himself
+ill-treated to cry out, in a licentious manner: "May Valens be burned
+alive." And the voices of the criers were constantly heard ordering
+wood to be carried to warm the baths of Valens, which had been built
+under the superintendence of the Emperor himself.
+
+All which circumstances all but pointed out in express words that the
+end of the Emperor's life was at hand. Besides all these things, the
+ghost of the King of Armenia, and the miserable shades of those who had
+lately been put to death in the affair of Theodorus, agitated numbers of
+people with terrible alarms, appearing to them in their sleep, and
+shrieking out verses of horrible import.
+
+Last of all, when the ancient walls of Chalcedon were thrown down in
+order to build a bath at Constantinople, and the stones were torn
+asunder, on one squared stone which was hidden in the very centre of the
+walls these Greek verses were found engraved, which gave a full
+revelation of what was to happen:
+
+    "But when young wives and damsels blithe, in dances that delight,
+    Shall glide along the city streets, with garlands gayly bright;
+    And when these walls, with sad regrets, shall fall to raise a bath,
+    Then shall the Huns in multitude break forth with might and wrath,
+    By force of arms the barrier-stream of Ister they shall cross,
+    O'er Scythic ground and Moesian lands spreading dismay and loss;
+    They shall Pannonian horsemen brave, and Gallic soldiers slay,
+    And nought but loss of life and breath their course shall ever stay."
+
+The following circumstances were the original cause of all the
+destruction and various calamities which the fury of Mars roused up,
+throwing everything into confusion by his usual ruinous violence: the
+people called Huns, slightly mentioned in the ancient records, live
+beyond the Sea of Azov, on the border of the Frozen Ocean, and are a
+race savage beyond all parallel.
+
+At the very moment of their birth the cheeks of their infant children
+are deeply marked by an iron, in order that the usual vigor of their
+hair, instead of growing at the proper season, may be withered by the
+wrinkled scars; and accordingly they grow up without beards, and
+consequently without any beauty, like eunuchs, though they all have
+closely knit and strong limbs and plump necks; they are of great size,
+and bow-legged, so that you might fancy them two-legged beasts, or the
+stout figures which are hewn out in a rude manner with an axe on the
+posts at the end of bridges.
+
+They are certainly in the shape of men, however uncouth, but are so
+hardy that they neither require fire nor well-flavored food, but live on
+the roots of such herbs as they get in the fields, or on the half-raw
+flesh of any animal, which they merely warm rapidly by placing it
+between their own thighs and the back of their horses.
+
+They never shelter themselves under roofed houses, but avoid them, as
+people ordinarily avoid sepulchres as things not fitted for common use.
+Nor is there even to be found among them a cabin thatched with reed; but
+they wander about, roaming over the mountains and the woods, and
+accustom themselves to bear frost and hunger and thirst from their very
+cradles. And even when abroad they never enter a house unless under the
+compulsion of some extreme necessity; nor, indeed, do they think people
+under roofs as safe as others.
+
+They wear linen clothes, or else garments made of the skins of
+field-mice; nor do they wear a different dress out of doors from that
+which they wear at home; but after a tunic is once put round their
+necks, however much it becomes worn, it is never taken off or changed
+till, from long decay, it becomes actually so ragged as to fall to
+pieces.
+
+They cover their heads with round caps, and their shaggy legs with the
+skins of kids; their shoes are not made on any lasts, but are so
+unshapely as to hinder them from walking with a free gait. And for this
+reason they are not well suited to infantry battles, but are nearly
+always on horseback, their horses being ill-shaped, but hardy; and
+sometimes they even sit upon them like women if they want to do anything
+more conveniently. There is not a person in the whole nation who cannot
+remain on his horse day and night. On horseback they buy and sell, they
+take their meat and drink, and there they recline on the narrow neck of
+their steed, and yield to sleep so deep as to indulge in every variety
+of dream.
+
+And when any deliberation is to take place on any weighty matter, they
+all hold their common council on horseback. They are not under the
+authority of a king, but are contented with the irregular government of
+their nobles, and under their lead they force their way through all
+obstacles.
+
+Sometimes, when provoked, they fight; and when they go into battle, they
+form in a solid body, and utter all kinds of terrific yells. They are
+very quick in their operations, of exceeding speed, and fond of
+surprising their enemies. With a view to this, they suddenly disperse,
+then reunite, and again, after having inflicted vast loss upon the
+enemy, scatter themselves over the whole plain in irregular formations:
+always avoiding the fort or an intrenchment.
+
+And in one respect you may pronounce them the most formidable of all
+warriors, for when at a distance they use missiles of various kinds,
+tipped with sharpened bones instead of the usual points of javelins, and
+these bones are admirably fastened into the shaft of the javelin or
+arrow; but when they are at close quarters they fight with the sword,
+without any regard for their own safety; and often while their
+antagonists are warding off their blows they entangle them with twisted
+cords, so that, their hands being fettered, they lose all power of
+either riding or walking.
+
+None of them plough, or even touch a plough handle; for they have no
+settled abode, but are homeless and lawless, perpetually wandering with
+their wagons, which they make their homes; in fact, they seem to be
+people always in flight. Their wives live in these wagons, and there
+weave their miserable garments; and here, too, they sleep with their
+husbands, and bring up their children till they reach the age of
+puberty; nor, if asked, can any one of them tell you where he was born,
+as he was conceived in one place, born in another at a great distance,
+and brought up in another still more remote.
+
+In truces they are treacherous and inconstant, being liable to change
+their minds at every breeze of every fresh hope which presents itself,
+giving themselves up wholly to the impulse and inclination of the
+moment; and, like brute beasts, they are utterly ignorant of the
+distinction between right and wrong. They express themselves with great
+ambiguity and obscurity; have no respect for any religion or
+superstition whatever; are immoderately covetous of gold; and are so
+fickle and irascible that they very often, on the same day that they
+quarrel with their companions without any provocation, again become
+reconciled to them without any mediator.
+
+This active and indomitable race, being excited by an unrestrainable
+desire of plundering the possessions of others, went on ravaging and
+slaughtering all the nations in their neighborhood till they reached the
+Alani, who were formerly called the Massagetae; and from what country
+these Alani came, or what territories they inhabit--since my subject has
+led me so far--it is expedient now to explain, after showing the
+confusion existing in the accounts of the geographers, who, at last,
+have found out the truth.
+
+The Danube, which, is greatly increased by other rivers falling into it,
+passes through the territory of the Sauromatae [Scythians], which extends
+as far as the river Don, the boundary between Asia and Europe. On the
+other side of this river the Alani inhabit the enormous deserts of
+Scythia, deriving their own name from the mountains around; and they,
+like the Persians, having gradually subdued all the bordering nations by
+repeated victories, have united them to themselves and comprehended them
+under their own name. Of these other tribes the Neuri inhabit the inland
+districts, being near the highest mountain chains, which are both
+precipitous and covered with the everlasting frost of the north. Next to
+them are the Budini, and the Geloni, a race of exceeding ferocity, who
+flay the enemies they have slain in battle, and make of their skins
+clothes for themselves and trappings for their horses. Next to the
+Geloni are the Agathyrsi, who dye both their bodies and their hair of a
+blue color, the lower classes using spots few in number and small; the
+nobles broad spots, close and thick, and of a deeper hue.
+
+Next to those are the Melanchlaenae and the Anthropophagi, who roam about
+upon different tracts of land and live on human flesh. And these men are
+so avoided on account of their horrid food that all the tribes which
+were their neighbors have removed to a distance from them. And in this
+way the whole of that region to the northeast, till you come to the
+Chinese, is uninhabited.
+
+On the other side the Alani again extend to the east, near the
+territories of the Amazons, and are scattered among many populous and
+wealthy nations, stretching to the parts of Asia which, as I am told,
+extend up to the Ganges, a river which passes through the country of the
+Indians, and falls into the Southern Ocean.
+
+Then the Alani, being thus divided among the two quarters of the
+globe--the various tribes which make up the whole nation it is not worth
+while to enumerate--although widely separated, wander, like the nomads,
+over enormous districts. But in the progress of time all these tribes
+came to be united under one generic appellation, and are called Alani.
+
+They have no cottages, and never use the plough, but live solely on meat
+and plenty of milk, mounted on their wagons which they cover with a
+curved awning made of the bark of trees, and then drive them through
+their boundless deserts. And when they come to any pasture land, they
+pitch their wagons in a circle, and live like a herd of beasts, eating
+up all the forage--carrying, as it were, their cities with them in their
+wagons. In them the husbands sleep with their wives--in them their
+children are born and brought up; these wagons, in short, are their
+perpetual habitation, and, wherever they fix them, that place they look
+upon as their home.
+
+They drive before them their flocks and herds to their pasturage; and
+about all other cattle, they are especially careful of their horses. The
+fields in that country are always green, and are interspersed with
+patches of fruit-trees, so that, wherever they go, there is no dearth
+either of food for themselves or fodder for their cattle. And this is
+caused by the moisture of the soil and the number of the rivers which
+flow through these districts.
+
+All their old people, and especially all the weaker sex, keep close to
+the wagons and occupy themselves in the lighter employments. But the
+young men, who from their earliest childhood are trained to the use of
+the horses, think it beneath them to walk. They are also all trained by
+careful discipline of various sorts to become skilful warriors. And this
+is the reason why the Persians, who are originally of Scythian
+extraction, are very skilful in war.
+
+Nearly all the Alani are men of great stature and beauty. Their hair is
+somewhat yellow, their eyes are terribly fierce; the lightness of their
+armor renders them rapid in their movements, and they are in every
+respect equal to the Huns, only more civilized in their food and their
+manner of life. They plunder and hunt as far as the Sea of Azov and the
+Cimmerian Bosporus, ravaging also Armenia and Media.
+
+And as ease is a delightful thing to men of a quiet and placid
+disposition, so danger and war are a pleasure to the Alani, and among
+them that man is called happy who has lost his life in battle; for those
+who grow old, or who go out of the world from accidental sicknesses,
+they pursue with bitter reproaches as degenerate and cowardly. Nor is
+there anything of which they boast with more pride than of having killed
+a man; and the most glorious spoils they esteem the scalps which they
+have torn from the heads of those whom they have slain, which they put
+as trappings and ornaments on their war horses.
+
+Nor is there any temple or shrine seen in their country, nor even any
+cabin thatched with straw, their only idea of religion being to plunge a
+naked sword into the ground with barbaric ceremonies, and they worship
+that with great respect, as Mars, the presiding deity of the regions
+over which they wander.
+
+They presage the future in a most remarkable manner, for they collect a
+number of great twigs of osier, then with certain secret incantations
+they separate them from one another on particular days; and from them
+they learn clearly what is about to happen.
+
+They have no idea of slavery, inasmuch as they themselves are all born
+of noble families; and those whom even now they appoint to be judges are
+always men of proved experience and skill in war. But now let us return
+to the subject which we proposed to ourselves.
+
+The Huns, after having traversed the territories of the Alani, and
+especially of that tribe of them who border on the Gruthungi, and who
+are called Tanaitae, and having slain many of them and acquired much
+plunder they made a treaty of friendship and alliance with those who
+remained. And when they had united them to themselves, with increased
+boldness they made a sudden incursion into the extensive and fertile
+districts of Ermenrichus, a very warlike prince, and one whom his
+numerous gallant actions of every kind had rendered formidable to all
+the neighboring nations.
+
+He was astonished at the violence of this sudden tempest, and although,
+like a prince whose power was well established, he long attempted to
+hold his ground, he was at last overpowered by a dread of the evils
+impending over his country, which were exaggerated by common report,
+till he terminated his fear of great danger by a voluntary death.
+
+After his death Vithimiris was made king. He for some time maintained a
+resistance to the Alani, relying on the aid of other tribes of the Huns
+whom by large promises of pay he had won over to his party; but, after
+having suffered many losses, he was defeated by superior numbers and
+slain in battle. He left an infant son named Viderichus, of whom
+Alatheus and Saphrax undertook the guardianship, both generals of great
+experience and proved courage. And when they, yielding to the
+difficulties of the crisis, had given up all hope of being able to make
+an effectual resistance, they retired with caution till they came to the
+river Dniester, which lies between the Danube and the Dnieper, and flows
+through a vast extent of country.
+
+When Athanaric, the chief magistrate of the Thuringians, had become
+informed of those unexpected occurrences, he prepared to maintain his
+ground, with a resolution to rise up in strength should he be assailed
+as the others had been.
+
+At last he pitched his camp at a distance in a very favorable spot near
+the banks of the Dniester and the valleys of the Gruthungi, and sent
+Muderic, who afterward became duke of the Arabian frontier, with
+Lagarimanus and others of the nobles, with orders to advance for twenty
+miles, to reconnoitre the approach of the enemy; while in the mean time
+he himself, without delay, marshalled his troops in line of battle.
+
+However, things turned out in a manner very contrary to his
+expectations. For the Huns--being very sagacious in
+conjectures--suspecting that there must be a considerable
+multitude farther off, contrived to pass beyond those they had
+seen, and arranged themselves to take their rest where there was
+nothing at hand to disturb them; and then, when the moon
+dispelled the darkness of night, they forded the river, which was
+the best plan which presented itself, and fearing lest the
+pickets at the outposts might give the alarm to the distant camp,
+they made all possible speed and advanced with the hope of
+surprising Athanaric himself.
+
+He was stupefied at the suddenness of their onset, and, after losing
+many of his men, was compelled to flee for refuge to the precipitous
+mountains in the neighborhood, where, being wholly bewildered with the
+strangeness of this occurrence, and the fear of greater evils to come,
+he began to fortify with lofty walls all the territory between the banks
+of the River Pruth and the Danube, where it passes through the land of
+the Taifali; and he completed this line of fortification with great
+diligence, thinking that by this step he should secure his own personal
+safety.
+
+While this important work was going on, the Huns kept pressing on his
+traces with great speed, and they would have overtaken and destroyed him
+if they had not been forced to abandon the pursuit from being impeded by
+the great quantity of their booty. In the mean time a report spread
+extensively through the other nations of the Goths, that a race of men,
+hitherto unknown, had suddenly descended like a whirlwind from the lofty
+mountains, as if they had risen from some secret recess of the earth,
+and were ravaging and destroying everything which came in their way. And
+then the greater part of the population which, because of their want of
+necessaries, had deserted Athanaric, resolved to flee and to seek a home
+remote from all knowledge of the barbarians; and after a long
+deliberation where to fix their abode, they resolved that a retreat into
+Thrace was the most suitable for these two reasons: first of all,
+because it is a district most fertile in grass; and also because, by the
+great breadth of the Danube, it is wholly separated from the barbarians,
+who were already exposed to the thunder-bolts of foreign warfare. And
+the whole population of the tribe adopted this resolution unanimously.
+
+Accordingly, under the command of their leader Alavivus, they occupied
+the bank of the Danube, and having sent ambassadors to Valens, they
+humbly entreated to be received by him as his subjects, promising to
+live quietly, and to furnish a body of auxiliary troops if any necessity
+for such a force should arise.
+
+While these events were passing in foreign countries, a terrible rumor
+arose that the tribes of the North were planning new and unprecedented
+attacks upon us; and that over the whole region, which extends from the
+country of the Marcomanni and Quadi to Pontus, a barbarian host,
+composed of different distant nations, which had suddenly been driven by
+force from their own country, was now, with all their families,
+wandering about in different directions on the banks of the river
+Danube.
+
+At first this intelligence was lightly treated by our people, because
+they were not in the habit of hearing of any wars in those remote
+districts till they were terminated either by victory or by treaty.
+
+But presently, as the belief in these occurrences grew stronger, being
+confirmed, too, by the arrival of the foreign ambassadors, who, with
+prayers and earnest entreaties, begged that the people thus driven from
+their homes and now encamped on the other side of the river might be
+kindly received by us, the affair seemed a cause of joy rather than of
+fear, according to the skilful flatterers who were always extolling and
+exaggerating the good fortune of the Emperor; congratulating him that an
+embassy had come from the farthest corners of the earth unexpectedly,
+offering him a large body of recruits; and that, by combining the
+strength of his own nation with these foreign forces, he would have an
+army absolutely invincible; observing further that, by the yearly
+payment for military reinforcements which came in every year from the
+provinces, a vast treasure of gold might be accumulated in his coffers.
+
+Full of this hope, he sent forth several officers to bring this
+ferocious people and their wagons into our territory. And such great
+pains were taken to gratify this nation which was destined to overthrow
+the Empire of Rome, that not one was left behind, not even of those who
+were stricken with mortal disease. Moreover, having obtained permission
+of the Emperor to cross the Danube and to cultivate some districts in
+Thrace, they crossed the stream day and night, without ceasing,
+embarking in troops on board ships and rafts, and canoes made of the
+hollow trunks of trees, in which enterprise, as the Danube is the most
+difficult of all rivers to navigate, and was at that time swollen with
+continual rains, a great many were drowned, who, because they were too
+numerous for the vessels, tried to swim across, and in spite of all
+their exertions were swept away by the stream.
+
+In this way, through the turbulent zeal of violent people, the ruin of
+the Roman Empire was brought on. This, at all events, is neither obscure
+nor uncertain that the unhappy officers who were intrusted with the
+charge of conducting the multitude of the barbarians across the river,
+though they repeatedly endeavored to calculate their numbers, at last
+abandoned the attempt as hopeless; and the man who would wish to
+ascertain the number might as well--as the most illustrious of poets
+says--attempt to count the waves in the African Sea, or the grains of
+sand tossed about by the zephyrs.
+
+Let, however, the ancient annals be accredited which record that the
+Persian host which was led into Greece was, while encamped on the shores
+of the Hellespont, and making a new and artificial sea, numbered in
+battalions at Doriscus; a computation which has been unanimously
+regarded by all posterity as fabulous.
+
+But after the innumerable multitudes of different nations, diffused over
+all our provinces and spreading themselves over the vast expanses of our
+plains, who filled all the champaign country and all the mountain
+ranges, are considered, the credibility of the ancient accounts is
+confirmed by this modern instance. And first of all Tritigernus was
+received with Alavivus, and the Emperor assigned them a temporary
+provision for their immediate support, and ordered lands to be assigned
+them to cultivate.
+
+At that time the defences of our provinces were much exposed, and the
+armies of barbarians spread over them like the lava of Mount AEtna. The
+imminence of our danger manifestly called for generals already
+illustrious for their past achievements in war; but nevertheless, as if
+some unpropitious deity had made the selection, the men who were sought
+out for the chief military appointments were of tainted character. The
+chief among them were Lupicinus and Maximus, the one being count of
+Thrace, the other a leader notoriously wicked--and both men of great
+ignorance and rashness.
+
+And their treacherous covetousness was the cause of all our disasters.
+For--to pass over other matters in which the officers aforesaid, or
+others with their unblushing connivance, displayed the greatest
+profligacy in their injurious treatment of the foreigners dwelling in
+our territory, against whom no crime could be alleged--this one
+melancholy and unprecedented piece of conduct--which, even if they were
+to choose their own judges, must appear wholly unpardonable--must be
+mentioned:
+
+When the barbarians who had been conducted across the river were in
+great distress from want of provisions, those detested generals
+conceived the idea of a most disgraceful traffic; and having collected
+hounds from all quarters with the most unsatiable rapacity, they
+exchanged them for an equal number of slaves, among whom were several
+sons of men of noble birth.
+
+About this time also, Vitheric, the King of the Gruthungi, with Alatheus
+and Saphrax, by whose influence he was mainly guided, and also with
+Farnobius, approached the bank of the Danube and sent envoys to the
+Emperor to entreat that he also might be received with the same kindness
+that Alavivus and Fritigern had experienced.
+
+But when, as seemed best for the interests of the State, these
+ambassadors had been rejected, and were in great anxiety what they
+should do, Athanaric, fearing similar treatment, departed, recollecting
+that long ago, when he was discussing a treaty with Valens, he had
+treated that Emperor with contempt in affirming that he was bound by a
+religious obligation never to set his foot on the Roman territory; and
+that, by this excuse, he had compelled the Emperor to conclude a peace
+in the middle of the war. And he, fearing that the grudge which Valens
+bore him for this conduct was still lasting, withdrew with all his
+forces to Caucalandes, a place which, from the height of its mountains
+and the thickness of its woods, is completely inaccessible; and from
+which he had lately driven out the Sarmatians.
+
+
+
+
+FINAL DIVISION OF ROMAN EMPIRE: THE DISRUPTIVE INTRIGUES
+
+A.D. 395
+
+J. B. BURY
+
+     When Theodosius I, surnamed "the Great," was elevated to power as
+     ruler of the East, that part of the empire was distracted in
+     consequence of wars with the Visigoths who, flying from the Huns,
+     had been granted a refuge in the Roman provinces of Moesia and
+     Thrace. Ill-treatment by the Romans drove the Visigoths to revolt,
+     and Valens, then Emperor of the East, set out with an army to
+     punish them. In the battle of Adrianople, August 9, 378, the Roman
+     army was defeated, and in the retreat Valens was killed. The
+     Visigoths pressed on, ravaging the country even to the foot of the
+     walls of Constantinople, and the doom of the empire seemed to be at
+     hand.
+
+     At this juncture Gratian--Emperor of the West, who also upon the
+     death of Valens succeeded him as ruler of the East--sent for
+     Theodosius, then a Roman general living in retirement in Spain,
+     made him his colleague in the East, and placed him, A.D., 379 at
+     the head of an army for the suppression of the Gothic outbreaks.
+     Theodosius enabled his soldiers to regain their lost confidence by
+     waging a successful _guerilla_ war with the marauding Goths; but
+     having thus shown his mastery over their straggling bands, he did
+     not undertake to drive them out from Roman territory, but weakened
+     them by causing them to quarrel among themselves; then, showing
+     himself as their friend, he gave them lands and settled them within
+     definite limits. To the Visigoths, or West Goths, he gave Thrace,
+     and to the Ostrogoths, or East Goths, who had also now poured into
+     the Roman provinces, he assigned Pannonia.
+
+     By this policy Theodosius established his authority in the East and
+     restored the empire to something of its earlier power. Except
+     during the last four months of his life, when he was sole Emperor,
+     his direct authority was confined to the East; but he exerted a
+     potent influence upon the affairs of the whole empire, both
+     temporal and spiritual. He warred steadily against paganism and
+     heresy. He took the side of Trinitarian orthodoxy against Arianism,
+     which had previously triumphed in the East, and restored religious
+     unity to the empire by making the Athanasian doctrine the faith of
+     Constantinople, as it was that of the West. This policy was
+     ratified by the second ecumenical council, called by Theodosius,
+     at Constantinople in 381, when the orthodoxy first promulgated by
+     the Council of Nicaea in 325 was substantially reaffirmed. It was
+     also largely through the influence of Theodosius, who was the
+     friend of Ambrose, archbishop of Milan, that the Roman senate, by a
+     great majority, voted (388) to abolish the worship of Jupiter and
+     to adopt the worship of Christ, thus making Christianity the state
+     religion. In the debate which preceded this transition the
+     eloquence of Symmachus, on the pagan side, was overmatched by the
+     arguments of Ambrose, aided by the powerful support of Theodosius
+     in person.
+
+     In his further dealings with the Visigoths, Theodosius, following a
+     precedent already established, enlisted in the Roman service a
+     separate Gothic army of forty thousand soldiers; but this policy,
+     as the event proved, was fatal to the permanency of his hitherto
+     successful control of these alien elements, for they soon gathered
+     strength to take the mastery into their own hands. Theodosius died
+     in 395, after publishing a decree for partition of the empire
+     between his two sons, Honorius to rule in the West, and Arcadius in
+     the East. He meant, not to establish two independent jurisdictions,
+     but that there should be one commonwealth, whose two rulers should
+     be colleagues and coadjutors in its defence. This new disposition
+     of the empire was followed by dissensions and intrigues against
+     which the weak sons of Theodosius were helpless in the hands of
+     able and unscrupulous self-seekers, the result of which was the
+     final separation of the empire into two distinct governments and
+     the weakening of the powers of resistance of both against those
+     ever-increasing encroachments of the barbarians which eventually
+     caused the fall of both empires.
+
+
+One of the few men in history who have won the title of great, the
+emperor Theodosius I, who had by his policy, at once friendly and firm,
+pacified the Goths, who had confirmed the triumph of Athanasian over
+Arian Christianity, who had stamped out the last flames of refractory
+paganism represented by the tyrant Eugenius, died on the 17th of
+January, A.D. 395. His wishes were that his younger son, Honorius, then
+a boy of ten years, should reign in the West, where he had already
+installed him, and that his eldest son, Arcadius, whom he had left as
+regent in Constantinople when he set out against Eugenius, should
+continue to reign in the East.
+
+But he was not willing to leave his youthful heirs--Arcadius was only
+eighteen--without a protector, and the most natural protector was one
+bound to them by ties of relationship. Accordingly on his deathbed he
+commended them to the care of the Vandal Stilicho, whom he had raised
+for his military and other talents to the rank of commander-in-chief,
+and, deeming him worthy of an alliance with his own family, had united
+to his favorite niece Serena. We can hardly doubt that it was in this
+capacity, as the husband of his niece and a trusted friend, not as a
+general, that Stilicho received Theodosius' dying wishes; it was as an
+elder member of the same family that the husband of their cousin could
+claim to exert an influence over Arcadius and Honorius, of whom,
+however, the latter, it would appear, was more especially committed to
+his care, not only as the younger, but because Stilicho, being _magister
+militum_ of the armies of Italy, would come more directly into contact
+with him than with his brother.
+
+Arcadius, with whom we are especially concerned, was about eighteen at
+the time of his father's death. He was of short stature, of dark
+complexion, thin and inactive, and the dulness of his wit was betrayed
+by his speech and by his eyes, which always seemed as if they were about
+to close in sleep. His smallness of intellect and his weakness of
+character made it inevitable that he should come under the influence,
+good or bad, of commanding personalities, with which he might be brought
+in contact. Such a potent personality was the praetorian prefect Rufinus,
+a native of Aquitaine, who in almost every respect presented a contrast
+to his sovereign. He was tall and manly, and the restless movements of
+his keen eyes and the readiness of his speech signified his intellectual
+powers. He was a strong, worldly man, ambitious of power, and
+sufficiently unprincipled; avaricious, too, like most ministers of the
+age.
+
+He had made many enemies by acts which were perhaps somewhat more than
+usually unscrupulous, but we cannot justly assume that in the overthrow
+of certain rivals he was entirely guilty and they entirely innocent, as
+is sometimes represented. It is almost certain that he formed the scheme
+and cherished the hope of becoming joint emperor with Arcadius.
+
+This ambition of Rufinus placed him at once in an attitude of opposition
+to Stilicho, who was himself not above the suspicion of entertaining
+similar schemes, not, however, in the interest of his own person, but
+for his son Eucherius. The position of the Vandal, who was connected by
+marriage with the imperial family, gave him an advantage over Rufinus,
+which was strengthened by the generally known fact that Theodosius had
+given him his last instructions. Stilicho, moreover, was popular with
+the army, and for the present the great bulk of the forces of the empire
+was at his disposal; for the regiments united to suppress Eugenius had
+not yet been sent back to their various stations. Thus a struggle was
+imminent between the ambitious minister who had the ear of Arcadius, and
+the strong general who held the command and enjoyed the favor of the
+army.
+
+Before the end of the year this struggle began and concluded in an
+extremely curious way; but we must first relate how a certain scheme of
+Rufinus had been checkmated by an obscurer but wilier rival nearer at
+hand.
+
+It was the cherished project of Rufinus to unite Arcadius with his only
+daughter; once the Emperor's father-in-law, he might hope to become
+speedily an emperor himself. But he imprudently made a journey to
+Antioch, in order to execute vengeance personally on the Count of the
+East, who had offended him; and during his absence from Byzantium an
+adversary stole a march on him. This adversary was the eunuch Eutropius,
+the lord chamberlain, a bald old man, who with oriental craftiness had
+won his way up from the meanest services and employments. Determining
+that the future Empress should be bound to himself and not to Rufinus,
+he chose Eudoxia, a girl of singular beauty, the daughter of a
+distinguished Frank, but herself of Roman education.
+
+Her father, Bauto, was dead, and she lived in the house of the widow and
+sons of one of the victims of Rufinus. Eutropius showed a picture of the
+Frank maiden to the Emperor and engaged his affections for her; the
+nuptials were arranged by the time Rufinus returned to Constantinople,
+and were speedily celebrated (April 27, 395). This was a blow to
+Rufinus, but he was still the most powerful man in the East.
+
+The event which at length brought him into contact with Stilicho was the
+rising of the Visigoths, who had been settled by Theodosius in Moesia
+and Thrace, and were bound in return for their lands to serve in the
+army as _foederati_. They had accompanied the Emperor to Italy against
+Eugenius, and had returned to their habitations sooner than the rest of
+the army.
+
+The causes of discontent which led to their revolt are not quite clear;
+but it seems that Arcadius refused to give them certain grants of money
+which had been allowed them by his father, and, as has been suggested,
+they probably expected that favor would wane and influence decrease now
+that the "friend of Goths" was dead, and consequently determined to make
+themselves heard and felt. To this must be added that their most
+influential chieftain, Alaric, called Baltha ("the Bold"), desired to be
+made a commander-in-chief, _magister militum_, and was offended that he
+had been passed over.
+
+However this may be, the historical essence of the matter is that an
+immense body of restless, uncivilized Germans could not abide
+permanently in the centre of Roman provinces in a semi-dependent,
+ill-defined relation to the Roman government; the West Goths had not yet
+found their permanent home. Under the leadership of Alaric they raised
+the ensign of revolt, and spread desolation in the fields and homesteads
+of Macedonia, Moesia, and Thrace, even advancing close to the walls of
+Constantinople. They carefully spared certain estates outside the city,
+belonging to the prefect Rufinus, but this policy does not seem to have
+been adopted with the same motive that caused Archidamus to spare the
+lands of Pericles. Alaric may have wished not to render Rufinus
+suspected, but to conciliate his friendship and obtain thereby more
+favorable terms. Rufinus actually went to Alaric's camp, dressed as a
+Goth, but the interview led to nothing.
+
+It was impossible to take the field against the Goths, because there
+were no forces available, as the eastern armies were still with Stilicho
+in the West. Arcadius therefore was obliged to summon Stilicho to send
+or bring them back immediately, to protect his throne. This summons gave
+that general the desired opportunity to interfere in the politics of
+Constantinople; and having with energetic celerity arranged matters on
+the Gallic frontier, he marched overland through Illyricum and
+confronted Alaric in Thessaly, whither the Goth had traced his
+devastating path from the Propontis.
+
+It appears that Stilicho's behavior is quite as open to the charges of
+ambition and artfulness as the behavior of Rufinus, for I do not
+perceive how we can strictly justify his detention of the forces, which
+ought to have been sent back to defend the provinces of Arcadius at the
+very beginning of the year. Stilicho's march to Thessaly can scarcely
+have taken place before October, and it is hard to interpret this long
+delay in sending back the troops, over which he had no rightful
+authority, if it were not dictated by a wish to implicate the government
+of New Rome in difficulties and render his own intervention necessary.
+
+We are told, too, that he selected the best soldiers from the eastern
+regiments and enrolled them in the western corps. If we adopted the
+Cassian maxim, _Cui bono fuerit_, we should be inclined to accuse
+Stilicho of having been privy to the revolt of Alaric; such a
+supposition would at least be far more plausible than the calumny which
+was circulated charging Rufinus with having stirred up the Visigoths.
+For such a supposition, too, we might find support in the circumstance
+that the estates of Rufinus were spared by the soldiers of Alaric; it
+would be intelligible that Stilicho suggested the plan in order to bring
+odium upon Rufinus. To such a conjecture, finally, certain other
+circumstances, soon to be related, point: but it remains nothing more
+than a suspicion.
+
+It seems that before Stilicho arrived Alaric had experienced a defeat at
+the hands of garrison soldiers in Thessaly; at all events he shut
+himself up in a fortified camp and declined to engage with the Roman
+general. In the mean time Rufinus induced Arcadius to send a peremptory
+order to Stilicho to despatch the eastern troops to Constantinople and
+depart himself whence he had come; the Emperor resented, or pretended to
+resent, the presence of his cousin as an officious interference.
+Stilicho yielded so readily that his willingness seems almost
+suspicious; but we shall probably never know whether he was responsible
+for the events that followed. He consigned the eastern soldiers to the
+command of a Gothic captain, Gainas, and himself departed to Salona,
+allowing Alaric to proceed on his wasting way into the lands of Hellas.
+
+Gainas and his soldiers marched by the Via Egnatia to Constantinople,
+and it was arranged that, according to a usual custom, the Emperor and
+his court should come forth from the city to meet the army in the Campus
+Martius, which extended on the west side of the city near the Golden
+Gate. We cannot trust the statement of a hostile writer that Rufinus
+actually expected to be created augustus on this occasion, and appeared
+at the Emperor's side prouder and more sumptuously arrayed than ever; we
+only know that he accompanied Arcadius to meet the army.
+
+It is said that, when the Emperor had saluted the troops, Rufinus
+advanced and displayed a studied affability and solicitude to please
+toward even individual soldiers. They closed in round him as he smiled
+and talked, anxious to secure their good-will for his elevation to the
+throne, but just as he felt himself very nigh to supreme success, the
+swords of the nearest were drawn, and his body, pierced with wounds,
+fell to the ground. His head, carried through the streets, was mocked by
+the people, and his right hand, severed from the trunk, was presented at
+the doors of houses with the request: "Give to the insatiable!"
+
+We can hardly suppose that the lynching of Rufinus was the fatal
+inspiration of a moment, but whether it was proposed or approved of by
+Stilicho, or was a plan hatched among the soldiers on their way to
+Constantinople, is uncertain. One might even conjecture that the whole
+affair was the result of a prearrangement between Stilicho and the party
+in Byzantium, which was adverse to Rufinus and led by the eunuch
+Eutropius; but there is no evidence. Our knowledge of this scene
+unfortunately depends on a partial and untrustworthy writer, who,
+moreover, wrote in verse--the poet Claudian.
+
+He enjoyed the patronage of Stilicho, and his poems _Against Rufinus_,
+_Against Eutropius_, and _On the Gothic War_ are a glorification of his
+patron's splendid virtues. Stilicho and Rufinus he paints as two
+opposite forces, the force of good and the force of evil, like the
+principles of the Manichaeans.
+
+Rufinus is the terrible Pytho, the scourge of the world; Stilicho is the
+radiant Apollo, the deliverer of mankind. Rufinus is a power of
+darkness, whose tartarean wickedness surpasses even the wickedness of
+the Furies of hell; Stilicho is an angel of light. In the works of a
+poet whose leading idea was so extravagant, we can hardly expect to find
+much fair historical truth; it is, as a rule, only accidental references
+and allusions that we can accept, unless other authorities confirm his
+statements. Yet even modern writers, who know well how cautiously
+Claudian must be used, have been unconsciously prejudiced in favor of
+Stilicho and against Rufinus.
+
+We must return to the movements of Alaric, who had entered the regions
+of classical Greece, for which he showed scant respect. The commander of
+the garrison at Thermopylae, and the proconsul of Achaia, offered no
+resistance, and the West Goths entered Boeotia, where Thebes alone
+escaped their devastation. They occupied the Piraeus, but Athens itself
+was spared, and Alaric was entertained as a guest in the city of Athene.
+But the great temple of the mystic goddesses Demeter and Persephone, at
+Eleusis, was burned down by the irreverent barbarians; Megara, the next
+place on their southward route, fell; then Corinth, Argos, and Sparta.
+
+But when they reached Elis they were confronted by an unexpected
+opponent. Stilicho had returned from Italy, by way of Salona, which he
+reached by sea, to stay the hand of the invader. He blockaded him in the
+plain of Pholoe, but for some reason, not easily comprehensible, he
+did not press his advantage, and set free the hordes of the Visigothic
+land pirates to resume their career of devastation. He went back to
+Italy, and Alaric returned, plundering as he went, to Illyricum and
+Thrace, where he made terms with the government of New Rome, and
+received the desired title of _magister militum per Illyricum_. No one
+will suppose that Stilicho went all the way from Italy to the
+Peloponnesus, and then, although he had Alaric practically at his mercy,
+retreated, leaving matters just as they were, without some excellent
+reason.
+
+If he had genuinely wished to deliver the distressed countries and
+assist the emperor Arcadius, he would not have acted in this ineffectual
+manner. And it is difficult to see that his conduct is explained by
+assuming that he was not willing, by a complete extermination of the
+Goths, to enable Arcadius to dispense with his help in future. In that
+case, what did he gain by going to the Peloponnesus at all? Or we might
+ask, if he wished Arcadius to summon his assistance from year to year,
+is it likely that he would have adopted the method of rendering no
+assistance whatever? But, above all, the question occurs, what pleasure
+would it have been to the general to look forward to being called upon
+again and again to take the field against the Visigoths?
+
+It seems evident that Stilicho and Alaric made at Pholoe some secret
+and definite arrangement, which conditioned Stilicho's departure, and
+that this arrangement was conducive to the interests of Stilicho, who
+was in the position of advantage, and at the same time not contrary to
+the interests of Alaric, for otherwise Stilicho could not have been sure
+that the agreement would be carried out. What this secret compact was
+can only be a matter of conjecture; but I would suggest that Stilicho
+had already formed the plan of creating his son Eucherius emperor, and
+that he designed the Balkan peninsula to be the dominion over which
+Eucherius should hold sway. His conduct becomes perfectly explicable if
+we assume that by a secret agreement he secured Alaric's assistance for
+the execution of this scheme, which the preponderance of Gothic power in
+Illyricum and Thrace would facilitate.
+
+It was not only the European parts of Arcadius' dominions that were
+ravaged in 395, by the fire and sword of barbarians. In the same year
+hordes of trans-Caucasian Huns poured through the Caspian gates, and,
+rushing southward through the provinces of Mesopotamia, carried
+desolation into Syria. St. Jerome was in Palestine at this time, and in
+two of his letters we have the account of an eye-witness: "As I was
+searching for an abode worthy of such a lady (Fabiola, his friend),
+behold, suddenly messengers rush hither and thither, and the whole East
+trembles with the news that from the far Maeotis, from the land of the
+ice-bound Don and the savage Massagetae, where the strong works of
+Alexander on the Caucasian cliffs keep back the wild nations, swarms of
+Huns had burst forth, and, flying hither and thither, were scattering
+slaughter and terror everywhere. The Roman army was at that time, absent
+in consequence of the civil wars in Italy.... May Jesus protect the
+Roman world in future from such beasts! They were everywhere, when they
+were least expected, and their speed outstripped the rumor of their
+approach; they spared neither religion nor dignity nor age; they showed
+no pity to the cry of infancy.
+
+"Babes, who had not yet begun to live, were forced to die; and, ignorant
+of the evil that was upon them, as they were held in the hands and
+threatened by the swords of the enemy, there was a smile upon their
+lips. There was a consistent and universal report that Jerusalem was the
+goal of the foes, and that on account of their insatiable lust for gold
+they were hastening to this city. The walls, neglected by the
+carelessness of peace, were repaired. Antioch was enduring a blockade.
+Tyre, fain to break off from the dry land, sought its ancient island.
+Then we too were constrained to provide ships, to stay on the sea-shore,
+to take precautions against the arrival of the enemy, and, though the
+winds were wild, to fear a shipwreck less than the barbarians--making
+provision not for our own safety so much as for the chastity of our
+virgins." In another letter, speaking of these "wolves of the north," he
+says: "How many monasteries were captured? The waters of how many rivers
+were stained with human gore? Antioch was besieged and the other cities,
+past which the Halys, the Cydnus, the Orontes, the Euphrates flow. Herds
+of captives were dragged away; Arabia, Phoenicia, Palestine, Egypt,
+were led captive by fear."
+
+The Huns, however, were not the only depredators at whose hands the
+provinces of Asia Minor and Syria suffered. There were other enemies
+within, whose ravages were constant, while the expedition of the Huns
+from without occurred only once. These enemies were the freebooters who
+dwelt in the Isaurian mountains, wild and untamed in their secure
+fastnesses. Ammianus Marcellinus describes picturesquely the habits of
+these sturdy robbers. They used to descend from the difficult mountain
+slopes like a whirlwind to places on the sea-shore, where in hidden ways
+and glens they lurked till the fall of night, and in the light of the
+crescent moon watched until the mariners riding at anchor slept; then
+they boarded the vessels, killed and plundered the crews. Thus the coast
+of Isauria was like a deadly shore of Sciron; it was avoided by sailors,
+who made a practice of putting in at the safer ports of Cyprus.
+
+The Isaurians did not always confine their land expeditions to the
+surrounding provinces of Cilicia and Pamphylia; they penetrated, in A.D.
+403, northward to Cappadocia and Pontus, or southward to Syria and
+Palestine; and the whole range of the Taurus, as far as the confines of
+Syria, seems to have been their spacious habitation. An officer named
+Arbacazius was intrusted by Arcadius with an office similar in object to
+that which, four and a half centuries ago, had been assigned to
+Pompeius; but, though he quelled the spirits of the freebooters for a
+moment, Arbacazius did not succeed in eradicating the lawless element,
+in the same way as Pompeius had succeeded in exterminating the piracy
+which in his day infested the same regions. In the years 404 and 405
+Cappadocia was overrun by the robber bands.
+
+Meanwhile, after the death of Rufinus, the weak emperor Arcadius passed
+under the influence of the eunuch Eutropius, who, in unscrupulous greed
+of money, resembled Rufinus and many other officials of the time, and,
+like Rufinus, has been painted far blacker than he really was. All the
+evil things that were said by his enemies of Rufinus were said of
+Eutropius by his enemies; but in reading of the enormities of the latter
+we must make great allowance for the general prejudice existing against
+a person with Eutropius' physical disqualifications.
+
+Eutropius naturally looked on the praetorian prefects, the most powerful
+men in the administration next to the Emperor, with jealousy and
+suspicion, as dangerous rivals. It was his interest to reduce their
+power and to raise the dignity of his own office to an equality with
+theirs. To his influence, then, we are probably justified in ascribing
+two innovations which were made by Arcadius. The administration of the
+_cursus publicus_, or office of postmaster-general, was transferred from
+the praetorian prefects to the master of offices, and the same
+transferrence was made in regard to the manufactories of arms. On the
+other hand, the grand chamberlain, _praepositus sacri cubiculi_, was made
+an _illustris_, equal in rank to the praetorian prefects. Both these
+innovations were afterward altered.
+
+The general historical import of the position of Eutropius is that the
+empire was falling into a danger, by which it had been threatened from
+the outset, and which it had been ever trying to avoid. We may say that
+there were two dangers which constantly impended over the Roman Empire
+from its inauguration by Augustus to its redintegration by Diocletian--a
+Scylla and Charybdis, between which it had to steer. The one was a
+cabinet of imperial freedmen, the other was a military despotism. The
+former danger called forth, and was counteracted by, the creation of a
+civil service system, to which Hadrian perhaps made the most important
+contributions, and which was finally elaborated by Diocletian, who at
+the same time averted the other danger by separating the military and
+civil administrations. But both dangers revived in a new form. The
+danger from the army became danger from the Germans, who preponderated
+in it; and the institution of court ceremonial tended to create a
+cabinet of chamberlains and imperial dependents.
+
+This oriental ceremonial, so marked a feature of late "Byzantinism,"
+involved, as one of its principles, difficulty of access to the Emperor,
+who, living in the retirement of his palace, was tempted to trust less
+to his eyes than his ears, and saw too little of public affairs.
+Diocletian appreciated this disadvantage himself, and remarked that the
+sovereign, shut up in his palace, cannot know the truth, but must rely
+on what his attendants and officers tell him. We may also remark that
+absolute monarchy, by its very nature, tends in this direction; for
+absolute monarchy naturally tends to a dynasty, and a dynasty implies
+that there must sooner or later come to the throne weak men,
+inexperienced in public affairs, reared up in an atmosphere of flattery
+and illusion, easily guided by intriguing chamberlains and eunuchs.
+Under such conditions, then, aulic cabals and chamber cabinets are sure
+to become dominant sometimes. Diocletian, whose political insight and
+ingenuity were remarkable, tried to avoid the dangers of a dynasty by
+his artificial system, but artifice could not contend with success
+against nature.
+
+The greatest blot on the ministry of Eutropius--for, as he was the most
+trusted adviser of the Emperor, we may use the word ministry--was the
+sale of offices, of which Claudian gives a vivid and exaggerated
+account. This was a blot, however, that stained other men of those days
+as well as Eutropius, and we must view it rather as a feature of the
+times than as a personal enormity. Of course, the eunuch's spies were
+ubiquitous; of course, informers of all sorts were encouraged and
+rewarded. All the usual stratagems for grasping and plundering were put
+into practice.
+
+The strong measures that a determined minister was ready to take for the
+mere sake of vengeance may be exemplified by a treatment which the whole
+Lycian province received at the hands of Rufinus. On account of a single
+individual, Tatian, who had offended that minister, all the provincials
+were excluded from public offices. After the death of Rufinus, the
+Lycians were relieved from these disabilities; but the fact that the
+edict of emancipation expressly enjoins "that no one henceforward
+venture to wound a Lycian citizen with a name of scorn" shows what a
+serious misfortune their degradation was.
+
+The eunuch won considerable odium in the first year of his power (396)
+by bringing about the fall of two men of distinction--Abundantius, to
+whose patronage he owed his rise in the world, and Timasius, who had
+been the commander-general in the East. An account of the manner in
+which the ruin of the latter was wrought will illustrate the sort of
+intrigues that were spun at the Byzantine court.
+
+Timasius had brought with him from Sardis a Syrian sausage-seller, named
+Bargus, who, with native address, had insinuated himself into his good
+graces and obtained a subordinate command in the army. The prying
+omniscience of Eutropius discovered that, years before, this same Bargus
+had been forbidden to enter Constantinople for some misdemeanor, and by
+means of this knowledge he gained an ascendency over the Syrian, and
+compelled him to accuse his benefactor, Timasius, of a treasonable
+conspiracy, supporting the charge by forgeries. The accused was tried,
+condemned, and banished to the Lybian oasis, a punishment equivalent to
+death; he was never heard of more. Eutropius, foreseeing that the
+continued existence of Bargus might at some time compromise himself,
+suborned his wife to lodge very serious charges against her husband, in
+consequence of which he was put to death. Whether Eutropius then got rid
+of the wife we are not informed.
+
+Among the adherents of Eutropius, who were equally numerous and
+insincere, two were of especial importance--Osius, who had risen from
+the post of a cook to be count of the sacred largesses, and finally
+master of the offices, and Leo, a soldier, corpulent and good-humored,
+who was known by the sobriquet of Ajax, a man of great body and little
+mind, fond of boasting, fond of eating, fond of drinking, and fond of
+women.
+
+On the other hand, Eutropius had many enemies, and enemies in two
+different quarters. Romans of the stamp of Timasius and Aurelian were
+naturally opposed to the supremacy of an emasculated chamberlain; while,
+as we shall see subsequently, the German element in the empire,
+represented by Gainas, was also inimical. It seems certain that a
+serious confederacy was formed in the year 397, aiming at the overthrow
+of Eutropius. Though this is not stated by any writer, it seems an
+inevitable conclusion from the law which was passed in the autumn of
+that year, assessing the penalty of death to anyone who had conspired
+"with soldiers or private persons, including barbarians," against the
+lives "of _illustres_ who belong to our consistory or assist at our
+counsels," or other senators, such a conspiracy being considered
+equivalent to treason. Intent was to be regarded as equivalent to crime,
+and not only did the individual concerned incur capital punishment, but
+his descendants were visited with disfranchisement.
+
+It is generally recognized that this law was an express palladium for
+chamberlains; but surely it must have been suggested by some actually
+formed conspiracy, of which Eutropius discovered the threads before it
+was carried out. The particular mention of soldiers and barbarians
+points to a particular danger, and we may suspect that Gainas, who
+afterward brought about the fall of Eutropius, had some connection with
+it.
+
+While the eunuch was sailing in the full current of success at
+Byzantium, the Vandal Stilicho was enjoying an uninterrupted course of
+prosperity in the somewhat less stifling air of Italy. The poet
+Claudian, who acted as a sort of poet-laureate to Honorius, was really
+an apologist for Stilicho, who patronized and paid him. Almost every
+public poem he produced is an extravagant panegyric on that general, and
+we cannot but suspect that many of his utterances were direct
+manifestoes suggested by his patron. In the panegyric in honor of the
+third consulate of Honorius (396), which, composed soon after the death
+of Rufinus, breathes a spirit of concord between East and West, the
+writer calls upon Stilicho "to protect with his right hand the two
+brothers" (_geminos dextra tu protege fratres_).
+
+Such lines as this are written to put a certain significance on
+Stilicho's policy. In the panegyric in honor of the fourth consulate of
+Honorius (398) he gives an absolutely false and misleading account of
+Stilicho's expedition to Greece two years before, an account which no
+allowance for poetical exaggeration can defend. At the same time he
+extols Honorius with the most absurd eulogiums, and overwhelms him with
+the most extravagant adulations, making out the boy of fourteen to be
+greater than his father and grandfather. If Claudian were not a poet, we
+should say that he was a most outrageous liar. We are therefore unable
+to accord him the smallest credit when he boasts that the subjects in
+the western provinces are not oppressed by heavy taxes and that the
+treasury is not replenished by extortion.
+
+Stilicho and Eutropius had shaken hands over the death of Rufinus, but
+the good understanding was not destined to last longer than the song of
+triumph. We cannot justly blame Eutropius for this. No minister of
+Arcadius could regard with good-will or indifference the desire of
+Stilicho to interfere in the affairs of New Rome; for this desire cannot
+be denied, even if one do not accept the theory that the scheme of
+detaching Illyricum from Arcadius' dominion was entertained by him at as
+early a date as 396. His position as master of soldier in Italy gave him
+no power in other parts of the empire; and the attitude which he assumed
+as an elderly relative, solicitously concerned for the welfare of his
+wife's young cousin, in obedience to the wishes of that cousin's father,
+was untenable, when it led him to exceed the acts of a strictly private
+friendship.
+
+We can then well understand the indignation felt at New Rome, not only
+by Eutropius, but probably also by men of a quite different faction,
+when the news arrived that Stilicho purposed to visit Constantinople to
+set things in order and arrange matters for Arcadius. Such officiousness
+was intolerable, and it was plain that the strongest protest must be
+made against it. The senate accordingly passed a resolution declaring
+Stilicho a public enemy. This action of the senate is very remarkable,
+and its signification is not generally perceived. If the act had been
+altogether due to Eutropius, it would surely have taken the form of an
+imperial decree. Eutropius would not have resorted to the troublesome
+method of bribing or threatening the whole senate even if he had been
+able to do so. We must conclude then that the general feeling against
+Stilicho was strong, and we must confess naturally strong.
+
+The situation was now complicated by a revolt in Africa, which
+eventually proved highly fortunate for the glory and influence of
+Stilicho.
+
+Eighteen years before, the Moor Firmus had made an attempt to create a
+kingdom for himself in the African provinces (A.D. 379), and had been
+quelled by the arms of Theodosius, who received important assistance
+from Gildo, the brother and enemy of Firmus. Gildo was duly rewarded. He
+was finally military commander, or Count, of Africa, and his daughter
+Salvina was united in marriage to a nephew of the empress AElia
+Flaccilla. But the faith of the Moors was as the faith of Carthaginians.
+Gildo refused to send aid to Theodosius in his expedition against
+Eugenius.
+
+After Theodosius' death he prepared to take a more positive attitude,
+and he engaged numerous African nomad tribes to support him in his
+revolt. The strained relations between Old and New Rome, which did not
+escape his notice, suggested to him that his rebellion might assume the
+form of a transition from the sovereignty of Honorius to the sovereignty
+of Arcadius. He knew that if he were dependent only on New Rome he would
+be practically independent. He entered accordingly into communication
+with the government of Arcadius, but the negotiations came to nothing.
+It appears that Gildo demanded that Lybia should be consigned to his
+rule, and he certainly took possession of it. It also appears that
+embassies on the subject passed between Italy and Constantinople, and
+that Symmachus the orator was one of the ambassadors. But it is certain
+that Arcadius did not in any way assist Gildo, and the comparatively
+slight and moderate references which the hostile Claudius makes to the
+hesitating attitude of New Rome indicate that the government of
+Alexandrius did not behave very badly after all.
+
+We need not go into the details of the Gildonic war, through which
+Stilicho won well-deserved laurels, although he did not take the field
+himself. What made the revolt of the Count of Africa of such great
+moment was the fact that the African provinces were the granary of Old
+Rome, as Egypt was the granary of New Rome. By stopping the supplies of
+corn, Gildo might hope to starve out Italy. The prompt action and
+efficient management of Stilicho, however, prevented any catastrophe;
+for ships from Gaul and from Spain, laden with corn, appeared in the
+Tiber, and Rome was supplied during the winter months. Early in 398 a
+fleet sailed against the tyrant, whose hideous cruelties and oppressions
+were worthy of his Moorish blood; and it is a curious fact that this
+fleet was under the command of Mascezel, Gildo's brother, who was now
+playing the same part toward Gildo that Gildo had played toward his
+brother Firmus. The undisciplined nomadic army of the rebel was
+scattered without labor at Ardalio, and Africa was delivered from the
+Moor's reign of ruin and terror, to which Roman rule, with all its
+fiscal sternness, was peace and prosperity.
+
+This subjugation of the man whom the senate of Old Rome had pronounced a
+public enemy redounded far and wide to the glory of the man whom the
+senate of New Rome had proclaimed a public enemy. And in the mean time
+Stilicho's position had become still more splendid and secure by the
+marriage of his daughter Maria with the emperor Honorius (398), for
+which an epithalamium was written by Claudian, who, as we might expect,
+celebrates the father-in-law as expressly as the bridal pair. The
+Gildonic war also supplied, we need hardly remark, a grateful material
+for his favorite theme; and the year 400, to which Stilicho gave his
+name of consul, inspired an enthusiastic effusion.
+
+It may seem strange that now, almost at the zenith of his fame, the
+father-in-law of the Emperor and the hero of the Gildonic war did not
+make some attempt to carry out his favorite project of interfering with
+the government of the eastern provinces. But there are two
+considerations which may help to explain this.
+
+In the first place Stilicho himself was not the man of indomitable will
+who forms a project and carries it through; he was a man rather of that
+ambitious but hesitating character which Mommsen attributes to Pompey.
+He was half a Roman and half a barbarian; he was half strong and half
+weak; he was half patriotic and half selfish. His intentions were
+unscrupulous, but he was almost afraid of them. Besides this, his wife,
+Serena, probably endeavored to check his policy of discord and maintain
+unity in the Theodosian house. In the second place, it is sufficiently
+probable that he was in constant communication with Gainas, the German
+general of the eastern armies and chief representative of the German
+interests in the realm of Arcadius, and that Gainas was awaiting his
+time for an outbreak, by which Stilicho hoped to profit and execute his
+designs. He had no excuse for interference, and he was willing to wait.
+His inactive policy of the next two years must not be taken to indicate
+that he cherished no ambitious projects.
+
+The Germans looked up to Stilicho as the most important German in the
+empire; their natural protector and friend, while there was a large
+Roman faction opposed to him as a foreigner. But as yet this faction was
+not strong enough to overpower him. It is remarkable that his fall was
+finally brought about by the influence of a palace official (A.D. 408),
+while the fall of his rival Eutropius, which occurred far sooner (A.D.
+399), was brought about by the compulsion of a German general. These
+facts indicate that the two dangers to which I have already called
+attention--the preponderating influence of chamberlains and
+eunuchs--were mutually checks on each other.
+
+
+
+
+CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY
+
+EMBRACING THE PERIOD COVERED IN THIS VOLUME
+
+A.D. 13-409
+
+JOHN RUDD, LL. D.
+
+
+
+
+CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY
+
+EMBRACING THE PERIOD COVERED IN THIS VOLUME
+
+A.D. 13-409
+
+JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
+
+
+Events treated at length are here indicated in large type; the numerals
+following give volume and page.
+
+Separate chronologies of the various nations, and of the careers of
+famous persons, will be found in the INDEX VOLUME, with volume and page
+references showing where the several events are fully treated.
+
+*  Denotes date uncertain.
+
+A.D.
+
+13. A fifth ten-year term of imperial rule is voted to Augustus at Rome.
+
+Roman invasion of Germany under Germanicus. See "GERMANICUS IN GERMANY,"
+iii, 1.
+
+14. Death of Augustus; succeeded by his adopted son, Tiberius, as
+emperor of Rome.
+
+16. Germanicus successful in his campaign against Arminius. He is
+recalled to Rome by Tiberius. See "GERMANICUS IN GERMANY," iii, 1.
+
+17. Ephesus, Magnesia, and other cities in Asia destroyed by an
+earthquake.
+
+Germanicus feted in Rome.
+
+18. Herod the Tetrarch builds the city of Tiberias in Galilee.
+
+Wealthy women of Jerusalem provide wine medicated with opiates for
+crucified malefactors. See "THE CRUCIFIXION," iii, 23.
+
+19. Death of Germanicus.
+
+Jews and Egyptians expelled from Rome; four thousand of them colonize in
+Sardinia.
+
+21. The theatre of Pompey, at Rome, destroyed by fire.
+
+23. Birth of Pliny the Elder.
+
+26. Tiberius leaves Rome to the government of Sejanus.
+
+27. The Roman Pantheon completed.
+
+30 (29-33). Death of Jesus. See "THE CRUCIFIXION," iii, 23.
+
+31. Downfall and execution of Sejanus.
+
+33. Great impetus of Christianity. See "THE RISE AND SPREAD OF
+CHRISTIANITY," iii, 40.
+
+37. Caius, called Caligula, succeeds Tiberius as emperor of Rome.
+
+41. Emperor Caligula murdered; Claudius elevated to the throne.
+
+The Herodian kingdom of Judea restored under Herod Agrippa.
+
+43. Beginning of the Roman conquest of Britain under Aulus Plautius and
+Claudius.
+
+44. Plautius is appointed the first Roman governor of Britain.
+
+Death of Herod Agrippa; end of the kingdom of Judea.
+
+51. Caractacus, King of the Trinobantes in Britain, captured by Ostorius
+and sent in chains to Rome.
+
+52. Aqueducts of the Aqua Claudia in Rome, begun in A.D. 38, completed.
+
+54. Agrippina poisons Claudius; Nero, her son, becomes emperor.
+
+55.* Birth of Tacitus.
+
+59. Agrippina murdered at Nero's order.
+
+61. Boadicea in Britain revolts against the Romans; the uprising quelled
+by Suetonius Paulinus.
+
+62.* Birth of Pliny the Younger.
+
+64. The burning of Rome. See "BURNING OF ROME UNDER NERO," iii, 108.
+
+First persecution of Christians. See "PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS
+UNDER NERO," iii, 134.
+
+65. The conspiracy of Piso against Nero. Execution of Lucan and Seneca
+by command of Nero.
+
+66. Revolt of the Jews against the Roman government.
+
+67. Victorious campaigns of Vespasian against the rebellious Jews.
+
+68. Rise of the Roman commanders against Nero. Galba's march upon Rome.
+Suicide of Emperor Nero; accession of Galba.
+
+69. Galba murdered. Otho becomes emperor; vanquished by Vitellius, who
+ascends the throne. Vespasian overthrows Vitellius and succeeds him.
+
+Uprising of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis.
+
+70. The Roman Capitol rebuilt by Vespasian.
+
+Jerusalem besieged and destroyed by Titus. See "THE GREAT JEWISH
+REVOLT," iii, 150.
+
+76. Birth of the emperor Hadrian.
+
+78. Agricola succeeds Julius Frontinus in Britain; extends the Roman
+dominion to the Tyne and introduces the useful arts.
+
+79. Death of Vespasian; Titus on the throne.
+
+Destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii by an eruption of Vesuvius; Pliny
+the Elder, writer of the _Studiosus_, loses his life. See "DESTRUCTION
+OF POMPEII," iii, 207.
+
+80. The Roman Empire swept by pestilence.
+
+The Colosseum, the work of Vespasian, dedicated by Titus.
+
+81. Death of Titus; Domitian, his brother, becomes emperor.
+
+Agricola extends Roman dominion in Britain.
+
+84. Successful campaigns of Agricola against the Caledonians under
+Galgacus. Agricola builds a wall of defence between the Clyde and the
+Forth, and sails around the north of Scotland for the first time.
+
+85. Agricola recalled to Rome through jealousy of Domitian, who appoints
+Sallustius in his stead.
+
+86. Successful onslaught of the Dacians, under the Decebalus, against
+the Romans.
+
+Capitoline games instituted by Domitian at Rome.
+
+87. Dacian wars led Rome to agree to pay tribute and provoked the
+cruelties of Domitian.
+
+88. Celebration of the secular games at Rome.
+
+Tacitus appointed praetor.
+
+91. Domitian concludes a peace with the Dacians.
+
+94. Domitian's wholesale slaughter of his subjects appalls Rome.
+
+95. Jews and Christians refusing to pay taxes to rebuild the temple of
+Jupiter at Rome are severely punished. These cruelties are sometimes
+called the "second persecution."
+
+96. The tyrannies of Domitian finally provoke a conspiracy which
+accomplishes his death. Nerva succeeds him as emperor. Exiles recalled
+and the unjustly imprisoned freed.
+
+97. Tacitus, the historian, becomes consul at Rome. Nerva adopts Trajan.
+
+98. Nerva dies and is succeeded by Trajan; Pliny and Plutarch are highly
+distinguished by him.
+
+99. Julius Servius becomes governor of Britain.
+
+101. Trajan discontinues the annual payment to the Dacians; they invade
+the Roman provinces; Trajan attacks and drives them over the Danube.
+
+102. Rome continues the war in Dacia. Trajan's Empress, Plotina Pompeia,
+and his sister, Marciana, by their example reform the manners and
+character of the Roman women.
+
+103. Trajan dictates a treaty of peace to Decebalus, the Dacian leader.
+
+104. Rome renews the Dacian war; Trajan again in command; Hadrian serves
+under him.
+
+Pliny writes his famous letter to the Roman Emperor in regard to the
+Christians.
+
+105. Trajan's bridge over the Danube constructed.
+
+Plutarch is governor of Illyricum.
+
+106. Decebalus falling in battle, the Dacian war ends; Dacia becomes a
+Roman province beyond the Danube.
+
+107. Trajan drains the Pontine marshes and constructs a road through
+them; he erects a school for poor children and performs other
+meritorious works.
+
+Great discontent is aroused by the progress of Christianity among the
+numerous classes of those whose livelihood is derived from the services
+and ceremonies of the heathen temples. The third persecution of
+Christians begins.
+
+114. Trajan's Column erected; it was made of twenty-four huge blocks of
+marble so closely united that they seem like one piece; it is still in
+existence, although Trajan's statue, surmounting it, was replaced by one
+of St. Peter.
+
+115. War of Rome with Parthia; Trajan adds Armenia and Mesopotamia to
+the Roman domains. Rome attains its greatest extension.
+
+Great earthquake at Antioch.
+
+116. Great revolt of the Jews in Cyrene, Cyprus, and Egypt; they
+slaughter many thousands of Greeks and Romans.
+
+117. Death of Trajan, who is succeeded by Hadrian; the Asiatic conquests
+are relinquished by him.
+
+118. Hadrian, who was with Trajan at the time of his death, returns to
+Rome; a plot against him is discovered and four conspiring senators are
+put to death. Hadrian conciliates the people with large gifts. He enters
+upon his campaign in Moecia.
+
+119. Hadrian begins a personal survey of his dominions; he visits
+Campania, Gaul, and Britain.
+
+121. Birth of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
+
+131. Birth of Galen, long the supreme authority in medical science.
+
+132. Insurrection of the Jews under Bar Cocheba; their final dispersion
+follows. See "THE JEWS' LAST STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM: THEIR FINAL
+DISPERSION," iii, 222.
+
+138. Death of Hadrian and succession of Antoninus Pius.
+
+155.* About this time Polycarp and Justin suffer martyrdom. See
+"MARTYRDOM OF POLYCARP AND JUSTIN MARTYR," iii, 231.
+
+161. Death of Antoninus Pius; Marcus Aurelius Antoninus succeeds to the
+Roman throne and makes Lucius Verus his associate in the Empire.
+
+Roman war with Parthia begins.
+
+162. Volagases, with a Parthian army, invades Syria and defeats the
+Romans.
+
+163. Verus, the Roman Emperor, enjoys himself at Antioch and Daphne
+while his generals reap successes in Armenia and Media.
+
+165. Seleucia and Ctesiphon are captured by the Romans; end of the
+Parthian war; Rome acquires Mesopotamia.
+
+166.* Great plague throughout the Roman Empire.
+
+War begins between Rome and the Germanic tribes of the Marcomanni and
+Quadi, which had invaded Roman territories.
+
+168. The Marcomanni retire into their own country, but M. Aurelius
+pursues his preparations against them, in order to safeguard Italy.
+
+169. Sudden death of Verus, while in his chariot, on his journey to
+Rome.
+
+174. Aurelius makes a short visit to Rome; when he rejoins the army the
+German tribes are signally defeated; this gives rise to the fable of the
+"Thundering Legion."
+
+177. Persecution of the Christians in Gaul begins; Pothinus, Bishop of
+Lyons, suffers martyrdom. See "PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS IN GAUL,"
+iii, 246.
+
+180. Death of Marcus Aurelius; his son, Commodus, succeeds him on the
+Roman throne. See "BEGINNING OF ROME'S DECLINE: COMMODUS," iii, 263.
+
+183. Lucilla, the sister of Commodus, having conspired against her
+brother, is exiled from Rome; Commodus vents his rage on the senators.
+
+184. The Caledonians break through the wall on the northern borders of
+Britain; they are driven back by Ulpius Marcellus.
+
+185. Marcia, the favorite of Commodus, protects the Christians.
+
+Birth of Origen, one of the early Church fathers, at Alexandria.
+
+186. Many prominent Roman citizens are put to death, by order of
+Commodus.
+
+187. Commodus degrades himself by acting as a gladiator and slaying wild
+beasts in the Circus at Rome. See "BEGINNING OF ROME'S DECLINE:
+COMMODUS," iii, 263.
+
+188. Lightning strikes the Capitol at Rome; the library and many
+adjacent buildings are burned.
+
+189. Revolt of Maternus in Spain and Gaul subdued by Pescennius Niger.
+
+Famine and pestilence in Rome; popular commotions; the guards are
+overcome and Commodus is driven to Lanuvium; the populace is appeased by
+the sacrifice of Cleander. See "BEGINNING OF ROME'S DECLINE: COMMODUS,"
+iii, 263.
+
+191. Great fire at Rome; the temples of Vesta and of Peace are burned;
+many valuable libraries destroyed, in which some works of Galen's are
+lost.
+
+192. Murder of Commodus.
+
+193. Pertinax elected emperor by the Roman senate; he is later
+assassinated by the praetorians. The Imperial dignity is purchased by
+Didius Julianus; he is slain the same year. Albinus in Britain, Niger in
+Syria, and Septimus Severus in Pannonia are proclaimed emperors by their
+respective legions. Fall of Didius Julianus and accession of Severus.
+
+194. In the East, Severus triumphs over his rival, Niger. Byzantium
+resists Severus.
+
+196. Byzantium falls before Severus.
+
+197. Albinus in Gaul is crushed by Severus.
+
+198. Septimus Severus proceeds against the Parthians; he besieges and
+captures Ctesiphon.
+
+208. Successful campaign of Severus against the Caledonians in Britain
+and Caledonia.
+
+211. Death of Septimus Severus at York; his sons Caracalla and Geta
+succeed him.
+
+212. Caracalla slays his brother Geta.
+
+213. Caracalla, universally detested for his cruelties, goes into Gaul
+and assumes the surname of Germanicus. He leads the first attack of the
+Romans against the Alemanni.
+
+215. Having proceeded through Dacia, Thrace, and Antioch to Alexandria,
+Caracalla orders a massacre of the Egyptians.
+
+216. By a delusive offer of marriage with the daughter of Artabanus,
+Caracalla decoys the Parthians into his camp, where he treacherously
+attacks and slays a great number of them.
+
+217. Caracalla is assassinated; Macrinus is proclaimed emperor; he
+purchases peace with the Parthians. Julia Domna, the mother of Caracalla
+and Geta, being banished to Antioch, starves herself to death.
+
+218. Macrinus is overthrown by Elagabalus, who succeeds him as emperor
+of Rome. This was accomplished by Moesa, sister of Julia Domna,
+bribing a portion of the army to espouse the cause of her grandson
+Elagabalus.
+
+219. Elagabalus arrives at Rome; he brings with him his Syrian idol,
+which he places in a stately temple.
+
+220. The highest offices of the State are filled by Elagabalus with his
+vilest associates.
+
+222. Alexander Severus (Alexianus) succeeds Elagabalus, who is slain by
+the praetorians; his mother, Sooemias, is killed with him.
+
+223. All persecution of the Christians ceases in Rome.
+
+Alexander Severus guided by his mother, Marnaea, who is created augusta.
+
+224. The Persians, under Ardashir (known by the Greeks as Artaxerxes),
+revolt against the Parthians.
+
+225. Marriage of Alexander Severus to Sulpitia Memmia.
+
+226. Ardashir overthrows the Parthian kingdom; he founds the new Persian
+kingdom of the Sassanidae.
+
+228. Ulpian, praetorian prefect, endeavors to restrain the licentiousness
+of the guards; a mutiny ensues and he is put to death.
+
+229. Dion Cassius having, as governor of Dalmatia and Pannonia, offended
+the army by his strictness, the Emperor testifies his approbation by
+making him his colleague in the consulship.
+
+230. Artaxerxes, now at the head of a powerful empire and great army,
+lays claim to all the former territories of Persia.
+
+231. Alexander Severus, at Antioch, prepares to resist the Persian
+demands by arms.
+
+232. After a campaign in Mesopotamia without decisive results, but in
+which the Romans claim the victory, Alexander returns to Antioch.
+
+233. Close of the Persian war.
+
+234. Alexander musters his forces in Gaul to repel the German tribes
+that had invaded the province.
+
+235. Alexander Severus and his mother, Mamaea, are murdered in a mutiny
+of the army, near Mainz (or Mentz).
+
+Maximin is proclaimed emperor.
+
+Ambrosius assists the labors of Origen by paying clerks to copy for
+him.
+
+236. Maximin defeats the Germans and drives them across the Rhine.
+
+237. Maximin proceeds to Sirmium, with the design of attacking the
+Sarmatians. His ferocious tyranny excites universal horror.
+
+238. A rebellion against Maximin in Africa; Gordian, the proconsul, and
+his son are proclaimed emperors; they are overthrown by Capelianus and
+slain, Maximus and Balbinus are elected by the senate as joint emperors;
+they are murdered by the praetorians. On his march to Rome, Maximin is
+assassinated by his soldiers; his son is also slain. The Third Gordian
+is associated with Maximus and Capelianus in the empire. The two latter
+are slain, and Gordian becomes ruler of the Roman domain.
+
+239. The young emperor of Rome, at first deceived by the eunuchs of the
+palace, is extricated from their pernicious influence by Misitheus.
+
+240. Various tribes of Germany confederate under the name of Franks.
+This is the first time they are mentioned in history.
+
+241. Victorious advance of Sapor I against the Roman dominions. See
+"EVENTFUL REIGN OF SAPOR I, KING OF PERSIA," iii, 277.
+
+242. The Persians are defeated by Gordian; Misitheus, his general,
+recovers Mesopotamia. Plotinus accompanies the Roman army, in the hope
+of reaching India.
+
+244. Gordian, aged nineteen, is murdered, near Circesium (Carchemish); a
+lofty mound is there raised to his memory.
+
+Philip the Arabian becomes emperor of Rome; he makes peace with Sapor.
+
+249. The Roman legions revolt in several provinces; some proclaim
+Jotapianus, and others Marinus, both of whom are killed by their own
+men. Decius, who is sent to appease the mutineers, is compelled by them
+to assume the purple and lead them into Italy. Battle of Verona. Philip
+is defeated and slain, and his son murdered at Rome. Decius is emperor.
+
+250. Decius orders the persecution of the Christians.
+
+The Goths cross the Danube, enter the Roman dominions as far as Thrace,
+and capture Philippopolis.
+
+251. Victory of the Goths; Decius, at the head of the Romans, is
+defeated and slain. Gallus ascends the throne.
+
+253. Barbarians invade Moesia and Pannonia; they are defeated by
+AEmilianus, who is hailed as emperor by his army; he marches against
+Gallus, who, with his son, is assassinated by his soldiers. On the
+approach of Valerian, at the head of the Gallic legions, AEmilianus is
+slain, near Spoleto. Valerian becomes emperor.
+
+254. Franks invade the northern provinces of Gaul.
+
+An eruption of Mount AEtna.
+
+Persecution of the Christians recommences.
+
+256. The Roman Empire is assailed on all sides. The Franks pass through
+Gaul and sack Tarraco in Spain; the Alemanni attack Italy; the
+Sarmatians and Quadi force their way into Pannonia; Macedon and Greece
+are ravaged by the Goths; Persians invade Syria and Mesopotamia.
+
+Cyprian, one of the early fathers of the Church, assembles another
+council at Carthage, which provokes angry disputes.
+
+258. Valerian goes into the East against the Persians. The invaders of
+Gaul are checked by Postumus. The Goths capture Trebizond.
+
+260. Roman war with Persia; defeat and capture of Valerian by Sapor.
+Outbreaks continue throughout the provinces. Gallienus ascends the
+throne.
+
+261. Manes originates the Manichaean heresy, which taught among other
+things that there were two souls or spirits in man, one good and the
+other evil; also that the soul at death went first to the moon and then
+to the sun, and thence to God.
+
+267. Various Gothic bands, called by some Scythians, ravage Greece and
+Asia. One section is driven out of Asia by Odenathus; later he is
+assassinated by his nephew, Maeonius. His widow, Zenobia, avenges his
+death and fills with glory his vacant throne of Palmyra.
+
+268. Murder of the emperor Gallienus; accession of Claudius II.
+
+269. Claudius signally defeats the Goths at Naissus, Moesia.
+
+Zenobia rules in Egypt in the name of Claudius.
+
+270. The Goths are again defeated by Claudius; shortly after, he dies of
+the plague at Sirmium. His brother assumes the purple, but dies by his
+own hand seventeen days later. Aurelian is universally acknowledged as
+emperor; he makes peace with the Goths, and relinquishes Dacia to them,
+transferring that name to another province south of the Danube.
+
+271. The Alemanni who had invaded Italy are overwhelmed by Aurelian.
+
+272. Aurelian attacks Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra; he captures Tyana,
+Emesa, and Antioch.
+
+273. Palmyra surrenders to Aurelian, and Queen Zenobia is made prisoner.
+
+274. Aurelian, having reunited the Roman Empire, celebrates a splendid
+triumph at Rome. Queen Zenobia is treated generously and passes her life
+in peace and affluence.
+
+275. On his march to attack Persia, Aurelian is assassinated; Tacitus is
+elected by the senate.
+
+276. Aurelian's murderers are punished by Tacitus; he dies while leading
+an expedition against the Goths, who had invaded Asia. Florian, his
+brother, succeeds him; he is slain. Probus is proclaimed emperor by the
+army; the senate confirms it.
+
+277. Probus drives out the Franks, Burgundians, and other German tribes
+that had overrun Gaul. A number of his prisoners, removed to Pontus,
+seize a fleet in the Euxine, escape through the Bosporus, plunder many
+cities on the shores of the Mediterranean, and reach Germany again.
+
+278. Probus repairs the fortified line from the Rhine to the Danube,
+expels the Goths from Thrace, represses the Isaurian robbers, and
+arrives in Syria, where he arranges terms of peace with Persia.
+
+282. Probus, successful since 276 against the enemies of Rome, is killed
+in a mutiny of the army at Sirmium.
+
+Accession of Carus; he gives the title of caesar to each of his two sons,
+Carinus and Numerianus.
+
+283. Carus wages a successful campaign against Persia; he dies
+mysteriously in his tent, near Ctesiphon, during a violent storm.
+Carinus and Numerianus become joint emperors of Rome.
+
+284. Murder of Numerianus; Diocletian proclaimed emperor.
+
+285. Carinus is murdered.
+
+286. Maximian made Imperial colleague of Diocletian.
+
+287. The Bagauds revolt in Gaul.
+
+288. Carausius, in command of the Roman fleet at Gessoriacum, revolts
+and establishes an independent sovereignty in Britain.
+
+292. Constantius Chlorus and Galerius are appointed caesars by Diocletian
+and Maximian; the Roman Empire is divided among the four.
+
+293. Carausius is treacherously murdered by Allectus, who assumes the
+government of Britain.
+
+296. Athanasius, the "Father of Orthodoxy," born.*
+
+297. Achillius having revolted in Egypt, Diocletian in person suppresses
+the insurrection; Alexandria is captured and the inhabitants
+slaughtered.
+
+298. Rome makes a victorious peace with Persia; extension of the Roman
+Empire.
+
+300. From this date paganism declines. See "CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE,"
+iii, 289.
+
+303. Diocletian persecutes the Christians; the fiercest and most
+systematic persecution which they had yet suffered.
+
+304. Severe illness of Diocletian, imputed to his long journey in the
+winter, but attributable rather to his vexation at the disorders caused
+by his change of policy toward the Christians, and to his finding it
+impossible to extirpate their religion. See "CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE,"
+iii, 289.
+
+305. The dilemma in which Diocletian is placed by the rash counsels of
+Galerius determines him to abdicate. He resigns the purple at Nicomedia,
+and persuades Maximian to follow his example on the same day at Milan.
+Constantius and Galerius take the title of augustus, and that of caesar
+is given to Severus and Maximian.
+
+306. Death of Constantius Chlorus; Constantine the Great, his son, is
+made caesar; Severus becomes augustus; Maxentius, son of Maximian,
+assumes the purple. Maximian resumes the rank of augustus. Civil war
+begins between Constantine and his rivals. The Salian Franks are
+defeated by Constantine.
+
+307. Licinius is made augustus on the fall of Severus.
+
+308. There are five emperors actually ruling in the Roman Empire, with
+Maximian, as a sixth, holding nominal power in the court of his
+son-in-law, Constantine.
+
+310. Maximian is slain by order of Constantine.
+
+311. Galerius issues an order to stop the persecution of the Christians;
+his death occurs soon afterward.
+
+312. Constantine vanquishes Maxentius in Italy, and becomes sole ruler
+of the Western Roman Empire. See "CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE," iii, 289.
+
+313. Constantine and Licinius proclaim toleration for the Christians.
+
+Maximian is overthrown by Licinius, who unites the Roman Empire of the
+East under his rule.
+
+314. Constantine and Licinius have their first war; the latter is
+vanquished. See "CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE," iii, 289.
+
+315. Constantine issues an edict against infanticide; another edict
+condemns to be burned alive any Jews who persecute or ill-treat converts
+from their sect to Christianity.
+
+318. Beginning of the Arian controversy.
+
+321. Constantine makes an edict ordering the Aruspices to be consulted
+in certain cases, according to the ancient form. Two others prescribe
+the observance of Sunday.
+
+323. Licinius is overcome by Constantine, who becomes sole master of the
+Roman Empire. See "CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE," iii, 289.
+
+324. Constantine, who had promised his sister not to injure Licinius,
+orders Licinius to be strangled.
+
+325. Council of Nice, the first general council of the Church; the
+followers of Athanasius pronounce the condemnation of the Arians. See
+"FIRST NICENE COUNCIL," iii, 299.
+
+326. Helena, saint and Empress, visits Palestine and founds churches
+there.
+
+329. Frumentius preaches Christianity to the Abyssinians.
+
+330. Removal of the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium.
+See "FOUNDATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE," iii, 320.
+
+331. Birth of Hieronymus (St. Jerome).
+
+333. The title of caesar given by Constantine to his youngest son,
+Constans.
+
+An edict of Constantine's exempts medical men and professors of
+literature from military service. This confirmed the procedure of
+certain former emperors.
+
+337. Death of Constantine, soon after his baptism by Eusebius, an Arian
+bishop. Partition of the Roman Empire between his sons, Constantine,
+Constans, and Constantius.
+
+340. Constantine II makes war upon Constans; the former is slain, and
+Constans becomes ruler of the greater part of the Roman Empire.
+Constantius rules in the East.
+
+341. Gaul is invaded by the Franks, who resist Constans.
+
+Ulfilas becomes bishop of the Goths.*
+
+Violent earthquakes in Syria. The Synod of Antioch assents to an Arian
+creed, deposes Athanasius, and appoints Gregory bishop of Alexandria.
+
+347. A general council is held at Sardica. The majority approves the
+Nicene faith; the deposition of Arian bishops voted, and the restoration
+of Athanasius and Marcellus to episcopal honors. The minority secede to
+Philippopolis and annul their acts; the two bodies mutually
+excommunicate each other.
+
+348. Sapor, at the head of the Persians, defeats the Romans at Singara.
+
+350. Magentius proclaims himself emperor; Constans flees into Spain,
+where he is assassinated.
+
+351. Constantius defeats Magentius at the battle of Mursa.
+
+352. Italy declares against Magentius, who gains a useless victory at
+Pavia.
+
+353. Constantius sole emperor, Magentius being overthrown by him.
+
+Constantius convokes the Council of Arles, which condemns Arianism.
+
+354. Birth of St. Augustine.
+
+355. Julian, being appointed caesar, takes command of the Roman troops in
+Gaul.
+
+Athanasius is deposed by the Council of Milan.
+
+356. Julian is successful against the Alemanni and Franks in Gaul.
+
+357. Constantius visits Rome; he presents an obelisk from Egypt to the
+city.
+
+Julian has a great victory at Strasburg.
+
+358. Julian winters in Paris, after which he resumes his campaign and
+defeats the Franks.
+
+359. Again the Rhine is crossed by Julian, who conquers all before him.
+
+360. The Cathedral of St. Sophia is dedicated at Constantinople.
+
+Julian is elected emperor in Gaul. See "JULIAN THE APOSTATE BECOMES
+EMPEROR OF ROME," iii, 333.
+
+361. Death of Constantius while on his way to oppose Julian.
+
+A revival of paganism.
+
+362. Julian proclaims universal toleration and recalls the exiled
+bishops to their sees.
+
+363. Expedition of Julian against the Persians, under Sapor II; Julian
+retreats and is slain; Jovian succeeds him in the purple; he purchases
+peace of Sapor by allotting him the Roman frontiers.
+
+Christianity again in the ascendant.
+
+364. Death of Emperor Jovian; Valentinian succeeds him in the West, and
+Valens in the East.
+
+365. Great earthquake in the Roman dominions.
+
+Gaul is harassed by the Alemanni; Britain by the Picts, Scots, and
+Saxons.
+
+367. First campaign of Theodosius against the Picts and Scots in
+Britain.
+
+368. The Alemanni repulsed from Gaul.
+
+369. Theodosius, having subdued a revolt in Britain, returns to Gaul.
+
+370. Saxons infest the coast of Gaul; they are driven back to their
+ships by Severus.
+
+374. Huns cross the Volga and proceed westward, overpowering the Alani.
+See "THE HUNS AND THEIR WESTERN MIGRATION," iii, 352.
+
+St. Ambrose is elected bishop of Milan.
+
+375. Death of Valentinian I; he is succeeded by his son Gratian and
+Valentinian II, his infant brother.
+
+376. Driven by the Huns, the Visigoths are admitted into the Roman
+Empire south of the Danube.
+
+378. Death of Emperor Valens in an encounter with the Visigoths at
+Adrianople.
+
+Gaul is invaded by the Alemanni; they are repulsed by Gratian.
+
+379. Theodosius is recalled from his retirement in Spain and awarded the
+sovereignty of the East by Gratian.
+
+380. Theodosius is baptized by the Bishop of Thessalonica.
+
+381. Second general council, held at Constantinople.
+
+382. Theodosius makes a treaty with the Visigoths; their final
+settlement in Thrace and Moesia.
+
+383. Rebellion of Maximus in Britain; he lands in Gaul, where he is
+joined by the forces there; he overthrows Gratian.
+
+387. Maximus invades Italy. Valentinian flees with his mother and
+sister, Galla, to Thessalonica; Theodosius meets them, marries Galla,
+and prepares to meet Maximus.
+
+388. Maximus is defeated and slain.
+
+A formal vote of the senate establishes Christianity in the Roman
+Empire.
+
+389. Theodosius visits Rome; he commands the destruction of the heathen
+temples. Valentinian becomes sole ruler of the West.
+
+390. Sedition at Thessalonica, and massacre of its inhabitants, by order
+of Theodosius.
+
+392. Paganism in the Roman Empire is finally suppressed by law.
+
+Murder of Valentinian II by Arbogast; Eugenius usurps the throne in the
+West.
+
+394. Eugenius and Arbogast are vanquished by Theodosius the Great, who
+unites the whole Roman Empire under his sceptre.
+
+395. Death of Theodosius the Great; final division of the Empire. See
+"FINAL DIVISION OF ROMAN EMPIRE," iii, 364.
+
+399. The Ostrogoths, under Tribigild, revolt and ravage Phrygia.
+
+Stilicho sends additional forces into Britain, and fortifies the coast
+against the Saxons.
+
+402. Alaric advances in Italy, and Stilicho prepares to resist him.
+
+403. Honorius, on the approach of Alaric, flees from Milan.
+
+Alaric, King of the Visigoths, encounters Stilicho, Honorius' general,
+at Pollentia; the Romans claim the victory, but Alaric continues his
+advance toward Rome. Stilicho defeats and drives him back, near Verona;
+Alaric retires from Italy.*
+
+404. Triumph of Honorius and Stilicho at Rome. Combats of gladiators
+exhibited for the last time.
+
+The capital of the Western Empire is removed from Rome to Ravenna.*
+
+Chrysostom, the patriarch, is banished Constantinople; the Church of St.
+Sophia, probably kindled by the angry adherents of Chrysostom, burned to
+the ground.
+
+405. Radagaisus collects a great horde of Ostrogoths, Vandals, Suevi,
+and other Barbarians, and leads them into Italy. He is defeated by
+Stilicho near Florence, and surrenders on condition of having his life
+spared. He is, however, treacherously put to death.
+
+St. Jerome completes his Latin translation of the Bible.*
+
+406. German tribes break down the Rhine barrier and establish themselves
+in Gaul.
+
+Vigilantius, a presbyter of Barcelona, condemns celibacy, the worship of
+relics, etc.; St. Jerome attacks him in a furious epistle, saying that
+he ought to be put to death.
+
+407. Constantine usurps authority in Britain and Gaul.
+
+408. Arcadius is succeeded by his son Theodosius II in the Byzantine
+empire.
+
+Honorius orders Stilicho to be put to death, accusing him of
+treacherously treating with Alaric, who is besieging Rome.
+
+409. Alaric receives a large ransom from the citizens of Rome and
+withdraws into Tuscany. Deceived in his negotiations with Honorius, he
+again lays siege to Rome, which is again spared on condition of Attalus
+being made emperor.
+
+Owing to the passes of the Pyrenees being left unguarded, the Vandals,
+Suevi, and Alani enter Spain.
+
+
+END OF VOLUME III
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Events by Famous Historians,
+Volume 03, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT EVENTS, VOLUME 03 ***
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