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diff --git a/34122-tei/34122-tei.tei b/34122-tei/34122-tei.tei new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7542c69 --- /dev/null +++ b/34122-tei/34122-tei.tei @@ -0,0 +1,29864 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> +<!DOCTYPE TEI.2 SYSTEM "http://www.gutenberg.org/tei/marcello/0.4/dtd/pgtei.dtd"> +<TEI.2 lang="en"> + <teiHeader> + <fileDesc> + <titleStmt> + <title>Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius</title> + <author><name reg="Dill, Samuel">Samuel Dill</name></author> + </titleStmt> + <publicationStmt> + <publisher>Project Gutenberg</publisher> + <date value="2010-10-23">October 23, 2010</date> + <idno type='etext-no'>34122</idno> + <availability> + <p>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 online at + www.gutenberg.org/license</p> + </availability> + </publicationStmt> + <sourceDesc> + <bibl><author><name reg="Dill, Samuel">Samuel Dill</name></author> + <title>Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius</title> + <edition>Second edition</edition> + <imprint><pubPlace>London</pubPlace> + <publisher>Macmillan and Co.</publisher> + <date>1905; reprint 1925</date></imprint> + </bibl> + </sourceDesc> + </fileDesc> + <encodingDesc> + </encodingDesc> + <profileDesc> + <langUsage> + <language id="en" /> + <language id="el"/> + </langUsage> + </profileDesc> + <revisionDesc> + <change> + <date value="2010-10-23">October 23, 2010</date> + <respStmt> + <resp>Produced by <name>Stefan Cramme</name> + and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net</resp> + </respStmt> + <item>Project Gutenberg TEI edition 1</item> + </change> + </revisionDesc> + </teiHeader> + + <pgExtensions> + <pgStyleSheet> + .center { text-align: center } + .Greek { font-style: normal } + .italic { font-style: italic } + .right { text-align: right } + .small { font-size: 75% } + .smallcaps { font-variant: small-caps } + head { text-align: center } + lg { margin-left: 2 } + list.nested { margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0 } + </pgStyleSheet> + </pgExtensions> + +<text lang="en"> +<front> +<div> + <divGen type="pgheader" /> + </div> + <div> + <divGen type="encodingDesc" /> + </div> + <titlePage rend="center; page-break-before: always"> + <pb/><anchor id="Pgiii"/> + <docTitle> + <titlePart type="main" rend="font-size: xx-large">ROMAN SOCIETY</titlePart><lb/><lb/><lb/> + <titlePart type="sub">FROM</titlePart><lb/><lb/> + <titlePart type="sub" rend="font-size: x-large">NERO TO MARCUS AURELIUS</titlePart> + </docTitle> + <lb/><lb/><lb/> + <byline>BY<lb/> + <docAuthor rend="font-size: large">SAMUEL DILL, M.A.</docAuthor><lb/> + <hi rend="font-size: small">HON. LITT.D. DUBLIN, HON. LL.D. EDINBURGH, HON. FELLOW AND LATE TUTOR, C.C.C., OXFORD;<lb/> + PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN QUEEN’S COLLEGE, BELFAST; AUTHOR OF <q>ROMAN SOCIETY<lb/> + IN THE LAST CENTURY OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE</q></hi> + </byline> + <lb/><lb/><lb/> + <docImprint><publisher>MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED</publisher><lb/> + <pubPlace>ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON</pubPlace><lb/> + <docDate>1925</docDate></docImprint> + + </titlePage> + + <div rend="center; page-break-before: always"> +<pb/><anchor id="Pgiv"/> + +<p> +COPYRIGHT +</p> + +<p rend="margin-top: 1em"> +<hi rend="italic">First Edition 1904</hi> +</p> + +<p> +<hi rend="italic">Second Edition 1905</hi> +</p> + +<p> +<hi rend="italic">Reprinted December 1905, 1911, 1919, 1920, 1925</hi> +</p> + +<p rend="margin-top: 3em"> +PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN +</p> + +</div><div rend="page-break-before: always"> +<pb n="v"/><anchor id="Pgv"/> +<index index="toc" level1="Preface"/><index index="pdf" level1="Preface"/> +<head>PREFACE</head> + +<p> +There must always be something arbitrary in the choice +and isolation of a period of social history for special study. +No period can, from one point of view, be broken off and isolated +from the immemorial influences which have moulded it, from +the succession of coming ages which it will help to fashion. +And this is specially true of the history of a race at once so +aggressive, yet so tenacious of the past, as the Roman. The +national fibre was so tough, and its tone and sentiment so +conservative under all external changes, that when a man +knows any considerable period of Roman social history, he may +almost, without paradox, be said to know a great deal of it +from Romulus to Honorius. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, as in the artistic drama there must be a beginning +and an end, although the action can only be ideally severed +from what has preceded and what is to follow in actual life, so +a limited space in the collective history of a people may be +legitimately set apart for concentrated study. But as in the +case of the drama, such a period should possess a certain +unity and intensity of moral interest. It should be a crisis +and turning-point in the life of humanity, a period pregnant +with momentous issues, a period in which the old order and the +new are contending for mastery, or in which the old is melting +into the new. Above all, it should be one in which the +great social and spiritual movements are incarnate in some +striking personalities, who may give a human interest to dim +forces of spiritual evolution. +</p> + +<p> +Such a period, it seems to the writer of this book, is that +<pb n="vi"/><anchor id="Pgvi"/>which he now presents to the reader. It opens with the +self-destruction of lawless and intoxicated power; it closes +with the realisation of Plato’s dream of a reign of the +philosophers. The revolution in the ideal of the principate, +which gave the world a Trajan, a Hadrian, and a Marcus +Aurelius in place of a Caligula and a Nero, may not have +been accompanied by any change of corresponding depth in +the moral condition of the masses. But the world enjoyed +for nearly a century an almost unexampled peace and +prosperity, under skilful and humane government. The civic +splendour and social charities of the Antonine age can be +revived by the imagination from the abundant remains and +records of the period. Its materialism and social vices +will also sadden the thoughtful student of its literature and +inscriptions. But if that age had the faults of a luxurious +and highly organised civilisation, it was also dignified and +elevated by a great effort for reform of conduct, and a +passion, often, it is true, sadly misguided, to rise to a higher +spiritual life and to win the succour of unseen Powers. To +the writer of this book, this seems to give the Antonine age +its great distinction and its deepest interest for the student of +the life of humanity. The influence of philosophy on the +legislation of the Antonines is a commonplace of history. +But its practical effort to give support and guidance to moral +life, and to refashion the old paganism, so as to make it a real +spiritual force, has perhaps hardly yet attracted the notice +which it deserves. It is one great object of this book to +show how the later Stoicism and the new Platonism, working +in eclectic harmony, strove to supply a rule of conduct and a +higher vision of the Divine world. +</p> + +<p> +But philosophy failed, as it will probably fail till some +far-off age, to find an anodyne for the spiritual distresses of the +mass of men. It might hold up the loftiest ideal of conduct; +it might revive the ancient gods in new spiritual power; it +might strive to fill the interval between the remote Infinite +<pb n="vii"/><anchor id="Pgvii"/>Spirit and the life of man with a host of mediating and +succouring powers. But the effort was doomed to failure. It +was an esoteric creed, and the masses remained untouched +by it. They longed for a Divine light, a clear, authoritative +voice from the unseen world. They sought it in ever more +blind and passionate devotion to their ancient deities, and in +all the curiosity of superstition. But the voice came to +them at last from the regions of the East. It came through +the worships of Isis and Mithra, which promised a hope of +immortality, and provided a sacramental system to soothe +the sense of guilt and prepare the trembling soul for the +great ordeal on the verge of another world. How far these +eastern systems succeeded, and where they failed, it is one +great purpose of this book to explain. +</p> + +<p> +The writer, so far as he knows himself, has had no <hi rend="italic">arrière +pensée</hi> in describing this great moral and spiritual movement. +As M. Boissier has pointed out, the historian of the Antonine +age is free to treat paganism apart from the growth of the +Christian Church. The pagan world of that age seems to +have had little communication with the loftier faith which, +within a century and a half from the death of M. Aurelius, +was destined to seize the sceptre. To Juvenal, Tacitus, and +Pliny, to Plutarch, Dion Chrysostom, Lucian, and M. Aurelius, +the Church is hardly known, or known as an obscure off-shoot +of Judaism, a little sect, worshipping a <q>crucified Sophist</q> in +somewhat suspicious retirement, or more favourably distinguished +by simple-minded charity. The modern theologian +can hardly be content to know as little of the great movement +in the heathen world which prepared or deferred the +victory of the Church. +</p> + +<p> +It will be evident to any critical reader that the scope of +this book is strictly limited. As in a former work on the +Society of the later Empire, attention has been concentrated on +the inner moral life of the time, and comparatively little space +has been given to its external history and the machinery +<pb n="viii"/><anchor id="Pgviii"/>of government. The relation of the Senate to the Emperor +in the first century, and the organisation of the municipal +towns have been dwelt on at some length, because they +affected profoundly the moral character of the age. On the +particular field which the writer has surveyed, Dean Merivale, +Dr. Mahaffy, Professor Bury, and Mr. Capes have thrown +much light by their learning and sympathy. But these distinguished +writers have approached the period from a different +point of view from that of the present author, and he believes +that he has not incurred the serious peril of appearing to compete +with them. He has, as a first duty, devoted himself to a complete +survey of the literature and inscriptions of the period. +References to the secondary authorities and monographs which +he has used will be found in the notes. But he owes a special +obligation to Friedländer, Zeller, Réville, Schiller, Boissier, +Martha, Peter, and Marquardt, for guidance and suggestion. +He must also particularly acknowledge his debt to M. Cumont’s +exhaustive work on the monuments of Mithra. Once more +he has to offer his warmest gratitude to his learned friend, the +Rev. Charles Plummer, Fellow of C.C.C., Oxford, for the patience +and judgment with which he has revised the proof sheets. His +thanks are also due to the Messrs. R. and R. Clark’s reader, for +the scrupulous accuracy which has saved the author much time +and labour. +</p> + +<dateline rend="text-align: left"> +<date><hi rend="italic">September 19, 1904.</hi></date> +</dateline> + +</div><div rend="page-break-before: always"> +<pb n="ix"/><anchor id="Pgix"/> +<index index="toc" level1="Contents"/><index index="pdf" level1="Contents"/> +<head>CONTENTS</head> + + <p rend="center; font-size: large">BOOK I</p> + + <p rend="center">CHAPTER I</p> + + <p rend="center; font-size: small">THE ARISTOCRACY UNDER THE TERROR</p> + + <p> + How far the Antonine age is marked by a moral and spiritual revolution—Light + which Seneca throws on the moral condition of his class in Nero’s + reign—Value of his testimony—His pessimism—Human degeneracy the + result of selfish greed and luxury—Picture of contemporary society—Cruel + selfishness and the <hi rend="italic">taedium vitae</hi>—The <hi rend="italic">Ardelio</hi>—The terror under which + Seneca lived—Seneca’s ideal of the principate expounded to Nero in the + <hi rend="italic">De Clementia</hi>—The character of Nero—Taint in the blood of the Domitii—Nero + at first showed glimpses of some better qualities—How he was injured + by the ambition to be an artist—False aestheticism and insane profusion—Feeling + of Tacitus as to his time—His career—Views as to his impartiality + as a historian—He was under complex influences—His chief motive as a + historian—He is not a political doctrinaire—He is avenging a moral, not a + political ideal—His pessimism—His prejudices and limitations—His ideal + of education and character—His hesitating religious faith—His credulity + and his scepticism—His view of the corrupting influence of despotic power—The + influence of imperial example—Profusion of the early Caesars, + leading to murder and confiscation in order to replenish their treasury—Dangers + of life about the court from espionage—Causes of delation—Its + temptations and its great rewards—The secret of the imperial terror—Various + theories of it—Was the Senate a real danger?—Its impotence in + spite of its prestige and claims—The philosophic opposition—Was it really + revolutionary?—<q>Scelera sceleribus tuenda</q>—The undefined position of + the principate—Its working depended greatly on the character of the + Emperor for the time—Pliny’s ideal of the principate—The danger from + pretenders—Evil effects of astrology—The degradation of the aristocracy + under Nero and Domitian illustrated from the Pisonian conspiracy—and + the Year of the Four Emperors—The reign of Domitian—Its puzzling + character—Its strange contrasts—The terrors of its close—Confiscation and + massacre—The funereal banquet + </p> + <p rend="right">Pages <ref target="Pg1">1</ref>-57</p> + +<pb n="x"/><anchor id="Pgx"/> + +<p rend="center">CHAPTER II</p> + + <p rend="center; font-size: small">THE WORLD OF THE SATIRIST</p> + + <p> + Juvenal and Tacitus compared—Social position and experience of Juvenal—Juvenal +and Martial deal with the same features of society—Their motives +compared—Character of Martial—The moral standard of Juvenal—His +humanity and his old Roman prejudices—He unites the spirit of two +different ages—His rhetorical pessimism—His sweeping generalisations—Abnormal +specimens become types—Roman luxury at its height—Yet +similar extravagance is denounced for five centuries—Such judgments +need qualification—The great social changes depicted by Juvenal, some +of which he misunderstands—Roman respect for birth—The decay of the +aristocracy and its causes—Aristocratic poverty and servility—How the +early Emperors lowered senatorial dignity—Aristocratic gladiators and +actors—Nero made bohemianism the fashion—<q>The Legend of Bad +Women</q>—Its untrustworthiness and defects of treatment—High ideals of +womanhood among contemporaries of Juvenal—He is influenced by old +Roman prejudice—Juvenal hates the <q>new woman</q> as much as the +vicious woman—The emancipation of women began in the second century +<hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>—Higher culture of women and their growing influence on public +affairs—Juvenal’s dislike of the oriental worships and their female devotees—This +is another old movement—The influence of Judaism at Rome, +even in the Imperial household—Women in Juvenal’s day were exposed +to serious dangers—The corruptions of the theatre and the circus—Intrigues +with actors and slaves—The invasion of Hellenism—Its history—The +Hellenism of the Emperors—The lower Hellenism which Juvenal +attacks—Social and economic causes of the movement—Greek tutors and +professors—The medical profession chiefly recruited from foreigners—The +character of the profession in those days—The astrologer and the parasite—The +client of the early Empire—His degradation and his hardships—General +poverty—The contempt for trade and industry—The growth of +captation—The worship of wealth—The cry of the poor + </p> + + <p rend="text-align: right">Pages <ref target="Pg58">58</ref>-99</p> + +<p rend="center">CHAPTER III</p> + + <p rend="center; font-size: small">THE SOCIETY OF THE FREEDMEN</p> + + <p> + The rise of the freedmen a great movement—Roman prejudice against them +expressed in the literature of the age—Economic and social causes of the +movement—Trade and industry despised—The freedmen occupied a vacant +place—Causes of the contempt for them—Their many vices and vulgar +taste—Yet their rise was a hopeful sign—The freedmen in imperial office—The +policy of the early Emperors to employ freedmen in their bureaux—Vitellius +the first Emperor to employ Equites as imperial secretaries—Hadrian +confined the three great ministries to men of equestrian rank—The +great imperial freedmen—Polybius, Claudius Etruscus, and Abascantus—Their +career and their immense power described by Statius—The<pb n="xi"/><anchor id="Pgxi"/> +intrigues and crimes of the freedmen of Claudius—The insolence of Pallas—The +wealth of the freedmen and its sources—Their luxurious display—The +baths of Cl. Etruscus and the gardens of Entellus—Yet the freedmen +were seldom admitted to equal rank with the aristocracy—The Senate +flattered and despised them—The doubtful position of freedwomen—Plebeian +Aspasias—The influence of Acte, Caenis, and Panthea—Manumission—It +was often not a very abrupt change—The better side of slave +life—Trusted and favourite slaves—How they could obtain their freedom—Slaves +employed in offices of trust—The growing <hi rend="italic">peculium</hi>—The close +tie between patron and freedman—The freedman gets a start in trade—His +rapid rise in wealth—His vulgar ostentation—The <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi> of +Petronius—Theories as to its motive, date and authorship—Its author +probably the C. Petronius of Nero’s reign—His character in Tacitus—His +probable motive—The literary character and scene of the <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi>—The +character of the Greek adventurers—Trimalchio’s dinner, to which they are +invited—Sketch of Trimalchio’s career—The dinner—Carving to music—Dishes +descend from the ceiling—Wine 100 years old—Confused recollections +of Homer—Hannibal at the Trojan war—Rope-dancers and tales of +witchcraft—The manners of Fortunata—The conversation of some of the +guests—True bourgeois vulgarity—Grumbling about the management of +the aediles—<q>Everything is going back—It all arises from neglect of +religion</q>—The coming gladiatorial show, when there will be plenty of +blood—The education of a freedman’s son—<q>You learn for profit</q>—Fast +and furious—The ladies get drunk, and Trimalchio gives an unflattering +account of his wife’s history—He gives directions to his friend, the stone-cutter, +for the erection of his monument—He has himself laid out for dead, +and the horn-blowers sound his lament + </p> + +<p rend="text-align: right">Pages <ref target="Pg100">100</ref>-137</p> + + <p rend="center; font-size: large">BOOK II</p> + + <p rend="center">CHAPTER I</p> + + <p rend="center; font-size: small">THE CIRCLE OF THE YOUNGER PLINY</p> + + <p> +The contrast between the pictures of society in Juvenal and in Pliny—They +belonged to different worlds—They were also of very different temperaments—Moral +contrasts side by side in every age—There were puritan +homes in Italy, even in the worst days—Influence of old Roman tradition +and country life—The circle at Como—Pliny’s youth and early training—Character +of the Elder Pliny—His immense industry—Retreats of old +Roman virtue—The character and reforms of Vespasian—His endowment +of education—The moral influence of Quintilian on Roman youth—Pliny’s +student friends—His relations with the Stoic circle—His reverence for +Fannia—His career at the Bar—He idealises the practice in the Centumviral +court—Career of M. Aquilius Regulus, the great delator and advocate—Pliny’s +passion for fame—The crowd of literary amateurs in his day—Pliny +and Martial—Pliny’s relation to the literary movement of his time—His +<pb n="xii"/><anchor id="Pgxii"/>admiration for Cicero—His reverence for Greece—He once wrote a Greek +tragedy—His apology for his loose verses—His ambition as an orator, and +canons of oratorical style—Pliny’s Letters compared with Cicero’s—The +merits and fame of the Letters—Their arrangement—They are a memorial +of the social life and literary tone of the time—The character of Silius +Italicus—Literary coteries—Pliny’s friendship with Suetonius—The +devotion of literary amateurs to poetic composition and its causes—The +influence of the great Augustan models read at school—Signs of decay +in literature—The growing love of the archaic style—Immense literary +ambition of the time—Attempts of Nero and Domitian to satisfy it by +public literary competitions—The plague of recitations—Pliny believes in +the duty of attending them—The weariness and emptiness of life in the +capital—The charm of the country—Roman country seats on the Anio or +the Laurentine and Campanian shores—The sites of these villas—Their +furniture and decorations—Doubtful appreciation of works of art—The +gardens of the villa—The routine of a country gentleman’s day—The +financial management of an estate—Difficulties with tenants—Pliny’s +kindness to freedmen and slaves—The darker side of slavery—Murder of a +master—Pliny’s views on suicide—Tragedies in his circle—Pliny’s charity +and optimism—The solidarity of the aristocratic class—Pliny thinks it a +duty to assist the career of promising youth—The women of his circle—His +love for Calpurnia and his love letters—The charity and humanitarian +sentiment of the age—<hi rend="italic">Bene fac, hoc tecum feres</hi>—The wealthy recognise +the duties of wealth—Charitable foundations of the emperors—Pliny’s +lavish generosity, both private and public—Yet he is only a shining +example among a crowd of similar benefactors in the Antonine age + </p> + +<p rend="text-align: right">Pages <ref target="Pg141">141</ref>-195</p> + +<p rend="center">CHAPTER II</p> + + <p rend="center; font-size: small">MUNICIPAL LIFE</p> + + <p> +Little known of country town life from Roman literature—Yet the love of the +country was strong—A relief from the strain of the capital, which, however, +always maintained its attraction—The Empire a realm of cities—Immense +development of urban life in the first two centuries—The rise of +Thamugadi in Numidia—Great tolerance of municipal freedom under the +early Empire—Yet there was a general drift to uniformity of organisation—Influence +of the capital—The rage for travel—Travelling became easy and +luxurious—Posting facilities on the great roads—The speed of travelling +by land and sea—Growth of towns—Many sprang from the <hi rend="italic">canabae legionis</hi>—History +of Lambesi—Aristocratic or timocratic character of municipal +organisation—Illustrated by the <hi rend="italic">album Canusii</hi>—The sharp demarcation +of social grades—Yet, in the first century, the Commons had still considerable +power—Examples from Pompeii—The magistracies and popular +election—The <hi rend="italic">honorarium</hi> payable on admission to office—The power of +the duumvirs—Position of the Curia—The mode of filling its ranks—Local +Equites—The origin and position of the Augustales—Their organisation +and their importance in the Roman world—Municipal finance—Direct +taxation in the first century almost unknown—Sources of municipal +<pb n="xiii"/><anchor id="Pgxiii"/>revenue—The objects of expenditure—Municipal mismanagement, as in +Bithynia—Signs of decay in Trajan’s reign—First appointment of <hi rend="italic">Curatores</hi>—Immense +private munificence—Examples from Pompeii, which was +only a third rate town—Other instances—Pliny—The Stertinii—Herodes +Atticus, the prince of benefactors—Testimony of the Inscriptions—Example +of imperial liberality—The public works of the Flavian and Antonine +Emperors—Feasts to the populace—Distributions of money, graduated +according to social rank—The motives of this munificence were mixed—Yet +a high ideal of the duties of wealth—The better side of municipal life—Local +patriotism and general kindly feeling—But there is another side +to the picture—Immense passion for amusement, which was often debasing—Games +and spectacles on 135 days in the year—Description of a scene +in the amphitheatre in the Antonine age—Passion for gladiatorial shows +especially in Campania—Remains of gladiatorial barracks at Pompeii—Advertisements +of games—Pictures on tombs and on the walls—The shows +in small country towns—Shows at Cremona a few days after the battle of +Bedriacum—Greece was little infected with the taste—The feeling of the +philosophers—Statistics as to the cost of a gladiatorial show—How the +ranks of the profession were recruited—Its attractions—Organisation of the +gladiatorial schools—The gladiator in retirement—How municipal benefactors +were honoured—Municipal life begins to lose its attractions—The +causes of this—Plutarch on municipal duty—The growth of centralisation—The +beginning of the end + </p> +<p rend="text-align: right">Pages <ref target="Pg196">196</ref>-250</p> + +<p rend="center">CHAPTER III</p> + +<p rend="center; font-size: small">THE COLLEGES AND PLEBEIAN LIFE</p> + +<p>The <hi rend="italic">plebs</hi> of the municipal town chiefly known from the Inscriptions—Great +development of a free proletariat—The effects of manumission—The artisan +class in the Inscriptions—Their pride in their callings—Emblems on their +tombs—Early history of the <hi rend="italic">Collegia</hi>—Rigorous restraint of their formation +by Julius and Augustus—The evidence of Gaius—Dangers from the +colleges not imaginary—Troubles in the reign of Aurelian—Yet the great +movement could not be checked—The means of evading the law—Extended +liberty in reigns of M. Aurelius and Alexander Severus—The social forces +behind the movement of combination—The wish for funeral rites and +lasting remembrance—Evidence of the Inscriptions—The horror of loneliness +in death—The funerary colleges—That of Lanuvium shows how the +privilege granted to them might be extended—Any college might claim it—Description +of the college at Lanuvium—Its foundation deed—The fees—The +grants for burial—The college of Aesculapius and Hygia—Its +organisation for other objects than burial—Any college might assume a +quasi-religious character—The influence of religion on all ancient social +organisation—The colleges of traders—Wandering merchants organise +themselves all over the world—And old soldiers—Colleges of youth for +sporting purposes—Every branch of industry was organised in these +societies—Evidence from Ostia, Lyons, and Rome, in the Inscriptions—Clubs +of slaves in great houses, and in that of the Emperor—They were +<pb n="xiv"/><anchor id="Pgxiv"/>encouraged by the masters—The organisation of the college was modelled +on the city—Its officers bear the names of republican magistrates—The +number of members limited—Periodical revision of the <hi rend="italic">Album</hi>—Even in +the plebeian colleges the gradation of rank was observed—Patrons carefully +sought for—Meeting-place of the college—Description of the <hi rend="italic">Schola</hi>—Sacred +associations gathered round it—Even the poorest made presents to +decorate it—The poor college of Silvanus at Philippi—But the colleges +relied on the generosity of patrons—Their varying social rank—Election of +a patron—A man might be a patron of many colleges—The college often +received bequests to guard a tomb, and perform funerary rites for ever—The +common feasts of the colleges—The division of the <hi rend="italic">sportula</hi> by ranks—Regulations +as to decorum at college meetings—The college modelled on +the family—Mommsen’s opinion—Fraternal feeling—The slave in the +college, for the time, treated as an equal—Yet the difference of rank, even +in the colleges, was probably never forgotten—Were the colleges really +charitable foundations?—The military colleges—Their object, not only to +provide due burial, but to assist an officer throughout his career—The +extinction of a college—The college at Alburnus in Dacia vanishes probably +in the Marcomannic invasion</p> + +<p rend="right">Pages <ref target="Pg251">251</ref>-286</p> + +<p rend="center; font-size: large">BOOK III</p> + +<p rend="center">CHAPTER I</p> + +<p rend="center; font-size: small">THE PHILOSOPHIC DIRECTOR</p> + +<p>The great change in the motive and character of philosophy—The schools forsook +metaphysical speculation, and devoted themselves to the cultivation of +character—Why faith in abstract thought declined, and the conduct of life +became all important—The effect of the loss of free civic life and the establishment +of world-empires—The commonwealth of man—The great <hi rend="italic">ars vivendi</hi>—Spiritual +directors before the imperial times—They are found in +every great family—The power of Seneca as a private director of souls—How +his career and experience prepared him for the office—He had seen the +inner life of the time, its sensuality, degradation, and remorse—He was +himself an ascetic, living in a palace which excited Nero’s envy—His experience +excited an evangelistic passion—His conception of philosophy as the +art of saving souls—His contempt for unpractical speculation—Yet he +values Physics for its moral effect in elevating the mind to the region of +eternal truth—Curious examples of physical study for moral ends—The +pessimism of Seneca—Its causes in the inner secrets of his class—It is a +lost world which must be saved by every effort—Stoicism becomes transfigured +by moral enthusiasm—Yet can philosophic religion dispense with +dogma?—Empirical rules of conduct are not enough—There must be true +theory of conduct—Seneca not a rigorous dogmatist—His varying conceptions +of God—Often mingles Platonic conceptions with old Stoic +<pb n="xv"/><anchor id="Pgxv"/>doctrine—But all old Stoic doctrine can be found in him—<q>The kingdom +of Heaven is within</q>—Freedom is found in renunciation, submission to +the Universal Reason—Whence comes the force of self-reform?—The +problem of freedom and necessity—How man may attain to moral +freedom—The struggle to recover a primeval virtue—Modifications of old +Stoic theory—The ideal <hi rend="italic">sapiens</hi>—Instantaneous conversion—Ideas fatal to +practical moral reform—For practical purposes, Stoic theory must be +modified—The <hi rend="italic">sapiens</hi> a mythical figure—There may be various stages of +moral progress—Aristotelian ideas—Seneca himself far from the ideal of the +Stoic sage—The men for whom Seneca is providing counsel—How their +weaknesses have to be dealt with—The <q>ars vitae</q> develops into +casuistry in the hands of the director—Obstacles in the way to the higher +life—Seneca’s skill in dealing with different cases—His precepts for reform—Necessity +of confession, self-examination, steadiness of purpose, self-denial—<hi rend="italic">Vivere militare est</hi>—The real victor—The mind can create its own +world, and triumph even over death—Seneca’s not the Cynic ideal of +moral isolation—Competing tendencies in Stoicism—Isolated renunciation +and social sympathy—A citizen of two cities—The great commonwealth of +humanity—The problem of serving God and man variously solved by the +Stoics—Seneca’s ideas of social duty—Social instinct innate—Duty of help, +forgiveness, and kindness to others—The example of the Infinite Goodness—The +brotherhood of man includes the slave—Seneca’s attitude to slavery—His +ideal of womanhood—Women may be the equals of men in culture +and virtue—The greatness of Seneca as a moral teacher—He belongs to the +modern world, and was claimed by the Church—A pagan Thomas à +Kempis</p> + +<p rend="right">Pages <ref target="Pg289">289</ref>-333</p> + +<p rend="center">CHAPTER II</p> + +<p rend="center; font-size: small">THE PHILOSOPHIC MISSIONARY</p> + +<p>Seneca the director of an aristocratic class—The masses needed a gospel—Their +moral condition—The Antonine age produced a great movement for +their moral elevation—Lucian’s attitude to the Cynics—His kindred with +them—Detached view of human life and its vanity—Gloomy view of the +moral state of the masses—The call for popular evangelism—Can philosophy +furnish the gospel?—Lucian’s Hermotimus—The quarrels of the +schools—Yet they show real agreement on the rule of life—The fashionable +sophist—Rhetorical philosophy despised by more earnest minds—Serious +preaching—The sermons of Apollonius of Tyana—Sudden conversions—The +preaching of Musonius, Plutarch, and Maximus of Tyre—The mystic +fervour of Maximus—Dion’s view of the Cynic preacher—The <q>mendicant +monks of paganism</q>—Lucian’s caricature of their vices—Many vulgar +impostors adopt the profession—It offered a tempting field—Why the +charges against the Cynics must be taken with reserve—S. Augustine’s +testimony—Causes of the prejudice against Cynicism—Lucian’s treatment +of Peregrinus—The history of Peregrinus—The credibility of the charges +which Lucian makes against him—He is about to immolate himself at +Olympia when Lucian arrives—Lucian treats the self-martyrdom as a piece +<pb n="xvi"/><anchor id="Pgxvi"/>of theatrical display—Yet Peregrinus may have honestly desired to teach +contempt for death—Stoic suicide—The scene at the pyre—The last words +of Peregrinus—Lucian creates a myth and sees it grow—Testimony of A. +Gellius as to Peregrinus—The power of the later Cynicism—The ideal Cynic +in Epictetus—An ambassador of God—Kindred of Cynicism and Monasticism—Cultivated +Cynics—The character of Demetrius, a leader of the +philosophic opposition—Cynic attitude to popular religion—Oenomaus a +pronounced rationalist—Disbelief in oracles—The character of Demonax—His +great popular influence—Prosecuted for neglect of religious observances—His +sharp sayings—Demonstrations of reverence for him at his death—The +career of Dion Chrysostom—His conversion during his exile—Becomes +a preacher with a mission to the Roman world—The character of his eighty +orations—He is the rhetorical apostle of a few great truths—His idea of +philosophy—His pessimism about the moral state of the world—A +materialised civilisation—Warning to the people of Tarsus—Rebukes the +feuds of the Bithynian cities—A sermon at Olbia on the Black Sea—The +jealousies of the Asiatic towns—Prusa and Apamea—Sermon on civic +harmony—He assails the vices and frivolity of the Alexandrians—His +prose idyll—Simple pastoral life in Euboea—The problems and vices of city +life exposed—Dion on true kingship—The vision of the Two Peaks—The +ideal king—The sermon at Olympia inspired by the Zeus of Pheidias—Its +majesty and benignity—Sources of the idea of God—The place of art in +religion—Relative power of poetry and sculpture to express religious truth—Pheidias +defends his anthropomorphism—His Zeus a God of mercy and +peace</p> + +<p rend="right">Pages <ref target="Pg334">334</ref>-383</p> + +<p rend="center">CHAPTER III</p> + +<p rend="center; font-size: small">THE PHILOSOPHIC THEOLOGIAN</p> + +<p>The pagan revival and the growth of superstition called for a theodicy—Old +Roman religion was still powerful—But there was an immense accretion +of worships from the conquered countries—And an immense growth in the +belief in genii, dreams, omens, and oracles—Yet amid the apparent chaos, +there was a tendency, in the higher minds, to monotheism—The craving +for a moral God in sympathy with man—The ideas of Apuleius, Epictetus, +M. Aurelius—The change in the conception of God among the later Stoics—God +no longer mere Force or Fate or impersonal Reason—He is a Father +and Providence, giving moral support and comfort—The attitude of the +later Stoics to external worship and anthropomorphic imagery—How was +the ancient worship to be reconciled with purer conceptions of the Divine?—God +being so remote, philosophy may discover spiritual help in all the +religions of the past—The history of Neo-Pythagoreanism—Apollonius +of Tyana—His attitude to mythology—His mysticism and ritualism—Plutarch’s +associations and early history—His devotion to Greek tradition—His +social life—His Lives of the great Greeks and Romans—He is a +moralist rather than a pure philosopher—The tendency of philosophy in his +day was towards the formation of character—The eclecticism of the time—Plutarch’s +attitude to Platonism and Stoicism—His own moral system +was drawn from various schools—Precepts for the formation of +character—<pb n="xvii"/><anchor id="Pgxvii"/>Plutarch on freedom and necessity—His contempt for rhetorical philosophy—Plutarch +on Tranquillity—How to grow daily—The pathos of life—The +need for a higher vision—How to reconcile the God of philosophy with the +ancient mythology was the great problem—Plutarch’s conception of God—His +cosmology mainly that of the <hi rend="italic">Timaeus</hi>—The opposition between the +philosophic idea of God and the belief of the crowd was an old one—Yet +great political and spiritual changes had made it a more urgent question—The +theology of Maximus of Tyre—His pure conception of God, combined +with tolerance of legend and symbolism—Myth not to be discarded, but +interpreted by philosophy, to discover the kernel of truth which is +reverently veiled—The effort illustrated by the treatise of Plutarch on +Isis and Osiris—Its theory of Evil and daemonic powers—The Platonist +daemonology—The history of daemons traced from Hesiod—The conception +of daemons justified by Maximus—The daemonology of the early Greek +philosophers—The nature of daemons as conceived by Maximus and +Plutarch—The ministering spirits of Maximus—The theory of bad daemons +enabled Plutarch to explain the grossness of myth and ritual—The +bad daemons a <hi rend="italic">damnosa hereditas</hi>—The triumphant use made of the +theory by the Christian Apologists—The daemonology of Plutarch was +also used to explain the inspiration or the silence of the ancient oracles—<q>The +oracles are dumb</q>—Yet in the second century, to some extent, +Delphi revived—Questions as to its inspiration debated—The quality of +Delphic verse—The theory of inspiration—Concurrent causes of it—The +daemon of the shrine may depart—The problem of inspiration illustrated +by a discussion on the daemon of Socrates—What was it?—The result of +the inquiry is that the human spirit, at its best, is open to influences from +another world</p> + +<p rend="right">Pages <ref target="Pg384">384</ref>-440</p> + +<p rend="center; font-size: large">BOOK IV</p> + +<p rend="center">CHAPTER I</p> + +<p rend="center; font-size: small">SUPERSTITION</p> + +<p>Superstition a term of shifting meaning—Plutarch’s treatise on Superstition—Why +it is worse than atheism—Immense growth of superstition in the +first century, following on a decay of old religion—Forgotten rites and +fallen temples—The revival of Augustus—The power of astrology—The +Emperors believed in it and dreaded it—Tiberius and Thrasyllus at +Capreae—The attitude of Nero, Otho, and Vitellius to astrology—The +superstition of the Flavian Emperors—And of Hadrian and M. Aurelius—The +superstition of the literary class—The Elder Pliny—Suetonius—Tacitus—His +wavering treatment of the supernatural—How it may be +explained by the character of the age—Epictetus on divination—The +superstition of Aelian of Praeneste—His credulity and his anathemas +on the sceptics—P. Aelius Aristides—His history and character—His +illness of thirteen years—Was he a simple devotee?—The influence of +<pb n="xviii"/><anchor id="Pgxviii"/>rhetorical training on him—The temples of healing in his time—Their +organisation and routine—Recipes by dreams in the temples of Asclepius, +Isis, and Serapis—Medical skill combined with superstition—The amusements +and cheerful social life of these temple-hospitals were powerful +healers—The ailments of Aristides and his journeys in quest of health—Strange +divine prescriptions astonish the medical attendants—Their own +heroic remedies—Epiphanies of the Gods—The return of his rhetorical +power—The debt is repaid in the Sacred Orations—The treatise on dreams +by Artemidorus—His idea of founding a science of dreams—His enormous +industry in collecting materials—His contempt for less scientific interpreters—His +classification of dreams and methods of interpretation—The +new oracles—The failure of the old was not so complete as it is sometimes +represented—The revival of Delphi—The history of the oracle of Alexander +of Abonoteichos—His life and character—How he played on the +superstition of the Paphlagonians—The business-like management of the +oracle—Its fees and revenue—Its secret methods—Its fame spreads everywhere—Oracles +in many tongues—Rutilianus, a great noble, espouses +Alexander’s daughter—The Epicureans resist the impostor, but in vain—The +mysteries of Glycon—Alexander, a second Endymion—Immense +superstition of the time—Apotheosis in the air—The cult of Antinous—And +of M. Aurelius—In Croton there were more gods than men!—The +growing faith in daemons and genii—The evidence of inscriptions as to the +adoption of local deities all over the world—Revived honours of classic +heroes—The belief in recurring miracle—Christian and pagan were equally +credulous—The legend of the <q>Thundering Legion</q>—Sorcery in Thessaly—The +lawless romance of Apuleius</p> + +<p rend="right">Pages <ref target="Pg443">443</ref>-483</p> + +<p rend="center">CHAPTER II</p> + +<p rend="center; font-size: small">BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY</p> + +<p>The conception of immortality determined by the idea of God—Religion supplies +the assurance denied by philosophy—Vagueness of the conception natural +and universal—<q>It doth not yet appear what we shall be</q>—Confused and +various beliefs on the subject in the Early Empire—The cult of the Manes +in old Italian piety—The guardianship of the tomb, and call for perpetual +remembrance—The eternal sleep—The link between the living and the dead—The +craving for continued human sympathy with the shade in its eternal +home—The Lemures and the Lemuria—Visitations from the other world—The +<hi rend="italic">Mundus</hi> in every Latin town—The general belief in apparitions illustrated +from the <hi rend="italic">Philopseudes</hi> of Lucian, from the Younger Pliny, Suetonius, +Dion Cassius, and Maximus of Tyre—The eschatology of Virgil a mixture +of different faiths—Scenes from the Inferno of the <hi rend="italic">Aeneid</hi>—Its Pythagorean +elements—How Virgil influenced later conceptions of the future state—Scepticism +and credulity in the first century—Perpetuity of heathen +beliefs—The inscriptions, as to the future state, must be interpreted with +care and discrimination—The phrases often conventional, and springing +from different orders of belief—Inscriptions frankly atheistic or sensualist—Ideas +of immortality among the cultivated class—The influence of +<pb n="xix"/><anchor id="Pgxix"/>Lucretius—The Stoic idea of coming life, and the Peripatetic—The +influence of Platonism—In the last age of the Republic, and the first of the +Empire, educated opinion was often sceptical or negative—J. Caesar, the +Elder Pliny, Tacitus—The feeling of Hadrian—Epictetus on immortality—Galen—His +probable influence on M. Aurelius—The wavering attitude of +M. Aurelius on immortality—How he could reconcile himself by a saintly +ideal to the resignation of the hope of a future life—His sadness and +pessimism fully justified by the circumstances of the time—<q>Thou hast +come to shore, quit the ship</q>—Change in the religious character long +before M. Aurelius—Seneca’s theology as it moulded his conception of +immortality—A new note in Seneca—The influence of Pythagorean and +Platonic conceptions in modifying Stoicism—The revival of Pythagoreanism +in the first century—Its tenets and the secret of its power—Apollonius of +Tyana on immortality—His meeting with the shade of Achilles—Plutarch +and Maximus of Tyre on immortality—Plutarch’s arguments for the faith +in it—The Delays of Divine Vengeance—But, like Plato, Plutarch feels +that argument on such a subject must be reinforced by poetic imagination—The +myths of Thespesius of Soli and Timarchus in Plutarch—Mythic +scenery of the eternal world</p> + +<p rend="right">Pages <ref target="Pg484">484</ref>-528</p> + +<p rend="center">CHAPTER III</p> + +<p rend="center; font-size: small">THE OLD ROMAN RELIGION</p> + +<p>The decay of old religion in the last age of the Republic—Its causes—Influence +of Greek philosophy and rationalism—Distinction drawn between the +religion of philosophy and that of the State—The moral and religious +results—Sceptical conformity or desuetude of ancient rites—The religious +revival of Augustus—How far a matter of policy—Ancient temples +and worships restored—The position of Pontifex Maximus—How the +Emperors utilised the dignity and kept a firm hold on the old religion—The +religious character of the early Emperors—The force of antiquarian +sentiment in the second century—The Inscriptions plainly show that the +popular faith in old Latin religion was still strong—The revival of the +Arval brotherhood—Its history and ritual described—A stronghold of +imperial power—How the Arval College supported and flattered the +Emperors—How the cultivated class reconciled themselves to the rudest +forms of the ancient religion—The philosophic reconciliation—The influence +of patriotism in compelling men to support a religion which was intertwined +with all social and political life—The sentiment powerful down to the +end of paganism—But other religious ideas were in the air, preparing the +triumph of the cults of the East</p> + +<p rend="right"><ref target="Pg529">529</ref>-546</p> + +<p rend="center">CHAPTER IV</p> + +<p rend="center; font-size: small">MAGNA MATER</p> + +<p>The fascination of the worship of the Great Mother—It was still powerful in +the days of S. Augustine—Its arrival from Pessinus in 204 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>—The +<pb n="xx"/><anchor id="Pgxx"/>history of its growing influence—The taurobolium in the second century—The +legend and its interpretations—The Megalesia in spring—The priesthood—The +sacred colleges of the worship—Evidence of the Inscriptions—The +worship in country places—Vagabond priests in Thessaly described by +Apuleius—Picture of their wild orgies—The problem of these eastern +cults—From a gross origin, they became transmuted into a real spiritual +power—The elevation of Magna Mater—The rite of the taurobolium—Its +history in Asia Minor—Its immense influence in the last age of the +Empire—A challenge to the Church—The history of the taurobolium in +the West from the Inscriptions—Description of the scene from Prudentius—The +connection of Magna Mater with Mithra and other deities</p> + +<p rend="right">Pages <ref target="Pg547">547</ref>-559</p> + +<p rend="center">CHAPTER V</p> + +<p rend="center; font-size: small">ISIS AND SERAPIS</p> + +<p>Their long reign in Europe—Established at Peiraeus in the fourth century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>—And +in Asia Minor—How the Egyptian cults had been transformed +under Greek influences—Greek settlers, soldiers, and travellers in Egypt +from the seventh century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>—Greek and Egyptian gods identified—The +new propaganda of the Ptolemies—Theories of the origin of Serapis—The +new Egyptian Trinity—The influence of Greek mysticism—The worship +probably established in Campanian towns before 150 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>—The religious +excitement in Italy in the early part of the second century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>—The +Bacchanalian scandal—The apocryphal books of Numa—Efforts of the +Government in the first century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> to repress the worship—A violent +struggle with varying fortunes—The triumvirs in 42 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> erect a temple +of Isis—Persecution of eastern worships in the reign of Tiberius—Thenceforth +there was little opposition—Attitude of the Flavian Emperors—Domitian +builds a temple of Isis, 92 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>—The Egyptian worship +propagated from Alexandria by slaves, officials, philosophers, and savants—Votaries +in the imperial household—Spread of Isiac worship through +Europe—It reaches York—The secret of its fascination—The cult +appealed to many kinds of mind—Its mysticism—Its charm for women—Its +pomp and ceremonial—How a religion originally gross may be transformed—The +zoolatry of Egypt justified as symbolism by Greek philosophers—But +there is little trace of it in the Isiac worship of the West—Isis +becomes an all-embracing spiritual power—And Serapis is regarded by +Aristides as sovereign lord of life—Yet the worship never broke away from +the traditions of idolatry—It fostered an immense superstition—The +Petosiris—But there was undoubted spiritual power in the worship—The +initiation of Lucius—The faith in immortality—<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">εὐψύχει</foreign> on tombs—Impressive +ritual—Separation of the priesthood from the world—Description +of the daily offices—Matins and Vespers—Silent meditation—The great +festivals of the Isiac calendar—Ascetic preparation—The blessing of the +sacred ship—Description of the procession in Apuleius—The grades of +priests—The sacred guilds—The place of women—The priesthood an +aggressive power—The Isiac presbytery—Priestly rule of life—Tertullian +holds it up as an example—The popular charm of the Divine Mother</p> + +<p rend="right"><anchor id="corrxx"/><corr sic="560-584">Pages <ref target="Pg560">560</ref>-584</corr></p> + +<pb n="xxi"/><anchor id="Pgxxi"/> + +<p rend="center">CHAPTER VI</p> + +<p rend="center; font-size: small">THE RELIGION OF MITHRA</p> + +<p>The causes which in the second century <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> prepared the triumph of Mithra—Heliolatry +the natural goal of heathenism—Early history of Mithra +in the Vedas and Avestas—He is a moral power from the beginning—His +place in the Zoroastrian hierarchy—His relation to Ormuzd—The +influence of Babylon on the Persian worship—Mithra identified with +the Sun—The astral lore of Babylonia inseparable from Mithraism—Yet +Mithra and the Sun are distinct in the later Inscriptions—How Mithra +worship was modified in Asia Minor—The influence of Greek mythology, +philosophy, and art—The group of the Tauroctonus probably first +fashioned by a Pergamene artist—Mithra in literature—Herodotus—Xenophon—The +<hi rend="italic">Thebaid</hi> of Statius—Plutarch—Lucian may have heard +the Mazdean litany—Mithra’s first coming to the West probably in the +reign of Tiberius—The earliest inscriptions of Mithraism belong to the +Flavian age—At the same time, the worship is established in Pannonia—The +earliest temples at Ostia and Rome—The power of Mithra in the +capital—The secret of the propaganda—Soldiers were the most effective +missionaries of Mithra—Slaves and imperial officials of every degree +propagate the Persian faith—Its progress traced around Rome and through +various regions of Italy, especially to the north—Mithra’s chapels in the +valleys of the Alps and on the roads to the Danube from Aquileia—Along +the line of the Danube—His remains abundant in Dacia and Pannonia—Chapels +at Aquincum and Carnuntum—The enthusiasm of certain +legions—The splendid remains of Mithra worship in Upper Germany in +the early part of the second century <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>—Mithra passes on, through +Cologne and Boulogne, to London, Chester, York and the wall of +Hadrian—Mithra made least impression on W. Gaul, Spain, and N. +Africa—In spite of tolerance and syncretism, Mithraism never ceased to be +a Persian cult—The influence of astrology—The share of Babylonia in +moulding the worship—Yet Greek mystic influences had a large part in it—The +descent and ascent of the soul—Yet, although Mithraism came to +be a moral creed, it never ceased to be a cosmic symbolism—The great +elemental powers—The daemonology of Mithraism—Its affinity with the +later Neo Platonism—The evil effect of belief in planetary influences—The +struggle between formal and spiritual ideals of religion—The craving for +mediatorial sympathy in the moral life was urgent—Mithra was a mediator +both in a cosmic and a moral sense—He stands between Cautes and +Cautopates, and between Ormuzd and Ahriman—The legend of Mithra as +faintly recovered from the monuments—The <hi rend="italic">petra genetrix</hi>—The adoration +of the shepherds—The fountain gushing at the arrow stroke—The legend +of the mystic bull—Its chase and slaughter—Its death as the source of +resurgent life—The mysterious reconciliation of Mithra and the Sun—Their +solemn agape—Various interpretations of the legend—Yet there was +a real spiritual meaning under it all—A religion of strenuous combat—How +it touched the Roman soldier on the Danube—Its eschatology—Its +promise of immortality and final triumph over evil—The sacramental +mystery of Mithraism—The daily offices, and the annual festivals—The +<pb n="xxii"/><anchor id="Pgxxii"/>mysteries of Mithra and the seven grades of initiation—Symbolic +ceremonies—The colleges of Mithra—Their influence in levelling social +distinctions—The suspicions of the Apologists—Description of a chapel of +Mithra—The form of the cave always preserved—The scene of full +initiation—Mithraism as an imperial cult and a support of imperial power—Sketch +of the history of imperial apotheosis—The historic causes which +aided it—The influence of Egypt and Persia on the movement—The +Persian attitude to kings—The Fortune of the monarch—How these ideas +blended with old Roman conceptions—The influence of Sun-worship in the +third century, in stimulating theocratic ideas—The Emperors appropriate +the titles and insignia of the Sun—The imperial house consecrate a temple +to Mithra at Carnuntum, twenty years before the conversion of Constantine—Could +Mithra ever have become the god of western Europe?—His +chances of success in the chaos of belief seemed promising—His syncretism +and tolerance, yet his exclusive claims—His moral charm—The fears of +the Fathers—Parallels between his legend and the Bible—His sacramental +system a travesty of the mysteries of the medieval church—Yet there +was a great gulf between the two religions—The weaknesses of Mithraism—It +did not appeal to women—It had no Mater Dolorosa—It offered little +human sympathy—And in its tolerance of other heathen systems lay its +great weakness—A Mithraist might be a votary of all the ancient gods—Mithraism +was rooted in nature-worship, and remained the patron of the +worst superstitions—Mithra belonged to the order which was passing +away</p> + +<p rend="right">Pages <ref target="Pg585">585</ref>-626</p> + + </div> +</front> +<body> + <div type="book" n="1" rend="page-break-before: right"> + <pb/><anchor id="Pgxxiii"/> + <index index="toc" level1="Book I. Infesta virtutibus tempora"/><index index="pdf" level1="Book I. Infesta virtutibus tempora"/> + <head>BOOK I.</head> + + <head type="sub"><hi rend="italic">INFESTA VIRTUTIBUS TEMPORA</hi></head> + + <pb/><anchor id="Pgxxiv"/> + + <div type="chapter" n="1" rend="page-break-before: right"> +<pb n="1"/><anchor id="Pg1"/> +<index index="toc" level1="I. The aristocracy under the terror"/><index index="pdf" level1="I. The aristocracy under the terror"/> +<head>CHAPTER I</head> + +<head type="sub">THE ARISTOCRACY UNDER THE TERROR</head> + +<p> +The period of social history which we are about to study is +profoundly interesting in many ways, but not least in the +many contrasts between its opening and its close. It opens +with the tyranny of one of the worst men who ever occupied +a throne; it ends with the mild rule of a Stoic saint. It +begins in massacre and the carnage of civil strife; it closes +in the apparent triumph of the philosophic ideal, although +before the end of the reign of the philosophers the shadows +have begun to fall. The contrast of character between the two +princes is generally supposed to find a correspondence in the +moral character and ideals of the men over whom they ruled. +The accession of Vespasian which, after a deadly struggle, seemed +to bring the orgies of a brutal despotism to a close, is regarded +as marking not only a political, but a moral, revolution. It was +the dawn of an age of repentance and amendment, of beneficent +administration, of a great moral revival. We are bound to +accept the express testimony of a contemporary like +Tacitus,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iii. 55; xvi. 5; cf. + Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> ix. xii.</note> +who was not prone to optimist views of human progress, that +along with the exhaustion of the higher class from massacre +and reckless extravagance, the sober example of the new +emperor, and the introduction of fresh blood and purer manners +from the provinces, had produced a great moral improvement. +Even among the old noblesse, whose youth had fallen on the +age of wild licence, it is probable that a better tone asserted +itself at the beginning of what was recognised by all to be a +new order. The crushed and servile, who had easily learnt to +<pb n="2"/><anchor id="Pg2"/>imitate the wasteful vices of their oppressors, would probably, +with equal facility, at least affect to conform to the simpler +fashions of life which Vespasian inherited from his Sabine ancestors +and the old farm-house at Reate.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> ii. quare princeps + quoque et locum incunabulorum assidue + frequentavit, manente villa, qualis + fuerat olim, etc.</note> The better sort, represented +by the circles of Persius, of Pliny and Tacitus, who had +nursed the ideal of Stoic or old Roman virtue in some retreat +on the northern lakes or in the folds of the Apennines, emerged +from seclusion and came to the front in the reign of Trajan. +</p> + +<p> +Yet neither the language of Tacitus nor the testimony from +other sources justify the belief in any sudden moral revolution. +The Antonine age was undoubtedly an age of conscientious +and humane government in the interest of the subject; it was +even more an age of religious revival. But whether these +were accompanied by a corresponding elevation of conduct and +moral tone among the masses may well be doubted. On the +other hand the pessimism of satirist and historian who had +lived through the darkness of the Terror has probably +exaggerated the corruption of the evil days. If society at +large had been half as corrupt as it is represented by Juvenal, +it would have speedily perished from mere rottenness. The +Inscriptions, the Letters of the younger Pliny, even the pages +of Tacitus himself, reveal to us another world from that of +the satirist. On countless tombs we have the record or +the ideal of a family life of sober, honest industry, and pure +affection. In the calm of rural retreats in Lombardy or +Tuscany, while the capital was frenzied with vicious indulgence, +or seething with conspiracy and desolated by massacre, +there were many families living in almost puritan quietude, +where the moral standard was in many respects as high as +among ourselves. The worst period of the Roman Empire was +the most glorious age of practical Stoicism. The men of that +circle were ready, at the cost of liberty or life, to brave an +immoral tyranny; their wives were eager to follow them into +exile, or to die by their side.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xv. 23; xvi. 21, 34; <hi rend="italic">Agric.</hi> + 2, 45; Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 16, § 10; vii. 19, + § 3; iii. 11, § 3; ix. 13, § 3.</note> And even in the palace of Nero +there was a spotless Octavia, and slave-girls who were ready to +defend her honour at the cost of torture and death.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 60.</note> In the +darkest days, the violence of the bad princes spent itself on +<pb n="3"/><anchor id="Pg3"/>their nobles, on those whom they feared, or whom they wished +to plunder. The provinces, even under a Tiberius, a Nero, or +a Domitian, enjoyed a freedom from oppression which they +seldom enjoyed under the Republic.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iv. 6; i. 80; xiii. 50, 51; + xi. 24; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, x.; <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> viii.; cf. + Merivale, vii. 385; Renan, <hi rend="italic">Apôtres</hi>, p. + 308 sqq; Gréard, <hi rend="italic">Morale de Plut.</hi> p. 200.</note> Just and upright governors +were the rule and not the exception, and even an Otho +or a Vitellius, tainted with every private vice, returned from +their provincial governments with a reputation for integrity.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vitell.</hi> v.; <hi rend="italic">Otho</hi>, iii. provinciam + administravit moderatione atque + abstinentia singulari.</note> +Municipal freedom and self-government were probably at their +height at the very time when life and liberty in the capital +were in hourly peril. The great Stoic doctrine of the brotherhood +and equality of men, as members of a world-wide +commonwealth, which was destined to inspire legislation in +the Antonine age, was openly preached in the reigns of Caligula +and Nero. A softer tone—a modern note of pity for the +miserable and succour for the helpless—makes itself heard in +the literature of the first century.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 47; <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, i. 5; iii. 24; + <hi rend="italic">De Benef.</hi> iv. 11, § 3; <hi rend="italic">De Brev. Vit.</hi> + xiii. § 7; Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 22; Juv. xiv. 15 + sqq.; xv. 131; D. Cass. lxvi. 15; <hi rend="italic">Or. + Henz. Inscr. Lat.</hi> 7244, Bene fac, hoc + tecum feres; Denis, <hi rend="italic">Hist. des Idées + Morales</hi>, ii. 156, 172, 181.</note> The moral and mental +equality of the sexes was being more and more recognised in +theory, as the capacity of women for heroic action and self-sacrifice +was displayed so often in the age of the tyranny and +of the Stoic martyrs. The old cruelty and contempt for the +slave will not give way for many a generation; but the slave is +now treated by all the great leaders of moral reform as a being +of the same mould as his master, his equal, if not his superior, +in capacity for virtue. +</p> + +<p> +The peculiar distinction of the Antonine age is not to be +sought in any great difference from the age preceding it in conduct +or moral ideals among the great mass of men. Nor can +it claim any literary distinction of decided originality, except +in the possession of the airy grace and half-serious mockery +of Lucian. Juvenal, Tacitus, and the younger Pliny, Suetonius +and Quintilian, Plutarch and Dion Chrysostom, were probably all +dead before Antoninus Pius came to the throne. After Hadrian’s +reign pure Roman literature, in any worthy sense, is extinct; +it dies away in that Sahara of the higher intellect which +stretches forward to the Fall of the Empire. There is no great +<pb n="4"/><anchor id="Pg4"/>historian after Tacitus; there is no considerable poet after +Statius and Juvenal, till the meteor-like apparition of Claudian +in the ominous reign of Honorius. +</p> + +<p> +The material splendour and municipal life of the Antonine +age are externally its greatest glory. It was pre-eminently a +sociable age, an age of cities. From the wall of Hadrian to +the edge of the Sahara towns sprang up everywhere with as +yet a free civic life. It was an age of engineers and architects, +who turned villages into cities and built cities in the desert, +adorned with temples and stately arches and basilicas, and +feeding their fountains from the springs of distant hills. The +rich were powerful and popular; and never had they to pay +so heavily for popularity and power. The cost of civic feasts +and games, of forums and temples and theatres, was won by +flattery, or extorted by an inexorable force of public opinion +from their coffers. The poor were feasted and amused by their +social superiors who received a deference and adulation expressed +on hundreds of inscriptions. And it must be confessed +that these records of ambitious munificence and expectant +gratitude do not raise our conception of either the economic +or the moral condition of the age. +</p> + +<p> +The glory of classic art had almost vanished; and yet, +without being able to produce any works of creative genius, +the inexhaustible vitality of the Hellenic spirit once more +asserted itself. After a long eclipse, the rhetorical culture of +Greece vigorously addressed itself in the reign of Hadrian to +the conquest of the West. Her teachers and spiritual directors +indeed had long been in every family of note. Her sophists +were now seen haranguing crowds in every town from the Don +to the Atlantic. The influence of the sophistic discipline in +education will be felt in the schools of Gaul, when Visigoth +and Burgundian will be preparing to assume the heritage of +the falling Empire.<note place="foot">Sid. Apoll. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> viii. 6, § 5.</note> From the early years of the second +century can be traced that great combined movement of the +Neo-Pythagorean and Platonist philosophies and the renovated +paganism which made a last stand against the conquering +Church in the reigns of Julian and Theodosius. Philosophy +became a religion, and devoted itself not only to the private +direction of character and the preaching of a higher life, but +<pb n="5"/><anchor id="Pg5"/>to the justification and unification of pagan faith. In spite +of its rather bourgeois ideal of material enjoyment and splendour, +the Antonine age, at least in its higher minds, was +an age of a purified moral sense and religious intuition. It +was, indeed, an age of spiritual contradictions. On the one +hand, not only was the old ritual of classical polytheism +scrupulously observed even by men like Plutarch and M. +Aurelius, but religious imagination was appropriating the +deities of every province, almost of every canton, embraced by +the Roman power. At the same time the fecundity of superstition +created hosts of new divinities and genii who peopled +every scene of human life.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> iii. Ind. p. 27 sq.</note> On the other hand syncretism +was in the air. Amid all the confused ferment of devotion +a certain principle of unity and comprehension was asserting +itself, even in popular religion. The old gods were losing +their sharp-cut individuality; the provinces and attributes of +kindred deities tended to fade into one another, and melt into +the conception of a single central Power. The religions of Egypt +and the remoter East, with their inner monotheism, supported +by the promise of sacramental grace and the hope of immortality, +came in to give impetus to the great spiritual movement. +The simple peasant might cling to his favourite god, as his +Neapolitan descendant has his favourite saint. But an Apuleius, +an Apollonius, or an Alexander Severus<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Apol.</hi> c. 55, sacrorum pleraque + initia in Graecia participavi, et + plurimos ritus ... didici; Lamprid. + <hi rend="italic">Alex. Sev.</hi> c. 29, 43.</note> sought a converging +spiritual support in the gods and mysteries of every clime. +</p> + +<p> +Platonist philosophy strove to give rational expression to +this movement, to reconcile cultivated moral sense with the +worships of the past, to find a bond between the vagrant religious +fancies of the crowd and the remote esoteric faith of the +philosophic few. On the higher minds, from whatever quarter, +a spiritual vision had opened, which was strange to the ancient +world, the vision of One who is no longer a mere Force, but +an infinite Father, Creator, Providence and Guardian, from +whom we come, to whom we go at death. Prayer to Him is a +communion, not the means of winning mere temporal blessings; +He is not gratified by bloody sacrifice; He is dishonoured by +immoral legend.<note place="foot">Max. Tyr. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> viii.; xi. § 3; + xvii.; D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xii. § 83.</note> He cannot be imaged in gold or ivory graven +<pb n="6"/><anchor id="Pg6"/>by the most cunning hand, although the idealised human form +may be used as a secondary aid to devotion. These were some +of the religious ideas current among the best men, Dion Chrysostom, +Plutarch, Maximus of Tyre, which the Neo-Platonic +school strove to harmonise with the rites and legends of the +past. The means by which they tried to do so, and the measure +of their success, it is one purpose of this book to explain. +</p> + +<p> +The Antonine age saw for a brief space the dream of Plato +realised, when kings should be philosophers, and philosophers +should be kings. Philosophy had given up its detached and +haughty reserve, or outspoken opposition to imperial power. +In the second century it lent all its forces to an authority +which in the hands of the Antonine princes seemed to answer +to its ideals.<note place="foot">Renan, <hi rend="italic">Les Évangiles</hi>, p. 382.</note> The votaries of the higher life, after their +persecution under the last cruel despot, rose to an influence +such as they had never wielded save in the Pythagorean aristocracies +of southern Italy. Philosophy now began to inspire +legislation and statesmanship.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> iv. 420; Denis, +<hi rend="italic">Idées Morales</hi>, ii. 200 sqq.; Renan, <hi rend="italic">M. +Aurèle</hi>, p. 24 sqq.</note> Its professors were raised to +the consulship and great prefectures. Above all, it was +incarnate, as it were, in the ruler who, whatever we may think +of his practical success, brought to the duties of government a +loftiness of spiritual detachment which has never been equalled +by any ruler of men. Whether there was any corresponding +elevation of conduct or moral tone in the mass of men may +well be doubted by any one who has studied the melancholy +thoughts of the saintly emperor. Lucian and M. Aurelius +seem to be as hopeless about the moral condition of humanity +as Seneca and Petronius were in the darkest days of Nero’s +tyranny.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Som.</hi> 32; <hi rend="italic">Traj.</hi> 15; <hi rend="italic">Charon</hi>, +15, 20; <hi rend="italic">Tim.</hi> 14, 36; M. Aurel. v. 10, +33: ix. 29; 34; x. 19: cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">De +Ira</hi>, ii. 8; <hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> ii. 17, 20, 22; +Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 88.</note> Such opinions, indeed, have little scientific value. +They are often the result of temperament and ideals, not of +trustworthy observation. But it would be rash to assume +that heightened religious feeling and the efforts of philosophy +had within a hundred years worked any wide-spread transformation +of character. It was, however, a great step in +advance that the idea of the principate, expounded by Seneca, +and the younger Pliny, as a clement, watchful, infinitely +<pb n="7"/><anchor id="Pg7"/>laborious earthly providence had been realised since the accession +of Trajan. It was easier to be virtuous in the reign +of M. Aurelius than in the reign of Nero, and it was especially +easier for a man of the highest social grade. The +example of the prince for good or evil must always powerfully +influence the class who are by birth or office nearest to the +throne. And bad example will be infinitely more corrupting +when it is reinforced by terror. A fierce, capricious tyranny +generates a class of vices which are perhaps more degrading +to human dignity, and socially more dangerous, than the +vices of the flesh. And the reign of such men as Caligula, +Nero, and Domitian not only stimulated the grossness of self-indulgence, +but superadded the treachery and servility of +cowardice. In order to appreciate fully what the world had +gained by the mild and temperate rule of the princes of the +second century, it is necessary to revive for a moment the +terrors of the Claudian Caesars. +</p> + +<p> +The power of Seneca as a moral teacher has, with some +reservations, been recognised by all the ages since his time. +But equal recognition has hardly been given to the lurid +light which he throws, in random flashes, on the moral conditions +of his class under the tyranny of Caligula and Nero. +This may be due, perhaps, to a distrust of his artificial +declamation, and that falsetto note which he too often strikes +even in his most serious moments. Yet he must be an unsympathetic +reader who does not perceive that, behind the +moral teaching of Seneca, there lies an awful experience, a lifelong +torture, which turns all the fair-seeming blessings of +life, state and luxury and lofty rank, into dust and ashes. +There is a haunting shadow over Seneca which never +draws away, which sometimes deepens into a horror of darkness. +In whatever else Seneca may have been insincere, his +veiled references to the terrors of the imperial despotism +come from the heart. +</p> + +<p> +Seneca’s life almost coincides with the Julio-Claudian +tyranny. He had witnessed in his early manhood the gloomy, +suspicious rule of Tiberius, when no day passed without an +execution,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 108, § 22; cf. Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> lxi. nullus a poena hominum cessavit dies.</note> when every accusation was deadly, when it might be +fatal for a poet to assail Agamemnon in tragic verse, or for a +<pb n="8"/><anchor id="Pg8"/>historian to praise Brutus and Cassius,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> 61; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iv. 34.</note> when the victims of +delation in crowds anticipated the mockery of justice by self-inflicted +death, or drank the poison even in the face of the +judges. Seneca incurred the jealous hatred of Caligula by a +too brilliant piece of rhetoric in the Senate,<note place="foot">D. Cass. lix. 19; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> 53.</note> and he has taken +his revenge by damning the monster to eternal infamy.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Nec. Inj.</hi> xviii.; cf. Suet. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> +50; Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, i. 20; iii. 18; <hi rend="italic">De +Tranq.</hi> xiv.; <hi rend="italic">Ad Polyb.</hi> xiii. xvii.; <hi rend="italic">Ad +Helv.</hi> x. 4; <hi rend="italic">De Benef.</hi> iv. 31.</note> Not +even in Suetonius is there any tale more ghastly than that told +by Seneca of the Roman knight whose son had paid with his +life for a foppish elegance which irritated the tyrant.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 33.</note> On the +evening of the cruel day, the father received an imperial command +to dine. With a face betraying no sign of emotion, he +was compelled to drink to the Emperor, while spies were eagerly +watching every expression of his face. He bore the ordeal +without flinching. <q>Do you ask why? He had another son.</q> +Exiled to Corsica in the reign of Claudius,<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xii. 8; D. Cass. 60. 8; +61. 10; Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ad Polyb.</hi> 13. 2; <hi rend="italic">Ad +Helv.</hi> 15. 2.</note> Seneca bore the +sentence with less dignity than he afterwards met death. He +witnessed the reign of the freedmen, the infamies of Messalina, +the intrigues of Agrippina, and the treacherous murder of +Britannicus; he knew all the secrets of that ghastly court. +Installed as the tutor of the young Nero, he doubtless, if we +may judge by the treatise on Clemency, strove to inspire him +with a high ideal of monarchy as an earthly providence. He +probably at the same time discovered in the son of Cn. +Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina the fatal heritage of a +vicious blood and the omens of a ghastly reign. The young +tiger was held on leash for the famous quinquennium by +Burrus and Seneca. It seemed only the device of a divine +tragic artist, by a brief space of calm and innocence, to deepen +the horror of the catastrophe. And, for Seneca, life darkened +terribly towards its close. With high purposes for the commonweal, +he had probably lent himself to doubtful means of +humouring his wayward pupil, perhaps even to crime.<note place="foot">For the worst charges <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> D. Cass. +lxii. 2; lxi. 10; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> 13. 13.</note> His +enormous wealth, whether won from imperial favour, or gained +by usury and extortion,<note place="foot">D. Cass. <hi rend="italic">l.c.</hi>; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> 13. 42. +But cf. Seneca’s reply, Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> 14. +53, and 15. 62.</note> his power, his literary brilliance, aroused +<pb n="9"/><anchor id="Pg9"/>a host of enemies, who blackened his character and excited the +fears or the jealousy of Nero. He had to bear the unenviable +distinction of a possible pretender to the principate.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> 15. 65.</note> He withdrew +into almost monastic seclusion, and even offered to resign +his wealth.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Frag.</hi> 108.</note> He strove to escape the evil eyes of calumny and +imperial distrust by the most abject renunciation. But he could +not descend from the precipice on which he hung; his elevation +was a crucifixion.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Tranq.</hi> x. 6.</note> Withdrawn to a remote corner of his +palace, which was crowded with the most costly products of the +East, and surrounded by gardens which moved the envy of +Nero,<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 18; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> 14. 52.</note> the fallen statesman sought calm in penning his counsels +to Lucilius, and bracing himself to meet the stealthy stroke +which might be dealt at any moment.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 70, § 14; 88, § 17; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 77; +<hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, iii. 15; <hi rend="italic">Ad Helv.</hi> 5, § 4.</note> In reading many +passages of Seneca, you feel that you are sitting in some +palace on the Esquiline, reading the <hi rend="italic">Phaedo</hi> or listening to the +consolations of a Stoic director, while the centurion from +the palace may at any moment appear with the last fateful +order. +</p> + +<p> +Seneca, like Tacitus, has a remarkable power of moral +diagnosis. He had acquired a profound, sad knowledge of +the pathology of the soul. It was a power which was almost +of necessity acquired in that time of terror and suspicion, +when men lived in daily peril from seeming friends. There +never was a period when men more needed the art of reading +the secrets of character. Nor was there ever a time when +there were greater facilities for the study. Life was sociable +almost to excess. The Roman noble, unless he made himself +deliberately a recluse, spent much of his time in those social +meeting-places of which we hear so often,<note place="foot">Mart. vii. 27, 11; Juv. xi. 4; Sen. +<hi rend="italic">Dial.</hi> 1, 5, 4; <hi rend="italic">De Benef.</hi> vii. 22, 2; +Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> i. 281.</note> where gossip and +criticism dealt mercilessly with character, where keen wits +were pitted against one another, sometimes in a deadly game, +and where it might be a matter of life or death to pierce the +armour of dissimulation.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 33; <hi rend="italic">De Tranq.</hi> xii. 7.</note> Seneca had long shone in such circles. +In his later years, if he became a recluse, he was also a spiritual +director. And his Letters leave little doubt that many a restless +or weary spirit laid bare its secret misery to him, for advice or +<pb n="10"/><anchor id="Pg10"/>consolation. Knowing well the wildest excesses of fantastic +luxury, all the secrets of the philosophic confessional, the +miseries of a position oscillating between almost princely state +and monastic renunciation, the minister of Nero, with a self-imposed +cure of souls, had unrivalled opportunities of ascertaining +the moral condition of his class. +</p> + +<p> +Seneca is too often a rhetorician, in search of striking +effects and vivid phrase. And, like all rhetoricians, he is often +inconsistent. At times he appears to regard his own age as +having reached the very climax of insane self-indulgence. And +yet, in a calmer mood, he declares his belief that the contemporaries +of Nero were not worse than the contemporaries of +Clodius or Lucullus, that one age differs from another rather +in the greater prominence of different vices.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 97, § 2; Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Benef.</hi> +i. 10, § 1. Cf. <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 8; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 95, +§ 20; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 115, § 10.</note> His pessimism +extends to all ages which have been allured by the charm of +ingenious luxury from the simplicity of nature. In the fatal +progress of society, the artificial multiplication of human wants +has corrupted the idyllic innocence of the far-off Eden, where +the cope of heaven or the cave was the only shelter, and the +skin-clad savage made his meal on berries and slaked his thirst +from the stream.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 90, § 42.</note> It is the revolutionary dream of Rousseau, +revolting from the oppression and artificial luxury of the <hi rend="italic">Ancien +Régime</hi>. Seneca’s state of nature is the antithesis of the +selfish and materialised society in which he lived. Our early +ancestors were not indeed virtuous in the strict sense.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 90, § 40.</note> For +virtue is the result of struggle and philosophic guidance. But +their instincts were good, because they were not tempted. +They enjoyed in common the natural bounties of mother earth.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 90, § 38.</note> +Their fierceness of energy spent itself on the beasts of the +chase. They lived peaceably in willing obedience to the +gentle paternal rule of their wisest and best, with no lust of +gold or power, no jealousy and hatred, to break a contented +and unenvious harmony. The great disturbers of this primeval +peace were avarice and luxury.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 90, § 5, § 36, avaritia atque +luxuria dissociavere mortales.</note> The moment when the first +nugget flashed its baleful temptations on the eyes of the +roaming hunter was the beginning of all human guilt and +misery.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 90, § 12.</note> Selfish greed, developing into insatiable appetite, is +<pb n="11"/><anchor id="Pg11"/>the original sin which turned the garden into wilderness. +In individualist cravings men lost hold on the common wealth +of nature. Luxury entered on its downward course, in the +search for fresh food and stimulus for appetite, till merely superfluous +pleasures led on to those from which untainted nature +recoils.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 90, § 19.</note> Man’s boasted conquests over nature, the triumphs +of his perverted ingenuity, have bred an illimitable lust, +ending in wearied appetite; they have turned those who were +brothers into cunning or savage beasts. +</p> + +<p> +Such a theory of society has, of course, no value or interest +in itself. Its interest, like that of similar <hi rend="italic">à priori</hi> dreams, +lies in the light which it sheds on the social conditions which +gave it birth. Like the Germany of Tacitus, and the Social +Contract of Rousseau, Seneca’s theory of the evolution of +humanity is an oblique satire on the vices of his own age. +And not even in Tacitus or Suetonius are to be found more +ghastly revelations of a putrescent society, and the ennui and +self-loathing which capricious sensualism generates in spirits +born for something higher. It may be worth noting that the +vices which Seneca treats as most prevalent and deadly are +not so much those of sexual impurity, although they were rife +enough in his day, as those of greed, gross luxury, treacherous +and envious cruelty, the weariness of jaded nerves and exhausted +capacities of indulgence.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Brev. Vit.</hi> xvi. tarde ire horas + queruntur; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 77; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 104, § 15.</note> It is not the coarse vices of the +Suburra, but the more deadly and lingering maladies of the +Quirinal and the Esquiline which he is describing. There is a +universal lust of gold:<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 115, § 10; <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, iii. 33; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> + 60; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 74.</note> riches are the one ornament and stay +of life. And yet in those days a great fortune was only a +splendid servitude.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ad Polyb.</hi> vi. 5, magna servitus est + magna fortuna.</note> It had to be guarded amid perpetual +peril and envy. The universal greed and venality are worthily +matched by the endless anxiety of those who have won the +prize. Human life has become a scene of cruel and selfish +egotism, a ferocious struggle of beasts of prey, eager for rapine, +and heedless of those who go down in the obscene struggle.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 8.</note> +It is an age when men glorify the fortunate and trample on +the fallen. The cunning and cruelty of the wild beast on the +throne have taught a lesson of dissimulation to the subject. + <pb n="12"/><anchor id="Pg12"/>At such a court it is a miracle to reach old age, and the feat +can only be accomplished by accepting insult and injury with +a smiling face.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 33.</note> For him who goes undefended by such +armour of hypocrisy there is always ready the rack, the +poisoned cup, the order for self-murder. It is characteristic +of the detachment of Seneca that he sees the origin of this +hateful tyranny. No modern has more clearly discerned the +far-reaching curse of slavery.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 35, deinde idem de republica +libertatem sublatam quereris +quam domi sustulisti.</note> Every great house is a +miniature of the Empire under a Caligula or Nero, a nursery +of pretenders capable of the same enormities. The unchecked +power of the master, which could, for the slightest faults, an ill-swept +pavement, an unpolished dish, or a sullen look, inflict the +most brutal torture,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 24, 32; Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 49, +53; Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 47, § 10; Juv. vi. 490; +Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Clem.</hi> i. 18.</note> produced those cold hearts which gloated +over the agony of gallant men in the arena, and applauded +in the Senate the tyrant’s latest deed of blood. And the +system of household slavery enervated character while it made +it heartless and cruel. The Inscriptions confirm Seneca’s +picture of the minute division of functions among the household, +to anticipate every possible need or caprice of the master.<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> ii. 353; Marq. +<hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. 142; Wallon, <hi rend="italic">L’Escl. dans +l’Ant.</hi> ii. 146.</note> +Under such a system the master became a helpless dependent. +There is real truth, under some ludicrous exaggeration, in the +tale of a Roman noble, taking his seat in his sedan after the +bath, and requiring the assurance of his slave that he was +really seated.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Brev.</hi> <hi rend="italic">V.</hi> xiii.</note> +</p> + +<p> +It is little wonder that on such lives an utter weariness +should settle, the disgust of oversated appetite, which even the +most far-fetched luxuries of the orient, the most devilish +ingenuity of morbid vice, could hardly arouse. Yet these +jaded souls are tortured by an aimless restlessness, which frets +and chafes at the slow passing of the hours,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xvi. transilire dies volunt.</note> or vainly hopes +to find relief in change of scene.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 104, § 15; 89, § 20; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 28.</note> The more energetic spirits, +with no wholesome field for energy, developed into a class +which obtained the name of <q>Ardeliones.</q> Seneca,<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">De Tranq.</hi> xii. § 7.</note> Martial,<note place="foot">Mart. ii. 7, 8 (<hi rend="italic">v.</hi> note on the word +in Friedländer’s ed.); iv. 78.</note> +and the younger Pliny<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 9; cf. Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> +i. 271.</note> have left us pictures of these idle +<pb n="13"/><anchor id="Pg13"/>busybodies, hurrying round the forums, theatres, and great +houses, in an idle quest of some trivial object of interest, +waiting on patrons who ignore their existence, following some +stranger to the grave, rushing pell-mell to the wedding of a +much-married lady, or to a scene in the law courts, returning at +nightfall, worn out with these silly labours, to tread the same +weary round next day. Less innocent were they who daily +gathered in the <hi rend="italic">circuli</hi>,<note place="foot">Juv. xi. 4; Mart. vii. 97; Quintil. +vi. 3, 105; Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Tranq.</hi> xii. § 7; +<hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> vii. 22, 2; <hi rend="italic">De Prov.</hi> i. 5, 4; +Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> p. 201 sqq.</note> to hear and spread the wildest rumours +about the army on the frontier, to kill a woman’s reputation +with a hint, to find a sinister meaning in some imperial order, +or to gloat in whispers over the last highly-coloured tale of +folly or dark guilt from the palace. It was a perilous enjoyment, +for, with a smiling face, some seeming friend was probably +noting every hint which might be tortured into an +accusation before the secret tribunal on the Palatine, or +angling for a sneer which might cost its author a fortune, or +send him to the rocks of Gyarus. +</p> + +<p> +In reading Seneca’s writings, especially those of his last +years, you are conscious of a horror which hardly ever takes +definite shape, a thick stifling air, as it were, charged with +lightning. Again and again, you feel a dim terror closing in +silently and stealthily, with sudden glimpses of unutterable +torture, of cord and rack and flaming tunic.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> xx.; <hi rend="italic">De Tranq.</hi> x.; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +94 <hi rend="italic">ad fin.</hi>; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 70.</note> You seem to see +the sage tossing on his couch of purple under richly <anchor id="corr13"/><corr sic="pannelled">panelled</corr> +ceilings of gold, starting at every sound in the wainscot,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 90, § 43, at vos ad omnem +tectorum pavetis sonum et inter +picturas vestras, si quid increpuit, +fugitis attoniti.</note> as he +awaits the messenger of death. It is not so much that +Seneca fears death itself, although we may suspect that his +nerves sometimes gave the lie to his principles. He often +hails death as welcome at any age, as the deliverer who strikes +off the chain and opens the prison door, the one harbour on a +tempestuous and treacherous sea.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 70, § 14; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 88, § 17, malis +paratus sum; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 24, § 11; <hi rend="italic">Ad Polyb.</hi> +ix. nullus portus nisi mortis; <hi rend="italic">Ad +Marc.</hi> xx. mors quae efficit ut nasci non +supplicium sit.</note> He is grateful for having +always open this escape from life’s long torture, and boldly +claims the right to anticipate the executioner. The gloom of +Seneca seems rather to spring from a sense of the terrible con<pb n="14"/><anchor id="Pg14"/>trast between wealth and state and an ignominious doom which +was ever ready to fall. And to his fevered eye all stately rank +seems at last but a precipice overhanging the abyss, a mark for +treacherous envy or the spitefulness of Fortune.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> x.</note> <q>A great +fortune is a great servitude,</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ad Polyb.</hi> vi.</note> which, if it has been hard to +win, is harder still to guard. And all life is full of these +pathetic contrasts. Pleasure is nearest neighbour to pain; the +summer sea in a moment is boiling in the tempest; the labour +of long years is scattered in a day; there is always terror lurking +under our deepest peace. And so we reach the sad gospel of +a universal pessimism; <q>nothing is so deceitful and treacherous +as the life of man.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> xxii. § 3.</note> No one would knowingly accept such a +fatal gift, of which the best that can be said is that the torture +is short, that our first moment of existence is the first stage to +the grave.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ad Polyb.</hi> ix.; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 77; <hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> xxi. § 7.</note> Thus to Seneca, with all his theoretical indifference +to things external to the virtuous will, with all his admiration +for the invulnerable wisdom, withdrawn in the inner citadel of +the soul, and defying the worst that tyrants or fortune could +inflict, the <hi rend="italic">taedium vitae</hi> became almost unendurable. The +interest of all this lies, not in Seneca’s inconsistency, but in the +nightmare which brooded on such minds in the reign of Nero. +</p> + +<p> +Something of the gloom of Seneca was part of the evil +heritage of a class, commanding inexhaustible wealth and +assailed by boundless temptations to self-indulgence, which +had been offered by the conquest of East and West. The +weary senses failed to respond to the infinite sensual seductions +which surrounded the Roman noble from his earliest years. +If he did not succeed in squandering his fortune, he often +exhausted too early his capacity for healthy joy in life, and +the nemesis of sated appetite and disillusionment too surely +cast its shadow over his later years. Prurient slander was +rife in those days, and we are not bound to accept all its +tales about Seneca. Yet there are passages in his writings +which leave the impression that, although he may have +cultivated a Pythagorean <anchor id="corr14"/><corr sic="aceticism">asceticism</corr> in his youth,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 108, § 17. He adopted the +Pythagorean discipline under the influence +of Sotion, a pupil of Sextius, +but gave it up on the proscription of +suspected rites in the reign of Tiberius, +cf. Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> 36; cf. Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Die Phil. +der Gr.</hi> iii. 1, 605.</note> he did not +<pb n="15"/><anchor id="Pg15"/>altogether escape the taint of his time.<note place="foot">D. Cass. 62. 2; 61. 10. Zeller, iii. +1, 641, n. 1.</note> His enormous +fortune did not all come by happy chance or the bounty of +the emperor.<note place="foot">D. Cass. <hi rend="italic">l.c.</hi></note> His gardens and palace, with all its priceless +furniture, must have been acquired because at one time he +felt pleasure in such luxuries. A soul so passionate in its +renunciation may, according to laws of human nature, have +been once as passionate in indulgence. In his case, as so +often in the history of the Church, the saint may have had a +terrible repentance. +</p> + +<p> +It is probable, however, that this pessimism is more the +result of the contrast between Seneca’s ideal of the principate, +and the degradation of its power in the hands of his pupil +Nero. Seneca may have been regarded once as a possible +candidate for the throne, but he was no conspirator or revolutionary.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Tac. Ann.</hi> xv. 55.</note> +He would have condemned the visionaries +whose rudeness provoked even the tolerant Vespasian.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> 15.</note> In a +letter, which must have been written during the Neronian +terror, he emphatically repudiates the idea that the votaries of +philosophy are refractory subjects. Their great need is quiet +and security. They should surely reverence him who, by his +sleepless watch, guards what they most value, just as, on a +merchantman, the owner of the most precious part of the +cargo will be most grateful for the protection of the god +of the sea.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 73, § 3.</note> Seneca would have his philosophic brethren +give no offence by loud self-assertion or a parade of superior +wisdom.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 103, § 4.</note> In that deceitful dawn of his pupil’s reign, Seneca +had written a treatise in which he had striven to charm him +by the ideal of a paternal monarchy, in the consciousness of +its god-like power ever delighting in mercy and pity, tender to +the afflicted, gentle even to the criminal. It is very much the +ideal of Pliny and Dion Chrysostom under the strong and +temperate rule of Trajan.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Clem.</hi> i. 19; Plin. <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> i. 72; +D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> ii. § 77; iii. § 39; 70 +sqq.</note> Addressed to one of the worst +emperors, it seems, to one looking back, almost a satire. Yet +we should remember that, strange as it may seem, Nero, +with all his wild depravity, appears to have had a strange +charm for many, even to the end. The men who trembled +<pb n="16"/><anchor id="Pg16"/>under the sombre and hypocritical Domitian, regretted the +wild gaiety and bonhomie of Nero, and each spring, for +years after his death, flowers were laid by unknown hands +upon his grave.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> <anchor id="corr16"/><corr sic="23,">23;</corr> <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, 57; cf. Tac. +<hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 7, ipsa aetas Galbae irrisui ac +fastidio erat adsuetis juventae Neronis +et imperatores forma ac decore corporis +... comparantibus.</note> The charm of boyhood, with glimpses of +some generous instincts, may for a time have deceived even +the experienced man of the world and the brooding analyst of +character. But it is more probable that the piece is rather a +warning than a prophecy. Seneca had watched all the caprices +of an imperial tyrant, drunk with a sense of omnipotence, +having in his veins the maddening taint of ancestral vice,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> 50; cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">Nec. Inj.</hi> +18; <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, i. 20; ii. 33; iii. 18; <hi rend="italic">De +Ben.</hi> ii. 12, 21.</note> +with nerves unstrung by maniacal excesses, brooding in the vast +solitudes of the Palatine till he became frenzied with terror, +striking down possible rivals, at first from fear or greed,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> 38.</note> in the +end from the wild beast’s lust for blood, and the voluptuary’s +delight in suffering. The prophecy of the father as to the +future of Agrippina’s son<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, 6.</note> found probably an echo in the fears +of his tutor. But, in spite of his forebodings, Seneca thought +the attempt to save him worth making. He first appeals to +his imagination. Nero has succeeded to a vicegerency of God +on earth.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Clem.</hi> i. 1, § 2, electusque sum +qui in terris deorum vice fungerer.</note> He is the arbiter of life and death, on whose word +the fortunes of citizens, the happiness or misery of whole +peoples depend. His innocence raises the highest hopes.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. § 5.</note> +But the imperial task is heavy, and its perils are appalling. +The emperor is the one bond by which the world-empire is +held together;<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 4, 1, ille vinculum per quod +respublica cohaeret, ille spiritus vitalis.</note> he is its vital breath. Man, the hardest of all +animals to govern,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 17, 1.</note> can only be governed long by love, and love +can only be won by beneficence and gentleness to the frowardness +of men. In his god-like place, the prince should imitate +the mercy of the gods.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 7, 2.</note> Wielding illimitable power, he is yet +the servant of all, and cannot usurp the licence of the private +subject. He is like one of the heavenly orbs, bound by inevitable +law to move onward in a fixed orbit, unswerving and +unresting. If he relies on cruel force, rather than on +clemency, he will sink to the level of the tyrant and meet +<pb n="17"/><anchor id="Pg17"/>his proper fate.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Clem.</hi> i. 12.</note> Cruelty in a king only multiplies his +enemies and envenoms hatred. In that fatal path there is no +turning back. The king, once dreaded by his people, loses +his nerve and strikes out blindly in self-defence.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 13, 2, scelera enim sceleribus +tuenda sunt.</note> The +atmosphere of treachery and suspicion thickens around him, +and, in the end, what, to his maddened mind, seemed at first a +stern necessity becomes a mere lust for blood. +</p> + +<p> +It has been suggested that Seneca was really, to some extent, +the cause of the grotesque or tragic failure of Nero.<note place="foot">Renan, <hi rend="italic">L’Antéchr.</hi> p. 125.</note> The +rhetorical spirit, which breathes through all Seneca’s writings, +may certainly be an evil influence in the education of a ruler +of men. The habit of playing with words, of aiming at +momentary effect, with slight regard to truth, may inspire the +excitable vanity of the artist, but is hardly the temper for +dealing with the hard problems of government. And the +dazzling picture of the boundless power of a Roman emperor, +which Seneca put before his pupil, in order to heighten his +sense of responsibility, might intoxicate a mind naturally prone +to grandiose visions, while the sober lesson would be easily +forgotten. The spectacle of <q>the kingdoms of the world and +all the glory of them</q> at his feet was a dangerous temptation +to a temperament like Nero’s.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Clem.</hi> i. 1, § 2, egone ex omnibus +mortalibus placui electusque sum +qui in terris deorum vice fungerer?</note> Arrogance and cruelty were +in the blood of the Domitii. Nero’s grandfather, when only +aedile, had compelled the censor to give place to him; he +had produced Roman matrons in pantomime, and given gladiatorial +shows with such profusion of cruelty, as to shock that +not very tender-hearted age.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, c. 4.</note> The father of the emperor, in +addition to crimes of fraud, perjury, and incest, had, in the +open forum, torn out the eye of a Roman knight, and deliberately +trampled a child under his horse’s feet on the Appian +Way.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 5.</note> Yet such is the strange complexity of human nature, +that Nero seems by nature not to have been destitute of some +generous and amiable qualities. We need not lay too much +stress on the innocence ascribed to him by Seneca.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Clem.</hi> i. 1, § 5.</note> Nor need +we attribute to Nero’s initiative the sound or benevolent measures +which characterised the beginning of his reign. But he showed +<pb n="18"/><anchor id="Pg18"/>at one time some industry and care in performing his judicial +work.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, c. 15; cf. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> c. viii.</note> He saw the necessity, in the interests of public health +and safety, of remodelling the narrow streets and mean insanitary +dwellings of Rome.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, c. 16.</note> His conception of the Isthmian +canal, if the engineering problem could have been conquered, +would have been an immense boon to traders with the Aegean. +Even his quinquennial festival, inspired by the Greek contests +in music and gymnastic,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 12, instituit et quinquennale +certamen primus omnium Romae more +Graeco triplex, etc.</note> represented a finer ideal of such gatherings, +which was much needed by a race devoted to the coarse +realism of pantomime and the butchery of the arena. Fierce and +incalculably capricious as he could be, Nero, at his best, had +also a softer side. He had a craving for love and appreciation<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 20; 53; Renan, <hi rend="italic">L’Antéchr.</hi> +p. 132.</note>; +some of his cruelty was probably the revenge for the denial +of it. He was singularly patient of lampoons and invective +against himself.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, c. 39.</note> Although he could be brutal in his treatment +of women, he also knew how to inspire real affection, and perhaps +in a few cases return it. He seems to have had something of +real love for Acte, his mistress. His old nurses consoled him +in his last hour of agony, and, along with the faithful Acte, +laid the last of his race in the vault of the Domitii.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 50.</note> Nero +must have had something of that charm which leads women in +every age to forget faults, and even crimes in the men whom +they have once loved. And the strange, lingering superstition, +which disturbed the early Church, and which looked for his +reappearance down to the eleventh century, could hardly have +gathered around an utterly mean and mediocre character.<note place="foot">Renan, <hi rend="italic">L’Antéchr.</hi> p. 316.</note> +</p> + +<p> +When Nero uttered the words <q>Qualis artifex pereo,</q><note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, c. 49; Renan, <hi rend="italic">L’Antéchr.</hi> +130. sqq.</note> he +gave not only his own interpretation of his life, he also revealed +one great secret of its ghastly failure. It may be admitted +that Nero had a certain artistic enthusiasm, a real ambition to +excel.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, c. 24, 49, 52, 55; Tac. +<hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 16; cf. Macé, <hi rend="italic">Suétone</hi>, p. +179; Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> p. 265.</note> He painted with some skill, he composed verses not +without a certain grace. In spite of serious natural defects, +he took endless pains to acquire the technique of a singer. +Far into the night he would sit in rapt enthusiasm listening to +<pb n="19"/><anchor id="Pg19"/>the effects of Terpnus, and trying to copy them.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, c. 53, c. 20, cf. c. 24.</note> His artistic +tour in Greece, which lowered him so much in the eyes of the +West, was really inspired by the passion to find a sympathetic +audience which he could not find at Rome. And, in spite of +his arrogance and vanity, he had a wholesome deference for the +artistic judgment of Greece. Yet it is very striking that in the +records of his reign, the most damning accusation is that he +disgraced the purple by exhibitions on the stage. His songs +to the lyre, his impersonation of the parturient Canace or the +mad Hercules, did as much to cause his overthrow as his +murders of Britannicus and Agrippina.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iv. 36, 39; +Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 15, 16; xv. 67, odisse +coepi postquam parricida matris et +uxoris, auriga et histrio et incendiarius +extitisti; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, c. 21; D. Cass. +63. 9, 10.</note> The stout Roman +soldier and the Pythagorean apostle have the same scorn +for the imperial charioteer and actor. A false literary +ambition, born of a false system of education, was the bane +of Roman culture for many ages. The dilettante artist on +the throne in the first century had many a successor in the +literary arts among the grand seigneurs of the fifth. They +could play with their ingenious tricks of verse in sight of +the Gothic camp-fires. He could contend for the wreath at +Olympia when his faithful freedman was summoning him +back by the news that the West was seething with revolt.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, c. 23.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Nero’s mother had dissuaded him from the study of philosophy; +his tutor debarred him from the study of the manly +oratory of the great days.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 32.</note> The world was now to learn the +meaning of a false artistic ambition, divorced from a sense +of reality and duty. Aestheticism may be only a love of +sensational effects, with no glimpse of the ideal. It may be +a hypocritical materialism, screening itself under divine names. +In this taste Nero was the true representative of his age. It +was deeply tainted with that mere passion for the grandiose +and startling, and for feverish intellectual effects, which a true +culture spurns as a desecration of art.<note place="foot">Merivale, viii. p. 70 sq.; Schiller, +<hi rend="italic">Gesch. der Röm. Kaiserzeit</hi>, i. p. 467.</note> Mere magnitude and +portentousness, the realistic expression of physical agony, the +coarse flush of a half-sensual pleasure, captivated a vulgar +taste, to which crapulous excitement and a fever of the +senses took the place of the purer ardours and visions of the +<pb n="20"/><anchor id="Pg20"/>spirit.<note place="foot">Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 8, where the decay +of artistic sense is traced to the grossness +of evil living; at nos vino scortisque +demersi ne paratas quidem artes +audemus cognoscere.</note> Nero paid the penalty of outraging the conventional +prejudices of the Roman. And yet he was in some respects +in thorough sympathy with the masses. His lavish games +and spectacles atoned to some extent for his aberrations of +Hellenism. He was generous and wasteful, and he encouraged +waste in others,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, c. 11, 12.</note> and waste is always popular till the bill has +to be paid. He was a <q>cupitor incredibilium.</q><note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> 15. 42.</note> The province +of Africa was ransacked to find the fabled treasure of Dido.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 16. 1; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, 31.</note> +Explorers were sent to pierce the mysterious barrier of the +Caucasus, and discover the secret sources of the Nile. He had +great engineering schemes which might seem baffling even to +modern skill, and which almost rivalled the wildest dreams of +the lunatic brain of Caligula.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 16, 31.</note> His Golden House, in a park +stretching from the Palatine to the heights of the Esquiline, +was on a scale of more than oriental magnificence. At last +the master of the world was properly lodged. With colonnades +three miles long, with its lakes and pastures and sylvan glades, +it needed only a second Nero in Otho to dream of adding to +its splendour.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 31; cf. <hi rend="italic">Otho</hi>, 7.</note> To such a prince the astrologers might well +predict another monarchy enthroned on Mount Zion, with +the dominion of the East.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, c. 40.</note> The materialist dreamer was, like +Napoleon I., without a rudimentary moral sense. Stained +with the foulest enormities himself, he had a rooted conviction +that virtue was a pretence, and that all men were equally +depraved.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 29 <hi rend="italic">ad fin.</hi></note> His surroundings gave him some excuse for +thinking so. He was born into a circle which believed chiefly +in <q>the lust of the eye and the pride of life.</q> He formed a +circle many of whom perished in the carnage of Bedriacum. +With a treasury drained by insane profusion, Nero resorted to +rapine and judicial murder to replenish it.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 32; D. Cass. 63. 17.</note> The spendthrift +seldom has scruples in repairing his extravagance. The +temples were naturally plundered by the man who, having no +religion, was at least honest enough to deride all religions.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, c. 56.</note> +The artistic treasures of Greece were carried off by the votary +of Greek art; the gold and silver images of her shrines were +<pb n="21"/><anchor id="Pg21"/>sent to the melting-pot.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, c. 32; D. Cass. 63. 11.</note> Ungrateful testators paid their due +penalty after death; and delation, watching every word or +gesture, skilfully supplied the needed tale of victims for plunder. +It is all a hackneyed story. Yet it is perhaps necessary to +revive it once more to explain the suppressed terror and +lingering agony of the last days of Seneca. +</p> + +<p> +The impressions of the Terror which we receive from +Seneca are powerful and almost oppressive. A thick atmosphere +of gloom and foreboding seems to stifle us as we turn +his pages. But Seneca deals rather in shadowy hint and +veiled suggestion than in definite statement. For the minute +picture of that awful scene of degradation we must turn to +Tacitus. He wrote in the fresh dawn of an age of fancied +freedom, when the gloom of the tyranny seemed to have +suddenly vanished like an evil dream. Yet he cannot shake +off the sense of horror and disgust which fifteen years of +ignoble compliance or silent suffering have burnt into his soul. +Even under the manly, tolerant rule of Trajan, he hardly seems +to have regained his breath.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Agric.</hi> c. 3, sic ingenia +studiaque oppresseris facilius quam +revocaveris.</note> He can scarcely believe that +the light has come at last. His attitude to the tyranny is +essentially different from that of Seneca. The son of the +provincial from Cordova views the scene rather as the cosmopolitan +moralist, imperilled by his huge fortune and the +neighbourhood of the terrible palace. Tacitus looks at it as +the Roman Senator, steeped in all old Roman tradition, caring +little for philosophy, but caring intensely for old Roman dignity +and the prestige of that great order, which he had seen humbled +and decimated.<note place="foot">Peter, <hi rend="italic">Gesch. Litt.</hi> ii. 53 sqq.</note> The feeling of Seneca is that of a Stoic monk, +isolated in a corner of his vast palace, now trembling before +the imperial jealousy, which his wealth and celebrity may +draw down upon him, and again seeking consolation in +thoughts of God and eternity which might often seem to +belong to Thomas à Kempis. The tone of Tacitus is sometimes +that of a man who should have lived in the age of the +Samnite or the Carthaginian wars, before luxury and factious +ambition had sapped the moral strength of the great aristocratic +caste, while his feelings are divided between grim anger at +<pb n="22"/><anchor id="Pg22"/>a cruel destiny, and scornful regret for the weakness and the +self-abandonment of a class which had been once so great. +The feelings of Seneca express themselves rather in rhetorical +self-pity. The feelings of Tacitus find vent in words which +sometimes veil a pathos too proud for effusive utterance, sometimes +cut like lancet points, and which, in their concentrated +moral scorn, have left an eternal brand of infamy on names +of historic renown. +</p> + +<p> +More than forty years had passed between the date of +Seneca’s last letters to Lucilius and the entry of Tacitus on his +career as a historian.<note place="foot">Seneca died in 65 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> The +<hi rend="italic">Histories</hi> of Tacitus were published +<hi rend="italic">circ.</hi> 106-107; cf. Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vii. 20; +Peter, <hi rend="italic">Gesch. Litt.</hi> ii. 42.</note> He was a child when Seneca died.<note place="foot">Tacitus was born about 55 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> +(Peter, ii. 43; Macé, <hi rend="italic">Suétone</hi>, p. 35, 81; +Momms. <hi rend="italic">Plin.</hi> p. 51). He was, perhaps, +fifteen years older than Suetonius, and +seven years older than Pliny.</note> +His life is known to us only from a few stray glimpses in the +Letters of Pliny,<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 6, 20; iv. 13; vi. 9, +16, 20; vii. 20, 33; viii. 7; ix. 10, +14.</note> eked out by the inferences of modern +erudition. As a young boy, he must have often heard the +tales of the artistic follies and the orgies of Nero, and the +ghastly cruelties of the end of his reign. As a lad of fifteen, he +may have witnessed something of the carnival of blood and +lust which appropriately closed the régime of the Julio-Claudian +line. He entered on his <hi rend="italic">cursus honorum</hi> in the reign +of Vespasian, and attained the praetorship under Domitian.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 1; <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xi. 11. This +latter important passage fixes the date +of his praetorship, 88 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>; cf. Teuffel, +ii. p. 165 n. 6; Peter, ii. 43.</note> +A military command probably withdrew him from Rome for +three years during the tyranny of the last Flavian.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Agric.</hi> c. 45.</note> He was +consul suffectus in 97, and then held the proconsulship of Asia. +It cannot be doubted from his own words that, as a senator, +he had to witness tamely the Curia beset with soldiery, the +noblest women driven into exile, and men of the highest rank +and virtue condemned to death on venal testimony in the secret +tribunal of the Alban Palace. His hand helped to drag +Helvidius to the dungeon, and was stained with the blood of +Senecio. He lived long enough under a better prince to +leave an unfading picture of the tragedy of solitary and +remorseless power, but not long enough to forget the horrors +and degradation through which he had passed. +</p> + +<p> +The claim of Tacitus to have been uninfluenced by passion +<pb n="23"/><anchor id="Pg23"/>or partiality<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 1, sed incorruptam fidem professis, +neque amore quisquam et sine odio +dicendus est; Nipperdey, <hi rend="italic">Einl.</hi> xxvi.</note> has been disputed by a modern school of critics.<note place="foot">Merivale, viii. 84, Schiller, <hi rend="italic">Gesch. +der Röm. Kaiserzeit</hi>, i. 140, 586. According +to Schiller, Tacitus has no research, +no exactness of military or +geographical knowledge, no true conception +of the time. He is an embittered +aristocrat and rhetorician. For a sounder +estimate <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Peter, ii. 43, 60, 63; Nipperdey, +<hi rend="italic">Einl.</hi> xxv. For the influence +on the work of Suetonius of the Senatorial +tradition, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Macé, <hi rend="italic">Suétone</hi>, p. 84; +Peter, <hi rend="italic">Gesch. Litt.</hi> ii. 69.</note> +Sometimes, from a love of Caesarism and strong government, +sometimes from the scholarly weakness for finding a new +interpretation of history, the great historic painter of the +Julio-Claudian despotism has been represented as an acrid +rhetorician of the Senatorial reaction, a dreamer who looks +back wistfully to the old Republic, belonging to one of those +haughty circles of the old régime which were always in chronic +revolt, which lived in an atmosphere of suspicion and poisonous +gossip, and nourished its dreams and hatreds till fiction +and fact melted into one another in gloomy retrospect.<note place="foot">Peter, <hi rend="italic">Gesch. Litt.</hi> ii. 66.</note> He +is the great literary avenger of the Senate after its long +sanguinary conflict with the principate, using the freedom of +the new order to blacken the character of princes who had +been forced, in the interests of the world-wide empire, to fight +and to crush a selfish and narrow-minded caste.<note place="foot">Merivale, viii. 95 sqq.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The weakness of all such estimates of Tacitus lies in their +failure to recognise the complex nature of the man, the +mingled and crossing influences of training, official experience, +social environment, and lofty moral ideals<note place="foot">Peter, ii. 46 sqq.</note>; it lies even more +in a misconception of his aims as a historian. Tacitus was a +great orator, and the spirit of the rhetorical school, combined +with the force and dexterity of style which it could communicate, +left the greatest Roman historians with a less +rigorous sense of truth than their weakest modern successors +often possess.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ii. 188, 200.</note> No Roman ever rose to the Thucydidean +conception of history. Moreover Tacitus, although originally +not of the highest social rank,<note place="foot">His father was probably a Roman +Eques, procurator in Belgium; Plin. +<hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> vii. 16, 76.</note> belonged to the aristocratic +class by sympathy and associations. Like Suetonius, he +necessarily drew much of his information from the memories +of great houses and the tales of the elders who had lived +through the evil days.<note place="foot">Macé, <hi rend="italic">Suétone</hi>, p. 83, Peter, ii. 69 +sqq.</note> He acquired thus many of the +<pb n="24"/><anchor id="Pg24"/>prejudices of a class which, from its history, and still more +from its education, sought its ideals in the past rather than +in the future. He mingled in those circles, which in every +age disguise the meanness and bitterness of gossip by the +airy artistic touch of audacious wit, polished in many social +encounters. He had himself witnessed the triumph of delation +and the cold cruelty of Domitian. He had shared in +the humiliation of the Senate which had been cowed into +acquiescence in his worst excesses. And the spectacle had +inspired him with a horror of unchecked power in the hands +of a bad man, and a gloomy distrust of that human nature +which could sink to such ignoble servility.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> i. 7; xv. 71; <hi rend="italic">Agr.</hi> 45; +Peter, ii. 62.</note> Yet on the +other hand Tacitus had gained practical experience in high +office, both as soldier and administrator, which has always a +sobering effect on the judgment. He realised the difficulties +of government and the unreasonableness of ordinary men. +Hence he has no sympathy with a doctrinaire and chimerical +opposition even under the worst government.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 12, 57; <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iv. 6; +<hi rend="italic">Agr.</hi> 42; Peter, ii. 47.</note> However much +he might respect the high character of the philosophic +enthusiasts of the day, he distrusted their theatrical defiance +of power, and he threw his shield over a discreet reserve, +which could forget that it was serving a tyrant in serving +the commonwealth.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Agr.</hi> 42.</note> Tacitus may at times express himself +with a stern melancholy bitterness, which might at first +seem to mark him as a revolutionary dreamer, avenging an +outraged political ideal. Such an interpretation would be a +grave mistake, which he would himself have been the first to +correct. The ideal which he is avenging is not a political, +but a moral ideal.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iii. 65, praecipuum munus +annalium reor, ne virtutes sileantur, +utque pravis dictis factisque ex posteritate +et infamia metus sit; cf. Peter, +ii. 46; Nipperdey, <hi rend="italic">Einl.</hi> xxvi.</note> The bitter sadness is that of the profound +analyst of character, with a temperament of almost feverish +intensity and nervous force. The interest of history to +Thucydides and Polybius lies in the political lessons which +it may teach posterity. Its interest to Tacitus lies in the +discovery of hidden motives and the secret of character, in +watching the stages of an inevitable degeneracy, the moral +preparation for a dark, inglorious end. And the analyst +<pb n="25"/><anchor id="Pg25"/>was a curiously vivid painter of character, the character of +individuals, of periods, and of peoples. His portraits burn +themselves into the imaginative memory, so that the impression, +once seized, can never be lost. Tiberius and Claudius +and Nero, Messalina and Agrippina, in spite of the most +mordant criticism, will live for ever as they have been +portrayed by the fervid imagination of Tacitus. Nor is he +less searching and vivid in depicting the collective feeling +and character of masses of men. We watch the alternating +fury and repentance of the mutinous legions of Germanicus,<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> i. 39, 41.</note> +or the mingled fierceness and sorrow with which they +wandered among the bleaching bones on the lost battlefield +of Varus,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 61, 62.</note> or the passion of grief and admiration with which +the praetorian cohorts kissed the self-inflicted wounds of +Otho.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. 49.</note> Or, again, we follow the changing moods of the +Roman populace, passing from anger and grief to short-lived +joy, and then to deep silent sorrow, at the varying rumours +from the East about the health of Germanicus.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> ii. 82.</note> In Tacitus +events are nearly always seen in their moral setting. The +misery and shame of the burning of the Capitol by the +Vitellians are heightened by the thought that the catastrophe +is caused by the madness of civil strife.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iii. 72.</note> In the awful +conflict which raged from street to street, the horror consists +in the mixture of cruelty and licence. The baths and +brothels and taverns are crowded at the very hour when the +neighbouring ways are piled with corpses and running with +blood; the rush of indulgence paused not for a moment; men +seemed to revel in the public disasters. There was bloodshed +enough in the days of Cinna and Sulla, but the world +was at least spared such a carnival of lust.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 83.</note> Even in +reporting or imagining the speech of Galgacus to his warriors +on the Grampians,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Agr.</hi> 32.</note> even in the pictures of the German +tribes,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Germ.</hi> 17, 19, 20, 23, 25.</note> the ethical interest is always foremost. The cruel +terror of the prince, the effeminacy and abandoned adulation +of the nobles, the grossness and fierceness of the masses, +contrasted with the loyalty, chastity, and hardihood of the +German clans, seem to have dimly foreshadowed to Tacitus +<pb n="26"/><anchor id="Pg26"/>a danger from which all true Romans averted their eyes till +the end.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Germ.</hi> 33, <hi rend="italic">ad fin.</hi></note> +</p> + +<p> +The key to the interpretation of Tacitus is to regard him +as a moralist rather than a politician. And he is a moralist +with a sad, clinging pessimism.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 3; ii. 38; iii. 72; Peter, +ii. 62. Yet this should be qualified by +such passages as <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iii. 55; <hi rend="italic">Agr.</hi> i.; +cf. Nipperdey, <hi rend="italic">Einl.</hi> xxvii.</note> He is doomed to be the +chronicler of an evil time, although he will save from oblivion +the traces and relics of ancient virtue.<note place="foot"> <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iii. 65.</note> He has Seneca’s +pessimist theory of evolution. The early equality and peace and +temperance have been lost through a steady growth of greed +and egotistic ambition.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 26.</note> It is in the past we must seek our +ideals; it is from the past we derive our strength. With +the same gloomy view of his contemporaries as M. Aurelius +had,<note place="foot">M. Aurel. ix. 29, 34; x. 19.</note> he holds vaguely a similar view of cycles in human +affairs.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iii. 55; M. Aurel. vii. +1; ix. 4; x. 23; ix. 28.</note> And probably the fairest hope which ever visited the +mind of Tacitus was that of a return to the simplicity of a long +gone age. He hailed the accession of Vespasian and of Trajan +as a happy change to purer manners and to freedom of speech.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Agr.</hi> 3.</note> +But the reign of Vespasian had been followed by the gloomy +suspicious despotism of Domitian. Who could be sure about +the successors of Trajan? Tacitus hardly shared the enthusiasm +and exuberant hopes expressed by his friend Pliny in his +<hi rend="italic">Panegyric</hi>. It was a natural outbreak of joy at escaping from +the dungeon, and the personal character of Trajan succeeded +in partially veiling the overwhelming force of the emperor +under the figment of the freely accepted rule of the first citizen. +Tacitus no doubt felt as great satisfaction as his friend at the +suppression of the informers, the restored freedom of speech, +the recovered dignity of the Senate, the prince’s respect for old +republican forms and etiquette.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> 35, 53, 54, 66; cf. +Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 1.</note> He felt probably even keener +pleasure that virtue and talent had no longer to hide themselves +from a jealous eye, and that the whole tone of society +was being raised by the temperate example of the emperor. +But he did not share Pliny’s illusions as to the prince’s altered +position under the new régime. The old Republic was gone +for ever.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 1, omnem potentiam ad +unum conferri pacis interfuit; cf. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> +i. 16; ii. 38.</note> It was still the rule of one man, on whose character +<pb n="27"/><anchor id="Pg27"/>everything depended. He would never have joined Plutarch +and Dion in exalting the emperor to the rank of vicegerent +of God. With his experience and psychologic skill, he +was bound to regard all solitary power as a terrible danger +both to its holder and his subjects.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 47; <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iv. 8, bonos +imperatores voto expetere, qualescumque +tolerare.</note> <q>Capax imperii, nisi +imperasset</q> condenses a whole disquisition on imperialism. +In truth, Tacitus, like many thoughtful students of politics, +had little faith in mere political forms and names.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xv. 46; vi. 42; iv. 33; iii. +27; <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. 38.</note> They are +often the merest imposture: they depend greatly on the spirit +and social tone which lie behind them. In the abstract, +perhaps, Tacitus would have given a preference to aristocracy. +But he saw how easily it might pass into a selfish despotism.<note place="foot">Peter, ii. 53; <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> vi. 42.</note> +He had no faith in the people or in popular government, with +its unstable excitability. He admitted that the conquests of +Rome, egotistic ambition, and the long anarchy of the Civil +Wars had made the rule of one inevitable. But monarchy +easily glides into tyranny, and he accepts the Empire only as a +perilous necessity which may be justified by the advent of a +good prince. The hereditary succession, which had been grafted +on the principate of Augustus, had inflicted on the world a +succession of fools or monsters. The only hope lay in elevating +the standard of virtue, and in the choice of a worthy successor +by the forms of adoption.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 16; Peter, ii. 61.</note> The one had in his own time given +the world a Domitian, and was destined within three generations +to give it a Commodus. The other secured to it the peace and +order of the age of which Tacitus saw the dawn.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Agr.</hi> i.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The motive of Tacitus was essentially ethical, and his moral +standard was in many respects lofty. Yet his standard was +sometimes limited by the prejudices of his class. He cherished +the old Roman ideal of <q>virtus</q> rather than the Stoic gospel +of a cosmopolitan brotherhood of man.<note place="foot">Peter, ii. 48.</note> Like Pliny, he felt +little horror at gladiatorial combats,<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> i. 76; quanquam <hi rend="italic">vili</hi> +sanguine nimis gaudens. Cf. <hi rend="italic">Dial. de +Or.</hi> 29; Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vi. 34, 1.</note> although he may have had +a certain contempt for the rage for them. He had probably +far less humane feelings than Pliny on the subject of slavery.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 43; <hi rend="italic">Germ.</hi> 20.</note> +<pb n="28"/><anchor id="Pg28"/>While he admired many of the rude virtues of the Germans, +he prayed Heaven that their tribal blood-feuds might last for +ever.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Germ.</hi> 33. Cf. his contempt for +the Christians and devotees of Eastern +cults, <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> ii. 85; xv. 44.</note> He has all the faith of Theognis in the moral value of +blood and breeding. He feels a proud satisfaction in recording +the virtues of the scion of a noble race, and degeneracy from +great traditions moves his indignant pity.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> i. 53; iv. 3; iii. 39: vi. 29; +xii. 12; iii. 24; xvi. 16. Cf. Peter, +ii. 51.</note> He sometimes +throws a veil over the degenerates.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 14.</note> The great economic +revolution which was raising the freedman, the petty trader, +the obscure provincial, to the top, he probably regarded with +something of Juvenal’s suspicion and dislike. The new man +would have needed a fine character, or a great record of service, +to commend him to Tacitus.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> ii. 21; vi. 27; iv. 3.</note> But, with all these defects of +hard and narrow prejudice, Tacitus maintains a lofty ideal of +character, a severe enthusiasm for the great virtues which are +the salt of every society. +</p> + +<p> +Of the early nurture of Tacitus nothing is directly known. +But we may be permitted to imagine him tenderly yet strictly +guarded from the taint of slave nurses<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Or.</hi> 29.</note> by a mother who was +as unspotted as Julia Procilla, the mother of his hero Agricola.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Agr.</hi> 4.</note> +What importance he attached to this jealous care of a good +woman, what a horror he had of the incitements to cruelty +and lust which surrounded the young Roman from his cradle, +are to be traced in many a passage coming from the heart. His +ideal of youthful chastity and of the pure harmony of a single +wedded union, reveals to us another world from the scene of +heartless, vagrant intrigue, on which Ovid wasted his brilliant +gifts. His taste, if not his principles, revolted against the coarse +seductions of the spectacles and the wasteful grossness of the +banquets of his time.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Germ.</hi> 19, saepta pudicitia agunt, +nullis spectaculorum inlecebris ... corruptae; +<hi rend="italic">De Or.</hi> 29.</note> He envies the Germans their freedom +from these great corrupters of Roman character, from the lust +for gold, and the calculating sterility which cut itself from +nature’s purest pleasure, to be surrounded on the deathbed by a +crowd of hungry, shameless sycophants. While Tacitus had a +burning contempt for the nerveless cowardice and sluggishness +which degraded so many of his order,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iii. 37; <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> i. 7; xv. 57, 71.</note> he may have valued +<pb n="29"/><anchor id="Pg29"/>even to excess, although it is hardly possible to do so, the +virtues of the strenuous soldier. Proud submission to authority, +proud, cold endurance in the face of cruel hardship and +enormous odds, readiness to sacrifice even life at the call of +the State, must always tower over the safe aspirations of +an untried virtue. The soldier, though he never knows it, +is the noblest of idealists. The ideal of Tacitus, although he +sees his faults of temper,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Agr.</hi> 22.</note> was probably the character of his +father-in-law, Agricola, grave, earnest and severe, yet with a +mingled clemency, free from all vulgar avarice or ostentation +of rank, from all poisonous jealousy, an eager ambitious warrior, +yet one knowing well how to temper audacious energy with +prudence.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 40.</note> Tacitus would probably have sought his ideal +among those grey war-worn soldiers on a dangerous frontier, +half warrior and half statesman, just and clement, stern in +discipline, yet possessing the secret of the Roman soldier’s love, +the men who were guarding the Solway, the Rhine, and the +Danube, while their brethren in the Senate were purchasing +their lives or their ease by adulation and treachery. Yet, after +all, Tacitus was too great for such a limited ideal. He could +admire faith and courage and constancy in any rank.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xv. 60.</note> With +profound admiration and subdued pathos, he tells how the +freedwoman Epicharis, racked and fainting in every limb with +the extremity of torture, refused to tell the secret of the +Pisonian conspiracy, and by a voluntary death shamed the +knights and nobles who were ready to betray their nearest +kin.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xv. 57.</note> The slave girls of the empress, who defiantly upheld +her fair fame, under the last cruel ordeal, are honoured by a +like memorial.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xiv. 60.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The deepest feeling of Tacitus about the early Empire +seems to have been that it was fatal to character both in +prince and subject. This conviction he has expressed with the +burning intensity of the artist. He could never have penned +one of those laborious paragraphs of Suetonius which seem +transcribed from a carefully kept note-book, with a lifeless +catalogue of the vices, the virtues, and the eccentricities of the +subject. For Tacitus, history is a living and real thing, not a +matter of mere antiquarian interest. He has seen a single +<pb n="30"/><anchor id="Pg30"/>lawless will, unchecked by constitutional restraints or ordinary +human feeling, making sport of the lives and fortunes of men. +He has seen the sons of the proudest houses selling their +ancestral honour for their lives, betraying their nearest and +dearest, and kissing the hand which was reeking with innocent +blood.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xv. 71.</note> When he looked back, he saw that, for more than +fifteen years, with brief intervals, virtue had been exiled or +compelled to hide itself in impotent seclusion, and that power +and wealth had been the reward of perfidy and grovelling self-abasement.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 2.</note> +The brooding silence of those years of humiliating +servitude did not extinguish the faith of Tacitus in human +virtue, but it almost extinguished his faith in a righteous God. +Tacitus is no philosopher, with either a reasoned théodicée or a +consistent repudiation of faith.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Agr.</hi> 4, memoria teneo solitum +ipsum narrare se studium philosophiae +acrius, ultra quam concessum Romano +ac Senatori, exhausisse. Cf. Fabian, +<hi rend="italic">Quid Tac. de num. Div. judicaverit</hi>, +p. 1.</note> He uses popular language +about religion, and often speaks like an old Roman in all things +touching the gods.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> v. 5; Nipperdey, <hi rend="italic">Einl.</hi> xiv.</note> He is, moreover, often as credulous as +he is sceptical in his treatment of omens and oracles.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 22; ii. 78; i. 86. But cf. +<hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xii. 43, 64; xiv. 32; xv. 8; +<hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 3; ii. 50; and Fabian, pp. <anchor id="corr30"/><corr sic="17">17,</corr> +19.</note> But, +with all his intense faith in goodness, the spectacle of the world +of the Caesars has profoundly shaken his trust in the Divine +justice. Again and again, he attributes the long agony of the +Roman world to mere chance or fate,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iv. 20; cf. vi. 22.</note> or the anger of Heaven, +as well as to the madness of men.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. 38.</note> Sometimes he almost +denies a ruling power which could permit the continuance of +the crimes of a Nero.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 12; Fabian, p. 23.</note> Sometimes he grimly notes its impartial +treatment of the good and the evil.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xvi. 33, aequitate deum erga +bona malaque documenta.</note> And again, he speaks of +the Powers who visit not to protect, but only to avenge. And +so, by a curse like that which haunted the Pelopidae in tragic +legend, the monarchy, cradled in ambition and civil strife, has +gone on corrupting and corrupted. The lust of despotic power +which Tacitus regards as the fiercest and most insatiable of +human passions, has been intensified by the spectacle of a +monarchy commanding, with practically unlimited sway, the +resources and the fortunes of a world.</p> + +<pb n="31"/><anchor id="Pg31"/> + +<p> +It was a dazzling prize, offering frightful temptations both +to the holder and to possible rivals and pretenders. The day +on which a Nero or a Caligula awoke to all the possibilities of +power was a fateful one. And Tacitus, with the instinct of +the tragic artist, has painted the steady, fatal corruption of +a prince’s character by the corroding influence of absolute and +solitary sway. Of all the Caesars down to his time, the +only one who changed for the better was the homely Vespasian. +In Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero, some of this deterioration of +character must be set down to the morbid strain in the Julio-Claudian +line, with its hard and cruel pride, and its heritage +of a tainted blood, of which Nero’s father knew the secret so +well. Much was also due to the financial exhaustion which, +in successive reigns, followed the most reckless waste. It +would be difficult to say whether the emperors or their nobles +were the most to blame for the example of spendthrift extravagance +and insane luxury. Two generations before the foundation +of the Empire, the passion for profusion had set in, which, +according to Tacitus, raged unchecked till the accession of +Vespasian.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iii. 55; cf. xvi. 5.</note> Certainly, the man who would spend £3000 on +a myrrhine vase, £4000 on a table of citrus-wood, or £40,000 +on a richly wrought carpet from Babylon, had little to learn +even from Nero.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> iii. pp. 80, 81.</note> Yet the example of an emperor must always +be potent for good or evil. We have the testimony of Pliny +and Claudian,<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> 45; Claudian, <hi rend="italic">In +Cons. Hon.</hi> 299, componitur orbis Regis +ad exemplum.</note> separated by an interval of three hundred years, +that the world readily conforms its life to that of one man, +if that man is head of the State. Nero’s youthful enthusiasm +for declamation gave an immense impulse to the passion for +rhetoric.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">De Clar. Rhet.</hi> c. 1.</note> His enthusiasm for acting and music spread through +all ranks, and the emperor’s catches were sung at wayside +inns.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, 21; Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. +Tyan.</hi> iv. 39.</note> M. Aurelius made philosophy the mode, and the Stoic +Emperor is responsible for some of the philosophic imposture +which moved the withering scorn of Lucian. The Emperor’s +favourite drug grew so popular that the price of it became +almost prohibitory.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> i. 54.</note> If the model of Vespasian’s homely habits +had such an effect in reforming society, we may be sure that +<pb n="32"/><anchor id="Pg32"/>the evil example of his spendthrift predecessors did at least +as much to deprave it. +</p> + +<p> +And what an example it was! The extravagance of the +Claudian Caesars and the last Flavian has become a piece of +historic commonplace. Every one has heard of the unguent +baths of Caligula, his draughts of melted pearls, his galleys +with jewel-studded sterns and gardens and orchards on their +decks, his viaduct connecting the Palatine with the Capitoline, +his bridge from Bauli to Puteoli, and many another scheme +of that wild brain, which had in the end to be paid for in +blood.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> 37; Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ad Helv.</hi> x.</note> In a single year Caligula scattered in reckless waste +more than £20,000,000.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> 37.</note> Nero proclaimed that the only use +of money was to squander it, and treated any prudent calculation +as meanness.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, c. 30.</note> In a brief space he flung away nearly +£18,000,000. The Egyptian roses for a single banquet cost +£35,000.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 27.</note> He is said never to have made a progress with less +than a thousand carriages; his mules were shod with silver.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 30.</note> +He would stake HS.400,000 on a single throw of the dice. +The description of his Golden House is like a vision of lawless +romance.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 31; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xv. 42.</note> The successors of Galba were equally lavish +during their brief term. Otho, another Nero, probably regarded +death in battle as a relief from bankruptcy.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Otho</hi>, 5, nihilque referre, ab +hoste in acie, an in foro sub creditoribus +caderet.</note> Within a very +few months, Vitellius had flung away more than £7,000,000 +in vulgar luxury.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Vitell.</hi> c. 13.</note> Vespasian found the exhaustion of the +public treasury so portentous<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> 16; D. Cass. 66. 2, 8, 10.</note> that he had to resort to unpopular +economies and taxation on a great scale. Under +Domitian, the spectacles and largesses lavished on the mob +undid all the scrupulous finance of his father,<note place="foot">D. Cass. 67. 5; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> 12.</note> and Nerva had +to liquidate the ruinous heritage by wholesale retrenchment, +and the sale even of the imperial furniture and plate,<note place="foot">D. Cass. 68. 2, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">συστέλλων ὡς οἷόν τε τὰ δαπανήματα</foreign>.</note> as M. +Aurelius brought to the hammer his household treasures, and +even the wardrobe and jewels of the empress, in the stress of +the Marcomannic war.<note place="foot">Capitol. <hi rend="italic">M. Aurel.</hi> c. 17, in foro +divi Trajani auctionem ornamentorum +imperialium fecit vendiditque aurea +pocula et cristallina, etc.</note> +</p> + +<p> +But the great imperial spendthrifts resorted to more +<pb n="33"/><anchor id="Pg33"/>simple and primitive methods of replenishing their coffers. +Self-indulgent waste is often seen linked with meanness +and hard cruelty. The epigram of Suetonius on Domitian, +<hi rend="italic">inopia rapax, metu saevus</hi>,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> iii.</note> sums up the sordid history of +the tyranny. The cool biographer of Caligula, Nero, and +Domitian, when in his methodical fashion, he has recorded +their financial difficulties, immediately proceeds to describe +the unblushing rapine or ingenious chicanery by which the +needy tyrants annexed a coveted estate. The emperors now +generally protected the provinces from plunder,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Otho</hi>, iii.; <hi rend="italic">Vitell.</hi> v.; <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> +viii.; <anchor id="corr33"/><corr sic="Bossier">Boissier</corr>, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> p. 170.</note> but they +applied all the Verrine methods to their own nobles. It was +not hard with the help of the sleuth hounds who always +gather round the despot, to find plausible grounds of accusation. +The vague law of majesty, originally intended to guard +the security of the commonwealth, was now used to throw its +protection around the sacrosanct prince in whom all the highest +powers of government were concentrated.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> i. 72; ii. 50; xiv. 48. +For a clear account of this <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Boissier, +<hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> p. 165.</note> The slightest suspicion +of disloyalty or discontent, the most insignificant act +or word, which a depraved ingenuity could misinterpret, was +worked up into a formidable indictment by men eager for +their share of the plunder. To have written the memoir of a +Stoic saint or kept the birthday of a dead emperor, to possess +an imperial horoscope or a map of the world, to call a slave +by the name of Hannibal or a dish by that of Lucullus, might +become a fatal charge.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> x.; cf. xii. satis erat obici +qualecunque factum dictumve adversus +majestatem principis.</note> <q>Ungrateful testators</q> who had +failed to remember the emperor in their wills had to pay +heavily for the indiscreet omission.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xii.</note> The materials for such +accusations were easily obtained in the Rome of the early +Caesars. Life was eminently sociable. A great part of the day +was spent at morning receptions, in the Forum, the Campus +Martius, the barber’s or bookseller’s shops, or in the colonnades +where crowds of fashionable idlers gathered to relieve the +tedium of life by gossip and repartee. It was a city, says +Tacitus, which knew everything and talked of everything.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xi. 27; xiii. 6, in urbe +sermonum avida; <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. 91; Mart. +v. 20; Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> i. p. 280.</note> +Never was curiosity more eager or gossip more reckless. Men +were almost ready to risk their lives for a <hi rend="italic">bon mot</hi>. And in the +<pb n="34"/><anchor id="Pg34"/>reign of Nero or Domitian, the risk was a very real one. +The imperial espionage, of which Maecenas in Dion Cassius +recognised at once the danger and the necessity,<note place="foot">D. Cass. 52. 37.</note> was an +organised system even under the most blameless emperors +It can be traced in the reigns of Nerva, Hadrian, and +Antoninus Pius.<note place="foot">Mart x. 48, 21; cf. Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Chronologie +der Epigr. Mart.</hi> p. 62; Friedl. +<hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> i. p. 285; Epict. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> iv. +13, 21, 5; Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> ix. 62.</note> But under the tyrants, voluntary informers +sprang up in every class. Among the hundreds of +slaves attached to a great household, there were in such times +sure to be spies, attracted by the lure of freedom and a +fortune, who might report and distort what they had observed +in their master’s unguarded hours. Men came to dread possible +traitors even among their nearest of kin, among their +closest friends of the highest rank.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iv. 69.</note> Who can forget the +ignominy of those three Senators, one of them bearing the +historic name of Cato, who, to win the consulship from +Sejanus, hid themselves between the ceiling and the roof, and +caught, through chinks and crannies, the words artfully drawn +from the victim by another member of the noble gang? The +seventh book of the <hi rend="italic">Life of Apollonius</hi> by Philostratus is a +revelation of the mingled caution and truculence of the +methods of Domitian. Here at least we have left the world +of romance behind and are on solid ground. We feel around +us, as we read, the hundred eyes of an omnipresent tyranny. +We meet in the prison the magistrate of Tarentum who had +been guilty of a dangerous omission in the public prayers, and +an Acarnanian who had been guilty of settling in one of the +Echinades.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> vii. 24.</note> A spy glides into the cells, to listen to the +prisoners’ talk, and is merely regaled by Apollonius with a +description of the wonders he has seen in his wanderings. +When we are admitted to the secret tribunal on the Palatine, +after Domitian has paid his devotion to Athene, we have before +us a cruel, stealthy despot, as timid as he is brutally truculent. +In spite of all scepticism about Philostratus, we are +there at the heart of the Terror. +</p> + +<p> +Compared with this base espionage, even the trade of the +delator becomes almost respectable. Like everything in +Roman social organisation, delation had a long history, too +<pb n="35"/><anchor id="Pg35"/>long to be developed within the space of this work. The +work of impeachment, which might be wholesome and +necessary under the Republic, in exposing the enormities of +provincial government, became the curse of the Empire. The +laws of Augustus for the restoration of social morality gave +the first chance to the professional delator. The jealous, +secretive rule of Tiberius welcomed such sinister support,<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> i. 72, 74, Crispinus formam +vitae iniit quam postea celebrem +miseriae temporum et audaciae hominum +fecerunt, etc.; cf. iii. 25; Sen. +<hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> iii. 26; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> lxi.</note> +and although the dark, tortuous policy of the recluse of +Capreae might punish the excess of zeal in the informers, it +was also ready to reward them for opportune displays of +energy.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iv. 20.</note> The open and daring tyranny of Caligula and Nero +often dispensed with the hypocrisy of judicial forms of +assassination. It was reserved for the last Flavian to revive +the methods of Tiberius.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> xx. praeter commentarios +et acta Tiberii nihil lectitabat; +Plin. <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> 42, 48.</note> Domitian was at once timid and +cruel. He was also a pedant who concealed from himself his +own baseness by a scrupulous devotion to ancient forms even +in religion. The obscene libertine, who chose the Virgin Goddess +as his patroness,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> xv.</note> could easily make the forms of old Roman +justice a cloak for confiscation and massacre. In theory the +voluntary accuser, without a commission from authority, was +a discredited person. And successive emperors punished or +frowned upon the delators of a previous reign.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. 10; Plin. <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> 35; +D. Cass. 68. 1; Jul. Capitol. <hi rend="italic">Ant. P.</hi> +c. 7; id. <hi rend="italic">M. Aurel.</hi> c. 11; Meriv. vii. +370.</note> Yet the +profession grew in reputation and emolument. It is a +melancholy proof of the degradation of that society that the +delator could be proud of his craft and even envied and +admired. Men of every degree, freedmen, schoolmasters, +petty traders, descendants of houses as old as the Republic, +men from the rank of the shoemaker Vatinius<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xv. 34; iii. 66; <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> +iv. 42.</note> to a Scaurus, +a Cato, or a Regulus, flocked to a trade which might earn a +fabulous fortune and the favour of the prince. There must +have been many a career like that of Palfurius Sura, who had +fought in the arena in the reign of Nero, who had been +disgraced and stripped of his consular rank under Vespasian, +who then turned Stoic and preached the gospel of popular +<pb n="36"/><anchor id="Pg36"/>government, and, in the reign of Domitian, crowned his career +by becoming a delator, and attempting to found a juristic +theory of absolute monarchy.<note place="foot">Schol. ad Juv. iv. 53; Duruy, iv. +660.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The system of Roman education, which was profoundly +rhetorical, became a hot-bed of this venal oratory. It nourished +its pupils on the masterpieces of free speech; it inflamed their +imaginations with dreams of rhetorical triumph. When they +went forth into the world of the Empire, they found the only +arena for displaying their powers to be the dull court of the +Centumviri, or the hired lecture hall, where they might dilate +on some frigid or silly theme before a weary audience. It was +a tempting excitement to exert the arts learnt in the school of +Quintilian in a real onslaught, where the life or liberty of the +accused was at stake. And the greatest orators of the past +had never offered to them such a splendid material reward. +One fourth of the estate of the condemned man had been the +old legal fee of the accuser.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iv. 20.</note> But this limit was left far +behind in the judicial plunder of the early Caesars. Probably +in no other way could a man then so easily make himself a +millionaire. The leading accusers of Thrasea and Soranus in +the reign of Nero received each £42,000 as their reward.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xvi. 33; Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> p. 186.</note> +These notorious delators, Eprius Marcellus and Vibius Crispus, +accumulated gains reaching, in the end, the enormous amount +of £2,400,000. The famous, or infamous, Regulus, after the +most prodigal expenditure, left a fortune of half a million.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ii. 20, 13; iv. 2; cf. Tac. +<hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iv. 42; Mart. vii. 31.</note> +His career is a striking example of the arts by which, in +a debased society, men may rise to fortune, and the readiness +with which such a society will always forgive anything +to daring and success. Sprung from an illustrious but +ruined race,<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> p. 193.</note> Regulus possessed shameless audacity and +ruthless ambition,<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ii. 11, 22.</note> which were more valuable than birth and +fortune. He had every physical defect for a speaker, yet he +made himself an orator, with a weird power of strangling his +victims.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 7; i. 20, 15.</note> He was poor, but he resolved to be wealthy, and he +reached the fortune which he proposed to himself as his goal. +He was vain, cruel, and insolent, a slave of superstition,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ii. 11, 22; ii. 20.</note> +<pb n="37"/><anchor id="Pg37"/>stained with many a perfidious crime. He was a peculiarly +skilful and perfectly shameless adept in the arts of captation.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ii. 20, 2.</note> +Yet this cynical agent of judicial murder, who began his +career in the reign of Nero, lived on in peace and wealth into +the reign of Trajan. He even enjoyed a certain consideration +in society.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 7.</note> The humane and refined Pliny at once detested and +tolerated him. The morning receptions of Regulus, in his distant +gardens on the Tiber, were thronged by a fashionable crowd. +</p> + +<p> +The inner secret of the imperial Terror will probably +always perplex the historian. The solution of the question +depends, not only on the value which is to be attached to our +authorities, but on the prepossessions and prejudices which are +brought to their interpretation. To one critic Tacitus, although +liable to the faults which spring from rhetorical training and +fervid temperament, seems fairly impartial and trustworthy.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">E.g.</hi> Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> p. 296; Peter, +<hi rend="italic">Gesch. Litt.</hi> ii. p. 65: Teuffel, § 328, +15; Mackail, <hi rend="italic">Lat. Lit.</hi> p. 215.</note> +Another treats the great historian as essentially a partisan who +derived his materials from the memoirs and traditions of a class +inflamed with reactionary dreams and saturated with a hatred +of monarchy.<note place="foot">Schiller, i. pp. 140, 586; Meriv. +viii. 89 sqq.</note> Some regard the tragedy of the early Empire as +the result of a real peril from a senatorial conspiracy which +perpetually surrounded the emperor. Others trace it to the +diseased brains of princes, giddy with the sense of omnipotence, +and often unstrung by vicious excesses, natures at once timorous +and arrogant, anticipating danger by a maniacal cruelty +which ended in creating the peril that they feared. Is it not +possible that there may be truth in both theories? It +may be admitted that there probably was never a powerful +opposition, with a definitely conceived purpose of overthrowing +the imperial system, as it had been organised by Augustus, and +of restoring the republican rule of the Senate. It may be +admitted that, while so many of the first twelve Caesars died a +violent death, the violence was used to rid the world of a +monster, and not to remodel a constitution; it was the +emperor, not the Empire, that was hated. Yet these admissions +need to be qualified by some reservations. The effect +of the rhetorical character of Roman education in moulding the +temper and ideals of the upper classes, down to the very end +<pb n="38"/><anchor id="Pg38"/>of the Western Empire, has hardly yet been fully recognised. +It petrified literature by the slavish imitation of unapproachable +models. It also glorified the great ages of freedom and +republican government; it exalted Harmodius and Aristogeiton, +Brutus and Cassius, to a moral height which might +suggest to generous youth the duty or the glory of imitating +them. When a rhetor’s class, in the reign of Caligula or of +Nero, applauded the fall of a historic despot, is it not possible +that some may have applied the lesson to the reigning emperor? +Although it is evident that philosophic debates on the three +forms of government were not unknown, yet probably few ever +seriously thought of a restoration of the republic. None but a +maniac would have entrusted the nerveless, sensual mob of +Rome with the destinies of the world. As a matter of fact, +the mob themselves very much preferred the rule of a lavish +despot, who would cater for their pleasures.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Claud.</hi> x.; <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> lx.; D. +Cass. 60. 1. On the assassination of +Caligula, the Senate debated the question +of abolishing the memory of the +Caesars, and restoring the Republic; +but the mob outside the temple of the +Capitoline Jupiter demanded <q>one +ruler</q> of the world.</note> But the Senate +was still a name of power. In the three or four generations +which had passed since the death of the first Caesar, men had +forgotten the weakness and perfidy which had made senatorial +government impossible. They thought of the Senate as the +stubborn, haughty caste which had foiled the strategy of Hannibal, +which had achieved the conquest of the world. The +old families might have been more than decimated; new men +of doubtful origin might have filled their places.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xi. 25; xiii. 27.</note> But ancient +institutions possess a prestige and power which is often independent +of the men who work them. Men are governed largely +through imagination and mere names. Thus the Senate remained +an imaginative symbol of the glory of Roman power, +down to the last years of the Western Empire. The accomplished +Symmachus cherishes the phantasm of its power under +Honorius. And although a Caligula or Nero might conceive a +feverish hatred of the assembly which they feared,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> xxx.; xxvi.; <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, +xxxvii. eumque ordinem sublaturum +quandoque e republica...; cf. xliii. +creditur destinasse senatum universum +veneno per convivia necare.... +D. Cass. 63. 15, 17.</note> while they +affected to despise it, the better emperors generally made almost +a parade of their respect for the Senate.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> 54, 62, 64; Spart. +<hi rend="italic">Hadrian</hi>, 6, 7, § 4; 8, § 6.</note> The wisest princes had +<pb n="39"/><anchor id="Pg39"/>a feeling that, although they might have at their back the devotion +of the legions, and an immense material force, still it was +wiser to conciliate old Roman feeling by a politic deference to a +body which was surrounded by the aureole of antiquity, which +had such splendid traditions of conquest and administration. +</p> + +<p> +The Senate was thus the only possible rival of the Emperor. +The question is, was the Senate ever a dangerous rival? +The true answer seems to be that the Senate was dangerous +in theory, but not in fact. There can be little doubt that, in +the reigns of Caligula and Nero, there were men who dreamed +of a restored senatorial power.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Claud.</hi> x.</note> It is equally certain that the +Senate was incapable of asserting it. Luxury, self-indulgence, +and conscription had done their work effectually. There were +many pretenders to the principate in the reign of Nero, and +even some in the reign of Vespasian.<note place="foot">D. Cass. 66. 16; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> xxv.</note> But they had not a +solid and determined Senate at their back. The world, and +even the Senate, were convinced that the Roman Empire +needed the administration of one man. How to get the one +man was the problem. Hereditary succession had placed only +fools or monsters on the throne. There remained the old principle +of adoption. An emperor, feeling that his end was +approaching, might, with all his vast experience of the government +of a world, with all his knowledge of the senatorial class, +with no fear of offence in the presence of death,<note place="foot">See the speech of the dying Hadrian +to the Senators, D. Cass. 69. 20.</note> designate one +worthy of the enormous charge. If such an one came to the +principate, with a generous desire to give the Senate a share of +his burdens and his glory, that was the highest ideal of the +Empire, and that was the ideal which perhaps was approached in +the Antonine age. Yet, outside the circle of practical statesmen, +there remained a class which was long irreconcilable. It has +been recently maintained with great force that the Stoic opposition +was only the opposition of a moral ideal, not the deliberate +propaganda of a political creed.<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> 102.</note> This may be true of some of +the philosophers: it is certainly not true of all. Thrasea was a +genial man of the world, whose severest censure expressed itself +in silence and absence from the Senate,<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xvi. 21; xv. 23; xiv. 48, +id <hi rend="italic">egregio</hi> sub principe ... senatui +statuendum disseruit.</note> who could even, on +occasion, speak with deference of Nero. But his son-in-law, +<pb n="40"/><anchor id="Pg40"/>Helvidius Priscus, seemed to exult in flouting and insulting a +great and worthy emperor such as Vespasian.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> xv.; cf. xiii., where +Demetrius is guilty of similar rudeness; +D. Cass. 66. 12.</note> And the life +of Apollonius by Philostratus leaves the distinct impression +that philosophy, in the reign of Nero and Domitian, was a +revolutionary force. Apollonius, it is true, is represented by +Philostratus as supporting the cause of monarchy in a debate +in the presence of Vespasian.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> v. 35.</note> But he boasted of having +been privy to conspiracies against Nero,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 3, 4.</note> and he was deeply +involved with Nerva and Orfitus in a plot against Domitian.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 8, 33; cf. D. Cass. 67. 18.</note> +He was summoned before the secret tribunal to answer +for speeches against the emperor delivered to crowds at +Ephesus.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> vii. 9.</note> It may be admitted that the invective or scorn +of philosophy was aimed at unworthy princes, rather than at +the foundations of their power. Yet Dion Cassius evidently +regards Helvidius Priscus as a turbulent agitator with dangerous +democratic ideals,<note place="foot">D. Cass. 66. 12, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">βασιλείας τε ἀεὶ κατηγόρει καὶ δημοκρατίαν ἐπῄνει</foreign>.</note> and he contrasts his violence with the +studied moderation, combined with dignified reserve, displayed +by Thrasea in the reign of Nero. The tolerant Vespasian, +who bore so long the wanton insults of the philosophers, must +have come at length to think them not only an offence but a +real danger when he banished them. In the first century +there can be little doubt that there were members of the +philosophic class who condemned monarchy, not only as a moral +danger, but as a lamentable aberration from the traditions of +republican freedom. There were probably some, who, if the +chance had offered itself, might even have ventured on a +republican reaction. +</p> + +<p> +With a gloomy recognition of the realities of life, +Domitian used to say that conspiracy against an emperor was +never believed till the emperor was killed.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> xxi.</note> Of the first twelve +Caesars seven died a violent death. Every emperor from +Tiberius to M. Aurelius was the mark of conspiracy. This +was often provoked by the detestable character of the prince. +But it sometimes sprang from other causes than moral disgust. +The mild rule of Vespasian was generally popular; yet even he +had to repel the conspiracy of Aelianus and Marcellus.<note place="foot">D. Cass. 66. 16.</note> The +<pb n="41"/><anchor id="Pg41"/>blameless Nerva, the emperor after the Senate’s own heart, +was twice assailed by risings organised by great nobles of +historic name.<note place="foot">D. Cass. 68. 3.</note> The conspiracy of Nigrinus against Hadrian +received formidable support, and had to be sternly crushed.<note place="foot">Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> 7, § 15.</note> +M. Aurelius had to endure with sad resignation the open +rebellion of Avidius Cassius.<note place="foot">Jul. Capitol. <hi rend="italic">M. Ant.</hi> 24, 25.</note> The better emperors, strong in +their character and the general justice of their administration, +might afford to treat such opposition with comparative calmness. +But it was different in the case of a Nero or a Domitian. The +conspiracy of Piso and the conspiracy of Saturninus formed, in +each case, a climax and a turning-point. Springing from real +and justified impatience, they were ruthlessly crushed and +followed up with a cruel and suspicious repression which only +increased the danger of the despot. <q>Scelera sceleribus +tuenda</q> sums up the awful tale, in the words of Tacitus, <q>of +the wrath of God and the madness of men.</q> +</p> + +<p> +There were many causes which rendered the tragedy of the +early Empire inevitable. Probably the most potent was the +undefined position of the prince and the dreams of republican +power and freedom which for ages were cherished by the +Senate. Carefully disguised under ancient forms, the principate +of Augustus was really omnipotent, through the possession of the +proconsular imperium in the provinces, and the tribunician prerogative +at home.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">Staatsr.</hi> ii. 787-821; +Professor Pelham has given a luminous +account of the Principate in <hi rend="italic">Encycl. +Brit.</hi> vol. xx. p. 769.</note> In the last resort there was no legal means +of challenging the man who controlled the legions, nominated +the magistrates, and manipulated a vast treasury at his pleasure. +The fiction of Augustus, that he had restored the Republic to +the hands of the Senate and people, is unlikely to have deceived +his own astute intellect.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> xxviii.</note> The hand which, of its grace +could restore the <hi rend="italic">simulacra libertatis</hi>, might as easily withdraw +them. The Comitia lost even the shadow of constitutional +power in the following reign.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> i. 15.</note> Henceforth the people is the +army.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Claud.</hi> x.; D. Cass. 60. 1; +where the soldiers plainly close the +impotent debates in the Senate, and by +hailing Claudius as emperor.</note> The holders of the great republican magistracies are +mere creatures of the prince and obedient ministers of his +power. The Senate alone retained some vestiges of its old +<pb n="42"/><anchor id="Pg42"/>power, and still larger pretensions and antiquarian claims. In +theory, during a vacancy in the principate, the Senate was the +ultimate seat of authority, and the new emperor received his +prerogatives by a decree of the Senate. In the work of legislation, +its decisions divided the field with the edicts of the +prince,<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">Röm. Staatsr.</hi> ii. 839.</note> and it claimed a parallel judicial power. But all this +was really illusory. The working of such a system manifestly +depends on the character and ideas of the man who for the time +wields the material force of the Empire. And <q>the share of +the Senate in the government was in fact determined by the +amount of administrative activity which each emperor saw +fit to allow it to exercise.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Pelham, <hi rend="italic">Encycl. Brit.</hi> xx. p. 779.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The half-insane Caligula had really a clearer vision of the +emperor’s position than the reactionary dreamers, when he told +his grandmother Antonia, <q><hi rend="italic">Memento omnia mihi in omnes licere</hi>.</q><note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> xxix.</note> +He did not need the lessons of Agrippa and Antiochus to teach +him the secret of tyranny.<note place="foot">D. Cass. 59. 24.</note> Yet institutions can never be +separated from the moral and social forces which lie behind +and around them. The emperor had to depend on agents and +advisers, many of them of social rank and family traditions +equal to his own. He had by his side a Senate with a history +of immemorial antiquity and glory, which cast a spell on the +conservative imagination of a race which recoiled from any +impiety to the past. Above all, he was surrounded by a +populace which took its revenge for the loss of its free Comitia +by a surprising licence of lampoon and epigram and mordant +gossip and clamorous appeal in the circus and theatre.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 56. 1; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> vi. 13; Suet. +<hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> xiii.; Plut. <hi rend="italic">Galba</hi>, 17.</note> And +even the soldiers, who were the sworn supporters of the prince, +and who often represented better than any other class the tone +of old Roman gravity and manly virtue, could sometimes make +their Imperator feel that there was in reserve a power which +he could not safely defy. Hence it was that, with the changing +character of the prince, the imperial power might pass into a +lawless tyranny, only to be checked by assassination, while again +it might veil its forces under constitutional forms, adopt the +watchwords of the Republic, exalt the Senate to a place beside +the throne, and make even accomplished statesmen fancy for +the time that the days of ancient liberty had returned. +</p> + +<pb n="43"/><anchor id="Pg43"/> + +<p> +Such a dream, not altogether visionary, floated before Pliny’s +mind when he delivered his <hi rend="italic">Panegyric</hi> in the presence of Trajan. +That speech is at once an act of thanksgiving and a manifesto +of the Senate. The tone of fulsome extravagance is excused +by the joy at escaping from a treacherous tyranny, which drove +virtue into remote retreat, which made friendship impossible, +which poisoned the security of household life by a continual +fear of espionage.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> 43, 44, 35.</note> The confidence which Pliny expresses in +the majestic strength, mingled with modesty and self-restraint, +which Trajan brought to the task of the principate, was amply +justified. The overwhelming force of the emperor seemed, +in the new age, to pass into the freely accepted rule of the +great citizen.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 24, 62, 63, 66.</note> Pliny indeed does not conceal from himself +the immense actual power of the emperor. He is the vicegerent +of God, an earthly Providence.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 80.</note> His power is not less +than Nero’s or Domitian’s, but it is a power no longer wielded +wildly by selfish or cruel self-will; it is a power inspired by +benevolence, voluntarily submitting itself to the restraints of +law and ancient sentiment.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 62, 63, 64.</note> Founded on service and virtue, +it can fearlessly claim the loving support of the citizens, +while it recalls the freedom of the old Republic. A prince who +is hedged by the devotion of his people may dispense with +the horde of spies and informers, who have driven virtue into +banishment and made a crowd of sneaks and cowards. Free +speech has been restored. The Senate, which has so long been +expected to applaud with grovelling flattery the most trivial +or the most flagitious acts of the emperor, is summoned to a +share in the serious work of government.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 66.</note> A community of +interest and feeling secures to it a free voice in his counsels, +without derogating from his dignity.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 72.</note> All this is expressed +by a scrupulous observance of old republican forms. The +commander of conquering legions, the Caesar, Augustus, +Pontifex Maximus, has actually condescended to take the oath +of office, standing before the consul seated in his chair!<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 64.</note> Here +we seem to have the key to the senatorial position. They +were ready to recognise the overwhelming power of the prince, +if he, for his part, would only respect in form, if not in substance, +the ancient dignity of the Senate. Tolerance, affability, +<pb n="44"/><anchor id="Pg44"/>politic deference to a great name, seemed to Pliny and his +kind a restoration of the ancient freedom, almost a revival of +the old Republic. Fortunately for the world a succession of +wise princes perceived that, by deference to the pride of the +Senate, they could secure the peace of their administration, +without diminishing its effective power. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, even from Pliny’s <hi rend="italic">Panegyric</hi>, we can see that the +recognition of the prerogatives, or rather of the dignity, of +the Senate, the coexistence of old republican forms side by +side with imperial power, depended entirely on the grace and +tolerance of the master of the legions. Nothing could be more +curious than Pliny’s assertion of the senatorial claims, combined +with the most effusive gratitude to Trajan for conceding them. +The emperor is only <hi rend="italic">primus inter pares</hi>, and yet Pliny, by +the whole tone of his speech, admits that he is the master who +may equally indulge the constitutional claims or superstitions +of his subjects or trample on them. In the first century a +power, the extent of which depended only on the will of the +prince, and yet seemed limited by shadowy claims of ancient +tradition, was liable to be distrustful of itself and to be +challenged by pretenders. In actual fact, the prince was so +powerful that he might easily pass into a despot; in theory +he was only the first of Roman nobles, who might easily have +rivals among his own class. Pliny congratulates Trajan on +having, by his mildness and justice, escaped the terror of pretenders +which haunted the earlier emperors, and was often +justified and cruelly avenged.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> 69.</note> In spite of the lavish splendour +of Nero or Caligula, the imperial household, till Hadrian’s +reorganisation, was still modelled on the lines of other great +aristocratic houses. Nero’s suspicions were more than once +excited by the scale of establishments like that of the Silani, +by wealth and display like Seneca’s, by the lustre of great +historic traditions in a gens like the Calpurnian.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiii. 1; xiv. 52; xv. +48.</note> The loyalty +of Corbulo could not save him from the jealousy aroused by +his exploits in eastern war.<note place="foot">D. Cass. 63.17, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">πᾶσι γὰρ παρ’ αὐτῷ δημόσιον ἔγκλημα ἦν ἀρετή τε καὶ πλοῦτος καὶ γένος</foreign>: Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. 76.</note> And the power of great provincial +governors, in command of great armies, and administering +realms such as Gaul or Spain or Syria, was not an altogether +imaginary danger. If Domitian seemed distrustful of Agricola +<pb n="45"/><anchor id="Pg45"/>in Britain, we must remember that he had in his youth seen +Galba and Vindex marching on Rome, and his father concentrating +the forces of the East for the overthrow of Vitellius +in the great struggle on the Po. +</p> + +<p> +The emperor’s fears and suspicions were immensely +aggravated by the adepts in the dark arts of the East. The +astrologers were a great and baneful power in the early Empire. +They inspired illicit ambitions, or they stimulated them, and +they often suggested to a timorous prince the danger of +conspiracy. These venal impostors, in the words of Tacitus, +were always being banished, but they always returned. For +the men who drove them into temporary exile had the +firmest faith in their skill. The prince would have liked to +keep a monopoly of it, while he withdrew from his nobles the +temptation which might be offered to their ambition by the +mercenary adept.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> ii. 32; xii. 52; D. Cass. +49. 43; D. Cass. 66. 10, 9; Suet <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> lxiii.</note> Dion Cassius and Suetonius, who were themselves +eager believers in this superstition, never fail to record +the influence of the diviners. The reign of Tiberius is full of +dark tales about them.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> xiv. lxix.</note> Claudius drove Scribonianus into +exile for consulting an astrologer about the term of his reign.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xii. 52.</note> +On the appearance of a flaming comet, Nero was warned by +his diviner, Bilbilus, that a portent, which always boded ill +to kings, might be expiated by the blood of their nobles.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xxxvi.</note> +Otho’s astrologer, Seleucus, who had promised that he should +survive Nero,<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Otho</hi>, iv.</note> stimulated his ambition to be the successor of +Galba. Vitellius, as superstitious as Nero or Otho, cruelly +persecuted the soothsayers and ordered their expulsion from +Italy.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Vitell.</hi> xiv.</note> He was defied by a mocking edict of the tribe, +ordaining his own departure from earth by a certain day.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ne Vitellius Germanicus intra +eundem kalendarum diem usquam esset.</note> +Vespasian once more banished the diviners from Rome, but, +obedient to the superstition which cradled the power of his +dynasty, he retained the most skilful for his own guidance.<note place="foot">D. Cass. 66. 10, 9.</note> The +terror of Domitian’s last days was heightened by a horoscope, +which long before had foretold the time and manner of his +end.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> xv.</note> Holding such a faith as this, it is little wonder that +the emperors should dread its effect on rivals who were equally +<pb n="46"/><anchor id="Pg46"/>credulous, or that superstition, working on ambitious hopes, +should have been the nurse of treason. Thus the emperor’s +uncertain position made him ready to suspect and anticipate a +treachery which may often have had no existence. The objects +of his fears in their turn were driven into conspiracy, sometimes +in self-defence, sometimes from the wish to seize a prize +which seemed not beyond their grasp. Gossip, lampoon, and +epigram redoubled suspicion, while they retaliated offences. +And cruel repression either increased the danger of revolt in +the more daring, or the degradation of the more timorous. +</p> + +<p> +In the eyes of Tacitus, the most terrible result of the tyranny +of the bad emperors was the fawning servility of a once proud +order, and their craven treachery in the hour of danger. He +has painted it with all the concentrated power of loathing and +pity. It is this almost personal degradation which inspires the +ruthless, yet haughtily restrained, force with which he blasts +for ever the memory of the Julio-Claudian despotism. It was +in this spirit that he penned the opening chapters of his +chronicle of the physical and moral horrors of the year in +which that tyranny closed. The voice of history has been +silenced or perverted, partly by the ignorance of public affairs, +partly by the eagerness of adulation, or the bitterness of +hatred. It was an age darkened by external disasters, save +on the eastern frontier, by seditions and civil war, and the +bloody death of four princes. The forces of nature seemed to +unite with the rage of men to deepen the universal tragedy. +Italy was overwhelmed with calamities which had been +unknown for many ages; Campania’s fairest cities were +swallowed up; Rome itself had been wasted by fire; the +ancient Capitol was given to the flames by the hands of +citizens. Polluted altars, adultery in high places, the islands +of the sea crowded with exiles, rank and wealth and virtue +made the mark for a cruel jealousy, all this forms an awful +picture.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 2.</note> But even more repulsive is the spectacle of treachery +rewarded with the highest place, slaves and clients betraying +their master for gain, and men without an enemy ruined by +their friends. When the spotless Octavia, overwhelmed by +the foulest calumnies, had been tortured to death, to satisfy +the jealousy of an adulteress, offerings were voted to the +<pb n="47"/><anchor id="Pg47"/>temples.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 64.</note> And Tacitus grimly requests his readers to presume +that, as often as a banishment or execution was ordered by +Nero, so often were thanksgivings offered to the gods. The +horrors of Nero’s remorse for the murder of Agrippina were +soothed by the flatteries and congratulations of his staff, and +the grateful sacrifices which were offered for his deliverance by +the Campanian towns.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xiv. 10, 12.</note> Still, the notes of a funereal trumpet +and ghostly wailings from his mother’s grave were ever in +his ears,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xiv. 10; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xxxiv.</note> and he long doubted the reception which he might +meet with on his return to the capital. He need not have +had any anxiety. Senate and people vied with one another +in self-abasement. He was welcomed by all ranks and ages +with fawning enthusiasm as he passed along in triumphal +progress to return thanks on the Capitol for the success of an +unnatural crime. +</p> + +<p> +The Pisonian conspiracy against Nero was undoubtedly +an important and serious event. Some of the greatest names +of the Roman aristocracy were involved in it, and the man +whom it would have placed on the throne, if not altogether +untainted by the excesses of his time, had some imposing +qualities which might make him seem a worthy competitor for +the principate.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xv. 48.</note> But, to Tacitus, the conspiracy seems to be +chiefly interesting as a damning proof of the degradation of +the aristocracy under the reign of terror. Epicharis, the poor +freedwoman of light character, who bore the accumulating +torture of scourge and rack and fire, and the dislocation of +every limb, is brought into pathetic contrast with the high-born +senators and knights, who, without any compulsion of +torture, betrayed their relatives and friends.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xv. 57.</note> Scaevinus, a man +of the highest rank, knowing himself betrayed by his freedman +and a Roman knight, revealed the whole plot.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xv. 54.</note> The poet +Lucan tried in vain to purchase safety by involving his +own mother. But Nero was inexorable, and the poet died +worthily, reciting some verses from the <hi rend="italic">Pharsalia</hi>, which +describe a similar end.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xv. 70; probably Lucan, <hi rend="italic">Phars.</hi> iii. 638.</note> The scenes which followed the +massacre are an awful revelation of cowardly sycophancy. +While the streets were thronged with the funerals of the victims, +<pb n="48"/><anchor id="Pg48"/>the altars on the Capitol were smoking with sacrifices of gratitude. +One craven after another, when he heard of the murder +of a brother or a dear friend, would deck his house with +laurels, and, falling at the emperor’s feet, cover his hand +with kisses.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xv. 71.</note> The Senate prostrated themselves before Nero +when, stung by the popular indignation, he appeared to +justify his deed. The august body voted him thanksgivings +and honours.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xv. 73.</note> The consul elect, one of the Anician house, +proposed that a temple should be built with all speed to the +divine Nero! Tacitus relieves this ghastly spectacle of effeminate +cowardice by a scene which is probably intended, by way +of contrast, to save the tradition of Roman dignity. Vestinus, +the consul of that fatal year, had been a boon companion of +the emperor, and had shown contempt for his cowardice in +dangerous banter. Nero was eager to find him implicated +in the plot, but no evidence of his guilt could be obtained. +All legal forms at length were flung aside, and a cohort was +ordered to surround his house. Vestinus was at dinner in his +palace which towered over the Forum, surrounded by guests, +with a train of handsome slaves in waiting, when he received +the mandate. He rose at once from table, and shut himself in +his chamber with his physician, lancet in hand, by his side. +His veins were opened, and, without a word of self-pity, +Vestinus allowed his life to ebb away in the bath.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xv. 68, 69.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Vestinus, after all, only asserted, in the fashion of the time, +his right to choose the manner of a death which could not be +evaded. But Tacitus, here and there, gives glimpses of self-sacrifice, +courageous loyalty and humanity, which save his +picture of society from utter gloom. The love and devotion +of women shine out more brightly than ever against the +background of baseness. Tender women follow their husbands +or brothers into exile, or are found ready to share their death.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 16; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> +xv. 63.</note> +Even the slave girls of Octavia brave torture and death in +their hardy defence of her fair fame.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 60.</note> There is no more +pathetic story of female heroism than that of Politta, the +daughter of L. Vetus. He had been colleague of the emperor +in the consulship, but he had the misfortune to be father-in-law +<pb n="49"/><anchor id="Pg49"/>of Rubellius Plautus, whose lofty descent and popularity drew +down the sentence of death, even in distant exile.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 22, 57.</note> Politta had +clasped the bleeding neck of Plautus in her arms, and nursed +her sorrow in an austere widowhood.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xvi. 10.</note> She now besieged the +doors of Nero with prayers, and even menaces, for her father’s +acquittal. Vetus himself was of the nobler sort of Roman men, +who even then were not extinct. When he was advised, in order +to save the remnant of his property for his grandchildren, to +make the emperor chief heir, he spurned the servile proposal, +divided his ready money among his slaves, and prepared for the +end.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xvi. 11.</note> When all hope was abandoned, father, grandmother, and +daughter opened their veins and died together in the bath. +Plautius Lateranus met his end with the same stern dignity. +Forbidden even to give a last embrace to his children, and +dragged to the scene of servile executions, he died in silence by +the hand of a man who was an undiscovered partner in the plot.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xv. 60.</note> +Even the mob of Rome, for whose fickle baseness Tacitus has a +profound scorn, now and then reveal a wholesome moral feeling. +When Octavia, on a trumped-up charge of adultery, was +divorced and banished by Nero, the clamour of the populace +forced him to recall her for a time, and the mob went so far +in their virtuous enthusiasm as to overthrow the statues of +the adulteress Poppaea, and crown the images of Octavia with +flowers.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xiv. 61.</note> Perhaps even more striking is the humane feeling +displayed towards the slaves of the urban prefect, Pedanius +Secundus. He had been murdered by a slave, and the ancient +law required, in such a case, the execution of the whole household. +The proposal to carry out the cruel custom drove the +populace almost to revolt. And it is a relief to find that a +strong minority of the Senate were on the side of humanity.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xiv. 42, senatusque obsessus in +quo ipso erant studia nimiam severitatem +aspernantium.</note> +But the army, above all other classes, still bred a rough, honest +virtue. It was left, amid the general effeminate cowardice, +for a tribune of a pretorian cohort to tell Nero to his face that +he loathed him as a murderer and an incendiary.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xv. 67.</note> Again and +again, in that terrible year, when great nobles were flattering +the Emperor, whom in a few days or hours they meant to +desert, the common soldiers remained true to the death of +<pb n="50"/><anchor id="Pg50"/>their unworthy chiefs. When Otho redeemed a tainted life +by a not ignoble end, the pretorians kissed his wounds, bore +him with tears to burial, and many killed themselves over his +corpse.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. 49.</note> In the storming of the pretorian camp by the troops +of Vespasian, the soldiers of Vitellius, outnumbered and doomed +to certain defeat, fell to a man with all their wounds in front.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 84.</note> +</p> + +<p> +To these faithful, though often bloodthirsty, warriors the +senators and knights of those days offered a contemptible +contrast. Often the inheritors of great names and great +traditions, the mass of them knew nothing of arms or the +military virtue of their ancestors.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 88, segnis et oblita bellorum +nobilitas, etc.</note> Sunk in sloth and +enervated by excess, they followed Otho to the battlefield +on the Po with their cooks and minions and all the apparatus +of luxury.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 88.</note> In the rapid changes of fortune, from Galba +to Otho, from Otho to Vitellius, from Vitellius to Vespasian, +the great nobles had one guiding principle, the determination +to be on the winning side. It was indeed a puzzling and +anxious time for a calculating selfishness, when a reign might +not last for a month, and when the adulation of Otho or +Vitellius in the Senate-house was disturbed by the sound of +the legions advancing from East and West. But the +supple cowards of the Senate proved equal to the strain. +They had the skill to flatter their momentary master without +any compromising word against his probable successor. They +soothed the anxieties of Vitellius with unstinted adulation, +yet carefully refrained from anything reflecting on the +Flavianist leaders.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 37, nulla in oratione cujusquam +erga Flavianos duces obtrectatio; +cf. i. 90; of the Acta of the Arval College, +<hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 2051 sq.</note> Within a few months, full of joy and +hope, which were now at last well founded, they were voting +all the customary honours of a new principate to Vespasian.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 3.</note> +The terror of Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero had done its work +effectually. And its worst result was the hopeless self-abandonment +and sluggish cowardice of a class, whose chief +<hi rend="italic">raison d’être</hi> in every age is to maintain a tradition of gallant +dignity. It is true that many of the scions of great houses +were mere mendicants, ruined by confiscation or prodigality, and +compelled to live on the pension by which the emperor kept +them in shameful dependence,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, x.; <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> xvii.; Spart. +<hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> 7, § 9.</note> or on the meaner dole of some +<pb n="51"/><anchor id="Pg51"/>wealthy patron.<note place="foot">Juv. i. 100.</note> A Valerius Messala, grandson of the great +Corvinus, had to accept a pension from Nero.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiii. 34.</note> A grandson +of Hortensius had to endure the contempt of Tiberius in +obtaining a grant for his sons.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ii. 37, 38.</note> Others were unmanned by the +voluptuous excesses of an age which had carried the ingenuity +of sensual allurement to its utmost limits. The hopelessness +of any struggle with a power so vast as that of the emperor, +so ruthless and wildly capricious as that of the Claudian +Caesars, reduced many to despairing apathy.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 35.</note> And while, +from a safe historic distance, we pour our contempt on the +cringing Senate of the first century, it might be well to remind +ourselves of their perils and their tortures. There was many +a senatorial house, like that of the Pisos, whose leading +members were never allowed to reach middle age.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 33; cf. iii. 19.</note> Much +should be forgiven to a class which was daily and hourly +exposed to such danger, so sudden in its onsets, so secret and +stealthy, so all-pervading. It might come in an open circumstantial +indictment, with all the forms of law and the weight of +suborned testimony; it might appear in a quiet order for suicide; +the stroke might descend at the farthest limits of the Empire,<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 58.</note> +in some retreat in Spain or Asia. The haunting fear of death +had an unnerving effect. But not less degrading were the +outrages to Roman, or ordinary human dignity to which the +noble order had to submit for more than a generation. They +had seen their wives defiled or compelled to expose themselves +as harlots in a foul spectacle, to gratify the diseased prurience +of the emperor.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xxxvii.</note> They had been forced to fight in the arena +or to exhibit themselves on the tragic stage.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 14; Juv. viii. 193; +Suet. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> xviii. xxx.; D. Cass. lix. +10.</note> Men who had +borne the ancient honours of the consulship had been ordered +to run for miles beside the chariot of Caligula, or to wait at +his feet at dinner.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> xxvii.</note> Fathers had had to witness without +flinching the execution of their sons, and drink smilingly to +the emperor on the evening of the fatal day.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 33.</note> The only +safety at such a court lay in calmly accepting insults with +affected gratitude. The example of Nero’s debauchery, and +the seductive charm which he undoubtedly possessed, were +<pb n="52"/><anchor id="Pg52"/>probably as enfeebling and demoralising as the Terror. He +formed a school, which laughed at all virtue and made self-indulgence +a fine art. Men who had shared in these obscene +revels were the leaders in the awful scenes of perfidy, lust, +and cruelty which appropriately followed the death of their +patron.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiii. 12; xvi. 18; Suet. +<hi rend="italic">Vitell.</hi> iv.</note> Some of them, Petronius, Otho, Vitellius, closed +their career appropriately by a tragic death. But others +lived on into the age of reformation, to defame the stout +Sabine soldier who saved the Roman world.<note place="foot">Renan, <hi rend="italic">Les Év.</hi> p. 140. Some of +their anonymous sneers may be traced +in Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> xvi. xxiii. xiv.; cf. +Duruy, iv. 653.</note> +</p> + +<p> +In spite of the manly virtue and public spirit of Vespasian, +the Roman world had to endure a fierce ordeal before it +entered on the peace of the Antonine age. Even Vespasian’s +reign was troubled by conspiracy.<note place="foot">D. Cass. 66. 16, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἐπεβουλεύθη μὲν ὑπό τε τοῦ Ἀλιηνοῦ καὶ ὑπὸ τοῦ Μαρκέλλου</foreign>. +Cf. Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> xiv.; Macé, +<hi rend="italic">Suétone</hi>, p. 86.</note> His obscure origin moved +the contempt of the great senatorial houses who still survived. +His republican moderation gave the philosophic doctrinaires a +chance of airing their impossible dream of restoring a municipal +Republic to govern a world. His conscientious frugality, +which was absolutely needed to retrieve the bankruptcy of the +Neronian régime, was despised and execrated both by the nobles +and the mob. Another lesson was needed both by the Senate +and the philosophers. Society had yet to be purged as by fire, +and the purging came with the accession of Domitian. +</p> + +<p> +The inner secret of that sombre reign will probably remain +for ever a mystery. There is the same question about +Domitian as there is about Tiberius. Was he bad from the +beginning, or was he gradually corrupted by the consciousness +of immense power,<note place="foot">Cf. Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> p. 169 sqq.; +Bury, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Emp.</hi> p. 395.</note> and the fear of the great order who +might challenge it? Our authorities do not furnish a satisfying +answer. We know Domitian only from the narrative of +men steeped in senatorial traditions and prejudices,<note place="foot"><anchor id="Note52"/>On the sources of the history of the +Flavians, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Krause, <hi rend="italic">De C. Sueton. +Tranq. Fontibus</hi>; Macé, <hi rend="italic">Suétone</hi>, p. +364, 376; Peter, <hi rend="italic">Gesch. Litt. d. Kaiserzeit</hi>, +ii. 69, 70. For the senatorial +attitude to Domitian, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Plin. <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> +48; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Agr.</hi> 3, 41, 42, 45; <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iv. +51; iv. 2; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> xxiii.</note> and, +some of them, intoxicated by the vision of a reconciliation +of the principate with the republican ideals. The dream +was a noble one, and it was about to be partially realised +<pb n="53"/><anchor id="Pg53"/>for three generations, under a succession of good emperors. +But the men inspired with such an ideal were not likely to be +impartial judges of an emperor like Domitian. And even +from their narrative of his reign, we can see that he was not, +at least in the early years of his reign,<note place="foot">Nagel, <hi rend="italic">Imp. T. Flav. Domitianus +iniquius dijudicatus</hi>.</note> the utter monster he +has been painted. Even severe judges in modern days admit +that he was an able and strenuous man, with a clear, cold, +cynical intellect,<note place="foot">Meriv. vii. 356.</note> which recognised some of the great problems +of the time, and strove to solve them. He was indefatigable in +judicial work.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> viii.</note> In spite of the sneers at his mock triumphs,<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Agr.</hi> 39; cf. 41, tot exercitus +in Moesia ... amissi. D. Cass. 67. 4, +7; cf. Stat. <hi rend="italic">Silv.</hi> iv. 3, 153; Mart. +ix. 102; vii. 80, 91, 95; Meriv. vii. +347.</note> +his military and provincial administration was probably +guided by a sound conception of the resources and the +dangers of the Empire. His recall of Agricola, after a seven +years’ command in Britain, was attributed to jealousy and fear.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Agr.</hi> 39.</note> +It is more probable that it was dictated by a wish to stop a +campaign which was diverting large sums to the conquest of +barren mountains. Domitian was an orator and verse writer +of some merit, and he gave his patronage, although not in a +very liberal way, to men like Quintilian, Statius, and Martial.<note place="foot">Quintil. iv., + <anchor id="corr53"/><corr sic="proem.">prooem.</corr> 2; Statius, +<hi rend="italic">Silvae</hi>, iv. 2, 13; iii. 1, 1; Mart. ii. +91; iv. 27, iii. 95. For the flattery +of Martial, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> esp. v. 19, 6; ix. 4; +<hi rend="italic">Spectac.</hi> 33.</note> +Like Nero, he felt the force of the new Hellenist movement, +and, under forms sanctioned by Roman antiquarians, he established +a quinquennial festival in which literary genius was +pompously rewarded.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> iv.</note> He had the public libraries, which had +been devastated by fires in the previous reigns, liberally restocked +with fresh stores of MSS. from Alexandria.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xx.</note> He gave +close attention, whatever we may think of his science, to the +economic problems of the Empire. And his discouragement +of the vine, in favour of a greater acreage of corn, would find +sympathy in our own time, as it was applauded by Apollonius +of Tyana.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii.; Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> vi. +42; <hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph.</hi> i. 12.</note> The man who decimated the Roman aristocracy +towards the end of his reign, advanced to high positions some +of those who were destined to be his bitterest defamers. Pliny +and Tacitus and Trajan’s father rose to high office in the +<pb n="54"/><anchor id="Pg54"/>earlier part of Domitian’s reign.<note place="foot">Pliny was probably Quaestor in 90 +<hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>; Trib. Pleb. 92; Praetor 93. Cf. +Momms. (Morel) p. 61. Tacitus says, +<hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 1, dignitatem a Domitiano +(81-96) longius provectam non abnuerim. +From <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xi. 11 it appears +that he was Praetor in 88. Cf. Peter, +<hi rend="italic">Gesch. Litt.</hi> ii. 43.</note> He designated to the +consulship such men as Nerva, Trajan, Verginius Rufus, +Agricola, and the grandfather of Antoninus Pius.<note place="foot">Duruy, iv. 697 n.</note> This strange +character was also a moral reformer of the antiquarian type. +He punished erring Vestals, <hi rend="italic">more majorum</hi>. He revived the +Scantinian law against those enormities of the East, of which +Statius shows that the emperor was not guiltless himself.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Silv.</hi> iii. 4, 37.</note> Yet +a voluptuary, with a calm outlook on his time, may have a wish +to restrain vices with which he is himself tainted. A statesman +may be a puritan reformer, both in religion and morals, without +being personally severe and devout. Domitian may have +had a genuine, if a pedantic, desire to restore the old Roman +tone in morals and religion. He was, after all, sprung from a +sober Sabine stock,<note place="foot">Meriv. vii. 354.</note> although he may have sadly degenerated +from it in his own conduct. And his attempt to reform Roman +society may perhaps have been as sincere as that of Augustus. +</p> + +<p> +But there can be little doubt that Domitian, although he +was astute and able, was also a bad man, with the peculiar +traits which always make a man unpopular. He was disloyal +as a son and as a brother. He was morose, and he cultivated +a suspicious solitude,<note place="foot">D. Cass. 67. 14; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> xiv.</note> around which evil rumour is sure to +gather. The rumour in his case may have been well-founded, +although we are not bound to believe all the tales of prurient +gossip which Suetonius has handed down. It is the penalty +of high place that peccadilloes are magnified into sins, and +sins are multiplied and exaggerated. It was a recognised and +effective mode of flattering a new emperor to blacken the +character of his predecessors; Domitian himself allowed his +court poets to vilify Caligula and Nero.<note place="foot">Mart. iv. 63; vi. 21, crudelis +nullaque invisior umbra.</note> And Pliny in his +fulsome adulation of Trajan, finds his most effective resource in +a perpetual contrast with Domitian. Tacitus could never forgive +the recall and humiliation of his father-in-law. The Senate +as a whole bore an implacable hatred to the man who carried +to its furthest point the assertion of imperial prerogative.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> xxiii.</note> +<pb n="55"/><anchor id="Pg55"/>Still the authorities are so unanimous that we are bound to +believe that Domitian, with some strength and ability, had +many execrable qualities. He shows the contradictions of a +nature in which the force of a sturdy rural ancestry has not +been altogether sapped by the temptations of luxury and +power. He had a passionate desire to rival the military glory +of his father and brother, yet he was too cautious and self-indulgent +to attain it. He had some taste for literature, but +he kept literature in leading-strings, and put one man to death +for his delight in certain speeches in Livy, and another for a +too warm eulogy of Thrasea and Helvidius Priscus.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> x.</note> He threw +his whole strength into a moral and religious reaction, while +he was the bitterest enemy of the republican pretensions and +dreams of the Senate. Great historical critics have called him +a hypocrite.<note place="foot">Renan, <hi rend="italic">Les Évang.</hi> p. 291, Domitien, +comme tous les souverains hypocrites, +se montraite sévère conservateur.</note> It may be doubted whether any single phrase +or formula could express the truth about such a twisted and +perverse <anchor id="corr55"/><corr sic="character">character.</corr> Probably his dominant passion was vanity +and love of grandiose display. He assumed the consulship +seventeen times, a number quite unexampled.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> xiii.</note> His pompous +triumphs for unreal victories were a subject of common jest. +He filled the Capitol with images of himself, and a colossal +statue towered for a time over the temple roofs.<note place="foot">Mart. viii. 65.</note> The son +and brother of emperors, already exalted to divine honours, he +went farther than any of his predecessors in claiming divinity +for himself, and he allowed his ministers and court poets to +address him as <q>our Lord God.</q><note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> xiii.; Mart. v. 8, 1 (<hi rend="italic">v.</hi> +Friedländer’s note), vii. 2 and 34; viii. +2, 6; Stat. <hi rend="italic">Silv.</hi> v. 1, 37; Meriv. vii. +375.</note> His lavish splendour in +architecture was to some extent justified by the ravages of fire +in previous reigns. But the £2,400,000 expended on the +gilding of a temple on the Capitol,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> + <anchor id="corr55-2"/><corr sic="v">v.</corr>; Gregorov. <hi rend="italic">Gesch. St. +Rom.</hi> i. 41.</note> was only one item in an +extravagance which drained the treasury. Its radiance, which +dazzled the eyes of Rutilius in the reign of Honorius,<note place="foot">Rutil. Namat. i. 93.</note> was +paid for in blood and tears. The emperor, who was the ruthless +enemy of the nobles, like all his kind, was profusely +indulgent to the army and the mob. The legions had their pay +increased by a fourth. The populace of Rome were pampered +<pb n="56"/><anchor id="Pg56"/>with costly and vulgar spectacles,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> v. <hi rend="italic">ad fin.</hi>; iv.</note> as they were to the end of +the Western Empire. Domitian’s indulgence of that fierce and +obscene proletariat was only a little more criminal than that +of other emperors, because it ended in a bankruptcy which was +followed by robbery and massacre. While the rich and noble +were assailed on any trivial accusation, in order to fill an +empty treasury, the beasts of Numidia were tearing their +victims, gladiators were prostituting a noble courage in dealing +inglorious wounds in the arena, and fleets of armed galleys +charged and crashed in mimic, yet often deadly, battle in the +flooded Flavian amphitheatre.<note place="foot">D. Cass. 67. 8.</note> +</p> + +<p> +To repair this waste the only resource was plunder. But +Domitian was a pettifogger as well as a plunderer; he would +fleece or assassinate his victims under forms of law. The +law of majesty, and the many laws for restoring old Roman +morality, needed only a little ingenuity and effrontery to +furnish lucrative grounds for impeachment.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> xii.</note> The tribe of +delators were ready to his hand. He had punished them for +serving Nero; they were now to reap a richer harvest under +Domitian. Every fortune which rose above mediocrity, every +villa with rich pastures and woodlands in the Apennines, or +on the northern lakes, was marked for plunder.<note place="foot">Pliny, <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> 50.</note> Domitian was +the first and only emperor who assumed the censorship for +life.<note place="foot">Dion Cass. 67. 4, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τιμητὴς δὲ διὰ βίου πρῶτος δὲ καὶ μόνος καὶ ἰδιωτῶν καὶ αὐτοκρατόρων ἐχειροτονήθη</foreign>: Momms. +<hi rend="italic">Röm. St.</hi> ii. 1012.</note> The office made him absolute master of the lives and +fortunes of his nobles. A casual word, a thoughtless gesture, +might be construed into an act of treason; and the slave +households furnished an army of spies. Nay, even kindred +and near friends were drawn into this vast conspiracy against +domestic peace and security. It may be admitted that +Domitian had to face a real peril. The rebellion of Antonius +Saturninus was an attempt which no prince could treat lightly, +and the destruction of the correspondence in which so many +men of rank were involved, may well have heightened +Domitian’s alarm.<note place="foot">D. Cass. 67. 11.</note> He struck out blindly and savagely. +He compelled the Senate to bear a part in the massacre, and +Tacitus has confessed, with pathetic humiliation, his silent share +in the murder of the upright and innocent.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Agr.</hi> 45.</note> Yet the imperial +<pb n="57"/><anchor id="Pg57"/>inquisitor was himself racked with terror in his last hours. He +walked in a corridor where the walls were lined with mirrors,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> xiv. parietes phengite lapide distinxit.</note> +so that no unseen hand might strike him from behind. On +his last morning he started in terror from his bed and called +for the diviner whom he had summoned from Germany.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xvi.</note> But, +amid all his terror, Domitian had a deep natural love of +cruelty. He was never more dangerous than when he chose +to be agreeable;<note place="foot">D. Cass. 67. 9.</note> he loved to play with his victims. What +a grim delight in exquisite torture, what a cynical contempt +for the Roman nobles, are revealed in the tale of his funereal +banquet!<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 67. 4.</note> The select company were ushered into a chamber +draped from floor to ceiling in black. At the head of each +couch stood a pillar like a tombstone, with the guest’s name +engraved upon it, while overhead swung a cresset such as men +hang in vaults of the dead. A troop of naked boys, black as +all around, danced an awful measure, and then set on the +dismal meal which was offered, by old Roman use, to the spirits +of the departed. The guests were palsied with terror, expecting +every moment to be their last. And the death-like +silence was only broken by the voice of the Emperor as he +told a gruesome tale of bloody deaths. In such cynicism of +lawless power, in such meek degradation of a once proud +order, did the tyranny of the first century reach its close. +</p> + +</div><div type="chapter" n="2" rend="page-break-before: always"> +<pb n="58"/><anchor id="Pg58"/> +<index index="toc" level1="II. The world of the satirist"/><index index="pdf" level1="II. The world of the satirist"/> +<head>CHAPTER II</head> + +<head type="sub">THE WORLD OF THE SATIRIST</head> + +<p> +Juvenal and Tacitus, although they moved in different circles +and probably never met, have much in common. Both were +released from an ignominious silence by the death of Domitian. +Both were then at the age which combines the ripeness +of experience and reflection with a fire and energy still +unflagging.<note place="foot">Tacitus b. probably 55 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> <hi rend="italic">Dial. +de Or.</hi> 1, juvenis admodum in 75 +or 76; cf. <hi rend="italic">Agr.</hi> 9. He was betrothed +in 77 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>; cf. Meriv. viii. 92; Peter, +<hi rend="italic">Gesch. Litt.</hi> ii. 43; Nipperdey, <hi rend="italic">Einl.</hi> iv. +Juvenal b. <hi rend="italic">circ.</hi> 55 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> (Peter, ii. 77); +decessit longo senio confectus exul Ant. +Pio imp. Vit. iv.; Teuffel, § 326, 1.</note> They were, from different causes, both filled with +hatred and disgust for the vices of their time, and their experience +had engendered in both a pessimism which darkened +their faith. Tacitus belonged to the senatorial order who had +held high office, and had seen its ranks decimated and its +dignity outraged under the tyranny. Juvenal sprang from the +lower middle class, which hated alike the degenerate noble and +the insolent <hi rend="italic">parvenu</hi> far more than it hated even a Domitian. +Yet both Juvenal and Tacitus are united in a passionate +admiration for the old Roman character. Their standards and +ideals are drawn from the half-mythical ages of the simple +warriors and farmer-statesmen of the old Republic. And their +estimate of their time needs to be scrutinised in the light both +of their hatreds and of their ideals. +</p> + +<p> +The life of Juvenal is wrapt in obscurity, although nine +lives of him are extant.<note place="foot">Nettleship, <hi rend="italic">Lectures and Essays</hi>, +pp. 118 sqq.</note> Scholars are still at variance as to +the date of his birth, the date of many of his satires, and +especially as to the time and circumstances of his banishment, +about which there is so uniform a tradition. But, for our +purpose, some facts are clear enough. Juvenal was the son of +<pb n="59"/><anchor id="Pg59"/>a well-to-do freedman of Aquinum, and rose to the highest +magisterial office in his native town at some time of his career.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 5599, IIVir. Quinq. +Flamen Divi Vespasiani.</note> +He carefully hides his personal history from us; but we might +gather from his Satires that he belonged to the lower middle +class,<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> p. 316.</note> that he was in temper and tone an old plebeian of the +times of the Republic, although vividly touched by the ideas +of a new morality which had been afloat for more than two +generations. But, like Tacitus, he has little sympathy with the +great philosophic movement which was working a silent revolution. +He had the rhetorical training of the time, with all +its advantages and its defects. And he is more a rhetorician +than a poet. We can well believe the report that his early +literary enthusiasm found vent in declamation on those +mythical or frivolous themes which exercised the youth in +the Roman schools for many centuries. Although he was +hardly a poor man<note place="foot">Juv. xi. 74, 150; cf. xiv. 322.</note> in the sense in which Martial, his +friend, was poor, yet he had stooped to bear the ignominy and +hardships of client dependence. He had hurried in rain and +storm in the early morning to receptions at great houses on +the Esquiline, through the squalor and noises and congested +traffic of the Suburra.<note place="foot">Mart. xii. 18.</note> He had doubtless often been a guest +at those <q>unequal dinners,</q> where the host, who was himself +regaled with far-fetched dainties and old crusted Alban or +Setine wine, insulted his poorer friends by offering them the +cheapest vintage and the meanest fare.<note place="foot">Juv. v. 30 sqq.; cf. Mart. iii. 49; +iii. 60.</note> He had been compelled, +as a matter of social duty, to sit through the recitation +of those ambitious and empty Theseids and Thebaids, with which +the rich amateur in literature in those days afflicted his long-suffering +friends.<note place="foot">Juv. i. 52; Mart. x. 4; iv. 49.</note> He may have been often elbowed aside by +some supple, clever Greek, with versatile accomplishments and +infinite audacity. He may have been patronised or insulted by +a millionaire <hi rend="italic">parvenu</hi>, like the Trimalchio of Petronius, tainted +with the memories of a shameful servitude. He saw new +vulgar wealth everywhere triumphant, while the stiff, yet, in +many ways, wholesome conventionality of old Roman life was +defied and trampled upon by an aggressive vulgarity. In such +a world there was little room for the man whose wealth is +<pb n="60"/><anchor id="Pg60"/>in his genius, and who clings to the traditions of ages which +believed that men had a soul as well as a body. A man like +Juvenal, living in such a society, almost necessarily becomes +embittered. Like Johnson, in his Grub Street days, he will +have his hours when bitterness passes into self-abandonment, +and he will sound the depths of that world of corruption which +in his better moods he loathes. Some of the associates of +Juvenal were of very doubtful position, and more than doubtful +morals;<note place="foot">Juv. vi. 43: v. 30 sqq.; ix. 10 sqq.; +xi. 186.</note> and the warmth of some of his realistic painting of +dark sides of Roman life arouses the suspicion that he may +have at times forgotten his moral ideal. He certainly knows +the shameful secrets of Roman life almost as well as his friend +Martial does. But his knowledge, however gained, was turned +to a very different purpose from that which inspired Martial’s +brilliant prurience.<note place="foot">It has been remarked that Martial’s +Epigrams on Juvenal all contain some +obscenity, vii. 24; vii. 91, xii. 18.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The Satires of Juvenal were probably not given to the +world till after the death of Domitian.<note place="foot">Teuffel, § 326, 4; Peter, <hi rend="italic">Gesch. +Litt.</hi> ii. 77; Nettleship, <hi rend="italic">Lectures and +Essays</hi>, p. 122, brings together the indications +of date from 96-127 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> He +thinks that perhaps some of the earlier +<hi rend="italic">Satires</hi> belong to the last years of +Domitian, and that the words, spes +et ratio studiorum in Caesare tantum, +in <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> vii., may refer to that Emperor +(p. 132).</note> The date of the earliest +is about 100 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, that of the latest probably 127. Juvenal +cautiously disguises his attacks on his own time. He whets his +sword against the sinners whose ashes have long reposed beside +the Flaminian and the Latin ways.<note place="foot">Juv. i. 170.</note> Very few of his contemporaries +appear in his pages,<note place="foot">Marius Priscus, Isaeus, Archigenes.</note> and the scenery is often that +of the reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, or Nero. But his deepest +and most vivid impressions must have come to Juvenal in that +period which has been photographed with such minute exactness +by Martial. And there is a striking correspondence between +the two writers, not only in many of the characters whom they +introduce, but in their pictures of the whole state of morals and +letters.<note place="foot">See a comparison of passages in +Nettleship, pp. 125 sqq.</note> They both detested that frigid epic which laboriously +ploughed the sands of conventional legend, and they turned +with weariness from the old-world tales of Thebes or Argos to +the real tragedy or comedy of Roman life around them. +Although they were friends and companions, it is needless to +<pb n="61"/><anchor id="Pg61"/>assume any close partnership in their studies. Starting with +the same literary impulse, they deal to a large extent with the +same vices and follies, some of them peculiar to their own age, +others common to all ages of Rome, or even of the world of +civilisation. A long list might easily be compiled of their +common stock of subjects, and their common antipathies. In +both writers we meet the same grumbling of the needy client +against insolent or niggardly patrons, the complaints of the +struggling man of letters about the extravagant rewards of low +vulgar impostors. Both are bored to death, like the patient +Pliny, by the readings of wealthy scribblers, or by tiresome +pleadings in the courts, measured by many a turn of the +clepsydra. They feel an equal disgust for the noise and +squalor of the narrow streets, an equal love for the peace and +freshness and rough plenty of the country farm. In both may +be seen the scions of great houses reduced to mendicancy, +ambitious poverty betaking itself to every mean or disreputable +device, the legacy-hunter courting the childless rich with +flattery or vicious compliance. You will often encounter the +sham philosopher, as you meet him sixty years afterwards in +the pages of Lucian, with his loud talk of virtue and illustrious +names, while his cloak covers all the vices of dog and ape. Both +deal rather ungently with the character of women,—their +intrigues with actors, gladiators, and slaves, their frequent +divorces and rapid succession of husbands, their general +abandonment of antique matronly reserve. Both have, in fact, +with different motives, uncovered the secret shame of the +ancient world; and, more even than by that shame, was their +indignation moved by the great social revolution which was +confusing all ranks, and raising old slaves, cobblers, and +auctioneers to the benches of the knights. +</p> + +<p> +Yet with this resemblance in the subjects of their choice, +there is the widest difference between the two writers in their +motive and mode of treatment. Martial, of course, is not a +moralist at all; the mere suggestion excites a smile. He is a +keen and joyous observer of the faults and follies, the lights +and shades, of a highly complex and artificial society which is +<q>getting over-ripe.</q> In the power of mere objective description +and minute portraiture of social life, Martial is almost +unique. Through his verses, we know the society of Domitian +<pb n="62"/><anchor id="Pg62"/>as we know hardly any other period of ancient society. But +this very vividness and truthfulness is chiefly due to the fact +that Martial was almost without a conscience. He was indeed +personally, perhaps, not so bad as he is often painted.<note place="foot">He says of himself, i. 5, 8, lasciva +est nobis pagina, vita proba est; cf. iii. +68; v. 2; Ausonius urges the same +plea, cf. <hi rend="italic">Idyll.</hi> xiii. Pliny finds a +long series of examples to warrant his +indulgence in loose verses, <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. +14; cf. v. 3. It was a bad tradition +of literature; cf. Nettleship, <hi rend="italic">Lectures +and Essays</hi>, p. 39.</note> He +knows and can appreciate a good woman;<note place="foot">i. 14; iv. 13, 75.</note> he can love, with +the simplest, unsophisticated love, an innocent slave-child, the +poor little Erotion,<note place="foot">v. 34, 37; x. 61.</note> whom he has immortalised. He can +honour a simple manly character, free from guile and pretence.<note place="foot">i. 79; vii. 52.</note> +He has a genuine, exuberant love of the fresh joys of +country life, sharpened, no doubt, by the experience of the +client’s sordid slavery, amid the mingled poverty and lavish +splendour of the capital.<note place="foot">iii. 58; i. 56; ii. 38; cf. iii. 38.</note> Where could one find a fresher, +prettier idyll than his picture of the farm of Faustinus, with its +packed granaries, and its cellars fragrant with the juice of many +an old autumn vintage, the peacock spreading his jewelled +plumage, and the ring-dove cooing overhead from the towers? +The elegant slaves of the great house in the city are having +a holiday, and busy, under the bailiff’s care, with rural toils, +or fishing in the stream. The tall daughters of the neighbouring +cottages bring in their well-stocked baskets to the +villa, and all gather joyously at evening to a plenteous meal.<note place="foot">iii. 58.</note> +Martial has, moreover, one great virtue, which is a powerful antidote +for many moral faults, the love of the far-off home of his +childhood, the rugged Bilbilis, with its iron foundries near +the sources of the Tagus, to which he retreated from the crush +and din of plebeian life at Rome, and where he rests.<note place="foot">i. 50; iv. 55; xii. 18.</note> But +when charity or justice has done its best for Martial, +and no scholar will repudiate the debt, it still remains true +that he represents, perhaps better than any other, that pagan +world, naked and unabashed, and feels no breath of inspiration +from the great spiritual movement which, in paganism itself, +was setting towards an ideal of purity and self-conquest. +</p> + +<p> +Juvenal, at least in his later work, reveals a moral +standard and motive apparently unknown to Martial.<note place="foot">Especially <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> xi. xiii. xiv. xv.; +cf. Munding, <hi rend="italic">Über die Sat. Juv.</hi> p. 12.</note> It may +<pb n="63"/><anchor id="Pg63"/>be admitted, indeed, that Juvenal did not always write under +the same high impulse. He had the rhetorician’s love of +fine, telling phrases, and startling effects. He had a rare gift +of realistic painting, and he exults in using it. He has also +burning within him an old plebeian pride which looked down +at once on the degenerate son of an ancient house, and on +the <hi rend="italic">nouveaux riches</hi>, whose rise seemed to him the triumph of +vulgar opulence without the restraint of traditions or ideals. +Conscious of great talents, with a character almost fierce in +its energy, he felt a burning hatred of a society which seemed +to value only material success, or those supple and doubtful +arts which could invent some fresh stimulus for exhausted +appetite. In Juvenal a great silent, sunken class, whom +we hardly know otherwise than from the inscriptions on their +tombs,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Bk. ii. c. 3 of this work. M. +Boissier has thrown a vivid light on +this class in his <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> iii. 3.</note> finds for once a powerful voice and a terrible avenger. +But, along with this note of personal or class feeling, there is +in Juvenal a higher moral intuition, a vision of a higher life, +which had floated before some Roman minds long before his +time,<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> ii. 198; Nettleship, +<hi rend="italic">Lectures and Essays</hi> p. 136.</note> and which was destined to broaden into an accepted ideal. +Juvenal, indeed, was no philosopher, and he had, like Tacitus, +all the old Roman distrust of the theories of the schools.<note place="foot">xiii. 120; ii. 1 sqq.; cf. Mart. +ix. 48.</note> +He had probably little respect for such teaching as Seneca’s.<note place="foot">He refers, however, with respect +to Seneca, viii. 212.</note> +Yet in important points he and Seneca belong to the same order +of the elect. Although, perhaps, a less spotless character than +Tacitus, he is far more advanced and modern in his breadth +of sympathy and moral feeling. He feels acutely for the +conquered provinces which have been fleeced and despoiled +of their wealth and artistic treasures, and which are still +exposed to the peculation and cruelty of governors and their +train.<note place="foot">viii. 90 sqq.; cf. Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> +p. 332.</note> He denounces, like Seneca, the contempt and cruelty often +shown to slaves. The man whose ideal seems often to be drawn +from the hard, stern warriors who crushed the Samnites and +baffled the genius of Hannibal, in his old age has come to +glorify pity and tenderness for suffering as the best gift of +God, the gift that separates him most widely from the brute +<pb n="64"/><anchor id="Pg64"/>creation.<note place="foot">Juv. xv. 131; cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, i. 5; +ii. 10, 25; iii. 24.</note> He preaches sympathy and mutual help, in an +age torn by selfish individualist passions. He denounces the +lust for revenge almost in the tones of a Christian preacher.<note place="foot">Juv. xiii. 190.</note> +What heathen moralist has painted more vividly the horrors +of the guilty conscience, that unseen inquisitor, with sterner +more searching eyes than Rhadamanthus? Who has taught +with greater power that the root of sin is in the evil thought?<note place="foot">xiii. 208, nam scelus intra se tacitum +qui cogitat ullum Facti crimen +habet.</note> +Juvenal realises, like Tacitus and Quintilian, the curse of a +tainted ancestry, and the incalculable importance of pure +example in the education of youth.<note place="foot">xiv. 30; Tac. <hi rend="italic">De Or.</hi> 28, 29.</note> He, who knew so well +the awful secrets of Roman households, sets an immense value +on the treasure of an untainted boyhood, like that of the ploughman’s +son, who waits at Juvenal’s simple meal <q>and sighs for +his mother, and the little cottage, and his playmates the kids.</q><note place="foot">xi. 153.</note> +Observation of character had also taught him the fatal law that +the downward path in conduct, once entered on, is seldom retraced. +And this moral insight seems to come to Juvenal not from +any consciously held philosophic doctrine, nor from a settled +religious faith. His faith, like that of many of his time, was +probably of the vaguest. He scorns and detests the Eastern +worships which were pouring in like a flood, and carrying +away even loose women of the world.<note place="foot">vi. 510.</note> He pillories the +venal star-reader from the East and the Jewish hag who +interprets dreams. But he has also scant respect for classic +mythologies, and regrets the simple, long-gone age, before +heaven became crowded with divinities, before Saturn had +exchanged the diadem for the sickle, when Juno was still a +little maid,<note place="foot">xiii. 39.</note> when the terrors of Tartarus, the wheel, the +vulture, and the lash of the Furies had not taken the place of +a simple natural conscience.<note place="foot">xiii. 208.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Juvenal’s moral tone then appears to unite the spirit of two +different ages. In some of his later Satires you catch the accent +of the age which was just opening when Juvenal began to write, +its growing sense of the equality and brotherhood of man, its +cosmopolitan morality, its ideals of spiritual culture. But +there are other elements in Juvenal, derived from old Roman +<pb n="65"/><anchor id="Pg65"/>prejudice and conventionality, or the result of personal temperament +and experience, which are quite as prominent. Juvenal +is an utter pessimist about his time, more extreme even than +Tacitus. His age, if we believe him, has attained the climax +of corruption, and posterity will never improve upon its +finished depravity.<note place="foot">Juv. i. 87, 147; x. 172 cf. Sen. +<hi rend="italic">Nat. Q.</hi> vii. 31; <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 8 sq.</note> His long practice as a declaimer had +given him a habit of exaggeration, and of aiming rather at +rhetorical brilliancy than truth. Whole passages in his +poems read like declamatory exercises turned into verse.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">e.g.</hi> the picture of Otho, ii. 99; +of Messalina, vi. 114; Lateranus, viii. +146; Sejanus, x. 56; Cicero, etc., viii. +231.</note> +A mere hanger-on of great society, one of the obscure crowd +who flocked to the rich man’s levée, and knowing the life of +the aristocracy only by remote observation or the voice of +scandalous gossip, he hardly deserves the implicit trust which +has been often accorded to his indictments of the society of +his day. His generalisations are of the most sweeping kind; +the colours are all dark. He thinks that the number of +decent people in his day is infinitesimally small. And yet +we may reasonably suspect, from his own evidence, that he +often generalised from single cases, that he treated abnormal +specimens as types. His moral ideals cannot have been a +monopoly of his own. In the palace of Nero in the worst +days, there was a pure Octavia as well as a voluptuous Poppaea. +The wife and mother of the gross Vitellius were women of spotless +fame.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. 64; cf. Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. +19; iii. 16; D. Cass. 68. 5; Sen. <hi rend="italic">ad +Helv.</hi> xiv.</note> And in reading the fierce, unmeasured declamation +of Juvenal, we should never forget that he knew nothing personally +of Pliny or Tacitus, or of the circle which surrounded +Verginius Rufus and Spurinna. He has the same pessimist +theory of human declension which was held by Seneca and by +Tacitus. Every form of crime and sensuality has been rampant +since Rome lost the treasure of poverty, since the days when +silver shone only on the Roman’s arms.<note place="foot">Juv. xi. 109; iii. 152, 183.</note> Juvenal’s ideal lies +in that mythical past when a Curius, thrice consul, strode +homeward from the hills, mattock on shoulder, to a meal +of home-grown herbs and bacon served on earthenware.<note place="foot">xi. 78.</note> +It is the luxury of the conquered lands which has relaxed +the Roman fibre, which has introduced a false standard of +<pb n="66"/><anchor id="Pg66"/>life, degraded great houses, and flooded the city with an alien +crew of astrologers and grammarians, parasites and pimps. +</p> + +<p> +Modern criticism has laboured hard to correct some of the +harsher judgments on the luxury and self-indulgence of the +period of the early Empire. Perhaps the scholarly reaction +against an indictment which had degenerated sometimes into +ignorant commonplace, may have been carried here and there +too far. The testimony of Tacitus is explicit that the luxury +of the table reached its height in the hundred years extending +from the battle of Actium to the accession of Vespasian.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iii. 55; Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ad Helv.</hi> +x. 3; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 89, § 22.</note> It +was a period of enormous fortunes spent in enormous waste. +Seneca or Pallas or Narcissus had accumulated wealth probably +three or four times greater than even the fortune of a Crassus +or a Lucullus. The long peace, the safety of the seas, and +the freedom of trade, had made Rome the entrepôt for the +peculiar products and the delicacies of every land from the +British Channel to the Ganges. The costly variety of these +foreign dainties was vulgarly paraded at every great dinner-party. +Palaces, extending almost over the area of a town, were +adorned with marbles from the quarries of Paros, Laconia, +Phrygia, or Numidia,<note place="foot">Statius, <hi rend="italic">Silv.</hi> v. 36; ii. 85.</note> with gilded ceilings and curious panels +changing with the courses of the banquet,<note place="foot">Petron. c. 60; Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 95, § 9; +Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> iii. p. 67.</note> with hundreds of +tables of citrus-wood, resting on pillars of ivory, each costing +a moderate fortune, with priceless bronzes and masterpieces +of ancient plate. Nearly a million each year was drained +away to the remoter East, to purchase aromatics and jewels +for the elaborate toilette of the Roman lady.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> vi. 26; ix. 58; xii. +41. Cf. Friedl. iii. p. 80; Marq. <hi rend="italic">Röm. +St.</hi> ii. 53.</note> Hundreds +of household slaves, each with his minute special function, +anticipated every want, or ministered to every passion of their +masters. Every picturesque or sheltered site on the great lakes, +on the Anio, or the Alban hills, in the Laurentine pine forests, +or on the bays of Campania, was occupied by far-spreading +country seats. Lavish expenditure and luxurious state was +an imperious duty of rank, even without the precept of an +emperor.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xxx. putabat sordidos +ac parcos esse quibus ratio impensarum +constaret, etc.</note> The senator who paid too low a rent, or rode +along the Appian or Flaminian Way with too scanty a train, +<pb n="67"/><anchor id="Pg67"/>became a marked man, and immediately lost caste.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 87, § 4; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> xxxv.; +Friedl. i. 196.</note> These +are the merest commonplace of the social history of the +time. +</p> + +<p> +Yet in spite of the admitted facts of profusion and self-indulgence, +we may decline to accept Juvenal’s view of the +luxury of the age without some reserve. It is indeed no +apology for the sensuality of a section of the Roman aristocracy +in that day, to point out that the very same excesses made +their appearance two centuries before him, and that they will +be lamented both by Pagan and Christian moralists three +centuries after his death. But these facts suggest a doubt +whether the cancer of luxury had struck so deep as satirists +thought into the vitals of a society which remained for so +many centuries erect and strong. Before the end of the third +century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, began the long series of sumptuary laws which +Tiberius treated as so futile.<note place="foot">Liv. xxxiv. 1; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iii. 53, 54.</note> The elder Pliny and Livy date +the introduction of luxurious furniture from the return of the +army in 188 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, after the campaign in Asia.<note place="foot">Liv. xxxiv. 6, 7; Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. 62, +162; Momms. <hi rend="italic">R. Hist.</hi> ii. 409.</note> Crassus, who left, +after the most prodigal expenditure, a fortune of £1,700,000, +had a town house which cost over £60,000.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">R. Hist.</hi> iii. 417.</note> The lavish +banquets of Lucullus were proverbial, and his villa at Misenum +was valued at £24,000. It was an age when more than +£1000 was given for a slave-cook or a pair of silver cups.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 418; cf. Plin. <hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> ix. 80, 81; +x. 23; Plut. <hi rend="italic">Lucull.</hi> c. 40; Macrob. +<hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> iii. 13, § 1.</note> +Macrobius has preserved the menu of a pontifical banquet, at +which Julius Caesar and the Vestals were present, and which in +its costly variety surpassed, as he says, any epicurism of the +reign of Honorius.<note place="foot">Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> iii. 13, § 11.</note> And yet Ammianus and S. Jerome level +very much the same charges against the nobles of the fourth +century,<note place="foot">Hieron. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 117, § 8; Amm. Marc. +xiv. 6, 7; xxviii. 4.</note> which satire makes against the nobles of the first. +When we hear the same anathemas of luxury in the days of +Lucullus and in the reign of Honorius, separated by an interval +of more than five centuries, in which the Roman race stamped +itself on the page of history and on the face of nature by the +most splendid achievements of military virtue and of civilising +energy, we are inclined to question either the report of our +authorities, or the satirist’s interpretation of the social facts. +</p> + +<pb n="68"/><anchor id="Pg68"/> + +<p> +The good faith of the elder Pliny, of Seneca and Juvenal, +need not, indeed, be called in question. But the first two +were men who led by preference an almost ascetic life. The +satirist was a man whose culinary tastes were satisfied by the +kid and eggs and asparagus of his little farm at Tibur.<note place="foot">Juv. xi. 69.</note> +And the simple abstemious habits of the south, which are +largely the result of climate, tended to throw into more +startling contrast any indulgence of superfluous appetite. It +is true that the conquests which unlocked the hoarded +treasures of eastern monarchies, gave a great shock to the +hardy frugality and self-restraint of the old Roman character, +just as the stern simplicity of Spartan breeding was imperilled +by contact with the laxer life of the Hellespontine towns and the +wealth of the Persian court.<note place="foot">Thucyd. i. 95.</note> The Roman aristocracy were for +two centuries exposed to the same temptations as the treasures +of the Incas offered to Pizarro,<note place="foot">Prescott, <hi rend="italic">Conquest of Peru</hi>, i. 304.</note> or the treasures of the Moguls +to Clive. In the wild licence, which prevailed in certain circles +for more than a century, many a fortune and many a character +were wrecked. Yet the result may easily be exaggerated. +Extravagant luxury and self-indulgence is at all times only +possible to a comparatively small number. And luxury, after +all, is a relative term. The luxuries of one age often become +the necessities of the next. There are many articles of food or +dress, which free-trade and science have brought to the doors +of our cottagers, which would have incurred the censure of +the elder Pliny or of Seneca. There are aldermanic banquets +in New York or the city of London in our own day, which far +surpass, in costliness and variety, the banquets of Lucullus or +the pontiff’s feast described by Macrobius. The wealth of +Pallas, Narcissus, or Seneca, was only a fraction of many a +fortune accumulated in the last thirty years in the United +States.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xii. 53 (Pallas); D. Cass. +60. 34 (Narcissus); Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiii. 42; +D. Cass. 61. 10; cf. Duruy, v. p. 598.</note> The exaggerated idea of Roman riches and waste has +been further heightened by the colossal extravagance of the +worst emperors and a few of their boon companions and +imitators. But we are apt to forget that these were the +outbreaks of morbid and eccentric character, in which the last +feeble restraints were sapped and swept away by the sense of +<pb n="69"/><anchor id="Pg69"/>having at command the resources of a world. Nero is +expressly described by the historian as a lover of the impossible;<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xv. 42.</note> +and both he and Caligula had floating before their +disordered imaginations the dream of astounding triumphs, even +over the most defiant forces and barriers of nature. There +was much in the extravagance of their courtiers and imitators, +springing from the same love of sensation and display. Rome +was a city of gossip, and the ambition to be talked about, +as the inventor of some new freak of prodigality, was probably +the only ambition of the blasé spendthrift of the time. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, after all the deductions of scrupulous criticism, the +profound moral sense of Juvenal has laid bare and painted +with a realistic power, hardly equalled even by Tacitus, +an unhealthy temper in the upper classes, which was full of +peril. He has also revealed, alongside of this decline, a great +social change, we may even call it a crisis, which the historian, +generally more occupied with the great figures on the stage, is +apt to ignore. The decay in the morale and wealth of the +senatorial order, together with the growing power of a new +moneyed class, the rise to opulence of the freedman and the +petty trader, the invasion of Greek and Oriental influences, +and the perilous or hopeful emancipation, especially of women, +from old Roman conventionality, these are the great facts in +the social history of the first century which, under all his +rhetoric, stand out clearly to the eye of the careful student of +the satirist. +</p> + +<p> +The famous piece, in which Juvenal describes an effeminate +Fabius or Lepidus, before the mutilated statues and smoke-stained +pedigree of his house, rattling the dice-box till the +dawn, or sunk in the stupor of debauch at the hour when his +ancestors were sounding their trumpets for the march,<note place="foot">Juv. viii. 10.</note> has, for +eighteen centuries, inspired many a homily on the vanity +of mere birth. Its moral is now a hackneyed one. But, +when the piece was written, it must have been a powerful +indictment. For the respect for long descent was still deep +in the true Roman, and was gratified by fabulous genealogies +to the end. Pliny extols Trajan for reserving for youths of +illustrious birth the honours due to their race.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> 69.</note> Suetonius +recounts the twenty-eight consulships, five dictatorships, seven +<pb n="70"/><anchor id="Pg70"/>censorships, and many triumphs which were the glory of +the great Claudian house,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> i. Cf. the funeral +oration of Julius Caesar over his aunt, +quoted by Suet. <hi rend="italic">Jul. Caes.</hi> 6.</note> and the similar honours which +had been borne by the paternal ancestors of Nero.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, i.</note> Tacitus, +although not himself a man of old family, has a profound belief +in noble tradition, and sometimes speaks with an undisguised +scorn of a low alliance.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> vi. 33.</note> As the number of the <q>Trojugenae</q> +dwindled, the pride of the vanishing remnant probably grew +in proportion, and a clan like the Calpurnian reluctantly +yielded precedence even to Tiberius or Nero.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xv. 48.</note> It is a sign +of the social tone that the manufacture of genealogies for the +new men, who came into prominence from the reign of +Vespasian, went on apace. A Trojan citizen in the days +of Apollonius traced himself to Priam.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iv. 12.</note> Herodes Atticus +claimed descent from the heroes of Aegina,<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph.</hi> ii. 1.</note> just as some of the +Christian friends of S. Jerome confidently carried their pedigree +back to Aeneas or Agamemnon.<note place="foot">Hieron. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 108, § 4.</note> Juvenal would certainly +not have accepted such fables, but he was no leveller. He +had a firm belief in moral heredity and the value of tradition. +Plebeian as he was, he had, like Martial, his own old +Roman pride, which poured contempt on the upstarts who, +with the stains of servile birth or base trade upon them, were +crowding the benches of the knights. He would, indeed, +have applauded the <hi rend="italic">mot</hi> of Tiberius, that a distinguished man +was his own ancestor;<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xi. 21, Curtius Rufus +videtur mihi ex se natus.</note> he recalls with pride that one humble +son of Arpinum had annihilated the hordes of the Cimbri, and +another had crushed the rising of Catiline.<note place="foot">Juv. viii. 285 sqq.</note> But he had the +true Roman reverence for the Curii, Fabii, and Scipios, and +would gladly salute any of their descendants who reproduced +their virtues. +</p> + +<p> +It is a melancholy certainty that a great many of the senatorial +class in Juvenal’s day had fallen very low in all things +essential to the strength of a great caste. Their numbers had +long been dwindling,<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xi. 25.</note> owing to vicious celibacy or the cruel +proscriptions of the triumvirate and the four Claudian Caesars, +or from the unwillingness or inability of many to support the +<pb n="71"/><anchor id="Pg71"/>burdens of their rank. It was a rare thing in many great +houses to reach middle age.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 33, § 2; Juv. iv. 96.</note> Three hundred senators and two +thousand knights had fallen in the proscription of the second +triumvirate.<note place="foot">Appian, <hi rend="italic">B. C.</hi> iv. 5.</note> The massacre of old and young of both sexes, +which followed the fall of Sejanus, must have extinguished +many an ancient line; not a day passed without an execution.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> 61, nullus a poena hominum +cessavit dies.</note> +Three hundred knights and thirty-five senators perished in the +reign of Claudius.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Claud.</hi> xxix.</note> Very few of the most ancient patrician +houses were left when Claudius revised the lists of the Senate, +and introduced a fresh element from Gaul.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xi. 25.</note> Who can tell +the numbers of those who fell victims to the rage or greed +or suspicion of Caligula, Nero, and Domitian? The list must +have been enormously swelled by the awful year of the four +emperors. Vespasian found it necessary to recruit the ranks +of the aristocracy from Italy and the provinces.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> ix.; cf. Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iii. 55.</note> +</p> + +<p> +At the same time, prodigality or confiscation had rendered +many of those who survived unable to maintain their rank, and +to bear the social and official burdens which, down to the end +of the Western Empire were rigorously imposed on the great +order. The games of the praetorship in the first century, as in +the fifth,<note place="foot">Sym. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ii. 78; Seeck, <hi rend="italic">Prol.</hi> xlvi.</note> constituted a tax which only a great fortune could +easily bear. Aristocratic poverty became common. As early +as the reign of Augustus, the emperor had found it politic to +subsidise many great families.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> xli.</note> The same policy had been +continued by Tiberius, Nero, and Vespasian.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, x.; <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> xvii.</note> Tiberius, indeed, +had scrutinised and discouraged some of these claims +on grounds which the treasury officials of every age would +applaud.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> ii. 37, 38.</note> A grandson of the great orator Hortensius once +made an appeal in the Senate for the means of supporting +the dignity of his name. He had received a grant from +Augustus to enable him to rear a family, and four sons were +now waiting at the doors of the Curia to second his prayer. +Hortensius, who was the great rival of Cicero, had possessed +immense wealth. He had many splendid villas, he used to +give dinners in his park, around which the deer would troop +<pb n="72"/><anchor id="Pg72"/>to the lute of a slave-Orpheus; he left 10,000 casks of old +Chian in his cellars. His mendicant and spiritless descendant +had to go away with a cold withering refusal from Tiberius, +softened by a contemptuous dole to his sons. The revision +of the senatorial roll by Claudius in 48 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, revealed a portentous +disappearance of old houses of the Republic, and the +gaps had to be filled up from the provinces in the teeth of +aristocratic exclusiveness.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xi. 25; D. Cass. lx. 29. +The last revision of the Senate was in +the reign of Augustus; D. Cass. lv. +13.</note> Among the boon companions of +Nero there must have been many loaded with debt, like +Otho and Vitellius. The Corvinus in Juvenal who is keeping +sheep on a Laurentine farm, and his probable kinsman who +obtained a subsidy from Nero, the Fabii and Mamerci +who were dancing and playing the harlequin on the comic +stage, or selling their blood in the arena, must represent +many a wreck of the great houses of the Republic.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiii. 34; Juv. i. 107.</note> Among +the motley crowd who swarm in the hall of the great patron +to receive the morning dole, the descendants of houses +coeval with the Roman State are pushed aside by the +freedmen from the Euphrates.<note place="foot">Juv. i. 103.</note> But aristocratic poverty +knew no lower depth of degradation than in the hungry +adulation which it offered to the heirless rich. Captation +became a regular profession in a society where trade, industry, +and even professional skill, were treated as degrading to the +men of gentle blood.<note place="foot">Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> c. 116, 124; Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +ii. 20; Juv. i. 37; iii. 31.</note> It is characteristic of Juvenal that he +places on the same level the legacy-hunter, who would stoop +to any menial service or vicious compliance, with the honest +tradesfolk, in whose ranks, if we may judge by their funerary +inscriptions, was to be found, perhaps, the wholesomest moral +tone in the society of the early Empire. +</p> + +<p> +In a satire written after Domitian’s death,<note place="foot">Juv. iv.; i. 27.</note> Juvenal has +described a scene of fatuous adulation which, if not true in +fact, is only too true to the character of the time. A huge +mullet, too large for any private table, had been caught in a +bay of the Adriatic. Its captor hastens through winter storms +to lay his spoil at the emperor’s feet. The kitchen of the +Alban palace had no dish large enough for such a monster, and +<pb n="73"/><anchor id="Pg73"/>a council of trembling senators is hastily summoned to consult +on the emergency. Thither came the gentle Crispus, that +Acilius, whose son was to be the victim of the despot’s +jealousy, Rubrius tainted with a nameless crime, the bloated +Montanus, and Crispinus, once an Egyptian slave, now a +vulgar exquisite, reeking with unguents. There, too, was the +informer whose whisper stabbed like a stiletto, the lustful, +blind Catullus, and the arch flatterer Veiento, who had +revelled at the Gargantuan feasts of Nero from noon till +midnight. These are worthy brethren of the assembly who +stabbed Proculus to death with their stiles at the nod of the +freedman of Caligula,<note place="foot">D. Cass. lix. 26.</note> and led Nero home in triumphal procession +after his mother’s murder.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 12.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Many things had contributed to the degradation of the +senatorial character. The dark and tortuous policy of +Tiberius tended, indeed, to absolutism; yet he still maintained +a tone of deference to the Senate, and sometimes, with cold +good sense, repelled a too eager adulation.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> lxvii.</note> But, in the reigns +of Caligula and Nero, the great order had to submit to the +deepest personal degradation, and were tempted, or compelled +by their masters to violate every instinct of Roman dignity. +The wild epileptic frenzy of Caligula, who spared not the +virtue of his sisters,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> xxiii. xxiv.; cf. L. comitiali +morbo vexatus, which explains much +to a medical man.</note> as he boasted of his own incestuous +birth,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xxiii.</note> who claimed divine honours,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xxii.; cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, i. 20.</note> temples, and costly +sacrifices, who, as another Endymion, called the Moon to his +embraces, who dreamt of obliterating the memory of Homer +and Virgil and Livy, was not likely to spare the remnant of +self-respect still left in his nobles.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> xxxiv. xxxv. vetera +familiarum insignia nobilissimo cuique +ademit; xxii.</note> He gave an immense +impetus to the rage for singing, dancing, and acting,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> liv. lv. quorum vero studio +teneretur, omnibus ad insaniam favit.</note> for +chariot-driving and fighting in the arena, not unknown before, +which Juvenal and Tacitus brand as the most flagrant sign of +degenerate morals. There was indeed a great conflict of +sentiment under the early Empire as to some of these arts. +Julius Caesar had encouraged or permitted Roman senators +and knights to fight in the gladiatorial combats, and a Laberius +<pb n="74"/><anchor id="Pg74"/>to act in his own play.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Jul. Caes.</hi> xxxix.</note> But a decree of the Senate, not long +afterwards, had placed a ban on these exhibitions by men of +noble rank.<note place="foot">D. Cass. xlviii. 43.</note> Tiberius, who was, beyond anything, a haughty +aristocrat, at a later date intervened to save the dignity of +the order.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tiberius</hi>, xxxv.</note> But the rage of the rabble for these spectacles +had undoubtedly caught many in the ranks of the upper +class. And Caligula and Nero<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> xviii. nec ullis nisi ex +senatorio ordine aurigantibus; D. +Cass. 59. 10, 13, Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xii.</note> found, only too easily, youths +of birth and breeding, but ruined fortune, who were ready to +exhibit themselves for a welcome <hi rend="italic">douceur</hi>, or to gain the +favour of the prince, or even to bring down the applause +of the crowded benches of the amphitheatre or the circus. +Yet the old Roman feeling must have been very persistent, +when a man like Domitian, who posed as a puritan, found +it politic to remove from the Senate one who had disgraced +his order by dancing in the pantomime, and even +laid his interdict on all public theatrical performances.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> viii. vii.</note> +The revels and massacres and wild debauchery of Nero did +not so much to hasten his destruction as his singing his +catches to the lute, or appearing in the parts of the incestuous +Canace and the matricide Orestes.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xx. xxi.</note> From every part of the +world, in all the literature of the time, there is a chorus of +astounded indignation against the prince who could stoop to +pit himself against Greek players and singers at Delphi or +Olympia. Juvenal has been reproached for putting the chariot-driving +of Damasippus in the same category with the Verrine +plunder of provinces.<note place="foot">Juv. viii. 89, 147.</note> He is really the exponent of old +Roman sentiment. And it may be doubted whether, from the +Roman point of view, Juvenal might not justify himself to +his critics. Even in our own emancipated age, we might be +pardoned for feeling a shock if an English prime minister rode +his own horse at the Derby, or appeared in a risky part on the +boards of the Gaiety. And the collective sense of senatorial +self-respect was too precious to a Roman patriot and moralist, +to be flung away for mere love of sport, or in a fit of spurious +artistic enthusiasm. Nero, and in an even lower fashion +Caligula, were rebels against old Roman conventional restraints, +<pb n="75"/><anchor id="Pg75"/>and it is possible that some of the hideous tales about them, +which were spread in the <q>circuli,</q> may have been the vengeance +of Roman pride on shameless social revolutionaries, who +paraded their contempt for old-fashioned dignity and for social +tradition. Nero was never so happy as when he was deafened +with applause, and smothered with roses at the Greek festivals. +He had once predicted for him a monarchy in those regions of +the East,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xl.; <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Krause, <hi rend="italic">De +Sueton. Fontibus</hi>, pp. 57, 80; Peter, +<hi rend="italic">Gesch. Litt.</hi> ii. 69.</note> where he would have escaped from the tradition of +old Roman puritanism, and combined all the ingenious sensuality +of Syria with the doubtful artistic taste of a decadent +Hellenism. The cold haughty refinement of senatorial circles +of the old régime, and the rude honest virtue of the plebeian +soldiery,<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xv. 67.</note> rightly mistrusted this false sensational artist on the +throne of the world. +</p> + +<p> +Art, divorced from moral ideals, may become a dangerous +thing. The emperor might spend the morning with his +favourites in patching up lilting verses which would run well +to the lute.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xiv. 16; cf. Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, lii., +where Suetonius distinctly says that +some of Nero’s verses, which he had +seen, bore all the marks of originality. +Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iv. 39; Macé, +<hi rend="italic">Suétone</hi>, p. 127; Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> p. +248.</note> But the scene soon changed to a revel, where +the roses and music hardly veiled the grossness of excess. The +<q>noctes Neronis</q> made many a debauchee and scattered many +a senatorial fortune.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xxvii.</note> And amid all this elaborate luxury and +splendour of indulgence, there was a strange return to the +naturalism of vice and mere blackguardism. A Messalina or +a Nero or a Petronius developed a curious taste for the low +life that reeks and festers in the taverns and in the stews. +Bohemianism for a time became the fashion.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xxvi.; cf. Juv. vi. 115.</note> Its very grossness +was a stimulant to appetites jaded with every diabolical +refinement of vicious ingenuity. The distinguished dinner +party, with the emperor at their head, sallied forth to see how +the people were living in the slums. Many a scene from these +midnight rambles has probably been preserved in the tainted, +yet brilliant, pages of the <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi>. Petronius had probably +often plunged with Nero after night-fall into those low dens, +where slave minions and sailors and the obscene priests of the +great Mother were roistering together, or sunk in the slumber +<pb n="76"/><anchor id="Pg76"/>of debauch.<note place="foot">Juv. viii. 172.</note> These elegant aristocrats found their sport in +rudely assaulting quiet citizens returning from dinner, or +plundering some poor huckster’s stall in the Suburra, or insulting +a lady in her chair. In the fierce faction fights of the +theatre, where stones and benches were flying, the Emperor +had once the distinction of breaking a praetor’s head.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xxvi.</note> It was +nobles trained in this school, experts in vice, but with no +nerve for arms, who encumbered the train of Otho on his +march to the sanguinary conflict on the Po.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 88.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The demoralisation of a section of the upper class under the +bad emperors must have certainly involved the degradation of +many women. And one of the most brilliant and famous of +Juvenal’s Satires is devoted to this unsavoury subject. The +<q>Legend of Bad Women</q> is a graphic picture, and yet it +suffers from a defect which spoils much of Juvenal’s work. +Full of realistic power, with an undoubted foundation of truth, +it is too vehement and sweeping in its censures to gain full +credence. It is also strangely wanting in balance and due order +of idea.<note place="foot">See some admirable criticism in +Nettleship’s <hi rend="italic">Lectures and Essays</hi>, 2nd +series, p. 141; cf. Munding, <hi rend="italic">Über die +Sat. des Juv.</hi> p. 7.</note> The problem of marriage is illustrated by a series +of sketches of female manners, which are very disconnected, +and, indeed, sometimes inconsistent. Thorough depravity, +superstition, and ignorant devotion, interest in literature and +public affairs, love of gymnastic and decided opinions on +Virgil—in fact, vices, innocent hobbies, and laudable tastes are +all thrown together in a confused indictment. The bohemian +man of letters had heard many a scandal about great ladies, +some of them true, others distorted and exaggerated by +prurient gossip, after passing through a hundred tainted +imaginations. In his own modest class, female morality, as +we may infer from the Inscriptions and other sources, was +probably as high as it ever was, as high as the average +morality of any age.<note place="foot">Duruy, v. 673; Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> +ii. 233 sqq.</note> There were aristocratic families, too, +where the women were as pure as Lucretia or Cornelia, or any +matron of the olden days.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 19; iii. 16; iii. 3; +Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ad Helv.</hi> xiv. xix.; D. Cass. +lxviii. 5 <hi rend="italic">ad fin.</hi></note> The ideal of purity, both in men +and women, in some circles was actually rising. In the families +of Seneca, of Tacitus, of Pliny and Plutarch, there were, not +<pb n="77"/><anchor id="Pg77"/>only the most spotless and high minded women, there were +also men with a rare conception of temperance and mutual +love, of reverence for a pure wedlock, to which S. Jerome and +S. Augustine would have given their benediction. Even Ovid, +that <q>debauchee of the imagination,</q> writes to his wife, from +his exile in the Scythian wilds, in the accents of the purest +affection.<note place="foot">Ov. <hi rend="italic">Trist.</hi> iii. 3, 15— + +<lg> +<l>Omnia cum subeant, vincis tamen omnia, conjux;</l> +<l>Et plus in nostro pectore parte tenes.</l> +<l>Te loquor absentem, te vox mea nominat unam:</l> +<l>Nulla venit sine te nox mihi, nulla dies.</l> +</lg></note> And, amid all the lubricity of his pictures of +gallantry, he has not lost the ideal of a virgin heart, which +repels and disarms the libertine by the spell of an impregnable +purity.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Amor.</hi> iii. 4, 3; cf. <hi rend="italic">Ars Am.</hi> +ii. 599, iii. 440, 613, Denis, <hi rend="italic">Idées +Morales</hi>, ii. 124.</note> Plutarch’s ideal of marriage, at once severe +and tender, would have satisfied S. Paul.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Consol. ad Uxor.</hi> x.; <hi rend="italic">Conj. +Praec.</hi> iv. xliv. xlvii.</note> Favorinus, the +friend and contemporary of Plutarch, thought it not beneath +the dignity of philosophic eloquence to urge on mothers +the duty of suckling and personally caring for their infants.<note place="foot">A. Gell. xii. 1.</note> +Seneca and Musonius, who lived through the reign of Nero, +are equally peremptory in demanding a like continence +from men and from women. And Musonius severely condemns +concubinage and vagrant amours of every kind, the +man guilty of seduction sins not only against another, but +against his own soul.<note place="foot">Denis, ii. 134; Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Die Phil. der +Griech.</hi> iii. 1, p. 660.</note> Dion Chrysostom was probably the first +of the ancients to raise a clear voice against the traffic in frail +beauty which has gone on pitilessly from age to age. Nothing +could exceed the vehemence with which he assails an evil +which he regards as not only dishonouring to human nature, +but charged with the poison of far spreading corruption.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> vii. 133.</note> +Juvenal’s ideal of purity, therefore, is not peculiar to himself. +The great world was bad enough, but there was another world +beside that whose infamy Juvenal has immortalised. +</p> + +<p> +It is also to be observed that Juvenal seems to be quite +as much under the influence of old Roman conventionality as of +permanent moral ideals. He condemns eccentricities, or mere +harmless aberrations from old-fashioned rules of propriety, as +ruthlessly as he punishes lust and crime. The blue-stocking +who is a purist in style, and who balances, with deafening +<pb n="78"/><anchor id="Pg78"/>volubility, the merits of Homer and Virgil,<note place="foot">Juv. vi. 436— + +<lg> +<l>Committit vates et comparat; inde Maronem,</l> +<l>Atque alia parte in trutina suspendit Homerum.</l> +<l>Cedunt grammatici, vincuntur rhetores—</l> +</lg></note> the eager gossip +who has the very freshest news from Thrace or Parthia, or the +latest secret of a tainted family,<note place="foot">Juv. vi. 400 sqq.</note> the virago who, with an +intolerable pride of virtue, plays the household tyrant and +delivers curtain lectures to her lord,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 268.</note> seem to be almost as +detestable in Juvenal’s eyes as the doubtful person who has +had eight husbands in five years, or one who elopes with an +ugly gladiator,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 108, 60.</note> or tosses off two pints before dinner.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 427.</note> We +may share his disgust for the great ladies who fought in the +arena and wrestled in the ring,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 252.</note> or who order their poor tire-women +to be flogged for deranging a curl in the towering +architecture of their hair.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 493.</note> But we cannot feel all his contempt +for the poor penitent devotee of Isis who broke the ice to +plunge thrice in the Tiber on a winter morning, and crawled +on bleeding knees over the Campus Martius, or brought a phial +of water from the Nile to sprinkle in the fane of the goddess.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 528.</note> +Even lust, grossness, and cruelty, even poisoning and abortion, +seem to lose some of their blackness when they are compared +with an innocent literary vanity, or a pathetic eagerness to +read the future or to soothe the pangs of a guilty conscience. +</p> + +<p> +The truth is that Juvenal is as much shocked by the <q>new +woman</q> as he is by the vicious woman. He did not understand, +or he could not acquiesce in the great movement for the +emancipation of women, which had set in long before his time, +and which, like all such movements, brought evil with it as +well as good. There is perhaps nothing more striking in +the social history of Rome than the inveterate conservatism +of Roman sentiment in the face of accomplished change. +Such moral rigidity is almost necessarily prone to pessimism. +The Golden Age lies in the past; the onward sweep of +society seems to be always moving towards the abyss. +The ideal past of the Roman woman lay more than two +centuries and a half behind the time when Juvenal was +born. The old Roman matron was, by legal theory, in the +power of her husband, yet assured by religion and sentiment a +dignified position in the family, and treated with profound, if +somewhat cold, respect; she was busied with household cares, +<pb n="79"/><anchor id="Pg79"/>and wanting in the lighter graces and charms, austere, self-contained, +and self-controlled. But this severe ideal had +begun to fade even in the days of the elder Cato.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">R. Hist.</hi> ii. 408 (Tr.).</note> And there +is hardly a fault or vice attributed by Juvenal to the women +of Domitian’s reign, which may not find parallel in the nine or +ten generations before Juvenal penned his great indictment +against the womanhood of his age. The Roman lady’s irritable +pride of birth is at least as old as the rivalry of the two Fabiae +in the fourth century.<note place="foot">Liv. vi. 34.</note> The elder Cato dreaded a rich wife +as much as Juvenal,<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Cato Maj.</hi> c. xx.; Juv. vi. +165, 460.</note> and satirised as bitterly the pride and +gossip and luxury of the women of his time. Their love of +gems and gold ornaments and many-coloured robes and richly +adorned carriages, is attested by Plautus and the impotent legislation +of C. Oppius.<note place="foot">Val. Max. ii. 1, 5; Liv. xxxiv. 1, 3; +Marq. i. p. 62.</note> Divorce and ghastly crime in the noblest +families were becoming common in the days of the Second Punic +War. About the same time began that emancipation of +women from the jealous restraints of Roman law, which was to +be carried further in the Antonine age.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">R. Hist.</hi> ii. 408.</note> The strict forms of +marriage, which placed the wife in the power of her husband, +fell more and more into desuetude. Women attained more +absolute control over their property, and so much capital +became concentrated in their hands that, about the middle of +the second century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, the Voconian law was passed to prohibit +bequests to them, with the usual futile result of such +legislation.<note place="foot">Cic. <hi rend="italic">in Verr.</hi> i. 42, 107.</note> Yet the old ideal of the industrious housewife +never died out, and Roman epitaphs for ages record that the +model matron was a wool-worker and a keeper at home. A +senator of the reign of Honorius praises his daughter for the same +homely virtues.<note place="foot">Sym. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vi. 67; cf. Suet. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> +lxiv.; <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2677, 4629, 4629, +lanifica, pia, pudica, casta, domiseda.</note> But from the second century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> the education +of the Roman girl of the higher classes underwent a great +change.<note place="foot">Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> iii. 14, 11.</note> Dancing, music, and the higher accomplishments +were no longer under a ban, although they were still suspected +by people of the old-fashioned school. Boys and girls received +the same training from the grammarian, and read their Homer +and Ennius together.<note place="foot">Friedl. i. 312; Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> +ii. 240.</note> There were women in the time of +<pb n="80"/><anchor id="Pg80"/>Lucretius, as in the time of Juvenal, who interlarded their +conversation with Greek phrases.<note place="foot">Lucr. iv. 1160; Juv. vi. 192.</note> Cornelia, the wife of +Pompey, was trained in literature and mathematics, and even +had some tincture of philosophy.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Pomp.</hi> lv.</note> The daughter of Atticus, +who became the wife of Agrippa, was placed under the tuition +of a freedman, who, as too often happened, seems to have +abused his trust.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Gram. Ill.</hi> 16.</note> Even in the gay circle of Ovid, there +were learned ladies, or ladies who wished to be thought so.<note place="foot">Ov. <hi rend="italic">Ars Am.</hi> ii. 282.</note> +Even Martial reckons culture among the charms of a woman. +Seneca maintained that women have an equal capacity for cultivation +with men.<note place="foot">Mart. xii. 98, 3; cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ad Helv.</hi> +xvii.; <hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> xvi.</note> Thus the blue-stocking of Juvenal, for whom +he has so much contempt, had many an ancestress for three +centuries, as she will have many a daughter till the end of the +Western Empire.<note place="foot">Claud. <hi rend="italic">Laus Serenae</hi>, 146.</note> Even in philosophy, usually the last study +to attract the female mind, Roman ladies were asserting +an equal interest. Great ladies of the Augustan court, even +the empress herself, had their philosophic directors,<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> 4.</note> and +the fashion perhaps became still more general under M. +Aurelius. Epictetus had met ladies who were enthusiastic +admirers of the Platonic Utopia, but the philosopher rather +slyly attributes their enthusiasm to the absence of rigorous +conjugal relations in the Ideal Society.<note place="foot">Epict. <hi rend="italic">Fr.</hi> liii.</note> Even in the field of +authorship, women were claiming equal rights. The <hi rend="italic">Memoirs of +Agrippina</hi> was one of the authorities of Tacitus.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iv. 53; cf. Plin. <hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> +vii. 8, 46.</note> The poems of +Sulpicia, mentioned by Martial,<note place="foot">Mart. x. 35; vii. 69.</note> were read in Gaul in the days +of Sidonius.<note place="foot">Sid. Apoll. <hi rend="italic">Carm.</hi> ix. 261.</note> Greek verses, of some merit in spite of a pedantic +affectation, by Balbilla, a friend of the wife of Hadrian, can +still be read on the Colossus of Memnon.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.G.</hi> 4725-31.</note> Calpurnia, the wife +of Pliny, may not have been an author; but she shared all +Pliny’s literary tastes; she set his poems to music, and gave +him the admiration of a good wife, if not of an impartial critic. +</p> + +<p> +Juvenal feels as much scorn for the woman who is interested +in public affairs and the events on the frontier,<note place="foot">Juv. vi. 403; cf. 434.</note> as he +feels for the woman who presumes to balance the merits of +Virgil and Homer. And here he is once more at war with a +<pb n="81"/><anchor id="Pg81"/>great movement towards the equality of the sexes. From the +days of Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, to the days of +Placidia, the sister of Honorius, Roman women exercised, from +time to time, a powerful, and not always wholesome, influence +on public affairs. The politic Augustus discussed high matters +of state with Livia.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> lxxxiv.</note> The reign of Claudius was a reign of +women and freedmen. Tacitus records, with a certain distaste +for the innovation, that Agrippina sat enthroned beside Claudius +on a lofty tribunal, to receive the homage of the captive Caractacus.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xii. 37, novum sane et +moribus veterum insolitum, feminam +signis Romanis praesidere.</note> +Nero emancipated himself from the grasping ambition +of his mother only by a ghastly crime. The influence of +Caenis on Vespasian in his later days tarnished his fame.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lxvi. 14; cf. Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> +xvi.; Krause, <hi rend="italic">De Suet. Fontibus</hi>, p. 75.</note> +The influence of women in provincial administration was also +becoming a serious force. In the reign of Tiberius, Caecina +Severus, with the weight of forty years’ experience of camps, in +a speech before the Senate, denounced the new-fangled custom +of the wives of generals and governors accompanying them +abroad, attending reviews of troops, mingling freely with the +soldiers, and taking an active part in business, which was not +always favourable to pure administration.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iii. 33; cf. i. 64; i. 69, +sed femina [<hi rend="italic">i.e.</hi> Agrippina] ingens animi +munia ducis per eos dies induit, etc.</note> In the inscriptions +of the first and second centuries, women appear in a more +wholesome character as <q>mothers of the camp,</q> or patronesses +of municipal towns and corporations.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6000, 4036, 5158, 4643, +5134, 3774, 2417, 4055, 4056, 7207, +3815.</note> They have statues dedicated +to them for liberality in erecting porticoes or adorning +theatres or providing civic games or feasts.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 3738, 3773, 6992.</note> And on one of +these tablets we read of a <hi rend="italic">Curia mulierum</hi> at Lanuvium.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 3740.</note> +We are reminded of the <q>chapter of matrons</q> who visited +Agrippina with their censure,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Galba</hi>, v.</note> and another female senate, under +Elagabalus, which dealt with minute questions of precedence +and graded etiquette.<note place="foot">Lamprid. <hi rend="italic">Heliogab.</hi> iv.; cf. Lamprid. +<hi rend="italic">Aurelian.</hi> xlix.</note> On the walls of Pompeii female admirers +posted up their election placards in support of their +favourite candidates.<note place="foot">Mau, <hi rend="italic">Pompeii</hi> (Kelsey Tr.), p. 479.</note> Thus Juvenal was fighting a lost battle, +lost long before he wrote. For good or evil, women in the +first and second centuries were making themselves a power. +</p> + +<pb n="82"/><anchor id="Pg82"/> + +<p> +Although he was probably a very light believer in the old +mythology,<note place="foot">Juv. ii. 31; iv. 34; xiii. 38; vi. +394; vii. 194.</note> and treated its greatest figures with scant respect, +Juvenal had all the old Roman prejudice against those eastern +worships which captivated so many women of his day. And, here +again, the satirist is assailing a movement which had set in long +before he wrote, and which was destined to gain immense impetus +and popularity in the two following centuries. The eunuch +priests of the Great Mother, with their cymbals and Phrygian +tiaras, had appeared in Italy in the last years of the Hannibalic +War.<note place="foot">Liv. xxix. 14.</note> The early years of the second century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> were convulsed +by the scandals and horrors of the Dionysiac orgies, +which fell on Rome like a pestilence.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xxxix. 8; cf. Lafaye, <hi rend="italic">Culte des +Div. d’Alexandrie</hi>, c. iii.</note> The purity of women +and the peace of families were in serious danger, till the +mischief was stamped out in blood. The worship of Isis +found its way into the capital at least as early as Sulla, and +defied the hesitating exclusion of Augustus.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. 817; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> +xciii.; D. Cass. liii. 2.</note> At this distance, +we can see the <hi rend="italic">raison d’être</hi> of what the satirist regarded +as religious aberrations, the full treatment of which must +be reserved for another chapter. The world was in the +throes of a religious revolution, and eagerly in quest of some +fresh vision of the Divine, from whatever quarter it might +dawn. The cults of the East seemed to satisfy cravings and +emotions, which found no resting-place in the national religion. +Their ritual appealed to the senses and imagination, while their +mysteries seemed to promise a revelation of God and immortality. +Their strange mixture of the sensuous and the ascetic +was specially adapted to fascinate weak women who had deeply +sinned, and yet occasionally longed to repent. The repentance +indeed was often shallow enough; the fasting and mortification +were compatible with very light morals.<note place="foot">Catull. x. 26; Tibull. i. 3, 23; cf. +Juv. xiii. 93.</note> There were the gravest +moral abuses connected with such worships as that of Magna +Mater. It is well known that the temples of Isis often +became places of assignation and guilty intrigue.<note place="foot">Ov. <hi rend="italic">Ars Am.</hi> i. 77.</note> An infatuated +Roman lady in the reign of Tiberius had been +seduced by her lover in the pretended guise of the god +Anubis.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> i. 347.</note> The Chaldaean seer or the Jewish hag might often +<pb n="83"/><anchor id="Pg83"/>arouse dangerous hopes, or fan a guilty passion by casting +a horoscope or reading a dream.<note place="foot">Juv. vi. 547.</note> But Juvenal’s scorn seems +to fall quite as heavily on the innocent votary who was striving +to appease a burdened conscience, as on one who made her +superstition a screen for vice. +</p> + +<p> +In spite of the political extinction of the Jewish race, its +numbers and influence grew in Italy. The very destruction +of the Holy Place and the external symbols of Jewish worship +threw a more impressive air of mystery around the dogmas +of the Jewish faith, of which even the most cultivated Romans +had only vague conceptions.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> v. 2, 4; Juv. xiv. 97.</note> The Jews, from the time of +the first Caesar, had worked their way into every class of +society.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Fr.</hi> 42 (in Aug. <hi rend="italic">De Civ. Dei</hi>, +vi. 11), victi victoribus leges dederunt.</note> A Jewish prince had inspired Caligula with an +oriental ideal of monarchy.<note place="foot">Cf. Meriv. vi. 6.</note> There were adherents of Judaism +in the household of the great freedmen of Claudius, and their +growing influence and turbulence compelled that emperor to +expel the race from the capital.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Claud.</hi> xxv.</note> The worldly, pleasure-loving +Poppaea had, perhaps, yielded to the mysterious charm of the +religion of Moses.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 22; Duruy, iv. 505.</note> But it was under the Flavians, who had +such close associations with Judaea, that Jewish influences +made themselves most felt. And in the reign of Domitian, +two members of the imperial house, along with many others, +suffered for following the Jewish mode of life.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> xv.; D. Cass. lxvii. +14; Ren. <hi rend="italic">Les Év.</hi> p. 228.</note> Their crime +is also described as <q>atheism,</q> and Clemens is, in the old +Roman spirit, said to have been a man of the most <q>contemptible +inactivity.</q> In truth, the <q>Jewish life</q> was a +description which might cover many shades of belief and +practice in religion, including Christianity itself. The secret +worship of a dim, mysterious Power, Who was honoured +by no imposing rites, a spirit of detachment and quietism, +which shrank from games and spectacles and the scenes of +fashion, and nursed the dream of a coming kingdom which +was not of this world, excited the suspicion and contempt +of the coarse, strenuous Roman nature. Yet, in the gloom +and deep corruption of that sombre time, such a life of +retreat and renunciation had a strange charm for naturally +<pb n="84"/><anchor id="Pg84"/>pious souls, especially among women. There were indeed +many degrees of conformity to the religion of Palestine. +While some were attracted by its more spiritual side, others +confined themselves to an observance of the Sabbath, which +became very common in some quarters of Rome under the +Empire. The children, as Juvenal tells us, were sometimes +trained to a complete conformity to the law of Moses.<note place="foot">Juv. xiv. 96; vi. 544; iii. 15; +Ren. <hi rend="italic">Les Év.</hi> p. 234.</note> +But Juvenal is chiefly thinking of the mendicant population +from Palestine who swarmed in the neighbourhood of the +Porta Capena and the grove of the Muses, practising all the +arts which have appealed in all ages to superstitious women. +Thus the Judaism of the times of Nero or Domitian might +cover anything from the cunning of the gipsy fortune-teller +to the sad, dreaming quietism of Pomponia Graecina.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiii. 32.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Yet it must be admitted that, although Juvenal, in his +attacks on women, has mixed up very real vice with superstition +and mere innocent eccentricity, or the explosive energy +of a new freedom, the real vices of many women of his time +are a melancholy fact. The Messalinas and Poppaeas had +many imitators and companions in their own class. It is +true that even the licentious fancy of Ovid and Martial +generally spares the character of the unmarried girl. She was, +in the darkest times, as a rule, carefully guarded from the +worst corruptions of the spectacles,<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> i. p. 332; cf. Plin. +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vii. 24.</note> or from the reckless +advances of the hardened libertine, although an intrigue with a +tutor was not unknown.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Ill. Gram.</hi> xvi.</note> Her marriage was arranged often +in mere childhood, seldom later than her seventeenth year. +A girl was rarely betrothed after nineteen.<note place="foot">Friedl. i. 314; <hi rend="italic">Inscr. Or.</hi> 2656, +2668, 4803.</note> Her temptations +and danger often began on her wedding-day. That there was +a high ideal of pure and happy marriage, even in the times +of the greatest licence, we know from Pliny and Plutarch, +and from Martial himself.<note place="foot">Mart. iv. 13— + +<lg> +<l>Diligat illa senem quondam: sed et ipsa marito,</l> +<l>Tunc quoque cum fuerit, non videatur anus.</l> +</lg> + +Plut. <hi rend="italic">Conj. Praec.</hi> xliv. xxxiv.; Plin. +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 19; vi. 4; vii. 5.</note> But there were serious perils +before the child-bride, when she was launched upon the great +world of Roman society. A marriage of convenience with +some member of a tainted race, <hi rend="italic">blasé</hi> with precocious and +<pb n="85"/><anchor id="Pg85"/>unnatural indulgence, and ready to concede the conjugal +liberty which he claimed, was a perilous trial to virtue. The +bonds of old Roman marriage had, for ages, been greatly +relaxed, and the Roman lady of independent fortune and +vigorous, highly trained intellect, could easily find consolation +for marital neglect. From Seneca to S. Jerome, the foppish +procurator of the great lady was a dangerous and suspected +person,<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Fr.</hi> xiii. de Matrimonio, +formosus assecla et procurator calamistratus, +etc., sub quibus nominibus adulteri +delitescunt; cf. S. Hieron. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 54, +§ 13. S. Jerome is evidently imitating +Seneca; cf. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 639, Mart. v. +61.</note> and not always without good cause. Surrounded by an +army of slaves and the other obsequious dependents of a great +house, treated with profound deference, and saluted with the +pompous titles of <hi rend="italic">domina</hi> and <hi rend="italic">regina</hi>, the great lady’s lightest +caprice became law.<note place="foot">Juv. vi. 460; Sen. <hi rend="italic">Fr.</hi> 51.</note> Costly jewels and the rarest luxuries of the +toilet poured in upon her from regions which were only visited +by the captains of Red Sea merchantmen, or by some Pythagorean +ascetic seeking the fountains of the wisdom of the East.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iii. 35, Luc. +<hi rend="italic">Alex.</hi> 44.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The political life of Rome had been extinguished by a +jealous despotism, but social life in the higher ranks was never +so intense and so seductive, and women had their full share in +it. Ladies dined out regularly with their husbands, even at +the emperor’s table,<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 81, erat Othoni celebre +convivium primoribus feminis virisque. +D. Cass. lx. 7.</note> and they were liable to be assailed by +the artistic wiles of which Ovid taught the secret, or by the +brutal advances of the lawless Caligula.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> xxxvi.</note> It was a time when +people loved to meet anywhere, under the trees of the Campus +Martius, in the colonnades of the theatre, or round the +seats of the public squares. Everywhere were to be seen +those groups which spared no reputation, not even the emperor’s. +And behind the chair of the young matron often +hovered the dangerous exquisite, who could hum in a whisper +the latest suggestive song from Alexandria or Gades,<note place="foot">Ov. <hi rend="italic">Ars Am.</hi> i. 67, Friedl. i. 281.</note> who +knew the pedigree of every racehorse and the secret of every +intrigue. It is at such scenes that Tacitus is probably +glancing when he says that in Germany no one makes a jest +of vice, or calls the art of corruption the fashion of the world;<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Germ.</hi> 19, nec corrumpere et +corrumpi saeculum vocatur.</note> +chastity is not sapped by the seductions of the spectacles. +<pb n="86"/><anchor id="Pg86"/>Augustus had, indeed, set apart the upper seats for women in +the theatre and amphitheatre,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> xliv.</note> but on the benches of the circus +the sexes freely mingled. It was there, while the factions of the +red and blue were shouting themselves hoarse, Ovid pointed +out to his pupil in gallantry, that he had his fairest chance of +making a dangerous impression.<note place="foot">Ov. <hi rend="italic">Ars Am.</hi> i. 139— + +<lg> +<l>Proximus a domina, nullo prohibente, sedeto.</l> +</lg></note> Yet even Ovid is half inclined +to be shocked at the scenes on the stage which were +witnessed by women and young boys.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Trist.</hi> ii. 503— + +<lg> +<l>Nec satis incestis temerari vocibus aures:</l> +<l rend="margin-left: 2">Adsuescunt oculi multa pudenda pati.</l> +</lg> + +Cf. 515.</note> The foulest tales of +the old mythology, the loves of Pasiphae or the loves of Leda, +were enacted to the life, or told with a nakedness of language, +compared with which even Martial might seem chaste.<note place="foot">Mart. iii. 86 says of his poems— + +<lg> +<l>Non sunt haec mimis improbiora: lege.</l> +</lg></note> Not +less degrading were the gladiatorial shows, so lavishly provided +by Augustus and Trajan, as well as by Caligula and Domitian, +at which the Vestals had a place of honour.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> xliv.</note> It is little +wonder that women accustomed to take pleasure in the sufferings +and death of brave men, should be capable of condemning +their poor slave women to torture or the lash for a sullen look, +or a half-heard murmur. The grossness with which Juvenal +describes the effect of the stage on the morals of women savours +of the Suburra.<note place="foot">Juv. vi. 62.</note> But of the poisonous character of these performances +there can be no doubt. And actors, musicians, and +gladiators became a danger to the peace of households, as well +as to the peace of the streets. The artistes of the pantomime +were sternly suppressed both by Tiberius and Domitian, and +not without good cause.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> vii.; <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> xxxiv.</note> One famous dancer had the fatal +honour of captivating Messalina.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lx. 22, 28.</note> The empress of Domitian +was divorced for her love of Paris.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> iii.; D. Cass. lxvii. 3.</note> And the scandals +which darkened the fame of the younger Faustina, and +impeached the legitimacy of Commodus, even if they were +false, must have rested on a certain ground of probability.<note place="foot">Capitol. <hi rend="italic">M. Anton.</hi> xix.</note> +It is melancholy to hear that M. Aurelius had to restrain +the excesses of Roman matrons even under the reign of the +philosophers.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xxiii. mores matronarum conposuit +diffluentes, etc.</note> To all these perils must be added the allurements +of household slavery. While a Musonius or a Seneca +<pb n="87"/><anchor id="Pg87"/>was demanding equal chastity in man and woman, the new +woman of Juvenal boldly claims a vicious freedom equal to +her husband’s.<note place="foot">Juv. vi. 281.</note> The testimony of Petronius is tainted by +a suspicion of prurient imagination. But the student of other +sources can hardly doubt that, in the first century, as in the +fourth, the Roman lady of rank sometimes degraded herself by +a servile <hi rend="italic">liaison</hi>. A decree of Vespasian’s reign, which his +biographer tells us was called for by the general licence, +punished the erring matron with the loss of her rank.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> xi. auctor senatui fuit +decernendi ut quae se alieno servo +junxisset ancilla haberetur; cf. Mart. +vi. 39; <hi rend="italic">C. Th.</hi> iv. 9, 1.</note> +</p> + +<p> +These illustrations from other authorities may serve +towards a judicial estimate of Juvenal’s famous satire on +women. That it is not a prurient invention is proved by the +pages of Tacitus and Suetonius and the records of Roman +morals for more than two centuries. On the other hand, it +must be read with some reservations. Juvenal is a rhetorician +with a fiery temperament, who will colour and exaggerate, if +he will not invent. He is intensely prejudiced and conventional, +a man to whom desertion of ancient usage is almost as +bad as a breach of the moral law, a man incapable of seeing +that the evils of a new social movement may be more than compensated +by the good which it brings. Moreover, the graver +vices which he depicts with so much realistic power were +certainly not so general as he implies. It is to be suspected +that single instances of abnormal depravity have swelled in +his heated imagination till they have become types of whole +classes of sinners. At the worst, these vices infected only a +comparatively small class, idle, luxurious, enervated by the +slave system, depraved by the example of a vicious court. +The very scorn and indignation with which Juvenal pillories +the aristocratic debauchee reveal the existence of a higher +standard of virtue. Both the literature and the inscriptions +of that age make us acquainted with a very different kind of +woman. Over against the Hippia or Saufeia or Messalina of +Juvenal we must set the pure and cultivated women whom +we meet in the pages of Pliny or Tacitus, or the poor soldier’s +concubine in the Inscriptions, who has all the self-denying love +and virtue of our own cottagers’ wives.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2669, 4653, 7383.</note> +</p> + +<pb n="88"/><anchor id="Pg88"/> + +<p> +Just as Juvenal misunderstood the movement of female +emancipation, which was to culminate in the legislation of the +Antonine age, so has he misconceived some other great social +movements of his time. Two in particular, the invasion of the +new Hellenism and the rise of the Freedmen, he anathematises +with the scorn and old Roman prejudice of the elder Cato. +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing new in the invasion of Hellenism in the +time of Juvenal. Nearly three hundred years before his day, +the narrow conservatism of ancient Rome was assailed by +the cosmopolitan culture of Hellas, which it alternately hated +and admired. The knowledge of Greek was widely diffused +in Italy in the time of the Hannibalic war.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">R. H.</hi> ii. 414 sqq.</note> Almost the last +Roman of the ancient breed stooped in his old age to learn +Greek, in order to train his son in the culture of the world.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 469; cf. Plut. <hi rend="italic">Cato</hi>, xxiii.</note> +But there were two different aspects of Hellenism. There +was the Hellenism represented by Homer and Plato and +Chrysippus; and there was the Hellenism of the low comic +stage, of the pimp and parasite. And there were reactions +against the lower Greek influences long before the days of +Juvenal. Cicero, who did more than any man of his race +to translate Greek thought into Roman idiom, yet expressed +as bitter a contempt as Juvenal’s for the fickle, supple, +histrionic Greek adventurer.<note place="foot">Mahaffy, <hi rend="italic">Greek World under +Roman Sway</hi>, p. 127.</note> Juvenal is not waging war +with that nobler Hellenism which had furnished models and +inspiration to the great writers of the Augustan age, and +which was destined to refashion Italian culture in the generation +following his death. The emperors, from Julius Caesar +to M. Aurelius, were, with few exceptions, trained in the +literature of Greece, and some of them gave a great impetus to +Greek culture in the West. Augustus delighted in the Old +Comedy, entertained Greek philosophers in his house, and +sprinkled his private letters to Tiberius with Greek quotations.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> 89; <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> 21.</note> +Tiberius, although he had lived at Rhodes in his youth, seems +to show less sympathy for the genius of Greece.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> 71, sermone Graeco, quanquam +alioquin promptus et facilis, non +tamen usquequaque usus est.</note> Caligula also +can hardly be claimed as a Hellenist. Although he had once +a wild dream of restoring the palace of Polycrates, and one, +more sane, of a canal through the Corinthian Isthmus, he also +<pb n="89"/><anchor id="Pg89"/>thought of wiping out the memory of the poems of Homer.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> xxi. xxxiv.</note> +Dr. Mahaffy is probably right in treating Claudius as the first +really Hellenist emperor.<note place="foot">Mahaffy, <hi rend="italic">The Greek World</hi>, p. 255.</note> Like our own James I., Claudius +was a learned and very ludicrous person. Yet he was perhaps +not so contemptible a character as he is painted by Suetonius. +He had, at any rate, the merit of being a lover of Greek literature,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Claud.</hi> xlii.</note> +and he heaped honour on the country which gave it birth.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xxv.</note> +He used to quote Homer in his speeches in the Senate, and +he composed histories in the Greek language, which, by an +imperial ordinance, were to be read aloud regularly in the +Museum of Alexandria.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xlii.</note> In spite of the vices and pompous +follies of Nero, his phil-Hellenism seems to have been a genuine +and creditable impulse. His visits to the Greek festivals, and +his share in the competitions, were not all mere vanity. He +had a futile passion for fame as an artist, and he sought the +applause of the race which had a real artistic tradition.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, lv. erat illi aeternitatis +perpetuaeque famae cupido. Cf. xxiv.</note> +When we reach the plebeian Flavian race, Hellenism is still +favoured. The bluff soldier, Vespasian, had an adequate command +of the Greek language, and was the first emperor who +gave liberal endowments to Greek rhetoric.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> xviii.</note> His son +Domitian, that puzzling enigma, the libertine who tried to +revive the morality of the age of Cato, the man who was said, +but most improbably, to confine his reading to the memoirs +of Tiberius, founded a quinquennial festival, with competitions, +on the Greek model, in music, gymnastic, and horsemanship. +By drawing on the inexhaustible stores of Alexandria, he +also repaired the havoc which had been wrought in the Roman +libraries by fire.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> xx.</note> Already in Juvenal’s life the brilliant +sophistic movement had set in which was destined to carry +the literary charm of Hellenism throughout the West. From +the close of the first century there appeared in its full bloom +that ingenious technique of style, that power of conquering +all the difficulties of a worn-out or trifling subject, that +delicate command of all varieties of rhythm, which carried the +travelling sophist through a series of triumphs wherever he +wandered. Classical Latin literature about the same time came +<pb n="90"/><anchor id="Pg90"/>to a mysterious end. The only authors of any merit in the +second century wrote in both languages indifferently.<note place="foot">And many in the first century, +Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 3; viii. 4, 1; Friedl. iii. 360; +Martha, <hi rend="italic">Les Moralistes sous l’Empire +Rom.</hi> p. 267; Teuffel, <hi rend="italic">R. Lit.</hi> § 342; +Mackail, <hi rend="italic">R. Lit.</hi> 232.</note> And +the great Emperor, who closes our period, preferred to leave +his inner thoughts to posterity in Greek. +</p> + +<p> +Juvenal, however, was not thinking of this great literary +movement. Like so many of his literary predecessors, who +had been formed by the loftier genius of the Greek past, +like Plautus and Cicero, he vented his rage on a degenerate +Hellenism. His shafts were levelled at the suttlers and camp-followers +of the invading army from the East. The phenomena +of Roman social history are constantly repeating themselves +for centuries. And one of the most curious examples of +perpetuity of social sentiment is the hatred and scorn for the +Greek or Levantine character, from the days of Plautus and +the elder Cato to the days of the poet Claudian.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Cato</hi>, c. xxii.; Claud. <hi rend="italic">In +Eutrop.</hi> ii. 137, 339.</note> For more +than 600 years, the Roman who had borrowed his best culture, +his polish and ideas from the Greek, was ready to sneer at +the <q>Greekling.</q> The conquerors of Macedon could never +forgive their own conquest by Greek knowledge and versatility, +by which old Roman victories in the field had been avenged. +And, as the pride of the imperial race grew with the consciousness +of great achievements, the political degradation and +economic decay of Greece and Greek-speaking lands produced +a type of character which combined the old cleverness and +keenness of intellect with the moral defects of an impoverished +and subject race. Something of Roman contempt for the Greek +must be set down to that national prejudice and difference of +temperament, which made our ancestors treat the great French +nation, with all its brilliant gifts and immense contributions +to European culture, as a race of posturing dancing-masters.<note place="foot">Juv. iii. 85.</note> +Such prejudices are generally more intense in the lower than +in the upper and the cultivated classes. Juvenal, indeed, was +a cultivated man, who knew Greek literature, and had been +formed by Greek rhetors in the schools. But he was also a +Roman plebeian, with that pride of race which is often as deep +in the plebeian as in the aristocrat. He gives voice to the +<pb n="91"/><anchor id="Pg91"/>feeling of his class when he indignantly laments that the true-born +Roman, whose infancy has drunk in the air of the +Aventine, should have to yield place to the supple, fawning +stranger, who has come with the same wind as the figs and +prunes. The Orontes is pouring its pollutions into the Tiber.<note place="foot">Juv. iii. 62 sqq.</note> +Every trade and profession, from the master of the highest +studies down to the rope-dancer and the pander, is crowded +with hungry, keen-witted adventurers from the East. Every +island of the Aegean, every city of Asia, is flooding Rome with +its vices and its venal arts.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 69-77.</note> Quickness of intellect and +depravity of morals, the brazen front and the ready tongue are +driving into the shade the simple, unsophisticated honesty of +the old Roman breed. At the morning receptions of the great +patron, the poor Roman client, who has years of honest, quiet +service to show, even the impoverished scion of an ancient +consular line, are pushed aside by some sycophant from the +Euphrates,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 104.</note> who can hardly conceal the brand of recent +servitude upon him. These men, by their smooth speech, +their effrontery and ready wit, their infinite capacity for +assuming every mood and humouring every caprice of the +patron, are creeping into the recesses of great houses, worming +out their secrets, and mastering their virtue.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 72, viscera magnarum +domuum dominique futuri.</note> Rome is +becoming a Greek town,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 60.</note> in which there will soon be no +place for Romans. +</p> + +<p> +Much of this indictment, as we have said, is the offspring +of prejudice and temperament. But there was a foundation +of truth under the declamation of Juvenal. The higher +education of Roman youth had for generations been chiefly +in the hands of men of Greek culture, from the days of +Ennius and Crates of Mallus, before the third Punic War.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Ill. Gram.</hi> i. ii. antiquissimi +doctorum qui iidem et poëtae et semigraeci +erant (Livium et Ennium dico), +etc.; Strab. vi. 3, 5; A. Gell. xvii. 17, i.</note> +The tutor’s old title <hi rend="italic">literatus</hi> had early given place to that of +<hi rend="italic">grammaticus</hi>.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Ill. Gram.</hi> iv.</note> And, of the long line of famous <hi rend="italic">grammatici</hi> +commemorated by Suetonius, there are few who were not by +origin or culture connected with the Greek east. Most of them +had been freedmen of savants or great nobles.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xx. xix. xvi. xv.</note> Some had +<pb n="92"/><anchor id="Pg92"/>actually been bought in the slave market.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Ill. Gram.</hi> xiii. Staberius ... +emptus de catasta.</note> The profession +was generally ill-paid and enjoyed little consideration, and +it was often the last resort of those who had failed in other +and not more distinguished callings. Orbilius, the master +of Horace, had been an attendant in a public office.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xiii.</note> Others +had been pugilists or low actors in pantomime.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xviii. xxiii.</note> Q. Remmius +Palaemon, whose vices made him infamous in the reign of +Tiberius and Claudius, had been a house-slave, and was +originally a weaver.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xxiii.</note> He educated himself while attending +his young master at school, and by readiness, versatility, and +arrogant self-assertion, rose to an income of more than £4000 +a year. Sometimes they attained to rank and fortune by being +entrusted with the tuition of the imperial children.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xvii.; cf. Quintilian, iv. Prooem. +2; cf. Juv. viii. 186-97.</note> But +the grammarian, to the very end, as a rule never escaped the +double stigma of doubtful origin and of poverty. +</p> + +<p> +The medical profession, according to the elder Pliny, was +a Greek art which was seldom practised by Romans.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> xxix. 17.</note> Julius +Caesar, by giving civic rights to physicians from Egypt and +Hellenic lands,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Jul. Caes.</hi> xlii.</note> while he raised the status of the medical calling, +also stimulated the immigration of foreign practitioners. The +rank and fortune attained by the court physicians of the early +Caesars, Antonius Musa, the Stertinii,<note place="foot">D. Cass. liii. 30; Plin. <hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> xxix. +4; <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2983.</note> and others, which +almost rivalled the medical successes of our own day, seemed +to offer a splendid prize. Yet the profession was generally in +low repute.<note place="foot">Juv. x. 221; Petron. 42; D. Cass. +lxxi. 33; lxix. 22; Mart. ii. 16; v. 9; +vi. 31; vi. 53; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xi. 31, 35.</note> It was long recruited from the ranks of old slaves, +and men of the meanest callings. Carpenters and smiths and +undertakers flocked into it, often with only a training of six +months.<note place="foot">Mart. i. 31; i. 48; viii. 74.</note> Galen found most of his medical brethren utterly +illiterate, and recommends them to pay a little attention to +grammar in dealing with their patients.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> i. 231.</note> They compounded +in their own shops, and touted for practice.<note place="foot">Epict. ii. 23, 30, 27.</note> They called in +the aid of spells and witchcraft to reinforce their drugs. We +need not believe all the coarse insinuations of Martial against +their morality, any more than the sneers of Petronius against +<pb n="93"/><anchor id="Pg93"/>their skill. But we are bound to conclude that the profession +held a very different place in public esteem from that which +it enjoys and deserves in our own time. +</p> + +<p> +Astrology, which was the aristocratic form of divination, +and involved in many a dark intrigue of the early Empire, was a +Greek as well as a Chaldaean art. The name of the practitioner +often reveals his nationality. The Seleucus<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Otho</hi>, iv. vi.</note> and Ptolemaeus +who affected to guide the fate of Otho, and the Ascletarion of +Domitian’s reign,<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> xiv. xv.; cf. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> xiv.; +<hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xxxvi.</note> are only representatives of a nameless crowd. +And their strange power is seen in that tale of a Greek +diviner, Pammenes, in the last years of Nero, whose horoscopes +led to the tragic end of P. Anteius and Ostorius Scapula.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xvi. 14.</note> In +other countless arts of doubtful repute, which ministered to the +pleasure or amusement of the crowd, the Greek was always +an adept. But it was his success as a courtier and accomplished +flatterer of the great, which chiefly roused the scornful +hatred of Juvenal and his fellows. The <q>adulandi gens prudentissima,</q> +would hardly have been guilty of the simple and +obvious grossness of flattery which the rhetoric of Juvenal +attributes to them.<note place="foot">Juv. iii. 100.</note> They knew their trade better than the +Roman plebeian. It was an old and highly rewarded profession +in Greece, and had often been the theme of Greek moralists. +Plutarch wrote an elaborate treatise on the difference between +the sycophant and the true friend, in which he seems almost +to exhaust the wily resources of the pretender. Lucian, with +his delicate irony, seems almost to raise the Greek skill in +adulation to the level of a fine art.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">De Merc. Cond.</hi> c. 16, 19.</note> And the polished and +versatile Greek, with his lively wit, his delicate command of +expression, his cool audacity, and his unscrupulousness, was a +formidable rival of the coarser Roman parasite celebrated in +Latin comedy. We can well imagine that the young Greek, +fresh from the schools of Ionia, was a livelier companion at +dinner than the proud Roman man of letters who snatched +the dole and disdained himself for receiving it. +</p> + +<p> +There is perhaps no phase of Roman society in Domitian’s +day which we know more intimately than the life of the client. +It is photographed, in all its sordid slavery, by both Juvenal +and Martial. And Martial himself is perhaps the best example +<pb n="94"/><anchor id="Pg94"/>of a man of genius submitting, with occasional intervals of +proud rebellion,<note place="foot">Mart. i. 104, ii. 68.</note> to a degradation which in our eyes no poverty +could excuse. The client of the early Empire was a totally +different person from the client of Republican times. In +the days of freedom, the tie of patron and client was rather +that of clansman and chief; it was justified by political and +social necessity, and ennobled by feelings of loyalty and mutual +obligation. Under the Empire, the relation was tainted by +the selfish materialism of the age; it had seldom any +trace of sentiment. The rich man was expected to have a +humble train of dependents to maintain his rank and consequence. +There was a host of needy people ready to do him +such service. The hungry client rushed to his patron’s morning +reception, submitted to all his coldness and caprice, or to the +insolence of his menials, followed his chair through the streets, +and ran on his errands, for the sake of a miserable alms in +money or in kind.<note place="foot">Juv. i. 100; v. 17; Mart. xii. 18— + +<lg> +<l>Dum per limina te potentiorum</l> +<l rend="margin-left: 2">Sudatrix toga ventilat, etc.;</l> +</lg> + +iii. 7, 36; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xvi; <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> vii.</note> The payment was sometimes supplemented +by a cast-off cloak, or an invitation at the last moment to fill +a place at dinner, when perhaps it could not be accepted.<note place="foot">Mart. ii. 79; Juv. v. 17.</note> In +the train which the great man gathered about him, to swell his +importance, were to be seen, not only the starving man of +letters, the loafer and mere mendicant, but the sons of ruined +houses <q>sprung from Troy,</q> and even senators and men of +consular rank who had a clientèle of their own.<note place="foot">Juv. i. 100— + +<lg> +<l rend="margin-left: 6">Jubet a praecone vocari</l> +<l>Ipsos Trojugenas.</l> +</lg></note> +</p> + +<p> +Nothing throws a more lurid light on the economic +condition of Italy in the time of the early Empire than this +form of pensioned dependence. The impression which we +derive from Juvenal and Martial is that of a society divided +between a small class of immensely wealthy people, and an +almost starving proletariat.<note place="foot">Mart. ii. 43; iii. 38, 12, pallet cetera +turba fame; Juv. iii. 153, 161; xi. 40.</note> Poverty seems almost universal, +except in the freedman class, who by an industrial energy and +speculative daring, which were despised by the true-born +Roman, were now rapidly rising to opulence. The causes of +this plebeian indigence can only be glanced at here. The +agricultural revolution, which ruined the small freeholders and +created the plantation system,<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">R. H.</hi> ii. 374 (Tr.).</note> had driven great numbers of +<pb n="95"/><anchor id="Pg95"/>once prosperous farmers to the capital, to depend on the +granaries of the State, or on the charity of a wealthy patron. +Such men were kept in poverty and dependence by that general +contempt for trade and industrial pursuits which always prevails +in a slave-owning society. Many of the greatest families +had been reduced to poverty by proscription and confiscation. +A great noble might be keeping sheep on a Laurentine farm, +if he could not win a pension from the grace of the Emperor. +At the same time, from various causes, what we should call +the liberal professions, with the doubtful exception of medicine, +tortured those engaged in them by the contrast between ambitious +hopes and the misery of squalid poverty. <q>Make your son an +auctioneer or an undertaker rather than an advocate or a man +of letters</q> is the advice of Martial and Juvenal, and of the +shrewd vulgar guests of Trimalchio.<note place="foot">Mart. iv. 5; v. 56— + +<lg> +<l>Artes discere vult pecuniosas?</l> +<l>Fac discat citharoedus aut choraules.</l> +<l>Si duri puer ingeni videtur,</l> +<l>Praeconem facias, vel architectum;</l> +</lg> + +Juv. vii. 104; x. 226; Petron. 46, +destinavi illum artificii docere, aut +tonstreinum aut praeconem etc.</note> Any mean and malodorous +trade will be more lucrative than the greatest knowledge and +culture. The rich literary amateur, who should have been a +Maecenas, in that age became an author himself, composed his +own Thebaid or Codrid, and would only help the poor man of +genius by the loan of an unfurnished hall for a reading.<note place="foot">Juv. vii. 38 sqq.</note> The +unabashed mendicancy of Martial shows the mean straits to +which the genuine literary man was reduced.<note place="foot">Mart. ii. 43; iv. 40; v. 42, quas +dederis, solas semper habebis opes.</note> The historian will +not earn as much as the reader of the <hi rend="italic">Acta Diurna</hi>.<note place="foot">Juv. vii. 104.</note> It is the +same with education. What costs the father least is the training +of his son. The man who will expend a fortune on his baths +and colonnades, can spare a Quintilian only a fraction of what he +will give for a pastry cook.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 180.</note> The grammarian, who is expected +to be master of all literature, will be lucky if he receives as much +for the year as a charioteer gains by a single victory.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. ad fin.</note> If the +rhetor, weary of mock battles, descends into the real arena of +the courts, he fares no better.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 121 sqq.</note> The bar is overcrowded by men +to whom no other career of ambition is open, by old informers +who find their occupation gone, by the sons of noble houses +who parade the glory of their ancestors in order to attract +vulgar clients. They are carried in a litter, surrounded by +<pb n="96"/><anchor id="Pg96"/>slaves and dependents, down to the courts of the Centumviri. +The poor pleader must hire or borrow purple robes +and jewelled rings, if he is to compete with them. And in +the end, he may find his honorarium for a day’s hard pleading +to be a leg of pork, a jar of tunnies, or a few flasks of cheap +wine. In this materialised society all the prizes go to the +coarser qualities; there is nothing but neglect and starvation +before taste and intellect. And poverty is punished by being +forced to put on the show of wealth.<note place="foot">Juv. iii. 182; Martha, <hi rend="italic">Moralistes +sous l’Emp.</hi> p. 400.</note> That stately person in +violet robes who stalks through the forum, or reclines in a +freshly decorated chair, followed by a throng of slaves, has +just pawned his ring to buy a dinner.<note place="foot">Mart. ii. 57.</note> That matron, who has +sold the last pieces of her ancestral plate, will hire splendid +dress, a sedan chair, and a troop of attendants, to go in proper +state to the games.<note place="foot">Juv. vi. 353.</note> Thus you have the spectacle of a +society divided between the idle, luxurious rich and the lazy, +hungry poor, who imitate all the vices of the rich, and although +too proud to work, are not ashamed to borrow or to beg. +</p> + +<p> +In such a society, where the paths of honest industry seemed +closed to the poor, or as yet undiscovered, the great problem +was how to secure without labour a share of the wealth which +was monopolised by the few. The problem was solved by the +obsequiousness of the client, or by the arts of the will-hunter. +Owing to celibacy and vice, childlessness in that age was extraordinarily +common in the upper class. In a society of <q>ambitious +poverty,</q> a society where poverty was unable, or where +it disdained, to find the path to competence through honest toil, +the wealthy, without natural heirs, offered a tempting prey to +the needy adventurer. Captation by every kind of mean flattery, +or vicious service, became a recognised profession. In the +Croton of Petronius there are only two classes, the rich and +the sycophant, the hunters and the hunted.<note place="foot">Petron. 116, in hac urbe nemo +liberos tollit ... aut captantur aut +captant.</note> Even men of +high position, with no temptation from want, would stoop to +this detestable trade.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">e.g.</hi> Regulus, Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ii. 20.</note> And the social tone which tolerated +the captator, made it almost an honour to be beset on a <anchor id="corr96"/><corr sic="sick bed">sick-bed</corr> by these rapacious sycophants. One of the darkest and +most repulsive features in that putrescent society was the +<pb n="97"/><anchor id="Pg97"/>social value which attached to a vicious and shameful childlessness. +A morose and unlovely old age could thus gather +around it a little court of dependents and pretended friends, +such as a career of great achievement would hardly attract. +There have been few more loathsome characters than the +polished hypocrite by the sick-bed of his prey, shedding tears +of feigned sympathy, while with eager eyes he is noting every +symptom of the approaching end.<note place="foot">Juv. xii. 100; i. 36; Mart. v. 39; +Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ii, 20; Petron. 140.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Juvenal and Petronius, the embittered plebeian, and the +cynical, fastidious epicure of Nero’s court, alike treat their age +as utterly corrupted and vulgarised by the passion for money; +<q>inter nos sanctissima divitiarum Majestas.</q><note place="foot">Juv. i. 112; Petron. 88, pecuniae +cupiditas haec tropica instituit.</note> No virtue, no +gifts, no eminence of service, will be noticed in the poor.<note place="foot">Juv. iii. 164.</note> A +great fortune will conceal the want of talent, sense, or common +decency. Everything is forgiven to the master of money +bags, even the brand of the slave prison.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 131, 103; i. 26; iv. 98; Mart. +ii. 29, iii. 29; v. 13, 35.</note> In Juvenal and +Martial probably the most resonant note is the cry of the poor—<q>How +long.</q> Yet, after all, it is not a fierce cry of revolt; +against that highly organised and centralised society the disinherited +never dreamed of rebellion, even when the Goths were +under the walls. It is rather an appeal, though often a bitter and +angry appeal, for pity and a modest share in a wasted abundance. +In the poems of Juvenal and Martial, as in the sentiment of +the colleges and municipalities for generations, the one hope for +the mass of helpless indigence lay in awaking the generosity and +charity of the rich. The rich, as we shall see in another +chapter, admitted the obligation, and responded to the claim, +often in the most lavish fashion. A long line of emperors not +only fed the mob of the capital, but squandered the resources +of the State in providing gross and demoralising amusements +for them.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> xliii.-v.; <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> xviii.; +<hi rend="italic">Claud.</hi> xxi; <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xi. xii.; <hi rend="italic">Titus</hi>, vii.; +<hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> iv.; D. Cass. 65. 25; Spart. +<hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> vii. D. Cass. 68. 10, 15; +Capitol. <hi rend="italic">M. Anton.</hi> vi.; but cp. Suet. +<hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> xlvii.; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii 62, D. Cass. +66. 15; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> xliv.; D. Cass. +54. 2; 68. 2; Capitol. <hi rend="italic">Anton. P.</hi> xii.</note> Under the influence of the Stoic teaching of the +brotherhood of man and the duty of mutual help, both private +citizens and benevolent princes, from Nero to M. Aurelius, +created charitable foundations for the orphan and the +<pb n="98"/><anchor id="Pg98"/>needy.<note place="foot">Victor. <hi rend="italic">Epit.</hi> 12; Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> vii. +§ 12; Capitol. <hi rend="italic">M. Anton.</hi> xxvi.; <hi rend="italic">Ant. +P.</hi> viii.; D. Cass. 68. 5; <hi rend="italic">Orelli Henz.</hi> +4365, 7244; Friedländer, <hi rend="italic">Petron. Einleit.</hi> +49; Duruy, v. 429; iv. 787; Boissier, +<hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> ii. 208; cf. Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ix. 30.</note> Public calamities were relieved again and again by +imperial aid and private charity.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 62; ii. 47, 48.</note> The love of wealth was +strong, but a spirit of benevolence was in the air, even in the +days of Juvenal; and the constant invectives of poet or philosopher +against wealth and luxury are not so much the sign +of a growing selfishness, as of a spreading sense of the duty +of the fortunate to the miserable. Although the literary +men seem never to have thought of any economic solution of +the social problem, through the tapping of fresh sources of +wealth from which all might draw, yet there can be no doubt +that there was, at least in provincial cities, a great industrial +movement in the Antonine age, which gave wealth to some, +and a respectable competence to many. The opulent freedman +and the contented artisan have left many a memorial in the +inscriptions. Yet the movement had not solved the social +problem in the days of Lucian, as it has not solved it after +seventeen centuries. The cry of the poor against the selfish +rich, which rings in the ears of the detached man of letters at +the end of the Antonine age, will still ring in the ears of the +ascetic Salvianus, when the Germans have passed the Rhine.<note place="foot">Salv. <hi rend="italic">De Gub. Dei</hi>, v. 30; <hi rend="italic">Ad +Eccles.</hi> iv. 22.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The scorn and hatred of Juvenal for wealth and its vices is +natural to a class which was too proud to struggle out of poverty, +by engaging in the industries which it despised. And the freedman, +who occupied the vacant field, and rose to opulence, is +even more an object of hatred to Juvenal and Martial than +the recreant noble or the stingy patron. He was an alien +of servile birth, and he had made himself wealthy by the +usual method of thinking of nothing but gold. These men, +who were not even free Romans, had mastered the power +which commands the allegiance of the world. The rise of +this new class to wealth and importance probably irritated +men of Juvenal’s type more than any other sign of social +injustice in their time. And the Trimalchio of Petronius, a +man of low, tainted origin, the creature of economic accident, +whose one faith is in the power of money, who boasts of his +fortune as if it had been won by real talent or honourable +<pb n="99"/><anchor id="Pg99"/>service, who expends it with coarse ostentation and a ludicrous +affectation of cultivated taste, may be tolerated in literature, +if not in actual life, for the charm of a certain kindly bonhomie +and honest vulgarity, which the art of Petronius has +thrown around him. Yet, after all, we must concede to +Juvenal and Martial, that such a person is always a somewhat +unpleasing social product. But the subject is so important +that it claims a chapter to itself. And, fortunately +for us and our readers, the new freedmen were not all of the +type of Trimalchio. +</p> + +</div><div type="chapter" n="3" rend="page-break-before: always"> +<pb n="100"/><anchor id="Pg100"/> +<index index="toc" level1="III. The society of the freedmen"/><index index="pdf" level1="III. The society of the freedmen"/> +<head>CHAPTER III</head> + +<head type="sub">THE SOCIETY OF THE FREEDMEN</head> + +<p> +The historian, who is occupied with war and politics, and the +fate of princes and nobles, is apt to lose sight of great silent +movements in the dim masses of society. And, in the history +of the early Empire, the deadly conflict between the Emperor +and the Senate, the carnival of luxury, and the tragic close of +so many reigns, have diverted attention from social changes of +immense moment. Not the least important of these was the +rise of the freedmen, in the face of the most violent prejudice, +both popular and aristocratic. And literature has thrown +its whole weight on the side of prejudice, and given full vent +alike to the scorn of the noble, and to the hate and envy of the +plebeian. The movement, indeed, was so swift and far spreading +that old conservative instincts might well be alarmed. +Everywhere in the inscriptions freedmen are seen rising to +wealth and consequence throughout the provinces, as well +as in Italy, and winning popularity and influence by profuse +benefactions to colleges and municipalities. In almost every +district of the Roman Empire the order of the Augustales, +which was composed to a great extent of wealthy freedmen,<note place="foot">On the Augustales <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> <hi rend="italic">Orell. Henz.</hi> +ii. p. 197; iii. p. 427; Friedländer, +<hi rend="italic">Cena Trim. Einl.</hi> p. 39; Marq. <hi rend="italic">Röm. +Staatsverw.</hi> i. 513 sqq.; Nessling, <hi rend="italic">De +Seviris Augustalibus.</hi></note> +has left its memorials. <q>Freedman’s wealth</q> in Martial’s day +had become a proverb.<note place="foot">v. 13, 6, et libertinas arca flagellat +opes; cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 27, § 5, patrimonium +libertini.</note> Not only are they crowding all the +meaner trades, from which Roman pride shrank contemptuously, +but, by industry, shrewdness, and speculative daring, +they are becoming great capitalists and landowners on a +senatorial scale. The Trimalchio of Petronius, who has not +<pb n="101"/><anchor id="Pg101"/>even seen some of his estates,<note place="foot">Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 48.</note> if we allow for some artistic +exaggeration, is undoubtedly the representative of a great +class. In the reign of Nero, a debate arose in the Senate +on the insolence and misconduct of freedmen.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiii. 27, si separarentur +libertini manifestam fore penuriam +ingenuorum.</note> And it was +argued by those opposed to any violent measures of repression, +that the class was widely diffused; they were found in overwhelming +numbers in the city tribes, in the lower offices +of the civil service, in the establishments of the magistrates +and priests; a considerable number even of the knights and +Senate drew their origin from this source. If freedmen were +marked off sharply as a separate grade, the scanty numbers +of the freeborn would be revealed. In the reigns of Claudius +and Nero especially, freedmen rose to the highest places in +the imperial service, sometimes by unquestionable knowledge, +tact, and ability, sometimes by less creditable arts. The +promotion of a Narcissus or a Pallas was also a stroke of +policy, the assertion of the prince’s independence of a jealous +nobility. The rule of the freedmen was a bitter memory +to the Senate.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> 88.</note> The scorn of Pliny for Pallas expresses +the long pent-up feelings of his order; it is a belated +vengeance for the humiliation they endured in the evil days +when they heaped ridiculous flattery on the favourite, and +voted him a fortune and a statue.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vii. 29; viii 6.</note> Some part of the joy +with which the accession of Trajan was hailed by the aristocracy +was due to the hope that the despised interlopers would +be relegated to their proper obscurity. Tacitus is undoubtedly +glancing at the Claudian régime when he grimly congratulates +the Germans on the fact that their freedmen are little above +the level of slaves, that they have seldom any power in the +family, and never in the State.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Germ.</hi> 25, liberti non multum +supra servos sunt, raro aliquod momentum +in domo, nunquam in civitate.</note> +</p> + +<p> +It shows the immense force of old Roman conservatism +and of social prejudice which is the same from age to age, +when men so cultivated, yet of such widely different temperament +and associations as Pliny and Tacitus, Juvenal and +Martial<note place="foot">Mart. ii. 29; iii. 29; xi. 37; iii. +82; v. 14.</note> and Petronius, denounce or ridicule an irresistible +social movement. We can now see that the rise of the +<pb n="102"/><anchor id="Pg102"/>emancipated slave was not only inevitable, but that it was, on +the whole, salutary and rich in promise for the future. The +slave class of antiquity really corresponded to our free labouring +class. But, unlike the mass of our artisans, it contained many +who, from accident of birth and education, had a skill and +knowledge which their masters often did not possess.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Ill. Gram.</hi> xiii., xvii., xx.; cf. +Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. 158.</note> The +slaves who came from the ancient seats of civilisation in the +East are not to be compared with the dark gross races who +seem to be stamped by nature as of an inferior breed. This +frequent mental and moral equality of the Roman slave with +his master had forced itself upon men of the detached +philosophic class, like Seneca, and on kindly aristocrats, like +Pliny.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 47, § 1; <hi rend="italic">De Clem.</hi> i. 18, +3; <hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> iii. 21; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 77, § 31; Plin. +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> viii. 16, 1; iii. 19, 7; ii. 17, 9; +cf. Juv. xiv. 16.</note> It must have been hard to sit long hours in the +library beside a cultivated slave-amanuensis, or to discuss the +management of lands and mines and quarries with a shrewd, +well-informed slave-agent, or to be charmed by the grace and +wit of some fair, frail daughter of Ionia, without having some +doubts raised as to the eternal justice of such an institution. +Nay, it is certain that slaves were often treated as friends,<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 47, servi sunt, immo +humiles amici. Cf. Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> i. +11, 12; Eurip. <hi rend="italic">Ion</hi>, 854; <hi rend="italic">Helen.</hi> 730; +Wallon, <hi rend="italic">L’Esclav.</hi> iii. 22.</note> +and received freedom and a liberal bequest at their master’s +death. Many educated slaves, as we have seen, rose to +distinction and fortune as teachers and physicians.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> supra, <ref target="Pg92">p. 92</ref>.</note> But the +field of trade and industry was the most open and the most +tempting. The Senator was forbidden, down to the last age of +the Empire, both by law and sentiment, to increase his fortune +by commerce.<note place="foot">D. Cass. 69. 16; <hi rend="italic">C. Th.</hi> xiii. 1, 21; +Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> i 197.</note> The plebeian, saturated with Roman prejudice, +looking for support to the granaries of the state or the dole +of the wealthy patron, turned with disdain from occupations +which are in our days thought innocent, if not honourable. +Juvenal feels almost as much scorn for the auctioneer and +undertaker as he has for the pander, and treats almost as a +criminal the merchant who braves the wintry Aegean with a +cargo of wine from Crete.<note place="foot">Juv. xiv. 270.</note> His friend Umbricius, worsted in +the social struggle, and preparing to quit Rome for a retreat in +Campania, among the other objects of his plebeian scorn, is +<pb n="103"/><anchor id="Pg103"/>specially disgusted with the low tribe who contract for the +building of a house, or who farm the dues of a port or undertake +to cleanse a river-bed.<note place="foot">Juv. iii. 32.</note> There is no room left in Rome +for men who will not soil themselves with such sordid trades. +Manifestly, if the satirist is not burlesquing the feeling of his +class, there was plenty of room left for the vigorous freedman +who could accept Vespasian’s motto that no gain is unsavoury.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> xxiii.</note> +But those men had not only commercial tact and ability, the +wit to see where money was to be made by seizing new openings +and unoccupied fields for enterprise; they had also among +them men of great ambitions, men capable of great affairs. It +required no common deftness, suppleness, and vigilant energy +for an old slave to work his way upwards through the grades +of the imperial chancery, to thread the maze of deadly intrigue, +in the reigns of Claudius or Nero, and to emerge at last as +master of the palace. Yet one of these freedmen ministers, +when he died, had served ten emperors, six of whom had +come to a violent end.<note place="foot">Stat. <hi rend="italic">Silv.</hi> iii. 3, 83, Tu toties +mutata ducum juga rite tulisti Integer, etc.</note> That a class so despised and depressed +should rise to control the trade, and even the administration +of the Empire, furnishes a presumption that they were needed, +and that they were not unworthy of their destiny. +</p> + +<p> +Yet however inevitable, or even desirable, this great revolution +may seem to the cool critic of the twentieth century, it is +possible that, had he lived in the first, he might have denounced +it as vigorously as Juvenal. The literary and artistic spirit, +often living in a past golden age, and remotely detached from +the movements going on around it, is prone to regard them +with uneasy suspicion. It is moved by sacred sentiment, by +memories and distant ideals, by fastidious taste, which expresses +itself often with passionate hatred for what seems to it +revolutionary sacrilege. It is also apt to fasten on the more +grotesque and vulgar traits of any great popular movement, +and to use a finished skill in making it ridiculous. It was in +this way that literature treated the freedmen. They had many +gross and palpable faults; they were old slaves and Orientals; +as they rose in the world they were eager for money, and +they got it; they were, many of them, naturally vulgar, and +they paraded their new wealth with execrable taste, and +<pb n="104"/><anchor id="Pg104"/>trampled on better, though poorer, men than themselves, +Juvenal and Martial, by birth and associations, have little in +common with that accomplished exquisite of the Neronian +circle who has painted with the power of careless genius the +household of the <hi rend="italic">parvenu</hi> Trimalchio. Yet they have an +equal scorn or detestation for the new man who was forcing +his way from the lowest debasement of servile life to fortune +and power. But the embittered man of letters, humiliated by +poverty, yet brimful of Roman pride, avenges his ideals with +a rougher, heavier hand than the Epicurean noble, who had +joined in the <q>Noctes Neronis</q> with a delicate, scornful +cynicism, who was too disillusioned, and too fastidiously contemptuous, +to waste anger on what he despised. Juvenal +would blast and wither the objects of his hatred. Petronius +takes the surer method of making these people supremely +ridiculous. The feeling of men like Juvenal and Martial is +a mixture of contempt and envy and outraged taste. The +Grub Street man of letters in those days despised plodding +industry because he dearly loved fits of idleness; he hated +wealth because he was poor. The polished man of the world +was alternately amused and disgusted by the spectacle of +sudden fortune accumulated by happy chance or unscrupulous +arts, with no tradition of dignity to gild its grossness, yet +affecting and burlesquing the tastes of a world from which it +was separated by an impassable gulf. There is more moral +sentiment, more old Roman feeling, in the declamation of +Juvenal than in the cold artistic scorn of the <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi>; there +is also more personal and class feeling. The triumph of mere +money is to Juvenal a personal affront as well as a moral +catastrophe. Poverty now makes a man ridiculous.<note place="foot">Juv. iii. 153, Nil habet infelix +paupertas durius in se, Quam quod +ridiculos homines facit; 164.</note> It blocks +the path of the finest merit. The rich freedman who claims +the foremost place at a levée is equally objectionable because +he was born on the Euphrates, and because he is the owner +of five taverns which yield HS.400,000 a year.<note place="foot">Id. i. 104.</note> The impoverished +knight must quit his old place on the benches to +make way for some auctioneer or pimp, some old slave from +the Nile who stalks in with purple robes and bejewelled +fingers, and hair reeking with unguents.<note place="foot">Id. i. 26; iv. 108.</note> The only refuge +<pb n="105"/><anchor id="Pg105"/>will soon be some half-deserted village on old-fashioned Sabine +ground, where the country folk sit side by side in the +same white tunics with their aediles in the grassy theatre.<note place="foot">Juv. iii. 173.</note> +It is evident from Juvenal, Martial, and Petronius that +the popular hostility to the new men was partly the result of +envy at their success, partly of disgust at their parade of it. +Juvenal and Martial are often probably dressing up the rough +epigrams of the crowd. We can almost hear the contemptuous +growl as one of these people, suspected of a dark crime, +sweeps by in his downy sedan. That other noble knight used +to hawk the cheap fish of his native Egypt, and now possesses +a palace towering over the Forum, with far-spreading colonnades +and acres of shady groves.<note place="foot">Id. iv. 5, 23; vii. 180.</note> A eunuch minister has reared a +pile which out-tops the Capitol.<note place="foot">Id. xiv. 91, Ut spado vincebat +Capitolia nostra Posides; cf. Suet. +<hi rend="italic">Claud.</hi> xxviii.; Plin. <hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> xxxi. 2.</note> Fellows who used to blow +the horn in the circus of country towns now give gladiatorial +shows themselves.<note place="foot">Juv. iii. 34 sqq.</note> Prejudice or envy may not improbably +have invented some of the tales of crime and turpitude by +which these fortunes had been won. Rome was a city of +poisonous rumour. Yet slavery was not a nursery of virtue, +and the <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi> leaves the impression that the emancipated +slave too often imitated the vices of his master. The poisoner, +the perjurer, the minion, were probably to be found in the +rising class. After their kind in all ages, they looked down +with vulgar insolence on those less fortunate or more scrupulous. +When they rose to the highest place, the imperial freedmen +were often involved in peculation and criminal intrigue.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xi. 37; xii. 25, 65; +xi. 29; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> lxvii.; D. Cass. +lix. 29.</note> Yet, +after all reservations, the ascent of the freedmen remains a +great and beneficent revolution. The very reasons which made +Juvenal hate it most are its best justification to a modern +mind. It gave hope of a future to the slave; by creating +a free industrial class, it helped to break down the cramped +social ideal of the slave-owner and the soldier; it planted in +every municipality a vigorous mercantile class, who were +often excellent and generous citizens. Above all, it asserted +the dignity of man. The vehement iteration of Juvenal is the +best testimony to the sweep and force of the movement. And +<pb n="106"/><anchor id="Pg106"/>the later student of Roman society cannot afford to neglect a +great social upheaval which, in an aristocratic society, dominated +by pride of class and race, made an Oriental slave first +minister of the greatest monarchy in history, while it placed +men of servile origin in command of nearly all the industrial +arts and commerce of the time. +</p> + +<p> +The reign of the freedman in public affairs began with the +foundation of the Empire, when Julius Caesar installed some of +his household as officers of the mint.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Jul. Caes.</hi> lxxvi.; cf. Friedl. +<hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> i. 56 sqq.</note> The emperor in the +first century was, theoretically at least, only the first citizen, and +his household was modelled on the fashion of other great +houses. In the management of those vast senatorial +estates, which were often scattered over three continents, there +was need of an elaborate organisation, and freedmen of education +and business capacity were employed to administer such +private realms. And in the organisation of a great household, +there was a hierarchy of office which offered a career to +the shrewd and trustworthy slave. Many such careers can +be traced in the inscriptions, from the post of valet or groom +of the bedchamber, through the offices of master of the jewels +and the wardrobe, superintendent of the carriages or the vineyards, +up to the highest financial control.<note place="foot">For such a career cf. <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6344.</note> +</p> + +<p> +During the first century the same system was transferred +to the imperial administration. It suited the cautious +policy of Augustus to disguise his vast powers under the quiet +exterior of an ordinary noble; and the freedmen of his +household carried on the business of the State. He sternly +punished any excesses or treachery among his servants.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> lxvii.</note> +Tiberius gave them little power, until his character began to +deteriorate.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iv. 6.</note> Under Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, the imperial +freedmen attained their greatest ascendency. Callistus, +Narcissus, and Pallas rose to the rank of great ministers, and, +in the reign of Claudius, were practically masters of the world. +They accumulated enormous wealth by abusing their power, +and making a traffic in civic rights, in places or pardons. +Polyclitus, who was sent to compose the troubles in Britain +in 61 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, travelled with an enormous train, and gave the +provinces an exhibition of the arrogance of their servile masters.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xiv. 39.</note> +<pb n="107"/><anchor id="Pg107"/>Helius was left to carry on the government during Nero’s +theatrical travels, and the exhibitions of his artistic skill in +Greece.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xxiii.</note> Galba put to death two of the great freedmen of +Nero’s reign, but himself fell under the influence of others as +corrupt and arrogant, and he showered the honours of rank on +the infamous Icelus.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lxiv. 3; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Galba</hi>, xiv.; +Plut. <hi rend="italic">Galba</hi>, c. 17.</note> +</p> + +<p> +It is curious that it was left for Vitellius to break the +reign of the freedmen by assigning offices in the imperial +bureaux to the knights, the policy which was said to have +been recommended by Maecenas,<note place="foot">D. Cass. lii. 25; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 58, +Vitellius ministeria principatus per +libertos agi solita in equites Romanos +disponit.</note> and which was destined to +prevail in the second century. But the change was very +incomplete, and the brief tragic reign of Vitellius was disgraced +by the ascendency for a time of his minion Asiaticus, +whom the Emperor raised to the highest honours, then sold +into a troop of wandering gladiators, and finally received back +again into freedom and favour.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vitell.</hi> xii.</note> The policy of the Flavian +dynasty in the employment of freedmen is rather ambiguous. +Vespasian is charged with having elevated Hormus, a disreputable +member of the class, and with having appointed +to places of trust the most rapacious agents.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> xvi.</note> But this is +probably a calumny of the Neronian and Othonian circle who +defamed their conqueror. Under Domitian, the freedmen, +Entellus and Abascantus, held two of the great secretaryships. +But it is distinctly recorded that Domitian distributed offices +impartially between the freedmen and the knights.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> vii. quaedam ex maximis +officiis inter libertinos equitesque communicavit.</note> On the +accession of Trajan, Pliny, in his Panegyric, exults in the fall of +the freedmen from the highest place.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> 88.</note> Yet Hadrian is said to +have procured his selection as emperor by carefully cultivating +the favour of Trajan’s freedmen. Hadrian, in reorganising +the imperial administration, and founding the bureaucratic +system, which was finally elaborated by Diocletian and Constantine, +practically confined the tenure of the three great +secretaryships to men of equestrian rank. Among his secretaries +was the historian Suetonius.<note place="foot">Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> iv., xxi.; Macé, +<hi rend="italic">Suétone</hi>, p. 91.</note> Antoninus Pius severely +repressed men of servile origin in the interest of pure +<pb n="108"/><anchor id="Pg108"/>administration;<note place="foot">Capitol. <hi rend="italic">Ant. P.</hi> vi., xi.</note> but they regained some influence for a time +under M. Aurelius, and rose still higher under his infamous son. +</p> + +<p> +The position of freedmen in the imperial administration +was partly, as we have seen, a tradition of aristocratic households. +The emperor employed his freedmen to write his +despatches and administer the finances of the Empire, as +he would have used them to write his private letters or to +manage his private estates. But, in the long conflict between +the prince and the Senate, the employment of trusted freedmen +in imperial affairs was also a measure of policy. It was meant +to teach the nobles that the Empire could be administered +without their aid.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> i. 56.</note> Nor was the confidence of the Emperor +in his humble subordinates unjustified. The eulogies of the +great freedmen in Seneca and Statius, even if they be exaggerated, +leave the impression that a Polybius, a Claudius +Etruscus, or an Abascantus were, in many respects, worthy of +their high place. The provinces were, on the whole, well +governed and happy in the very years when the capital was +seething with conspiracy, and racked with the horrors of confiscation +and massacre. This must have been chiefly due to +the knowledge, tact, and ability of the great officials of the +palace. Although of servile origin, they must have belonged +to that considerable class of educated slaves who, along with +the versatility and tact of the Hellenic East, brought to their +task also a knowledge and a literary and linguistic skill which +were not common among Roman knights. The three imperial +secretaryships, <hi rend="italic">a rationibus</hi>, <hi rend="italic">a libellis</hi>, and <hi rend="italic">ab epistulis</hi>, covered +a vast field of administration, and the duties of these great +ministries could only have been performed by men of great +industry, talent, and diplomatic adroitness.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. p. 83.</note> The Polybius +to whom Seneca, from his exile in Sardinia, wrote a consolatory +letter on the death of his brother, was the successor +of Callistus, as secretary of petitions, in the reign of Claudius, +and also the emperor’s adviser of studies. Seneca magnifies +the dignity, and also the burden, of his great rank, which +demands an abnegation of all the ordinary pleasures of life.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ad Polyb.</hi> vi. vii.</note> +A man has no time to indulge a private grief who has to study +and arrange for the Emperor’s decision thousands of appeals +<pb n="109"/><anchor id="Pg109"/>coming from every quarter of the world. Yet this busy man +could find time for literary work, and his translations from the +Greek are lauded by the philosopher with an enthusiasm of +which the cruelty of time does not allow us to estimate the +value.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ad Polyb.</hi> xi.</note> The panegyric on Claudius Etruscus, composed by +Statius, records an even more remarkable career.<note place="foot">Statius, <hi rend="italic">Silv.</hi> iii. 3.</note> Claudius +Etruscus died at the age of eighty, in the reign of Domitian, +having served in various capacities under ten emperors,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 66, Tibereia primum Aula tibi—Panditur.</note> six +of whom had died by a violent death. It was a strangely +romantic life, to which we could hardly find a parallel in +the most democratic community in modern times. Claudius, +a Smyrniote slave,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 60.</note> in the household of Tiberius, was emancipated +and promoted by that Emperor. He followed the +train of Caligula to Gaul,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 70.</note> rose to higher rank under Claudius, +and, probably in Nero’s reign, on the retirement of Pallas, +was appointed to that financial office of which the world-wide +cares are pompously described by the poet biographer.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 86.</note> The +gold of Iberian mines, the harvests of Egypt, the fleeces of +Tarentine flocks, pearls from the depths of Eastern seas, the +ivory tribute of the Indies, all the wealth wafted to Rome by +every wind, are committed to his keeping. He had also the task +of disbursing a vast revenue for the support of the populace, +for roads and bulwarks against the sea, for the splendour of +temples and palaces.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 100.</note> Such cares left space only for brief +slumber and hasty meals; there was none for pleasure. Yet +Claudius had the supreme satisfaction of wielding enormous +power, and he occasionally shared in its splendour. The poor +slave from the Hermus had a place in the <q>Idumaean +triumph</q> of Vespasian, which his quiet labours had prepared, +and he was raised by that emperor to the benches of the +knights.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 145.</note> The only check in that prosperous course seems to +have been a brief exile to the shores of Campania in the reign +of Domitian.<note place="foot">Mart. vi. 83; Stat. <hi rend="italic">Silv.</hi> iii. 160.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Abascantus,<note place="foot">As to the form of his name <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> +Markland’s <hi rend="italic">Statius</hi>, p. 238.</note> the secretary <hi rend="italic">ab epistulis</hi> of Domitian’s reign, +has also been commemorated by Statius. That great office +which controlled the imperial correspondence with all parts of +<pb n="110"/><anchor id="Pg110"/>the world, was generally held by freedmen in the first century. +Narcissus, in the reign of Claudius, first made it a great +ministry.<note place="foot">Macé, <hi rend="italic">Suétone</hi>, p. 91; cf. Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> +xi. 33.</note> Down to the reign of Hadrian the despatches both +in Greek and Latin were under a single superintendence. But +in the reorganisation of the service in the second century, it +was found necessary, from the growing complication of business, +to create two departments of imperial correspondence.<note place="foot">Macé, 92, 93; Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> +i. 86, 87.</note> Men +of rank held the secretaryship from the end of the first century. +Titinius Capito, one of Pliny’s circle, filled the office +under Domitian; Suetonius was appointed by Hadrian.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> viii. 12; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 798; +Macé, pp. 89, 115.</note> And +during the Antonine age, the secretaries were often men of +literary distinction.<note place="foot">Macé, pp. 90, 116.</note> Abascantus, the freedman secretary in +the Silvae, had upon his shoulders, according to the poet, the +whole weight of the correspondence with both East and West.<note place="foot">Stat. <hi rend="italic">Silv.</hi> v. 1, 80.</note> +He received the laurelled despatches from the Euphrates, the +Danube, and the Rhine; he had to watch the distribution of +military grades and commands. He must keep himself informed +of a thousand things affecting the fortunes of the +subject peoples. Yet this powerful minister retained his +native modesty with his growing fortune. His household was +distinguished by all the sobriety and frugality of an Apulian +or Sabine home.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> v. 118 sqq.</note> He could be lavish, however, at the call of +love or loyalty. He gave his wife Priscilla an almost royal +burial.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> v. 210.</note> Embalmed with all the spices and fragrant odours +of the East, and canopied with purple, her body was borne +to her last stately home of marble on the Appian Way.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> i. 88.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Some of the great imperial freedmen were of less unexceptionable +character than Claudius Etruscus and Abascantus, +and had a more troubled career. Callistus, Narcissus, and +Pallas, were deeply involved in the intrigues and crimes +connected with the history of Messalina and Agrippina. +Callistus had a part in the murder of Caligula, and prolonged +his power in the following reign. Narcissus revealed the +shameless marriage of Messalina with Silius, and, forestalling +the vacillation of Claudius, had the imperial harlot ruthlessly +struck down as she lay grovelling in the gardens of Lucullus.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xi. 30, 37, 88.</note> +<pb n="111"/><anchor id="Pg111"/>But he incurred the enmity of a more formidable woman even +than Messalina, and his long career of plunder was ended by +suicide.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xii. 57; xiii. 1.</note> Pallas had an even longer and more successful, but +a not less infamous and tragic career.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xii. 25, 65.</note> Of all the great freedmen, +probably none approached him in magnificent insolence. +When he was impeached along with Burrus, on a groundless +charge of treason, and when some of his freedmen were called +in evidence as his supposed accomplices, the old slave answered +that he had never degraded his voice by speaking in such +company.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xiii. 23.</note> Never, even in those days of self-abasement, did +the Senate sink so low as in its grovelling homage to the +servile minister. At a meeting of the august body in the +year 52, the consul designate made a proposal, which was +seconded by a Scipio, that the praetorian insignia, and a sum +of HS.15,000,000, should be offered to Pallas, together with +the thanks of the state that the descendant of the ancient +kings of Arcadia had thought less of his illustrious race than +of the common weal, and had deigned to be enrolled in the +service of the prince!<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xii. 53; Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> viii. 6.</note> When Claudius reported that his +minister was satisfied with the compliment, and prayed to be +allowed to remain in his former poverty, a senatorial decree, +engraved on bronze, was set up to commemorate the old-fashioned +frugality of the owner of HS.300,000,000! His +wealth was gained during a career of enormous power in the +worst days of the Empire. He was one of the lovers of +Agrippina,<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xii. 25, 65.</note> and, when he made her empress on the death of +Messalina, two kindred spirits for a time ruled the Roman +world. He gratified his patroness by securing the adoption +of Nero by Claudius, and he was probably an accomplice in +that emperor’s murder. But his fate was involved with that +of Agrippina. When Nero resolved to shake off the tyranny +of that awful woman, his first step was to remove the haughty +freedman from his offices.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xiii. 14.</note> Pallas left the palace in the +second year of Nero’s reign. For seven years he lived on undisturbed. +But at last his vast wealth, which had become a +proverb, became too tempting to the spendthrift prince, and +Pallas was quietly removed by poison.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xiv. 65; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xxxv.; +D. Cass. 62. 14.</note> +</p> + +<pb n="112"/><anchor id="Pg112"/> + +<p> +The wealth of freedmen became proverbial, and the +fortunes of Pallas and Narcissus reached a figure hardly ever +surpassed even by the most colossal senatorial estates.<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Röm. St.</hi> ii. p. 55; Duruy, +v. p. 598; Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> i. p. 192; +cf. Olympiod. <hi rend="italic">ap.</hi> Phot. § 44 (Müll. +<hi rend="italic">Frag. Hist. Gr.</hi> iv.).</note> The +means by which this wealth was gained might easily be inferred +by any one acquainted with the inner history of the times. +The manner of it may be read in the life of Elagabalus, whose +freedman Zoticus, the son of a cook at Smyrna, piled up vast +riches by levying a payment, each time he quitted the presence, +for his report of the emperor’s threats or promises or intentions.<note place="foot">Ael. Lamprid. <hi rend="italic">Heliogab.</hi> x.; cf. Capitol. +<hi rend="italic">Anton. P.</hi> xi.; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Claud.</hi> xxviii.</note> +In the administration of great provinces, in the distribution of +countless places of trust, in the chaos of years of delation, +confiscation, and massacre, there must have been endless opportunities +for self-enrichment, without incurring the dangers +of open malversation. Statius extols the simple tastes and +frugality of his heroes Abascantus and Claudius Etruscus, and +yet he describes them as lavishing money on baths and tombs +and funeral pomp. The truth is that, as a mere matter of +policy, these wealthy aliens, who were never loved by a jealous +aristocracy, had to justify their huge fortunes by a sumptuous +splendour. The elder Pliny has commemorated the vapour +baths of Posides, a Claudian freedman, and the thirty pillars +of priceless onyx which adorned the dining saloon of Callistus.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> xxxi. 2; xxxvi. 12.</note> +A bijou bath of the younger Claudius Etruscus seems to have +been a miracle of costly beauty. The dome, through which a +brilliant light streamed upon the floor, was covered with scenes in +rich mosaic. The water gushed from pipes of silver into silver +basins, and the quarries of Numidia and Synnada contributed +the various colours of their marbles.<note place="foot">Statius, <hi rend="italic">Silv.</hi> i. 5, 36; Mart. vi. +42, et certant vario decore saxa.</note> The gardens of Entellus, +with their purple clusters which defied the rigours of winter, +seemed to Martial to outrival the legendary gardens of Phaeacia.<note place="foot">Mart. viii. 68.</note> +In the suburbs, hard by the Tiburtine way, rose that defiant +monument of Pallas, bearing the decree of the Senate, which +aroused the angry scorn of the younger Pliny.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vii. 29.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The life of one of these imperial slave ministers was a +strangely romantic career which has surely been seldom +matched in the history of human fortunes. Exposed and sold +<pb n="113"/><anchor id="Pg113"/>in early youth in the slave markets of Smyrna, Delos, or +Puteoli, after an interval of ignominious servitude, installed +as groom of the chambers, thence promoted, according to his +aptitudes, to be keeper of the jewels, or tutor of the imperial +heir, still further advanced to be director of the post, or to a +place in the financial service, the freedman might end by +receiving the honour of knighthood, the procuratorship of a +province, or one of those great ministries which placed him in +command of the Roman world. Yet we must not deceive ourselves +as to his real position.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> i. 75; <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> +6344.</note> To the very end of the Empire, +the fictions on which aristocratic power is largely based, +retained their fascination. In the fifth century a Senate, whose +ancestors were often originally of servile race, could pour their +scorn on the eunuch ministers of the East.<note place="foot">Claud. <hi rend="italic">In Eutrop.</hi> ii. 137.</note> And the decaying +or <hi rend="italic">parvenu</hi> Senate of the Flavians had, when they were free +to express it, nothing but loathing for the reign of the freedmen.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> 88.</note> +These powerful but low-born officials are a curious +example of what has been often seen in later times, the +point-blank refusal, or the grudging concession, of social +status to men wielding vast and substantial power. The +younger Pliny, in his Panegyric on Trajan, glories in the +preference shown under the new régime for young men of +birth, and in his letters he vents all the long-suppressed +scorn of his order for the Claudian freedmen. Even the +emperors who freely employed their services, were chary of +raising them to high social rank. Freedmen ministers were +hardly ever admitted to the ranks of the Senate<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xv. in curiam libertinorum +filios diu non admisit.</note>; they were +rarely present at its sittings, even at the very time when they +were governing the world. Sacerdotal and military distinctions +were seldom conferred upon any of them. They were +sometimes invested with the insignia of praetorian or quaestorian +rank.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xi. 38; xii. 53.</note> A few were promoted to the dignity of knighthood, +Icelus, Asiaticus, Hormus, and Claudius Etruscus<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Galba</hi>, xiv.; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. +57; iv. 39.</note>; but many +a passage in Martial or Juvenal seems to show that ordinary +equestrian rank was in those days a very doubtful distinction.<note place="foot">Mart. iii. 29; v. 8, 14, 35, 23; cf. +Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> i. 212.</note> +The emperors, as raised above all ranks, might not +<pb n="114"/><anchor id="Pg114"/>have been personally unwilling to elevate their creatures to +the highest social grade.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Claud.</hi> c. xxviii.</note> But even the emperors, in matters +of social prejudice, were not omnipotent. +</p> + +<p> +Still, the men who could win the favours of an Agrippina +and a Messalina, could not be extinguished by the most jealous +social prejudice. The Roman Senate were ready, on occasion, +to fawn on a Pallas or a Narcissus, to vote them money and +insignia of rank, nor did they always refuse them their +daughters in marriage. In the conflict which is so often seen +between caste pride and the effective power of new wealth, +the wealth and power not unfrequently prevail. The lex +Julia prohibited the union of freedmen with daughters of a +senatorial house.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Dig.</hi> xxiii. 2, 44.</note> Yet we know of several such marriages +in the first century. The wife of the freedman Claudius +Etruscus, was the sister of a consul who had held high +command against the Dacians.<note place="foot">Statius, iii. 3, 115.</note> Priscilla, the wife of +Abascantus, another minister of servile origin, belonged to +the great consular family of the Antistii. Felix, the brother +of Pallas, had married in succession three ladies of royal blood, +one of them the granddaughter of Cleopatra.<note place="foot">Id. v. 1, 53; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> v. 9; Suet. +<hi rend="italic">Claud.</hi> xxviii. Felicem ... Judaeae +proposuit—trium reginarum maritum.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The women of this class, for generations, wielded, in their +own way, a power which sometimes rivalled that of the +men. These plebeian Aspasias are a puzzling class. With +no recognised social position, with the double taint of servile +origin and more than doubtful morals, they were often +endowed with many charms and accomplishments, possessing +a special attraction for bohemian men of letters. Their +morals were the result of an uncertain social position, combined +with personal attractions and education. To be +excluded from good society by ignoble birth, yet to be more +than its equal in culture, is a dangerous position, especially for +women. Often of oriental extraction, these women were the +most prominent votaries of the cults or superstitions which +poured into Rome from the prolific East. Loose character +and religious fervour were easily combined in antiquity. And +the <hi rend="italic">demi-monde</hi> of those days were ready to mourn passionately +for Adonis and keep all the feasts of Isis or Jehovah, without +<pb n="115"/><anchor id="Pg115"/>scrupling to make a temple a place of assignation.<note place="foot">Catull. x. 26; Tibull. i. 3, 33; Ov. +<hi rend="italic">Ars Am.</hi> iii. 635; cf. <hi rend="italic">Amor.</hi> i. 8, 73; +iii. 9, 33.</note> The +history of the early Empire, it has been rather inaccurately +said, shows no reign of mistresses. Yet some of the freedwomen +have left their mark on that dark page of history. +Claudius was the slave of women, and two of his mistresses +lent their aid to Narcissus to compass the ruin of Messalina.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xi. 29.</note> +The one woman whom Nero really loved, and who loved him +in return, was Acte, who had been bought in a slave market +in Asia. She captured the heart of the Emperor in his early +youth, and incurred the fierce jealousy of Agrippina, as she +did, at a later date, that of the fair, ambitious Poppaea.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xiii. 12, 46; xiv. 2; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, +xxviii. Acten libertam paullum abfuit +quin justo matrimonio sibi conjungeret.</note> +Acte was faithful to his memory even after the last awful +scene in Phaon’s gardens.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, l.</note> And, along with his two nurses, +the despised freedwoman guarded his remains and laid the +last of his line beside his ancestors. Caenis, the mistress +who consoled Vespasian after his wife’s death, without +any attractions of youth or beauty, suited well the taste of +the bourgeois Emperor. It was a rather sordid and prosaic +union. And Caenis is said to have accumulated a fortune, +and besmirched the honest Emperor’s name, by a wholesale +traffic in State secrets and appointments.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lxvi. 14.</note> In the last years +of our period a very different figure has been glorified by +the art of Lucian. Panthea, the mistress of L. Verus, completely +fascinated the imagination of Lucian when he saw +her at Smyrna, during the visit of her lover to the East.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Imag.</hi> 10. See Croiset’s <hi rend="italic">Lucien</hi>, +p. 273, on the <hi rend="italic">Imagines</hi> as illustrating +Lucian’s power as a critic of art.</note> +Lucian pictures her delicately chiselled beauty and grace of +form by recalling the finest traits in the great masterpieces +of Pheidias and Praxiteles and Calamis, of Euphranor and +Polygnotus and Apelles; Panthea combines them all. She +has a voice of a marvellous and mellow sweetness, which lingers +in the ear with a haunting memory. And the soul was worthy +of such a fair dwelling-place. In her love of music and +poetry, combined with a masculine strength of intellect capable +of handling the highest problems in politics or dialectic, she +was a worthy successor of those elder daughters of Ionia whose +<pb n="116"/><anchor id="Pg116"/>charm and strength drew a Socrates or a Pericles to their feet.<note place="foot">Xen. <hi rend="italic">Mem.</hi> iii. 11; Plat. <hi rend="italic">Menex.</hi> +c. iv.</note> +Surrounded by luxury and the pomp of imperial rank, and +linked to a very unworthy lover, Panthea never lost her +natural modesty and simple sweetness. +</p> + +<p> +The great freedmen, who held the highest offices in the +imperial service till the time of Hadrian with almost undisputed +sway, are interesting by reason of the strangely romantic +career of some of them. But these are very exceptional +cases. In the bureaux of finance, it has been discovered from +the inscriptions that the officials were all of equestrian rank. +On the other hand, a great number of the provincial procurators +were freedmen. And the agents of the Emperor’s +private fisc seem to have been nearly always drawn from +this class. The lower grades of the civil service were full +of them.<note place="foot">Cf. Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> i. 82.</note> But to the student of society, the official freedmen +are, as a class, not so interesting as their brethren who in +these same years were making themselves masters of the trade +and commercial capital of the Roman world. And the +interest is heightened by the vivid art with which Petronius +has ushered us into the very heart of this rather vulgar +society. The <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi> is to some extent a caricature. There +were hosts of modest, estimable freedmen whose only record is +in two or three lines on a funeral slab. Yet a caricature must +have a foundation of truth, and a careful reader may discover +the truth under the humorous exaggeration of Petronius. +</p> + +<p> +The transition from the status of slave to that of freedman +was perhaps not so abrupt and marked as we might at first +sight suppose. It is probable that many a slave of the better +and more intelligent class found little practical change in the +tenor of his life when he received the touch of the wand +before the praetor. Some, like Melissus, the free-born slave +of Maecenas, actually rejected the proffered boon.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">De Ill. Gram.</hi> xxi.</note> There +was, of course, much cruelty to slaves in many Roman households, +and the absolute power of a master, unrestrained by +principle or kindly feeling, was an unmitigated curse till it +was limited by the humane legislation of the second century.<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. 189; Denis, <hi rend="italic">Idées +Morales</hi>, ii. 208; Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> xvii.</note> +But there must have been many houses, like that of the +younger Pliny, where the slaves were treated, in Seneca’s +<pb n="117"/><anchor id="Pg117"/>phrase, as humble friends and real members of the family, +where their marriages were fêted with general gaiety,<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> iii. 21; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 47; +Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ii. 17, 9; viii. 16; cf. Marq. +<hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. 175.</note> where +their sicknesses were tenderly watched, and where they were +truly mourned in death. The inscriptions reveal to us a +better side of slave life, which is not so prominent in our +literary authorities. There is many an inscription recording +the love and faithfulness of the slave husband and wife, +although not under those honoured names. And it is +significant that on many of these tablets the honourable +title of <hi rend="italic">conjunx</hi> is taking the place of the old servile <hi rend="italic">contubernalis</hi>. +The inscriptions which testify to the mutual love +of master and servant are hardly less numerous. In one a +master speaks of a slave-child of four years as being dear to +him as a son.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 2808.</note> Another contains the memorial of a learned +lady erected by her slave librarian.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2874.</note> Another records the +love of a young noble for his nurse,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2816.</note> while another is the +pathetic tribute of the nurse to her young charge, who died +at five years of age. The whole city household of another +great family subscribe from their humble savings for an +affectionate memorial of their young mistress.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2862.</note> Seneca, in +his humanitarian tone about slavery, represents a great +moral movement, which was destined to express itself in +legislation under the Antonines. And the energy with which +Seneca denounced harsh or contemptuous conduct to these +humble dependents had evidently behind it the force of a +steadily growing sentiment. The master who abused his +power was already beginning to be a marked man.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Clem.</hi> i. 18.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Frequent manumissions were swelling the freedman class +to enormous dimensions. The emancipation of slaves by +dying bequest was not then, indeed, inspired by the same +religious motive as in the Middle Ages. But it was often +dictated by the natural, human wish to make some return to +faithful servants, and to leave a memory of kindness behind. +But without the voluntary generosity of the master, the slave +could easily purchase his own freedom. The price of slaves +varied enormously, according to their special aptitude and grade +of service. It might range from £1700, in rare cases, to £10, +or even less, in our money.<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. 174.</note> But taking the average price of +<pb n="118"/><anchor id="Pg118"/>ordinary slaves, one careful and frugal might sometimes save +the cost of his freedom in a few years. The slave, especially if he +had any special gift, or if he occupied a prominent position in +the household, had many chances of adding to his <hi rend="italic">peculium</hi>. +But the commonest drudge might spare something from the +daily allowance of food.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 80, § 4, peculium suum +quod comparaverunt ventre fraudato +pro capite numerant.</note> Others, like the cooks in Apuleius, +might sell their perquisites from the remains of a banquet.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> x. 14; cf. Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. +Rom.</hi> ii. 397.</note> +The door-keepers, a class notorious for their insolence in +Martial’s day,<note place="foot">v. 22, 10, negat lasso janitor esse +domi; Sen. <hi rend="italic">Nec. Inj.</hi> xiv. cubicularii +supercilium.</note> often levied heavy tolls for admission to their +master’s presence. And good-natured visitors would not +depart without leaving a gift to those who had done +them service. It must also be remembered that the slave +system of antiquity covered much of the ground of our +modern industrial organisation. A great household, or a +great estate, was a society almost complete in itself. And +intelligent slaves were often entrusted with the entire management +of certain departments.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">R. H.</hi> ii. 380 (Tr.)</note> The great rural properties had +their quarries, brickworks, and mines; and manufactures of all +kinds were carried on by servile industry, with slaves or +freedmen as managers. The merchant, the banker, the +contractor, the publisher, had to use, not only slave labour, +but slave skill and superintendence.<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. 162 sq.</note> The great household +needed to be organised under chiefs. And on rural estates, +down to the end of the Western Empire, the villicus or +procurator was nearly always a man of servile origin.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C. Th.</hi> ix. 30, 2; ii. 30, 2.</note> In +these various capacities, the trusted slave was often practically +a partner, with a share of the profits, or he had a +commission on the returns. Such a fortunate servant, by +hoarding his <hi rend="italic">peculium</hi>, might soon become a capitalist on his +own account, and well able, if he chose, to purchase his +freedom. His <hi rend="italic">peculium</hi>, like that of the son <hi rend="italic">in manu patris</hi>, +was of course by law the property of his master. But the +security of the <hi rend="italic">peculium</hi> was the security for good service.<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. p. 163.</note> +Thus a useful and favourite slave often easily became a +freedman, sometimes by purchase, or, as often happened in +the case of servants of the imperial house, by the free gift of +<pb n="119"/><anchor id="Pg119"/>the lord. There are even cases on record where a slave was +left heir of his master’s property. Trimalchio boasted that he +had been made by his master joint heir with the Emperor.<note place="foot">Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 76.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The tie between patron and freedman was very close. The +emancipated slave had often been a trusted favourite, and even +a friend of the family, and his lord was under an obligation +to provide for his future. The freedman frequently remained +in the household, with probably little real change in his position. +His patron owed him at least support and shelter. But he +often gave him, besides, the means of an independent life, +a farm, a shop, or capital to start in some trade.<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. 165.</note> In the +time of Ovid, a freedman of M. Aurelius Cotta had more than +once received from his patron the fortune of a knight, besides +ample provision for his children.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 178, n.</note> A similar act of generosity, +which was recklessly abused, is recorded by Martial.<note place="foot">Mart. v. 70; cf. vii. 64.</note> By +ancient law, as well as by sentiment, senators were forbidden +to soil themselves by trade or usury.<note place="foot">Liv. xxi. 63, quaestus omnis patribus +indecorus visus; D. Cass. 69. 16; +cf. <hi rend="italic">C. Th.</hi> xiii. 1, 4; <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Godefroy’s note.</note> But so inconvenient a +prohibition was sure to be evaded. And probably the most +frequent means of evasion was by entrusting senatorial capital +to freedmen or clients, or even to the higher class of slaves.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Cat. Maj.</hi> 21.</note> +When Trimalchio began to rise in the social scale, he gave up +trade, and employed his capital in financing men of the freedman +class.<note place="foot">Petron. 77, sustuli me de negotiatione +et coepi libertos foenerare.</note> These people, generally of Levantine origin, had the +aptitude for commerce which has at all times been a characteristic +of their race. And, in the time of the Empire, almost all +trade and industry was in their hands. The tale of Petronius +reveals the secret of their success. They value money beyond +anything else; it is the one object of their lives. They frankly +estimate a man’s worth and character in terms of cash.<note place="foot">Id. 77, assem habeas, assem valeas.</note> Keen, +energetic, and unscrupulous, they will <q>pick a farthing out of a +dung-heap with their teeth</q>; <q>lead turns to gold in their hands.</q><note place="foot">Id. 43, paratus fuit quadrantem de +stercore mordicus tollere:—in manu +illius plumbum aurum fiebat.</note> +They are entirely of Vespasian’s opinion that gold from any +quarter, however unsavoury, <q>never smells.</q> Taking the world +as it was, in many respects they deserved to succeed. They +were not, indeed, encumbered with dignity or self-respect. They +<pb n="120"/><anchor id="Pg120"/>had one goal, and they worked towards it with infinite industry +and unfailing courage and self-confidence. Nothing daunts or +dismays them. If a fleet of merchantmen, worth a large fortune, +is lost in a storm, the freedman speculator will at once sell his +wife’s clothes and jewels, and start cheerfully on a fresh venture.<note place="foot">Petron. 76.</note> +When his great ambition has been achieved, he enjoys its fruits +after his kind in all ages. Excluded from the great world of +hereditary culture, these people caricature its tastes, and imitate +all its vices, without catching even a reflection of its charm +and refinement. The selfish egotism of the dissipated noble +might be bad enough, but it was sometimes veiled by a careless +grace, or an occasional deference to lofty tradition. The selfishness +and grossness of the upstart is naked and not ashamed, +or we might almost say, it glories in its shame. Its luxury is +a tasteless attempt to vie with the splendour of aristocratic +banquets. The carver and the waiter perform their tasks to +the beat of a deafening music. Art and literature are prostituted +to the service of this vulgar parade of new wealth, and the +divine Homer is profaned by a man who thinks that Hannibal +fought in the Trojan War.<note place="foot">Id. 50</note> The conversation is of the true +bourgeois tone, with all its emphasis on the obvious, its unctuous +moralising, its platitudes consecrated by their antiquity. +</p> + +<p> +It is this society which is drawn for us with such a sure, +masterly hand, and with such graceful ease, by Petronius. +The <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi> is well known to be one of the great puzzles and +mysteries in Roman literature. Scholars have held the most +widely different opinions as to its date, its author, and its purpose. +The scene has been laid in the reign of Augustus or of +Tiberius, and, on the strength of a misinterpreted inscription, +even as late as the reign of Alexander Severus.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 1175; cf. Teuffel, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Lit.</hi> ii. +§ 300, n. 4.</note> Those who +have attributed it to the friend and victim of Nero have been +confronted with the silence of Quintilian, Juvenal, and Martial, +with the silence of Tacitus as to any literary work by +Petronius, whose character and end he has described with a +curious sympathy and care.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xvi. 18, 19.</note> It is only late critics of the +lower empire, such as Macrobius,<note place="foot">Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Som. Scip.</hi> i. 2, 8.</note> and a dilettante aristocrat +like Sidonius Apollinaris,<note place="foot">Sidon. Apoll. <hi rend="italic">Carm.</hi> ix. 268.</note> who pay any attention to this + re<pb n="121"/><anchor id="Pg121"/>markable work of genius. And Sidonius seems to make its +author a citizen of Marseilles.<note place="foot">Sidon. Apoll. <hi rend="italic">Carm.</hi> xxiii. 155, et te +Massiliensium per hortos sacri stipitis, +Arbiter, colonum Hellespontiaco parem +Priapo, etc.</note> Yet silence in such cases may +be very deceptive. Martial and Statius never mention one +another, and both might seem unknown to Tacitus. And +Tacitus, after the fashion of the Roman aristocrat, in painting +the character of Petronius, may not have thought it relevant or +important to notice a light work such as the <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi>, even +if he had ever seen it. He does not think it worth while to +mention the histories of the Emperor Claudius, the tragedies of +Seneca, or the <hi rend="italic">Punica</hi> of Silius Italicus.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xii. 8; xiii. 2; xv. 45, +60, 65; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iii. 65.</note> Tacitus, like Thucydides, +is too much absorbed in the social tragedy of his time to +have any thought to spare for its artistic efforts. The rather +shallow, easy-going Pliny has told us far more of social life in +the reigns of Domitian and Trajan, its rural pleasures and its +futile literary ambitions, than the great, gloomy historian who was +absorbed in the vicissitudes of the deadly duel between the +Senate and the Emperors. One thing is certain about the author +of this famous piece—he was not a plebeian man about town, +although it may be doubted whether M. Boissier is safe in +maintaining that such a writer would not have chosen his own +environment of the Suburra as the field for his imagination.<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> p. 257, ce n’est +pas la coutume qu’on mette son idéal +près de soi.</note> +It is safer to seek for light on the social status of the author +in the tone of his work. The <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi> is emphatically the +production of a cultivated aristocrat, who looks down with +serene and amused scorn on the vulgar bourgeois world which he +is painting. He is interested in it, but it is the interest of the +detached, artistic observer, whose own world is very far off. +Encolpius and Trimalchio and his coarse freedman friends are +people with whom the author would never have dined, but +whom, at a safe social distance, he found infinitely amusing as +well as disgusting. He saw that a great social revolution +was going on before his eyes, that the old slave minion, with +estates in three continents, was becoming the rival of the great +noble in wealth, that the new-sprung class were presenting to +the world a vulgar caricature of the luxury in the palaces on +the Esquiline. Probably he thought it all bad,<note place="foot">Petron. 88, at nos vino scortisque +demersi ne paratas quidem artes audemus +cognoscere, sed accusatores antiquitatis vitia tantum docemus et discimus. +This rather applies to the higher cultivated class.</note> but the bad +<pb n="122"/><anchor id="Pg122"/>became worse when it was coarse and vulgar. The ignorant +assumption of literary and artistic taste in Trimalchio must +have been contrasted in the author’s mind with many an +evening at the palace, when Nero, in his better moods, would +recite his far from contemptible verses, or his favourite passages +from Euripides, and when the new style of Lucan would be +balanced against that of the great old masters.<note place="foot">Petron. 118; cf. Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> 213.</note> And the man +who had been charmed with the sprightly grace of the stately +and charming Poppaea may be forgiven for showing his +hard contempt for Fortunata, who, in the middle of dinner, +runs off to count the silver and deal out the slaves’ share of +the leavings, and returns to get drunk and fight with one of +her guests.<note place="foot">Petron. 70, 67.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The motive of the work has been much debated. It has +been thought a satire on the Neronian circle, and again an +effort to gratify it, by a revelation of the corruptions of the +plebeian world, the same impulse which drove Messalina to the +brothel, and Nero to range the taverns at midnight.<note place="foot">Juv. vi. 115; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xxvi.</note> It has +been thought a satire on the insolence and grossness of Pallas +and the freedmen of the Claudian régime which Nero detested, +to amuse him with all their vulgar absurdities. Is it not +possible that the writer was merely pleasing himself—that he +was simply following the impulse of genius? Since the +seventh century the work has only existed in fragments.<note place="foot">Teuffel. <hi rend="italic">Rom. Lit.</hi> § 300, n. 1.</note> Who +can tell how much the lost portions, if we possessed them, +might affect our judgment of the object of the work? One +thing is certain, its author was a very complex character, and +would probably have smiled at some of the lumbering efforts +to read his secret. Even though he may have had no lofty +purpose, a weary man of pleasure may have wished to display, +in its grossest, vulgarest form, the life of which he had tasted the +pleasures, and which he had seen turning into Dead Sea fruit. +He was probably a bad man in his conduct, worse perhaps in +his imagination; and yet, by a strange contradiction, which is +not unexampled in the history of character, he may have had +dreams of a refined purity and temperance which tortured and +embittered him by their contrast with actual life. +</p> + +<pb n="123"/><anchor id="Pg123"/> + +<p> +Out of the smoke of controversy, the conclusion seems +to have emerged that the <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi> is a work of Nero’s reign, +and that its author was in all probability that Caius Petronius +who was Nero’s close companion, and who fell a victim to the +jealousy of Tigellinus. Not the least cogent proof of this is the +literary criticism of the work. It is well known that Lucan, +belonging to the Spanish family of the Senecas, had thrown +off many of the conventions of Roman literature, and +discarded the machinery of epic mythology in his <hi rend="italic">Pharsalia</hi>. +He had also incurred the literary jealousy of Nero. The +attack in the <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi> on Lucan’s literary aberrations can +hardly be mistaken. The old poet Eumolpus is introduced to +defend the traditions of the past. And he gives a not very +successful demonstration, in 285 verses, of the manner in which +the subject should have been treated, with all the scenery and +machinery of orthodox epic.<note place="foot">Petron. 118, 119; cf. Boissier, +<hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> p. 239. Other proofs of the +date of the <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi> are the occurrence +of names like Apelles and Menecrates, +c. 64, 73; cf. Suet. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> 33; <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, +30; Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Cena Trim. Einl.</hi> 9; the +reflections on decline of oratory, <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> +1; cf. Tac. <hi rend="italic">Dial. Or.</hi> c. 35; the +invention of a peculiar glass, which +belongs to the reign of Tiberius, cf. +Plin. <hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> xxxvi. 66; D. Cass. 57. +21 ad fin.</note> This specimen of conservative +taste is the least happy part of the work. +</p> + +<p> +Such evidence is reinforced by the harmony of the whole +tone of the <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi> with the clear-cut character of Petronius +in Tacitus. There was evidently a singular fascination about +this man, which, in spite of his wasted, self-indulgent life, +was keenly felt by the severe historian. Petronius was +capable of great things, but in an age of wild licence he +deliberately devoted his brilliant talent to making sensuality +a fine art. Like Otho, who belonged to the same circle, +he showed, as consul and in the government of Bithynia, +that a man of pleasure could be equal to great affairs.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xvi. 18, vigentem se +ac parem negotiis ostendit.</note> After +this single digression from the scheme of the voluptuary, he +returned to his pleasures, and became an arbiter in all questions +of sensual taste, from whose decision there was no appeal. +His ascendency over the Emperor drew upon him the fatal +enmity of Tigellinus. Petronius was doomed. It was a time +when not even the form of justice was used to veil the caprices +of tyranny, and Petronius determined not to endure a long +suspense when the issue was certain. He had gone as far as +<pb n="124"/><anchor id="Pg124"/>Cumae to attend the Emperor. There he was stopped. He +retired to his chamber and had his veins alternately opened +and rebound, meanwhile conversing with his friends or listening +to light verses, not, as the fashion then was, seeking consolation +from a Stoic director on the issues of life and death. He +rewarded some of his slaves; others he had flogged before +his eyes. After a banquet he fell calmly into his last sleep +In his will there was none of the craven adulation by which +the victim often strove to save his heirs from imperial rapacity. +He broke his most precious myrrhine vase, to prevent its being +added to Nero’s treasures.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> xxxvii. 7 (20), T. Petronius +consularis moriturus invidia +Neronis, ... trullam myrrhinam +HS.c̅c̅c̅ emptam fregit.</note> His only bequest to the Emperor +was a stinging catalogue of his secret and nameless sins.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xvi. 19, sed flagitia principis +et novitatem cujusque stupri perscripsit +atque obsignata misit Neroni.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi>, as we have it, is only a fragment, containing +parts of two books, out of a total of sixteen. It is full of +humorous exaggeration and wild Aristophanic fun, along with, +here and there, very subtle and refined delineation of character. +But, except in the famous dinner of Trimalchio, there are few +signs of regular construction or closeness of texture in plot +and incident. Even if we had the whole, it might have been +difficult to decipher its motive or to unlock the secret of the +author’s character. We can only be sure that he was a man +of genius, and that he was interested in the intellectual pursuits +and tendencies of his time, as well as in its vices and +follies. We may perhaps surmise that he was at once perverted +and disillusioned, alternately fascinated and disgusted +by the worship of the flesh and its lusts in that evil time. +He is not, as has been sometimes said, utterly devoid of +a moral sense. Occasionally he shows a gleam of nobler +feeling, a sense of the <hi rend="italic">lacrimae rerum</hi>, as in that passage +where the corpse of the shipwrecked Lichas is washed +ashore. <q>Somewhere a wife is quietly awaiting him, or +a father or a son, with no thought of storm; some one +whom he kissed on leaving.... He had examined the +accounts of his estates, he had pictured to himself the day of +his return to his home. And now he lies, O ye gods, how far +from the goal of his hopes. But the sea is not the only +mocker of the hopes of men. If you reckon well, there is +<pb n="125"/><anchor id="Pg125"/>shipwreck everywhere.</q><note place="foot">Petron. 115, si bene calculum +ponas, ubique naufragium est.</note> There is also a curious note of contempt +for his own age in a passage on the decay of the fine +arts. The tone is, for the moment, almost that of Ruskin. +The glories of the golden age of art were the result of +simple virtue. An age like the Neronian, an age abandoned +to wine and harlotry, which dreams only of making money +by any sordid means, cannot even appreciate what the great +masters have left behind, much less itself produce anything +worthy. Even the gods of the Capitol are now honoured by +an offering of crude bullion, not by the masterpieces of a +Pheidias or an Apelles. And the race which created them +are now for us, forsooth, silly Greeklings!<note place="foot">Id. 88. For a favourable estimate +of the <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi>, cf. Schiller’s +<hi rend="italic">Gesch. röm. Kaiserzeit</hi>, i. 469, 470.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Yet side by side with a passage like this, there are descriptions +of abnormal depravity so coarsely realistic that it has +often been assumed, and not unnaturally, that the writer rioted +in mere filth. It should be remembered, however, that there +was a tradition of immorality about the ancient romance,<note place="foot">See Boissier’s remarks, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> p. +228.</note> and +Petronius, had he cared to do so, might have made the same +apology as Martial, that he provided what his readers +demanded.<note place="foot">Mart. v. 2; iii. 68; cf. Mahaffy, +<hi rend="italic">Greek World under Roman Sway</hi>, p. +298.</note> That Petronius was deeply tainted is only too +probable from his associations, although Tacitus implies that +he was rather a fastidious voluptuary than a gross debauchee. +Yet a sensualist of the intellectual range of Petronius may +have occasionally visions of a better world than that to which +he has sunk. Is it not possible that the gay elegant trifler +may sometimes have scorned himself as he scorned his time? +Is it not possible that, along with other illusions, he had +parted with the illusions of vice, and that in the <q>noctes +Neronis</q> he had seen the adder among the roses? He has +written one of the keenest satires ever penned on the vulgarity +of mere wealth, its absurd affectations, its vanity, its grossness. +May he not also have wished, without moralising in a fashion +which so cultivated a trifler would have scorned, to reveal the +abyss towards which a society lost to all the finer passions +of the spirit was hurrying? In the half comic, half ghastly +scene in which Trimalchio, in a fit of maudlin sentiment, +<pb n="126"/><anchor id="Pg126"/>has himself laid out for dead, while the horns blare out his +funeral lament, we seem to hear the knell of a society which +was the slave of gold and gross pleasure, and seemed to be +rotting before its death. +</p> + +<p> +But it need hardly be said that the prevailing note of the +<hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi> is anything but melancholy. The author is intensely +amused with his subject, and the piece is full of the most +riotous fun and humour. It belongs formally to the medley +of prose and verse which Varro introduced into Roman +literature on the model of Menippus of Gadara.<note place="foot">Teuffel, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Lit.</hi> i. p. 239; Friedl. +<hi rend="italic">Cena Trim. Einl.</hi> 5.</note> It contains +disquisitions on literary tendencies of the day in poetry and +oratory, anecdotes and desultory talk. But Petronius has +given a new character to the old <q>Satura,</q> more in the +manner of the Greek romance. There probably was no regular +plot in the complete work, no central motive, such as the +wrath of Priapus,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 5.</note> to bind it together. Yet there is a certain +bond of union in the narrative of lively, and often questionable, +adventures through which Petronius carries his very disreputable +characters. In this life and movement, this human +interest, the <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi> is the distant ancestor of <hi rend="italic">Gil Blas</hi>, +<hi rend="italic">Roderick Random</hi>, and <hi rend="italic">Tom Jones</hi>. +</p> + +<p> +The scene of the earlier part, long since lost, may have been +laid at Massilia.<note place="foot">Sidon. Apoll. <hi rend="italic">Carm.</hi> ix. 268; xxiii. +155.</note> In the two books partially preserved to us, it +lies in southern Italy, at Cumae or Croton, in those Greek towns +which had plenty of Greek vice, without much Greek refinement.<note place="foot">Petron. 81, cf. Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Cena +Trim. Einl.</hi> 6. Puteoli is excluded +by the complaints of municipal decay +in c. 44: Naples, by the fact that +the town is a Roman colony (44, 57); +Cumae was the only town in this region +which had Praetors. Cf. <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> +1498, 2263; Petron. 65.</note> +The three strangers, whose adventures are related, +Encolpius, Ascyltus, and Giton, if we may judge by their +names, are also Greek, with the literary culture of their time, +and deeply tainted with its worst vices. At the opening of +our fragment, Encolpius, a beggarly, wandering sophist, is +declaiming in a portico on the decay of oratory.<note place="foot">Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 1, 2.</note> He is +expressing what was probably Petronius’s own judgment, as +it was that of Tacitus,<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">De Or.</hi> c. 31, 35.</note> as to the evil effects of school +declamation on musty or frivolous subjects. He is met by a +<pb n="127"/><anchor id="Pg127"/>rival lecturer, Agamemnon, who urges, on behalf of the +unfortunate teachers of this conventional rhetoric, that the +fault lies not with them, but with the parents and the public, +the same excuse, in fact, which Plato had long before made +for the maligned sophist of the fifth century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Rep.</hi> vi. p. 492 <hi rend="small">A.</hi></note> But +Encolpius and his companions, in spite of these literary +interests, are the most disreputable adventurers, educated +yet hopelessly depraved. They are even more at home +in the reeking slums than in the lecture hall. Encolpius has +been guilty of murder, theft, seduction. The party are +alternately plunderers and plundered. They riot for the +moment in foul excesses, and are tortured by jealousy and +the miseries of squalid vice. Only those who have a taste +for pornography will care to follow them in these dark paths. +Reduced to the last pinch of poverty, they are invited to dine +at the all-welcoming table of Trimalchio, and this is for us the +most interesting passage in their adventures. But, on leaving +the rich freedman’s halls they once more pass into scenes +where a modern pen cannot venture to follow them. Yet soon +afterwards, Encolpius is found in a picture gallery discussing +the fate of literature and art with Eumolpus,<note place="foot">Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 83.</note> an inveterate +poet, as vicious as himself. Presently the party are on +shipboard off the south Italian coast. They are shipwrecked +and cast ashore in a storm near the town of Croton.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 114.</note> A +friendly peasant informs them that, if they are honest +merchants, that is no place for their craft. But if they +belong to the more distinguished world of intrigue, they may +make their fortune. It is a society which has no care for +letters or virtue, which thinks only of unearned gain. There +are only two classes, the deceivers and their victims. Children +are an expensive luxury, for only the childless ever receive an +invitation or any social attention. It is like a city ravaged by +the plague; there are only left the corpses and the vultures.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 116, nihil aliud est nisi +cadavera quae lacerantur aut corvi +qui lacerant.</note> +The adventurers resolve to seize the rare opportunity; they +will turn the tables on the social birds of prey. The pauper +poet is easily translated into a millionaire with enormous +estates in Africa.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 117.</note> A portion of his wealth has been engulfed +<pb n="128"/><anchor id="Pg128"/>in the storm, but a solid HS.300,000,000, with much besides, +still remains. He has a cough, moreover, with other signs of +debility. There is no more idiotic person, as our Stock +Exchange records show, than a man eager for an unearned +fortune. The poor fools flocked around Eumolpus, drinking in +every fresh rumour about his will. He was loaded with gifts;<note place="foot">Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 124.</note> +great ladies made an easy offer of their virtue and even that of +their children.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 140.</note> Meanwhile he, or Petronius, plays with their +follies or tortures their avidity. In one of his many wills, the +heirs of the pretended Croesus are required not to touch their +booty till they have devoured his remains before the people!<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 141.</note> +The tales of barbarian tribes in Herodotus, the memories of +the siege of Saguntum and Numantia, are invoked in brutal +irony to justify the reasonableness of the demand. <q>Close +your eyes,</q> the cynic enjoins, <q>and fancy that instead of +devouring human flesh, you are swallowing a million of +money.</q> Petronius could be very brutal as well as very +refined in his raillery. The combined stupidity and greed of +the fortune-hunter of all ages are perhaps best met by such +brutality of contempt. +</p> + +<p> +The really interesting part of their adventure is the +dinner at the house of Trimalchio, a rich freedman, to which +these rascals were invited. Trimalchio is probably in many +traits drawn from life, but the picture of himself, of his +wife and his associates, is a work of genius worthy of Fielding +or Smollett or Le Sage. Petronius, it is clear, enjoyed his +work, and, in spite of his contempt for the vulgar ambition +and the coarseness and commonness of Trimalchio’s class, he +has a liking for a certain simplicity and honest good nature in +Trimalchio. The freedman tells the story of his own career<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 75, 76.</note> +without reserve, and with a certain pride in the virtue and +frugality, according to his standards, which have made him +what he is. He also exults in his shrewdness and business +capacity. His motto has always been, <q>You are worth just +what you have.</q> <q>Buy cheap and sell dear.</q> Coming as a +little slave boy from Asia, probably in the reign of Augustus,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Cena Trim. Einl.</hi> p. 7. +His cognomen Maecenatianus marks +him as a slave of the friend of Augustus +who died 8 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> Trimalchio would +therefore be born <hi rend="italic">circ.</hi> 18 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> (<hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 71, +29, 75). He was perhaps over seventy +at the time of the dinner (<hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 27, 77), +which may therefore be placed about +57 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi></note> +<pb n="129"/><anchor id="Pg129"/>he became the favourite of his master, and more than the +favourite of his mistress. He found himself in the end the +real master of the household, and, on his patron’s death, he was +left joint-heir to his property with the emperor. But he had +ambitions beyond even such a fortune. He became a ship-owner +on a great scale. He lost a quarter of a million in a +single storm, and at once proceeded to build more and larger ships. +Money poured in; all his ventures prospered. He bought estates +in Italy, Sicily, and Africa. Some of his purchases he had never +seen.<note place="foot">Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 48.</note> He built himself a stately house, with marble porticoes, +four great banqueting-halls, and twenty sleeping-rooms.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 77.</note> Everything +to satisfy human wants was produced upon his lands. He +was a man of infinite enterprise. He had improved the breed +of his flocks by importing rams from Tarentum. He had bees +from Hymettus in his hives. He sent to India for mushroom +spawn.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 38, scripsit ut illi ex India +semen boletorum mitteretur.</note> A gazette was regularly brought out, full of statistics, +and all the daily incidents on his estates;<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 53.</note> the number of slave +births and deaths; a slave crucified for blaspheming the genius +of the master; a fire in the bailiff’s house; the divorce of a watchman’s +wife, who had been caught in adultery with the bathman; a +sum of HS.100,000 paid into the chest, and waiting for +investment—these are some of the items of news. Trimalchio, who +bears now, after the fashion of his class, the good Roman name +of Caius Pompeius, has risen to the dignity of Sevir Augustalis +in his municipality;<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 71; cf. Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Cena Trim.</hi> p. +308.</note> he is one of the foremost persons in it, +with an overwhelming sense of the dignity of wealth, and with +a ridiculous affectation of artistic and literary culture, which he +parades with a delightful unconsciousness of his blunders. +</p> + +<p> +When the wandering adventurers arrive for dinner,<note place="foot">Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 27.</note> they +find a bald old man in a red tunic playing at ball, with eunuchs +in attendance. While he is afterwards being rubbed down +with unguents in the bath, his servants refresh themselves +with old Falernian. Then, with four richly dressed runners +preceding him, and wrapped in a scarlet mantle, he is borne to +the house in his sedan along with his ugly minion. On the wall +of the vestibule, as you entered, there were frescoes, one of +which represented the young Trimalchio, under the leadership +<pb n="130"/><anchor id="Pg130"/>of Minerva, making his entry into Rome, with other striking +incidents of his illustrious career, while Fortune empties her +flowing horn, and the Fates spin the golden thread of his +destiny.<note place="foot">Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 29.</note> The banquet begins; Alexandrian boys bring iced +water and delicately attend to the guests’ feet, singing all the +while.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 31.</note> Indeed, the whole service is accompanied by singing, +and the blare of instruments. To a great, deafening burst of +music, the host is at last borne in buried in cushions, his bare +shaven head protruding from a scarlet cloak, with a stole +around his neck, and lappets falling on each side; his hands +and arms loaded with rings.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 32.</note> Not being just then quite ready +for dinner, he, with a kindly apology, has a game of draughts, +until he feels inclined to eat, the pieces on the terebinthine +board being, appropriately to such a player, gold and silver +coins.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 33.</note> The dinner is a long series of surprises, on the artistic +ingenuity of which Trimalchio plumes himself vastly. One +course represents the twelve signs of the Zodiac, of which +the host expounds at length the fateful significance.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 35.</note> +Another dish was a large boar, with baskets of sweetmeats +hanging from its tusks. A huge bearded hunter pierced its +sides with a hunting knife, and forthwith from the wound +there issued a flight of thrushes which were dexterously captured +in nets as they flew about the room.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 40.</note> Towards the end +of the meal the guests were startled by strange sounds in the +ceiling, and a quaking of the whole apartment. As they raised +their eyes, the ceiling suddenly opened, and a great circular +tray descended, with a figure of Priapus, bearing all sorts of +fruit and bon-bons.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 60; cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 90, § 15, +laquearia ita coagmentat ... ut totiens +tecta quotiens fercula mutentur.</note> It may be readily assumed that in +such a scene the wine was not stinted. Huge flagons, coated +with gypsum, were brought in shoulder high, each with a label +attesting that it was the great Falernian vintage of Opimius, +one hundred years old.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 34; Cic. <hi rend="italic">Brut.</hi>, lxxxiii. The +Consulship of Opim. was <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> 121.</note> As the wine appeared, the genial +host remarked with admirable frankness, <q>I did not give as +good wine yesterday, although I had a more distinguished +company!</q> +</p> + +<p> +The amusements of the banquet were as various, and some +of them as coarse or fantastic, as the dishes. They are gross +<pb n="131"/><anchor id="Pg131"/>and tasteless exaggerations of the prevailing fashion. In a +literary age, a man of Trimalchio’s position must affect some +knowledge of letters and art. He is a ludicrous example of +the dogmatism of pretentious ignorance in all ages. He has a +Greek and Latin library,<note place="foot">Petron. 48; on private and public +libraries, cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Tranq.</hi> c. ix.; Plin. +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 8, § 2; ii. 17, § 8; iii. 7, § 7; +iv. 28, § 1; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Pers.</hi>; Luc. <hi rend="italic">Adv. +Indoct.</hi> 1, 16; Mart. vii. 17, 1; Suet. +<hi rend="italic">J. Caes.</hi> xliv.; <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> xxix.; Marq. +<hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. 114; Gregorov. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> (Tr.) p. +210; Macé, <hi rend="italic">Suétone</hi>, p. 220; Sid. +Apoll. ii. 9.</note> and pretends to have once read +Homer, although his recollections are rather confused. He +makes, for instance, Daedalus shut Niobe into the Trojan horse; +Iphigenia becomes the wife of Achilles; Helen is the sister of +Diomede and Ganymede.<note place="foot">Petron. 52.</note> One of the more refined entertainments +which are provided is the performance of scenes +from the Homeric poems, which Trimalchio accompanied by +reading in a sonorous voice from a Latin version.<note place="foot">Id. 59.</note> He is himself +an author, and has his poems recited by a boy personating +the Bacchic god.<note place="foot">Id. 41; cf. Epict. iii. 23; Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +i. 13; iii. 18, 4; vi. 15; Mart. iii. 44, +45; 50.</note> As a connoisseur of plate he will yield to +no one,<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Brev. Vit.</hi> xii. 2; <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> +3838; Mart. iv. 39; Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> ii. +688: Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> iii. 84.</note> although he slyly confesses that his <q>real Corinthian</q> +got their name from the dealer Corinthus. The metal came +from the fused bronze and gold and silver which Hannibal flung +into the flames of captured Troy. But Trimalchio’s most genuine +taste, as he naïvely confesses, is for acrobatic feats and loud +horn-blowing. And so, a company of rope-dancers bore the guests +with their monotonous performances.<note place="foot">Petron. 53.</note> Blood-curdling tales of +the wer-wolf, and corpses carried off by witches, are provided +for another kind of taste.<note place="foot">Id. 62, 63; cf. Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> i. 8.</note> A base product of Alexandria +imitates the notes of the nightingale, and another, apparently +of Jewish race, equally base, in torturing dissonant tones +spouted passages from the <hi rend="italic">Aeneid</hi>, profaned to scholarly ears by +a mixture of Atellan verses.<note place="foot">Petron. 68.</note> Trimalchio, who was anxious that +his wife should display her old powers of dancing a <hi rend="italic">cancan</hi>, is +also going to give an exhibition of his own gifts in the +pantomimic line,<note place="foot">Id. 52.</note> when the shrewd lady in a whisper warned +him to maintain his dignity. How far she preserved her +own we shall see presently. +</p> + +<pb n="132"/><anchor id="Pg132"/> + +<p> +The company at this strange party were worthy of their +host. And Petronius has outdone himself in the description +of these brother freedmen, looking up to Trimalchio as the +glory of their order, and giving vent to their ill-humour, their +optimism, or their inane moralities, in conversation with the +sly observer who reports their talk. They are all old slaves +like their host, men who have <q>made their pile,</q> or lost it. +They rate themselves and their neighbours simply in terms of +cash.<note place="foot">Petron. 38, 43.</note> The only ability they can understand is that which +can <q>pick money out of the dung-heap,</q> and <q>turn lead to +gold.</q><note place="foot">Id. 43, in manu illius plumbum +aurum fiebat.</note> These gross and infinitely stupid fellows have not +even the few saving traits in the character of Trimalchio. He +has, after all, an honourable, though futile, ambition to be a +wit, a connoisseur, a patron of learning. His luxury is +coarse enough, but he wishes, however vainly, to redeem it by +some ingenuity, by interspersing the mere animal feeding with +some broken gleams, or, as we may think, faint and distorted +reflections, of that great world of which he had heard, but the +portals of which he could never enter. But his company are +of mere clay. Trimalchio is gross enough at times, but, +compared with his guests, he seems almost tolerable. And +their dull baseness is the more torturing to a modern reader +because it is an enduring type. The neighbour of the Greek +observer warns him not to despise his company;<note place="foot">Id. 38, Collibertos ejus cave contemnas, +valde succosi sunt. <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Friedl. +<hi rend="italic">Cena Trim.</hi> p. 223.</note> they are +<q>warm</q> men. That one at the end of the couch, who began +as a porter, has his HS.800,000. Another, an undertaker, has +had his glorious days, when the wine flowed in rivers;<note place="foot">Petron. 38.</note> but +he has been compelled to compound with his creditors, and he +has played them a clever trick. A certain Seleucus, whose +name reveals his origin, explains his objections to the bath, +especially on this particular morning, when he has been at a +funeral.<note place="foot">Id. 42.</note> The fate of the departed friend unfortunately leads +him to moralise on the weakness of mortal men, mere +insects, or bubbles on the stream. As for medical aid, it +is an imaginary comfort; it oftener kills than cures.<note place="foot">Id. 42, medicus nihil aliud est +quam animi consolatio. For similar +opinions of the medical profession, cf. +Petron. 56; D. Cass. lxix. 22, lxxi. +33; Mart. vi. 31; vi. 53; ii. 16; Epict. +iii. 23, § 27; Juv. iii. 77; Luc. <hi rend="italic">Philops.</hi> +c. 21, 26; <hi rend="italic">Adv. Indoct.</hi> c. 29; Marq. +<hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> ii. 779. Sen. gives a higher idea +of the craft, <hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> vi. 16; cf. Apul. +<hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> x. 8, where the doctor rejects the +base proposals made to him.</note> The +<pb n="133"/><anchor id="Pg133"/>great consolation was that the funeral was respectably done, +although the wife was not effusive in her grief.<note place="foot">Petron. 42, planetus est optime, +etiam si maligne illum ploravit uxor.</note> Another +guest will have none of this affected mourning for one who +lived the life of his choice and left his solid hundred thousand.<note place="foot">Id. 43.</note> +He was after all a harsh quarrelsome person, very different from +his brother, a stout, kindly fellow with an open hand, and a +sumptuous table. He had his reverses at first, but he was set +up again by a good vintage and a lucky bequest, which he knew, +by a sly stroke, how to increase; a true son of fortune, who +lived his seventy years and more, as black as a crow, a man +who lustily enjoyed all the delights of the flesh to the +very end.<note place="foot">Id. 43, noveram hominem olim +oliorum, et adhuc salax est. On the +phrase olim oliorum <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Cena +Trim.</hi> p. 237.</note> +</p> + +<p> +But the most interesting person for the modern student is +the grumbler about the management of town affairs, and here a +page or two of the <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi> is worth a dissertation. The price +of bread has gone up, and the bakers must be in league with +the aediles. In the good old times, when the critic first came +from Asia, things were very different.<note place="foot">Petron. 44.</note> <q>There were giants in +those days. Think of Safinius, who lived by the old arch, a +man with a sharp, biting tongue, but a true friend, a man who, +in the town council, went straight to his point, whose voice in +the forum rang out like a trumpet. Yet he was just like one +of us, knew everybody’s name, and returned every salute. Why, +in those days corn was as cheap as dirt. You could buy for an +as a loaf big enough for two. But the town has since gone +sadly back.<note place="foot">Id. 44, haec colonia retroversus +crescit tanquam coda vituli. This +passage is used to prove that Puteoli +cannot be Trimalchio’s town. Friedl. +<hi rend="italic">Cena Trim.</hi> p. 239.</note> Our aediles now think only how to pocket in +a day what would be to some of us a fortune. I know how a +certain person made his thousand gold pieces. If this goes on, +I shall have to sell my cottages. Neither men nor the gods +have any mercy. It all comes from our neglect of religion. No +one now keeps a fast, no one cares a fig for Jove. In old days +when there was a drought, the long-robed matrons with bare +feet, dishevelled hair, and pure hearts, would ascend the hill to +entreat Jupiter for rain, and then it would pour down in +<pb n="134"/><anchor id="Pg134"/>buckets.</q><note place="foot">Petron. 44 <hi rend="italic">ad fin.</hi> itaque statim +urceatim plovebat.</note> At this point the maundering, pious pessimist is +interrupted by a rag dealer<note place="foot">Id. 45. On the meaning of Centonarius +<hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> ii. 585. They +had a great number of Collegia, often +leagued with the Fabri; <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> <hi rend="italic">Henz. Ind.</hi> +pp. 171-72; <hi rend="italic">C. Th.</hi> xiv. 8.</note> of a more cheerful temper. <q>Now +this, now that, as the rustic said, when he lost his speckled pig. +What we have not to-day will come to-morrow; so life rubs +along. Why, we are to have a three days’ show of gladiators +on the next holiday, not of the common sort, but many freedmen +among them. And our Titus has a high spirit; he will +not do things by halves. He will give us cold steel without +any shirking, a good bit of butchery in full view of the amphitheatre. +And he can well afford it. His father died and left +him HS.30,000,000. What is a paltry HS.400,000 to such a +fortune?<note place="foot">For the cost of such shows, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> +81; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> ii. <hi rend="italic">Suppl.</hi> p. 1034; Friedl. +<hi rend="italic">Cena Trim. Einl.</hi> p. 58; Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> +ii. p. 136.</note> and it will give him a name for ever. He has some +tit-bits, too, in reserve, the lady chariot-driver, and the steward +of Glyco, who was caught with his master’s wife; poor wretch, +he was only obeying orders. And the worthless Glyco has +given him to the beasts; the lady deserved to suffer. And I +have an inkling that Mammaea is going to give us a feast, where +we shall get two denarii apiece. If she does the part expected +of her, Norbanus will be nowhere. His gladiators were a +wretched, weedy, twopenny-halfpenny lot, who would go down +at a mere breath. They were all cut to pieces, as the cowards +deserved, at the call of the crowd, <q>give it them.</q> A pretty +show indeed! When I applauded, I gave far more than I got. +But friend Agamemnon, you are thinking <q>what is all this +long-winded chatter.</q><note place="foot">Petron. 46, quid iste argutat molestus?</note> Well, you, who dote on eloquence, why +won’t you talk yourself, instead of laughing at us feeble folk. +Some day I may persuade you to look in at my farm; I daresay, +though the times are bad, we shall find a pullet to eat. And I +have a young scholar ripening for your trade. He has good +wits and never raises his head from his task. He paints with +a will. He has begun Greek, and has a real taste for Latin. +But one of his tutors is conceited and idle. The other is very +painstaking, but, in his excess of zeal, he teaches more than he +knows. So I have bought the boy some red-letter volumes, +that he may get a tincture of law for domestic purposes. That +<pb n="135"/><anchor id="Pg135"/>is what gives bread and butter. He has now had enough of +literature. If he gives it up, I think I shall teach him a trade, +the barber’s or auctioneer’s or pleader’s,<note place="foot">Petron. 46 <hi rend="italic">ad fin.</hi>; cf. Mart. v. 56; +Juv. vii. 5, 176.</note> something that only +death can take from him. Every day I din into his ears, +Primigenius, my boy, what you learn you learn for profit. Look +at the lawyer Philero. If he had not learnt his business, he +could not keep the wolf from the door. Why, only a little +ago, he was a hawker with a bundle on his back, and now he +can hold his own with Norbanus. Learning is a treasure, and +a trade can never be lost.</q> +</p> + +<p> +To all this stimulating talk there are lively interludes. A +guest thinks one of the strangers, in a superior way, is making +game of the company, and assails him with a shower of the +choicest abuse, in malodorous Latin of the slums, interlarded +with proud references to his own rise from the slave ranks.<note place="foot">Petron. 57.</note> +Trimalchio orders the house-dog, Scylax, to be brought in, but +the brute falls foul of a pet spaniel, and, in the uproar, a lamp +is overthrown, the vases on the table are all smashed, and +some of the guests are scalded with the hot oil.<note place="foot">Id. 64.</note> In the +middle of this lively scene, a lictor announces the approach of +Habinnas, a stone-cutter, who is also a great dignitary of the +town. He arrives rather elevated from another feast of which +he has pleasant recollections. He courteously asks for +Fortunata,<note place="foot">Id. 67.</note> who happens to be just then looking after the +plate and dividing the remains of the feast among the slaves. +That lady, after many calls, appears in a cherry coloured +tunic with a yellow girdle, wiping her hands with her neckerchief. +She has splendid rings on her arms, legs, and fingers, +which she pulls off to show them to the stone-cutter’s lady. +Trimalchio is proud of their weight, and orders a balance to +be brought in to confirm his assertions. It is melancholy to +relate that, in the end, the two ladies get hopelessly drunk, +and fall to embracing one another in a rather hysterical fashion. +Fortunata even attempts to dance.<note place="foot">Id. 70.</note> In the growing confusion +the slaves take their places at table, and the cook begins to +give imitations of a favourite actor,<note place="foot">Id. Ephesum tragoedum coepit +imitare—Sonst unbekannt, Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Cena +Trim.</hi> 306.</note> and lays a wager with his +master on the chances of the green at the next races. Trimal<pb n="136"/><anchor id="Pg136"/>chio, who by this time was becoming very mellow and sentimental, +determines to make his will, and to manumit all his +slaves, with a farm to one, a house to another. He even gives +his friend the stone-cutter full directions about the monument +which is to record so brilliant a career. There is to be ample +provision for its due keeping, in the fashion so well known +from the inscriptions, with a fair space of prescribed measurements, +planted with vines and other fruit trees. Trimalchio +wishes to be comfortable in his last home.<note place="foot">Cf. <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4070, 7321; Petron. +71, valde enim falsum est vivo quidem +domos cultas esse, non curari eas ubi +diutius nobis habitandum est.</note> On the face of +the monument ships under full sail are to figure the sources +of his wealth.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> the monument of C. Munatius +Faustus at Pompeii, <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> x. 1030. +But Mau, p. 415 (Tr.), interprets it +differently from Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Cena Trim.</hi> p. +307.</note> He himself is to be sculptured, seated on +a tribunal, clothed with the <hi rend="italic">praetexta</hi> of the Augustalis, +with five rings on his fingers, ladling money from a bag, +as in the great banquet with which he had once regaled the +people.<note place="foot">See the monument of the surgeon +oculist of Assisi, <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 2983, who records +the amount he gave for his freedom, +his benefactions, and his fortune. <hi rend="italic">v. +C.I.L.</hi> v. 4482, the monument of +Valerius Anteros Asiaticus, a Sevir +Aug. of Brescia.</note> On his right hand there is to be the figure of his +wife holding a dove and a spaniel on a leash. A boy is to +be graved weeping over a broken urn. And, finally, in +the centre of the scene, there is to be a horologe, that the +passer-by, as he looks for the hour, may have his eyes +always drawn to the epitaph which recited the dignities and +virtues of the illustrious freedman. It told posterity that +<q>C. Pompeius Trimalchio Maecenatianus was pious, stout, and +trusty, that he rose from nothing, left HS.30,000,000, and +never heard a philosopher.</q> The whole company, along with +Trimalchio himself, of course wept copiously at the mere +thought of the close of so illustrious a career. After renewing +their gastric energy in the bath, the company fell to another +banquet. Presently a cock crows, and Trimalchio, in a fit of +superstition, spills his wine under the table,<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> xxvi. 2 (26); xxviii. 6 +(57), plerique (suadent) anulum e sinistra +in longissimum dextrae digitum +transferre.</note> passes his rings to +the right hand, and offers a reward to any one who will bring +the ominous bird. The disturber was soon caught and handed +over to the cook for execution. Then Trimalchio excites his +wife’s natural anger by a piece of amatory grossness, and, in +<pb n="137"/><anchor id="Pg137"/>retaliation for her very vigorous abuse, flings a cup at her +head. In the scene which follows he gives, with the foulest +references to his wife’s early history, a sketch of his own career +and the eulogy of the virtues that have made him what he is.<note place="foot">Petron. 75, ad hanc me fortunam +frugalitas mea perduxit.</note> +Growing more and more sentimental, he at last has himself +laid out for dead;<note place="foot">Id. 78; cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Brev. Vit.</hi> xx. +3, where a similar scene is described. +Turannius—componi se in lecto et velut +exanimem a circumstante familia plangi +jussit.</note> the horn-blowers sound his last lament, +one of them, the undertaker’s man, with such a good will, that +the town watch arrived in breathless haste with water and axes +to extinguish a fire. The strangers seized the opportunity to +escape from the nauseous scene. Their taste raised them +above Trimalchio’s circle, but they were quite on the level of +its morals. Encolpius and his companions are soon involved +in other adventures, in which it is better not to follow them. +</p> + +<p> +The lesson of all this purse-proud ostentation and +vulgarity, the moral which Petronius may have intended to +point, is one which will be taught from age to age by descendants +of Trimalchio, and which will be never learnt till a far off +future. But we need not moralise, any more than Petronius. +We have merely given some snatches of a work, which is now +seldom read, because it throws a searching light on a class +which was rising to power in Roman society. We have now +seen the worst of that society, whether crushed by the +tyranny of the Caesars, or corrupted and vulgarised by sudden +elevation from ignominious poverty to wealth and luxury. +But there were great numbers, both among the nobles and the +masses, who, in that evil time, maintained the traditions of old +Roman soberness and virtue. The three following chapters +will reveal a different life from that which we have hitherto +been describing. +</p> + +<pb n="138"/><anchor id="Pg138"/> + +</div></div> + <div type="book" n="1" rend="page-break-before: right"> + <pb n="139"/><anchor id="Pg139"/> +<index index="toc" level1="Book II. Rara temporum felicitas"/><index index="pdf" level1="Book II. Rara temporum felicitas"/> +<head>BOOK II</head> + +<head type="sub"><hi rend="italic">RARA TEMPORUM FELICITAS</hi></head> + +<pb n="140"/><anchor id="Pg140"/> + + <div type="chapter" n="1" rend="page-break-before: right"> +<pb n="141"/><anchor id="Pg141"/> +<index index="toc" level1="I. The circle of the younger Pliny"/><index index="pdf" level1="I. The circle of the younger Pliny"/> +<head>CHAPTER I</head> + +<head type="sub">THE CIRCLE OF THE YOUNGER PLINY</head> + +<p> +It is a great relief to turn from the picture of base and vulgar +luxury in the novel of Petronius to the sobriety and refinement +of a class which has been elaborately painted by a less skilful +artist, but a better man. The contrast between the pictures of +Petronius and those of Pliny, of course, raises no difficulty. +The writers belonged indeed to the same order, but they were +describing two different worlds. The difficulty arises when we +compare the high tone of the world which Pliny has immortalised, +with the hideous revelations of contemporary licence in +the same class which meet us in Juvenal, Martial, and Tacitus. +And historical charity or optimism has often turned the contrast +to account. But there is no need to pit the quiet testimony of +Pliny against the fierce invective of Juvenal. Indeed to do so +would indicate an imperfect insight into the character of the +men and the associations which moulded their views of the +society which surrounded them. The friends of Pliny were for +the most part contemporaries of the objects of Juvenal’s wrath +and loathing.<note place="foot">Some of Pliny’s older friends, the +elder Pliny, Quintilian, Spurinna, Verginius +Rufus, go back to the age which +Juvenal professes to attack (i. 170). But, +although Juvenal mentions few names +of his own generation, such as Isaeus, +Archigenes, and Marius Priscus, a +comparison between his subjects and those +of Martial shows that they were dealing +with the same social facts. Cf. Teuffel, +<hi rend="italic">R. Lit.</hi> ii. § 326, n. 5; Nettleship, +<hi rend="italic">Lectures and Essays</hi>, p. 124 sqq.</note> But although the two men lived side by side +during the same years, and probably began to write for the +public about the same date,<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">Plin.</hi> (Morel), p. 7; Peter, +<hi rend="italic">Gesch. Litt.</hi> ii. 77; Nettleship, <hi rend="italic">Lectures +and Essays</hi>, 131.</note> there is no hint that they ever +met. They were socially at opposite poles; they were also as +widely separated by temperament. Pliny was a charitable, good-natured +man, an aristocrat, living among the <hi rend="italic">élite</hi>, with an +<pb n="142"/><anchor id="Pg142"/>assured position and easy fortune—a man who, as he admits +himself, was inclined to idealise his friends.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vii. 28.</note> He probably +shut his eyes to their moral faults, just as he felt bound in +honour to extol their third-rate literary efforts. Juvenal was, +as in a former chapter we have seen reason to believe, a +soured and embittered man, who viewed the society of the +great world only from a distance, and caught up the gossip of +the servants’ hall. With the heat of an excitable temperament, +he probably magnified what he heard, and he made +whole classes responsible for the folly and intemperance of a +few. Martial, the friend of Juvenal, lived in the same atmosphere, +but, while Juvenal was inspired by a moral purpose, +Martial caters, unabashed, for a prurient taste.<note place="foot">Mart. iii. 68, 86; v. 2.</note> Both the +charitable optimist and the gloomy, determined pessimist, by +limiting their view, can find ample materials for their respective +estimates of pagan society towards the end of the first century. +A judicial criticism will combine or balance the opposing +evidence rather than select the witnesses. +</p> + +<p> +The truth is that society in every age presents the most +startling moral contrasts, and no single comprehensive description +of its moral condition can ever be true. This has +been too often forgotten by those who have passed judgment +on the moral state of Roman society, both in the first age of the +Empire and in the last. That there was stupendous corruption +and abnormal depravity under princes like Caligula, Nero, and +Domitian, we hardly need the testimony of the satirists to +induce us to believe. That there were large classes among +whom virtuous instinct, and all the sober strength and gravity +of the old Roman character, were still vigorous and untainted, +is equally attested and equally certain. Ingenious immorality +and the extravagance of luxury were no doubt rampant in the +last century of the Republic and in the first century of the +Empire, and their enormity has been heightened by the perverted +and often prurient literary skill with which the orgies of +voluptuous caprice have been painted to the last loathsome +details. Yet even Ovid has a lingering ideal of womanly +dignity which may repel, by refined reserve, the audacity of +libertinism.<note place="foot">Ov. <hi rend="italic">Amor.</hi> iii. 4, 2.</note> He was forced, by old-fashioned scruple or +imperial displeasure, to make an elaborate apology for the +<pb n="143"/><anchor id="Pg143"/>lubricities of the <hi rend="italic">Ars Amandi</hi>.<note place="foot">Ov. <hi rend="italic">Trist.</hi> ii. 212, 346, 353, Vita +verecunda est, Musa jocosa mihi; 497.</note> The most wanton writer of +the evil days shrinks from justifying adultery, and hardly ever +fails to respect the unconscious innocence of girlhood. In the +days when, according to Juvenal, Roman matrons were eloping +with gladiators, and visiting the slums of Rome, Tacitus and +Favorinus were preaching the duties of a pure motherhood.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">De Or.</hi> 28, non in cella emptae +nutricis sed gremio ac sinu matris +educabatur; A. Gell. xii. 1.</note> +In the days when crowds were gloating over the obscenities of +pantomime, and aristocratic dinner-parties were applauding the +ribaldry of Alexandrian songs, Quintilian was denouncing the +corruption of youth by the sight of their fathers toying with +mistresses and minions.<note place="foot">Quintil. i. 2, 4, 8; nostras amicas, +nostros concubinos vident.</note> In an age when matrons of noble rank +were exposing themselves at the pleasure of an emperor, the +philosopher Musonius was teaching that all indulgence, outside +the sober limits of wedlock, was a gross, animal degradation of +human dignity.<note place="foot">Stob. <hi rend="italic">Flor.</hi> vi. 61; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, +xxvii.; cf. Denis, <hi rend="italic">Idées Morales, etc.</hi>, +ii. p. 134.</note> And it is thus we may balance Juvenal and +Martial on the one side and Pliny on the other. The gloomy +or prurient satirist gives us a picture of ideal baseness; the +gentle and charitable aristocrat opens before us a society in which +people are charmingly refined, and perhaps a little too good. +Yet it is said with truth that an age should be judged by its +ideals of goodness rather than by its moral aberrations. And +certain it is that the age of Pliny and Tacitus and Quintilian +had a high moral ideal, even though it was also the age of +Domitian. The old Roman character, whatever pessimists, +ancient or modern, may say, was a stubborn type, which +propagated itself over all the West, and survived the +Western Empire. It is safe to believe that there was in Italy +and Gaul and Spain many a <hi rend="italic">grand seigneur</hi> of honest, regular +life, virtuous according to his lights, like Pliny’s uncle, or his +Spurinna, or Verginius Rufus, or Corellius. There were +certainly many wedded lives as pure and self-sacrificing as +those of the elder Arria and Caecina Paetus, or of Calpurnia +and Pliny.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 16; iii. 5; iv. 19; vi. +4; vii. 5.</note> There were homes like those at Fréjus,<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Agric.</hi> 4.</note> or +Como, or Brescia,<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 14.</note> in which boys and girls were reared in a +refined and severe simplicity, which even improved upon the +<pb n="144"/><anchor id="Pg144"/>tradition of the golden age of Rome. And, as will be seen +in a later chapter, many a brief stone record remains which +shows that, even in the world of slaves and freedmen, there +were always in the darkest days crowds of humble people, +with honest, homely ideals, and virtuous family affection, +proud of their industries, and sustaining one another by help +and kindness. +</p> + +<p> +In this sounder class of Roman society, it will be found +that the saving or renovating power was, not so much any +religious or philosophic impulse, as the wholesome influence, +which never fails from age to age, of family duty and affection, +reinforced, especially in the higher ranks, by a long tradition of +Roman dignity and self-respect, and by the simple cleanness and +the pieties of country life. The life of the blameless circle of +aristocrats which Pliny determined to preserve for the eyes of +posterity, seems to be sometimes regarded as the result of a +sudden transformation, a rebound from the frantic excesses of +the time of the Claudian Caesars to the simpler and severer +mode of life of which Vespasian set a powerful example. That +there was such a change of moral tone, especially in the +class surrounding the court, partly caused by financial exhaustion, +partly by the introduction of new men from the +provinces into the ranks of the Senate, is certified by the +supreme authority of Tacitus.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iii. 55, sed praecipuus +adstricti moris auctor Vespasianus erat; +Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> ix.; cf. Schiller, <hi rend="italic">Gesch. Röm. +Kaiserz.</hi> ii. 506; Duruy, iv. 646; Renan, +<hi rend="italic">Les. Év.</hi> 140, 381; <hi rend="italic">L’Antéchr.</hi> 494.</note> Yet we should remember that +men like Agricola, the father-in-law of Tacitus, or Verginius +Rufus, or Fabatus, the grandfather of Pliny’s wife, or the +elder Pliny, and many another, were not converted prodigals. +They knew how to reconcile, by quietude or politic deference, +the dignity of Roman virtue with a discreet acquiescence even +in the excesses of despotism. The fortunes of many of them +remained unimpaired. The daily life of men like the elder +Pliny and Spurinna, is distinguished by a virtuous calm, an +almost painful monotony of habit, in which there seems to +have been nothing to reform except, perhaps, a certain moral +rigidity.<note place="foot">Pliny is pleased with the virtuous +monotony, <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. i. § 2, me autem ut +certus siderum cursus ita vita hominum +disposita delectat, senum praesertim; +cf. iii. 5.</note> Above all, and surely it is the most certain proof +and source of the moral soundness of any age, the ideal of +<pb n="145"/><anchor id="Pg145"/>womanhood was still high, and it was even then not seldom +realised. There may have been many who justified the +complaint of moralists that mothers did not guard with +vigilant care the purity of their children. But there were +women of the circle of Tacitus and Pliny as spotless as the +half-legendary Lucretia, as they were far more accomplished, +and probably far more charming. It is often said that women +sink or rise according to the level of the men with whom they +are linked. If that be true, there must have been many good +men in the days of the Flavian dynasty. +</p> + +<p> +The younger Pliny, whose name, before his adoption, was +Publius Caecilius Secundus,<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">Plin.</hi> (Morel), p. 32.</note> was descended from families which +had been settled at Como since the time of the first Caesar.<note place="foot">The Caecilii were probably established +at Como from 59 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>; cf. Catull. +35; Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 30, 1; vii. 32, 1; vi. +24, 5; ix. 7; Momms. <hi rend="italic">Plin.</hi> p. 33 +(Morel).</note> +They belonged to the local aristocracy, and possessed estates +and villas around the lake. Pliny’s father, who had held high +municipal office, died early, but the boy had the great advantage +of the guardianship of Verginius Rufus, for whose +character and achievements his ward felt the profoundest +reverence.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ii. 1; vi. 10.</note> That great soldier had been governor of Upper +Germany at the close of Nero’s reign, and, with a deference +to old constitutional principles, which Pliny must have +admired, had twice, at the peril of his life, refused to receive +the imperial place at the hands of his clamorous legions.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 8, 52; ii. 49.</note> +Pliny was born in 61 or 62 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, the time which saw the death +of Burrus, the retirement of Seneca from public life, and +the marriage of Nero with Poppaea.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vi. 20, 5. He was in his +eighteenth year when the famous eruption +of Vesuvius took place 79 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, D. +Cass. lxvi. 21 sq.</note> His infancy therefore +coincided with the last and wildest excesses of the Neronian +tyranny. But country places like Como felt but little of the +shock of these moral earthquakes. There was no school in +Como till one was founded by Pliny’s own generosity.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 13, 3.</note> But +the boy had probably, in his early years, the care of his uncle, +the author of the <hi rend="italic">Natural History</hi>, who, during the worst +years of the Terror, was living, like many others, in studious +retirement on his estates.<note place="foot">Rendall, xiii. in Mayor’s ed. Plin. +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii.; Plin. <hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> ii. 85 (199).</note> The uncle and nephew were men +<pb n="146"/><anchor id="Pg146"/>of very different temperament, but there can be little doubt that +the character and habits of the older man profoundly influenced +the ideals of the younger. The elder Pliny would have +been an extraordinary character even in a puritan age; he +seems almost a miracle in the age of the Claudian Caesars. +He was born in 23 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, in the reign of Tiberius; and his early +youth and manhood cover the reigns of Caligula and Claudius. +He was only 32 when Nero came to the throne. He returned +to Rome in 71 to hold a high place in the councils of +Vespasian.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 5; <hi rend="italic">Hist. Nat. Praef.</hi> +3; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Plin.</hi> He was 56 at his +death in <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> 79; cf. Peter, <hi rend="italic">Gesch. Litt.</hi> +i. 119, 420.</note> That more than monastic asceticism, that jealous +hoarding of every moment,<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 5, § 13; Persius, who +was eleven years younger than the +elder Pliny, shows a character of the +same type, cf. Pers. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> ii. 71-74; iii. +66 sqq.; cf. Martha, <hi rend="italic">Les Moralistes +sous l’Emp.</hi> p. 131 sqq.</note> that complete indifference to +ordinary pleasures, in comparison with the duty, or the +ambition, of transmitting to future ages the accumulations +of learned toil, is a curious contrast to the Gargantuan +feasts or histrionic aestheticism which were the fashion in +the circle of the Claudian Emperors. The younger Pliny +has left us a minute account of his uncle’s routine of life, +and justly adds that the most intense literary toil might seem +mere idleness in comparison.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 5.</note> His studies often began soon +after midnight, broken by an official visit to the emperor +before dawn. After administrative work was over, the remainder +of the day was spent in reading or writing. Even +in the bath or on a journey, this literary industry was never +interrupted. A reader or amanuensis was always at hand +to save the moments that generally are allowed to slip away +to waste. He tells Titus in his preface that he had consulted +2000 volumes for his <hi rend="italic">Natural History</hi>.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Praef. H. N.</hi> § 17; cf. § 18, profecto +enim vita vigilia est.</note> The 160 volumes of +closely written notes, which the austere enthusiast could have +sold once for £3500, might have challenged the industry of a +Casaubon or a Mommsen. +</p> + +<p> +The laborious intensity of the elder Pliny was probably +unrivalled in his day. But the moral tone, the severe self-restraint, +the contempt for the sensual, or even the comfortable, +side of life, the plain unspeculative stoicism, was a tone which, +from many indications in the younger Pliny and in the other +<pb n="147"/><anchor id="Pg147"/>literature of the time, appears to have been not so rare as the +reader of Juvenal or Martial might suspect. A book like the +Caesars of Suetonius, concentrating attention on the life of the +emperor and his immediate circle, is apt to suggest misleading +conclusions as to the condition of society at large. The old +Roman character, perhaps the strongest and toughest national +character ever developed, was an enduring type, and its true +home was in the atmosphere of quiet country places in northern +or central Italy, where the round of rural labour and simple +pleasures reproduced the environment in which it first took +form. We have glimpses of many of these nurseries or +retreats of old-fashioned virtue in Pliny’s Letters. Brescia +and Padua, in the valley of the Po, were especially noted for +frugality and severity.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 14; cf. Tac. <hi rend="italic">Agr.</hi> iv.; +Juv. iii. 165.</note> And it was from among the youth of +Brescia that Pliny suggested a husband for the daughter of +the stoic champion, Arulenus Rusticus. There must have been +many a home, like those of Spurinna, or Corellius Rufus, or +Fabatus,<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. i; ii. 7; i. 12; v. 11.</note> or the poet Persius, where, far from the weary conventionality +of the capital, the rage for wealth, the rush of +vulgar self-assertion, there reigned the tranquil and austere +ideal of a life dedicated to higher ends than the lusts of the +flesh, or the ghoul-like avarice that haunted death-beds. +There are youths and maidens in the portrait-gallery of Pliny +whose innocence was guarded by good women as pure and +strong as those matrons who nursed the stern, unbending +soldiers of the Samnite and Punic wars.<note place="foot">Cf. Pliny’s letter to Calpurnia’s +aunt, <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 19, quae nihil in contubernio +tuo viderit nisi sanctum honestumque; +cf. viii. 5; v. 16.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The great struggle in which the legions of the East and +West met again, and yet again, in the valley of the Po, probably +did not much disturb the quiet homes on lake Como. +The close of that awful conflict gave the world ten years of +quiet and reformation, which were a genial atmosphere for the +formation of many characters like Pliny’s. The reign of +the Flavians was ushered in by the mystery and glamour of +Eastern superstition, by oracles on Mount Carmel and miracles +at Alexandria.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. 78; iv. 81.</note> But the plain Sabine soldier, who was the +saviour of the Roman State, brought to his momentous task +a clear unsophisticated good sense, with no trace of that +<pb n="148"/><anchor id="Pg148"/>crapulous excitement which had alternated between the heroics +of spurious art and the lowest bohemianism. Vespasian, +although he was not a figure to strike the imagination, was +yet, if we think of the abyss from which, by his single +strength, he rescued the Rome world,<note place="foot">Cf. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 746, 2364.</note> undoubtedly one of +the greatest of the emperors. And his biographer, with an +unusual tact, suggests what was probably one secret of his +strength. Vespasian regularly visited the old farmhouse at +Reate which was the cradle of his race. Nothing in the old +place was ever changed. And, on holidays and anniversaries +the emperor never failed to drink from the old silver goblet +which his grandmother had used.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> ii. locum incunabulorum +assidue frequentavit, manente +villa qualis fuerat olim, etc.</note> The strength and virtue of +the Latin race lay, not in religion or philosophy, but in the +family pieties and devotion to the State. Vespasian found it +urgent to bring order into the national finances, which had been +reduced to chaos by the wild extravagance of his predecessors, +and to recruit the Senate, which had been more than decimated +by proscription, confiscation, and vicious self-abandonment.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> viii. ix.</note> +In performing his task, he did not shrink from the charge of +cheese-paring, just as he did not dread the unpopularity of +fresh taxation.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lxvi. 8, Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> xvi., +cf. Meriv. vii. 274; cf. Schiller, <hi rend="italic">Gesch. +röm. Kaiserzeit</hi>, p. 515.</note> But he could be liberal as well as parsimonious. +He restored many of the ancient temples, even in +country places.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> lx.; <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 746, sacr. +aedium restitutori, 1460, 1868, 2364, +D. Cass. lxvi. 10.</note> He made grants to senators whose fortunes +had decayed or had been wasted.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> xvii.</note> He spent great sums on +colossal buildings and on amusements for the people.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xix.</note> But +the most singular and interesting trait in this remarkable man +is that, with no pretensions to literary or artistic culture, he +was the first Caesar who gave a fixed endowment to professors +of the liberal arts, and that he was the founder of that public +system of education<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xviii.; + continued by Hadrian, +Spart. xvi.; by Ant. Pius, Capitol. +xi.; by Alex. Severus, Lamprid. xliv.; +cf. <hi rend="italic">C. Th.</hi> xiii. 3, 1, 2, 3; Eum. <hi rend="italic">Or. +pro Scholis</hi>, c. 11.</note> which, for good or evil, produced profound +effects on Roman character and intellect down to the end of the +Western Empire. His motive was not, as some have suggested, +to bring literature into thraldom to the State. He +was really making himself the organ of a great intellectual +<pb n="149"/><anchor id="Pg149"/>movement. For, while the vast field of administration absorbed +much of the energy of the cultivated class, the decay +of free institutions had left a great number with only a +shadow of political interest, and the mass of unoccupied talent +had to find some other scope for its energies. It found it for +ages, till the end of the Western Empire, in fugitive and +ephemeral composition, or in the more ephemeral displays of +the rhetorical class-room.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> <hi rend="italic">Rom. Soc. in the Last Century +of the Western Empire</hi> (1st ed.), p. 355.</note> Vespasian perhaps did a greater +service in renovating the upper class of Rome by the introduction +of many new men from the provinces, to fill the +yawning gaps in senatorial and equestrian ranks. Spain contributed +more than its fair share to the literature and statesmanship +of this period.<note place="foot">Mommsen, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Prov.</hi> (Tr.) i. p. 76.</note> And one of the best and most +distinguished sons of that province who found a career at +Rome, was the rhetor Quintilian. +</p> + +<p> +The young Pliny, under his uncle’s care, probably came to +Rome not long after Quintilian entered on his career of twenty +years, as a teacher of rhetoric.<note place="foot">Pliny probably came to Rome +about 72 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> Rendall, xiv.; in Mayor’s +Pliny, <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii.; cf. Quintil. <hi rend="italic">Prooem.</hi> i.</note> While the elder Pliny was one of +Vespasian’s trusted advisers, and regularly visited the emperor +on official business before dawn, his nephew was forming his +taste and character under the greatest and best of Roman +teachers. Quintilian left a deep impression on the younger +Pliny.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ii. 14, 10; vi. 6, 3; +vi. 32.</note> He made him a Ciceronian, and he fortified his +character. The master was one who believed that, in +education, moral influence and environment are even more +important than intellectual stimulus. He deplores the moral +risks to which the careless, self-indulgent parent, or the +corrupt tutor, may expose a boy in the years when the +destiny of a life is decided for better or worse. Intellectual +ambition is good. But no brilliancy of intellect will compensate +for the loss of the pure ingenuous peace of boyhood. This is +the faith of Quintilian, and it was also the faith of his pupil.<note place="foot">Quintil. <hi rend="italic">Inst. Or.</hi> i. 2, 6; cf. Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +iii. 3, 4, cui in hoc lubrico aetatis non +praeceptor modo sed custos etiam rectorque +quaerendus est; cf. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 13, 4, +ubi enim pudicius contineantur quam +sub oculis parentum; cf. Tac. <hi rend="italic">Dial. de +Or.</hi> 28.</note> +And it may be that the teaching of Quintilian had a larger +share in forming the moral ideals of the Antonine age in the +<pb n="150"/><anchor id="Pg150"/>higher ranks than many more definitely philosophic guides, +whose practice did not always conform to their doctrine. +</p> + +<p> +Quintilian’s first principle is that the orator must be a good +man in the highest and widest sense, and, although he will not +refuse to borrow from the philosophical schools, he yet boldly +asserts the independence of the oratorical art in moulding the +character of the man who, as statesman or advocate, will have +constantly to appeal to moral principles.<note place="foot">Quintil. <hi rend="italic">Inst. Prooem.</hi> i. 9-11; ii. +2, 15; xii. 1, 1; xii. 7, 7, non convenit +ei, quem oratorem esse volumus, +injusta tueri scientem.</note> This tone, combined +with his own high example of seriousness, honour, and the purest +domestic attachment,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vi. <hi rend="italic">Prooem.</hi> 4.</note> must have had a powerful effect on the +flower of the Roman youth, who were his pupils for nearly a +generation. There are none of his circle whose virtues Pliny +extols more highly than the men who had sat with him on the +same benches, and who accompanied or followed one another +in the career of public office. One of the dearest of these +youthful friends was Voconius Romanus, who, besides being +a learned pleader, with a keen and subtle intellect, was gifted +with a singular social charm and sweetness of manner.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ii. 13, hunc ego, cum +simul studeremus, arte familiariterque +dilexi, etc.</note> +Another was Cornutus Tertullus, who was bound to Pliny by +closer ties of sympathy than any of his friends, and for whose +purity of character he had a boundless admiration. They were +also united in the love and friendship of the best people of the +time.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> v. 14; <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> 91, 92; cf. +Momms. <hi rend="italic">Plin.</hi> p. 64.</note> They were official colleagues in the consulship, and in +the prefecture of the treasury of Saturn. For another academic +friend, Julius Naso, who had been his loyal supporter in all +his work and literary ambitions, he earnestly begs the aid of +Fundanus, to secure him official advancement.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vi. 6.</note> Calestrius +Tiro, who rose to be proconsul of the province of Baetica, must +be included in this select company. He had served with Pliny +in the army of Syria, and had been his colleague in the +quaestorship; they constantly visited one another at their +country seats.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 16, 2; i. 10, 3; cf. Momms. p. +52. Pliny’s service with the iii. Gallica +was later than September, <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> 81.</note> Such men, linked to one another by memories +of boyhood and by the cares of the same official career, must +have been a powerful and salutary element in social and +political life at the opening of the Antonine age. +</p> + +<pb n="151"/><anchor id="Pg151"/> + +<p> +It is a curious thing that, while Pliny lived in the closest +friendship with the Stoic opposition of Domitian’s reign, and +has unbounded reverence for its canonised saints, as we may +call them, he shows few traces of any real interest in speculative +philosophy. Indeed, in one passage he confesses that on such +subjects he speaks as an amateur.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 10, 4; cf. Tac. <hi rend="italic">Agr.</hi> iv.</note> He probably thought, like +his friend Tacitus, that philosophy was a thing to be taken +in moderation by the true Roman. It was when he was +serving on the staff in Asia that he formed a close friendship +with Artemidorus, whom Musonius chose for his daughter’s +hand.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 11, 5.</note> Pliny has not a word to say of his opinions, but he +extols his simplicity and genuineness—qualities, he adds, which +you rarely find in the other philosophers of the day. It was +at the same time that he formed a friendship with the Stoic +Euphrates. That philosopher, who is so studiously maligned +by Philostratus, was a heroic figure in Pliny’s eyes.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 10; cf. Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. +Tyan.</hi> v. 37, 40; vi. 8.</note> But what +Pliny admires in him is not so much his philosophy, as his +grave ornate style, his pure character, which showed none of that +harsh and ostentatious severity which was then so common in +his class. Euphrates is a polished gentleman after Pliny’s +own heart, tall and stately, with flowing hair and beard, a +man who excites reverence but not fear, stern to vice, but +gentle to the sinner. Pliny seems to have set little store by +the formal preaching of philosophy. In a letter on the uses +of sickness, he maintains that the moral lessons of the sick-bed +are worth many formal disquisitions on virtue.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vii. 26, 4.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Yet this man, apparently without the slightest taste for +philosophic inquiry, or even for the homilies which, in his +day, had taken the place of real speculation, had a profound +veneration for the Stoic martyrs, and, true gentleman as he was, +he risked his life in the times of the last Terror to befriend +them. It needed both nerve and dexterity to be the friend +of philosophers in those days. In that perilous year, 93 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, +when Pliny was praetor,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 11, 2; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> x.; D. +Cass. lxvii. 10; cf. Momms. p. 59, +where the date of Pliny’s praetorship +is fixed.</note> the philosophers were banished from +the city. Yet the praetor visited Artemidorus in his suburban +retreat, and, with his wonted generosity, he helped the philo<pb n="152"/><anchor id="Pg152"/>sopher to wipe out a heavy debt which he had contracted. +One of Pliny’s dearest friends was Junius Mauricus, the +brother of Arulenus Rusticus, who had been put to death by +Domitian for writing a eulogy on Thrasea the Stoic saint, +the champion of the higher life in Nero’s reign.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> x.</note> Junius +Mauricus afterwards suffered exile himself in the same cause. +He had charged himself with the care of his martyred +brother’s children, and Pliny helped him to find a worthy +husband for the daughter of Rusticus.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 14; cf. iii. 11, 3.</note> With Fannia the +widow of Helvidius, and the daughter of Thrasea, Pliny’s +intimacy seems to have been of the closest kind. From her +he heard the tales, now too well worn, of the fierce firmness +of the elder Arria in nerving her husband Paetus for death, +and of her own determined self-immolation.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 16; cf. vii. 19; ix. 13.</note> The mother of +Fannia, the younger Arria, when Thrasea her husband was +condemned to die in the reign of Nero, was only prevented +from sharing his fate by the most earnest entreaties of her +friends.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xvi. 34.</note> Fannia had followed Helvidius into exile in Nero’s +reign,<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vii. 19, 4; for the character +of Helvidius Priscus, cf. Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iv. 5.</note> and again under Vespasian, when the philosopher, with a +petulance very unlike the reserve of Thrasea, brought his fate +upon himself by an insulting disregard of the emperor’s +dignity as first magistrate of the State, if not by revolutionary +tendencies.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> xv.; D. Cass. lxvi. 12; +cf. Peter, <hi rend="italic">Gesch. Litt.</hi> ii. 98.</note> Fannia seems to have inherited many of the +great qualities of her father Thrasea, the noblest and the +wisest member of the Stoic opposition. He sprang from a +district in Lombardy which was noted for its soundness and +gravity of character. Unlike Paetus<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 16, 7.</note> and Helvidius, he never +defied or intrigued against the emperor, even when the +emperor was a Nero. And, though he belonged to the +austere circle of Persius, he did not disdain to sing in tragic +costume, at a festival of immemorial antiquity, in his native +Patavium.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xvi. 21; D. Cass. lxii. 26.</note> He performed his duties as senator with firm +dignity, and yet with cautious tact. His worst political crime, +and that which proved his ruin, was a severe reserve and a +refusal to join in the shameful adulation of the matricide +prince. He would not stoop to vote divine honours to the +<pb n="153"/><anchor id="Pg153"/>adulteress Poppaea, and for three years he absented himself +from the Senate-house.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 12; xvi. 21, 22; cf. +D. Cass. 61. 15.</note> Yet, when the end came, he would +not allow the fiery Arulenus Rusticus to imperil his future, +by interposing his veto as tribune.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xvi. 26.</note> His daughter Fannia +was worthy of her illustrious descent. She showed all the +fearless defiance of the elder Arria, when she boldly admitted +that she had asked Senecio to write her husband’s life, and +she uttered no word to deprecate her doom. When all her +property was confiscated, she carried the dangerous volume with +her to her place of exile.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vii. 19.</note> Yet this stern heroine had also +the tenderer virtues. She nursed her kinswoman Junia, one +of the Vestals, through a dangerous fever, and caught the seeds +of her own death from her charge. With all her masculine +firmness and courage, she had a sweetness and charm which +made her not less loved than venerated. With her may be +said to have expired the peculiar tradition of a circle which, +for three generations, and during the reigns of eight emperors, +guarded, sometimes with dangerous defiance, the old ideal of +uncompromising virtue in the face of a brutal and vulgar +materialism. It was the tradition which inspired the austere +detachment of the poetry of Persius, with its dim solemnity +and obscure depths, as of a sacred grove. These people were +hard and stern to vicious power,<note place="foot">Renan, <hi rend="italic">Les Évangiles</hi>, p. 142, treats +the philosophic opposition as a mere +aristocratic reaction; cf. pp. 287, 382. +Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> p. 103; Schiller, +<hi rend="italic">Gesch. d. röm. Kaiserz.</hi> pp. 509, 536.</note> like our own Puritans of +the seventeenth century. Like them too, they were exclusive +and defiant, with the cold hauteur of a moral aristocracy, a +company of the elect, who would not even parley with evil, +for whom the issues of life and death were the only realities +in a world hypnotised by the cult of the senses and the spell +of tyranny. Their intense seriousness was a religion, although +they had only the vaguest and most arid conception of God, +and the dimmest and least comforting conception of any future +life. They seemed to perish as a little sect of troublesome +visionaries; and yet their spirit lived on, softened and sweetened, +and passed into the great rulers of the Antonine age. +</p> + +<p> +Before his formal period of military service as tribune of the +3rd Gallic legion in Syria, Pliny had, in his nineteenth year, +entered on that forensic career which was perhaps the greatest +<pb n="154"/><anchor id="Pg154"/>pride of his life.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> v. 8, 8; Momms. p. 52.</note> He practised in the Centumviral court, which +was chiefly occupied with questions of property and succession. +Occasionally he speaks with a certain weariness of the trivial +character of the cases in which he was engaged. But his +general estimate is very different. The court is to him an +arena worthy of the greatest talent and industry,<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vi. 1; iv. 16; vi. 23, 2.</note> and the +successful pleader may win a fame which may entitle him to +take rank with the great orators of the past. Pliny, inspired +by memories of Quintilian’s lectures, has always floating before +him the glory of Cicero.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 20, 7.</note> He will prepare for publication a +speech delivered in an obscure case about a disputed will.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vi. 33, 8-11.</note> +He is immensely proud of its subtlety and point, and the +sweep of its indignant or pathetic declamation, and he is not +unwilling to believe his legal friends who compared it with +the <hi rend="italic">De Corona</hi>! The suppression of free political life, the +absence of public interests, and the extinction of the trade of +the delator, left young men with a passion for distinction few +chances of gratifying it. The law courts at any rate provided +an audience, and the chance of momentary prominence. In the +Letters of Pliny, we can see the young advocate pushing his +way through the dense masses of the crowded court, arriving +at his place with torn tunic, holding the attention of his +audience for seven long hours, and sitting down amid the +applause even of the judges themselves.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 16.</note> Calpurnia often +arranged relays of messengers to bring her news of the +success, from point to point, of one of her husband’s speeches.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 19, 3. disponit qui nuntient +sibi quem assensum, quos clamores excitarim, +quem eventum judicii tulerim.</note> +Youths of the highest social rank—a Salinator, or a Ummidius +Quadratus—threw themselves eagerly into the drudgery which +might make an ephemeral name.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vi. 11.</note> Ambitious pretenders, +with no talent or learning, and arrayed perhaps in hired purple +and jewels, like Juvenal’s needy lawyer, forced themselves +on to the benches of the advocates, and engaged a body of +claqueurs whose applause was purchased for a few denarii.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ii. 14, 4.</note> +Pliny has such a pride in this profession, he so idealises what +must have been often rather humdrum work, that he feels a +personal pain at anything which seems to detract from the +<pb n="155"/><anchor id="Pg155"/>old-fashioned, leisurely dignity of the court. In his day the +judges seem to have been becoming more rapid and business-like +in their procedure, and less inclined to allow the many +<hi rend="italic">clepsydrae</hi> which men of Pliny’s school demanded for the +gradual development of all their rhetorical artifices. He +regrets the good old times, when adjournments were freely +granted,<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vi. 2, 6.</note> and days would be spent on a case which was now +despatched in as many hours. It is for this reason that he +cannot conceal a certain admiration for Regulus, in other +respects, <q>the most detestable of bipeds</q> but who redeemed +his infamy by an enthusiasm and energy as an advocate +which rivalled even that of Pliny. +</p> + +<p> +M. Aquilius Regulus, the prince of delators, and one of +the great glories of the Roman bar in Domitian’s reign, is a +singular figure. His career and character are a curious illustration +of the social history of the times. Regulus was the +son of a man who, in Nero’s reign, had been driven into exile +and ruined.<note place="foot">For the career and character of M. +Aquilius Regulus, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iv. 42; +Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 5; i. 20, 15; ii. 11; ii. +20; iv. 2; vi. 2; and Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> +p. 193.</note> Bold, able, recklessly eager for wealth and +notoriety at any cost, as a mere youth he resolved to raise +himself from obscure indigence, and soon became one of the +most capable and dreaded agents of the tyranny. He gained +an evil fame by the ruin of the great houses of the Crassi and +Orfiti. Lust of blood and greed of gain drove him on +to the wholesale destruction of innocent boys, noble matrons, +and men of the most illustrious race. The cruelty of Nero +was not swift enough to satisfy him, and he called for the +annihilation of the Senate at a stroke. He rose rapidly to +great wealth, honours were showered upon him, and, after a +prudent retirement in the reigns of Vespasian and Titus, he +reached the pinnacle of his depraved ambition under Vespasian’s +cruel son. He figures more than once in the poems of Martial, +and always in the most favourable light. His talent and +eloquence, according to the poet, were only equalled by his +piety, and the special care of the gods had saved him from +being buried under the ruins of a cloister which had suddenly +fallen in.<note place="foot">Mart. i. 13, 83, 112, Cum tibi +sit sophiae par fama et cura deorum, +etc.</note> He had estates at Tusculum, in Umbria and +<pb n="156"/><anchor id="Pg156"/>Etruria.<note place="foot">Mart. vii. 31.</note> The courts were packed when he rose to plead.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vi. 38; vi. 64, 11.</note> +Unfortunately, the needy poet furnishes a certain key to all +this flattery, when he thanks Regulus for his presents, and then +begs him to buy them back.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 16.</note> It is after Domitian’s death +that we meet Regulus in Pliny’s pages. The times are +changed, the delator’s day is over, and Regulus is a humbler +man. But he is still rich, courted, and feared; he is still a +great power in the law courts. With a weak voice, a bad +memory, and hesitating utterance,<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 7, § 4.</note> by sheer industry and +determination he had made himself a powerful speaker, with a +style of his own, sharp, pungent, brutally incisive, ruthlessly +sacrificing elegance to point.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 20, 15; cf. references to the +archaic literary taste of the day in +Mart. v. 10.</note> He belonged to the new school, +and sometimes sneered at Pliny’s affectation of the grand +Ciceronian manner.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> v. 12.</note> Yet to Pliny’s eyes, his earnest +strenuousness in his profession redeems some of his vices. He +insists on having ample time to develop his case.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vi. 2, 5.</note> He appears +in the morning pale with study, wearing a white patch on his +forehead. He has consulted the diviners as to the success of +his pleadings.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ii. 20.</note> It is a curious sign of the times that this +great advocate, who already possessed an enormous fortune, +was a legacy-hunter of the meanest sort. He actually visited, +on her death-bed, Verania, the widow of that Piso, the adopted +son of Galba, over whose murder Regulus had savagely gloated, +and by telling her that the stars promised a hope of recovery, +he obtained a place in her will. His mourning for his son displayed +all the feverish extravagance and grandiose eccentricity +of a true child of the Neronian age.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 2.</note> The boy’s ponies and +dogs and pet birds were slaughtered over his pyre. Countless +pictures and statues of him were ordered. His memoir was +read by the father to a crowded audience, and a thousand +copies of it were sent broadcast over the provinces.<note place="foot">For the light which this throws on +the production of books in that age, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> +Haenny, <hi rend="italic">Schriftsteller u. Buchhändler</hi>, pp. 39-41.</note> In +Regulus we seem to see the type of character which, had +fortune raised him to the throne, would have made perhaps a +saner Caligula, and an even more eccentric Nero. +</p> + +<pb n="157"/><anchor id="Pg157"/> + +<p> +The struggles of the law courts were idealised by Pliny, and +their transient triumphs seemed to him to match the glory of +the Philippics or the Verrines. Yet, to do him justice, Pliny +had sometimes a truer idea of the foundations of lasting fame. +The secret of immortality, the one chance of escaping oblivion, +is to leave your thought embalmed in choice and distinguished +literary form, which coming ages will not willingly let die.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ii. 10, 4; iii. 7, 14, quatenus +nobis denegatur diu vivere, relinquamus +aliquid quo nos vixisse testemur; +v. 5, 4; v. 8, 2, me autem nihil +aeque ac diuturnitatis amor sollicitat; +cf. vii. 20.</note> +This, probably the only form of immortality in which Pliny +believed, is the great motive for literary labour. The longing +to be remembered was the most ardent passion of the Roman +mind in all ages and in all ranks, from the author of the +<hi rend="italic">Agricola</hi> to the petty artisan, who commemorated the homely +virtues of his wife for the eyes of a distant age, and made provision +for the annual feast and the tribute of roses to the tomb. +Of that immense literary ambition which Pliny represented, +and which he considered it a duty to foster, only a small part +has reached its goal. The great mass of these eager litterateurs +have altogether vanished, or remain as mere shadowy names in +Martial or Statius or Pliny. +</p> + +<p> +The poems of Martial and Statius leave the impression that, in +the reign of Domitian, the interest in poetical literature was keen +and widely diffused, and that, besides the poets by profession, +there were crowds of amateurs who dabbled in verse. The <hi rend="italic">Silvae</hi> +transport us into a charming, if rather luxurious world, where men +like Atedius Melior or Pollius amuse themselves with dilettante +composition among their gardens and marbles on the bays of +Campania.<note place="foot">Stat. <hi rend="italic">Silv.</hi> ii. 2.</note> Martial has a host of friends similarly engaged, +and the versatility of some of them is suspiciously wide. An +old Ardelio is twitted by Martial with his showy and superficial +displays in declamation and history, in plays and epigrams, +in grammar and astronomy.<note place="foot">Mart. ii. 7; v. 30; iii 20; iv. 23; +v. 23. For the same breadth of +accomplishment in the fifth century, +cf. Sidon. Apoll. <hi rend="italic">Carm.</hi> v. 97; ii. 156; +xxiii. 101; <hi rend="italic">Rom. Soc. in the Last +Cent. of the Western Empire</hi> (1st ed.), +p. 375.</note> Canius Rufus, his countryman +from Gades, Varro, Bassus, Brutianus, Cirinius, have all an +extraordinary dexterity in almost every branch of poetical +composition. Martial is too keen a critic not to see the +fugitive character of much of this amateur literature. Like +<pb n="158"/><anchor id="Pg158"/>Juvenal, he scoffs at the thin talent which concealed its feebleness +behind the pomp and faded splendour of epic or tragic +tradition.<note place="foot">Mart. vi. 60.</note> He roughly tells the whole versifying crowd that +genius alone will live in coming ages. The purchased applause +of the recitation hall merely gratifies for an hour the vanity of +the literary trifler. It is a pity for his fame that Martial did +not always maintain this tone of sincerity. He can at times +sell his flattery to the basest and most stupid. He is capable +of implying a comparison of the frigid pedantry of Silius +Italicus to the majesty of Virgil.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 14.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Pliny was a friend and admirer of Martial, and, with his +usual generous hand, he made the poet a present when he +left Rome for ever to pass his last years at Bilbilis.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 21. This book is +dated by Mommsen 101 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> (<hi rend="italic">Plin.</hi> p. +14, Morel; <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> App. C, p. 95); cf. Friedländer’s +<hi rend="italic">Martial</hi>, <q>Chronologie der +Epigr. Mart.</q> p. 66.</note> The +needy epigrammatist was only a distant observer, or hanger-on +of that world of wealth and refinement in which Pliny was +a conspicuous figure. But from both Pliny and Martial we +get very much the same impression of the literary movement +in the reign of Domitian. Pliny himself is perhaps its best +representative. He is a true son of the Roman schools, as +they had been revived and strengthened by Vespasian, for a life +of many generations. Pliny does not think slightly of the +literary efforts of his own day: some of them he even overrates. +But already the Roman mind had bent its neck to that thraldom +to the past, to that routine of rhetorical discipline, which, +along with other causes, produced the combination of ambitious +effort and mediocre performance that, for the last three centuries +of the Empire, is the characteristic of all literary culture. +From his great teacher Quintilian Pliny had imbibed a profound +reverence for Cicero.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 8, 4; v. 12, est mihi +cum Cicerone aemulatio.</note> Alike in his career of honours +and his literary pursuits, he loves to think that he is treading +in the great orator’s footsteps. In answer to a taunt of +Regulus, he once boldly avowed his preference for the Ciceronian +oratory to that of his own day. Demosthenes is also sometimes +his model, though he feels keenly the difference that +separates them.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 30.</note> Indeed his reverence for Greece as the +mother of letters, art, and civic life was one of Pliny’s sincerest +<pb n="159"/><anchor id="Pg159"/>and most honourable feelings. To a man who had been +appointed to high office in Greece he preaches, in earnest tones, +the duty of reverence for that gifted race whose age was consecrated +by the memories of its glorious prime.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> viii. 24, reverere gloriam +veterem et hanc ipsam senectutem quae +in homine venerabilis, in urbibus sacra.</note> Pliny’s Greek +studies must have begun very early. At the age of fourteen +he had written a Greek tragedy, for which, however, he modestly +does not claim much merit.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 4, 2, Qualem? inquis. +Nescio; tragoedia vocabatur.</note> He had always a certain taste +for poetry, but it seems to have been merely the taste created +or enforced by the constant study of the poets under the +grammarian. Once, while detained by bad weather on his way +back from military service in Asia, he amused himself with +composing in elegiac and heroic verse.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 4, 3.</note> Later in his career, he +published a volume of poems in hendecasyllabic metre, written +on various occasions. But there was no inspiration behind +these conventional exercises. He was chiefly moved to write +in verse, as he naïvely confesses, by the example of the great +orators who beguiled their leisure in this way. Among his +published poems there were some with a flavour of Catullan +lubricity, which offended or astonished some of his severer +friends, who thought such doubtful lightness unworthy of a +grave character and a great position.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 14, cf. Ov. <hi rend="italic">Trist.</hi> ii. 365, +who makes pretty much the same +excuse to Augustus.</note> No better illustration +could be found of Pliny’s incorrigible conventionality in such +things than the defence which he makes of his suspected verses +to Titius Ariston.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> v. 3.</note> It is to Pliny not a question of morals or +propriety. The ancient models are to be followed, not only +in their elevated, but in their looser moods. The case seems +to be closed when Pliny can point to similar literary aberrations +in a long line of great men from Varro and Virgil and Cicero +to Verginius Rufus and the divine Nerva.<note place="foot">Cf. Nettleship, <hi rend="italic">Lectures and Essays</hi>, +2nd Series, p. 39.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Pliny, however, though vain of his dexterity in these trifles, +probably did not rate them very highly. It was to oratorical +fame that his ambition was directed. He was dissatisfied with +the eloquence of his own day, which, to use the words of +Regulus, sprang at the throat of its subject, and he avowed +himself an imitator of Cicero. His speeches, even for the +centumviral court, were worked up with infinite care, although +<pb n="160"/><anchor id="Pg160"/>with too self-conscious an aim to impress an audience. We +can hardly imagine Cicero or Demosthenes coldly balancing +their tropes and figures after the fashion of Pliny. When the +great oratorical effort was over, the labour was renewed, in order +to make the speech worthy of the eyes of posterity. It was +revised and polished, and submitted to the scrutiny of critical +readers for suggestions of emendation.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 13, 5; vii. 17.</note> Pliny was probably +the first to give readings of speeches to long-suffering friends. +We hear with a shudder that the recital of the <hi rend="italic">Panegyric</hi> was +spread over three days!<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 18; cf. ii. 19.</note> The other speeches on which Pliny +lavished so much labour and thought, have perished, as they +probably deserved to perish. The <hi rend="italic">Panegyric</hi> was preserved, +and became the parent and model of the prostituted rhetoric +of the Gallic renaissance in the fourth century.<note place="foot">Teuffel, <hi rend="italic">R. Lit.</hi> § 387; Mackail, +<hi rend="italic">Lat. Lit.</hi> p. 264; <hi rend="italic">Rom. Soc. in the Last +Cent. of the W. Empire</hi> (1st ed.), p. 357.</note> Pliny was +by no means a despicable literary critic, when he was not +paying the tribute of friendly flattery which social tyranny +then exacted. He could sometimes be honestly reserved in his +appreciation of a friend’s dull literary efforts.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 15.</note> But in his +ideals of oratory, he seems to be hopelessly wrong. There are +some terse and epigrammatic sentences in the <hi rend="italic">Panegyric</hi>, which +redeem it by their strong sincerity. But Pliny’s canons of +oratorical style would have excited the ridicule of his great +models, who were thinking of their goal, and not measuring +every pace as they strained towards it. Pliny’s theory that the +mere length of a speech is a great element in its excellence, that +swift directness is inartistic, that lingering diffuseness is an +oratorical charm, that laboured manufacture of turgid phrases +may produce the effect of the impetuous rush of Demosthenes +and Cicero in their moments of inspiration, makes us rather +glad, who love him, that we have not more of Pliny’s oratory.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 1, 20. It is curious that this +praise of amplitude should be addressed +to Tacitus; cf. Nipperdey, <hi rend="italic">Einleit.</hi> +xxxiv.</note> +</p> + +<p> +It is by his letters that Pliny has lived, and will live on, so +long as men care to know the inner life of the great ages that +have gone before. The criticism, which is so quick to seize +the obvious weaknesses of the author of a priceless picture of +ancient society, seems to be a little ungrateful. We could forgive +almost any failing or affectation in one who had left us a +<pb n="161"/><anchor id="Pg161"/>similar revelation of society when M. Aurelius was holding +back the Germans on the Danube, or when Probus was shattering +the invaders of the third century. The letters of Cicero +offer an apparently obvious comparison, which may be used +to the detriment of Pliny. Yet the comparison is rather +inept. Cicero was a man of affairs in the thick of a great +revolution, and his letters are invaluable to the student of +politics at a great crisis in history. But in the calm of +Trajan’s reign, a letter-writer had to seek other subjects of +interest than the fortunes of the state. Literature, criticism, +the beauties of nature, the simple charm of country life, +the thousand trivial incidents and eccentricities of an over-ripe +society in the capital of the world, furnished a ready +pen and a genial imagination, which could idealise its surroundings, +with ample materials. Pliny is by some treated as a +mediocrity; but, like our own Horace Walpole, he had the keen +sense to see that social routine could be made interesting, and +that the man who had the skill to do so might make himself +famous. He was genuinely interested in his social environment. +And intense interest in one’s subject is one great secret +of literary success. Pliny had also the instinct that, if a +work is to live, it must have a select distinction of style, +which may be criticised, but which cannot be ignored. He +had the laudable ambition to put his thoughts in a form of +artistic grace which may make even commonplace attractive. +So good a judge as the late Mr. Paley did not hesitate to +put the Latinity of Pliny on the level of that of Cicero. +Pliny’s Letters, perhaps even more than the masterpieces of +the Augustine age, fascinated the taste of the fourth and fifth +centuries. They were the models of Symmachus and Sidonius, +who tried, but in very different fashion, to do for their age +what Pliny did for his.<note place="foot">Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> v. 1, 7; Sidon. Apoll. +i. 1, 1; iv. 22, 2, ego Plinio ut +discipulus assurgo.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Like his imitators, Sidonius and Symmachus, Pliny intended +his Letters to go down to the future as a masterpiece of style, +and as a picture of his age. We know that the letters of Symmachus +were carefully preserved in duplicate by his scribes, +probably by his own instructions, although they were edited +and published by his son only after his death.<note place="foot">Sym. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> v. 85. Seeck, <hi rend="italic">Prol.</hi> xlv.</note> Pliny, like +<pb n="162"/><anchor id="Pg162"/>Sidonius, gave his Letters to the public in successive portions +during his life.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">Plin.</hi> (Tr.) p. 2; cf. +Haenny, <hi rend="italic">Schriftsteller</hi>, etc. p. 19.</note> Like Sidonius too, he felt that he had not +the sustained power to write a consecutive history of his time +and the Letters of both are probably far more valuable. Pliny’s +first book opens with a kind of dedication to Septicius Clarus, +who was the patron of Suetonius, and who rose to be praetorian +prefect under Hadrian.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 1; vii. 28; i. 15; viii. +1; Macé, <hi rend="italic">Suétone</hi>, p. 87.</note> Pliny appears to disclaim any +order or principle of arrangement in these books, but this +is the device of an artistic negligence. Yet it has been +proved by the prince of European scholars in our day that +both as to date and subject matter, Pliny’s Letters reveal +signs of the most careful arrangement. The books were +published separately, a common practice down to the end of +Roman literary history. The same subject reappears in the +same book or the next.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">Plin.</hi> p. 4.</note> Groups of letters dealing with the +same matter are found in their natural order in successive +books. The proof is made even clearer by the silence or +the express references to Pliny’s family relations. Finally, the +older men, who fill the stage in the earlier Letters, disappear +towards the end; while a younger generation, a Salinator or a +Ummidius Quadratus, are only heard of in the later. Men of +Pliny’s own age, like Tacitus or Cornutus Tertullus, meet us +from first to last. The dates at which the various books were +published have been fixed with tolerable certainty. It is +enough for our present purpose to say that the earliest letter +belongs to the reign of Nerva, and the ninth book was probably +given to the world a year or two before the writer was appointed +by Trajan to the office of imperial legate of Bithynia.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> pp. 7, 24; Teuffel, § 335, 1.</note> +</p> + +<p> +It is easy, as we have said, and apparently congenial to +some writers, to dwell on the vanity and self-complacency of +the writer of these letters. By some he seems to be regarded +chiefly as a <hi rend="italic">poseur</hi>. To discover the weaknesses of Pliny is +no great feat of criticism: they are on the surface. But +<q>securus judicat orbis terrarum,</q> and Pliny has borne the +scrutiny of the great judge. Men of his own race and age, +who spoke and wrote the most finished Latin, awarded him +the palm of exquisite style. But Pliny has many qualities of +<pb n="163"/><anchor id="Pg163"/>the heart, which should cover a multitude of sins, even more +serious than any with which he is charged. He had the great +gift of loyal friendship, and he had its usual reward in a +multitude of friends. It has been regretted that Pliny does +not deal with serious questions of politics and philosophy, +that his Letters rather skim the surface of social life, and +leave its deeper problems untouched. Pliny himself would +probably have accepted this criticism as a compliment. The +mass of men are little occupied with insoluble questions. +And Pliny has probably deserved better of posterity by leaving +us a vivid picture of the ordinary life of his time or of his +class, rather than an analysis of its spiritual distresses and +maladies. We have enough of that in Seneca, in M. Aurelius, +and in Lucian. Of the variety and vividness of Pliny’s +sketches of social life there can never be any question. But +our gratitude will be increased if we compare his Letters with +the collections of his imitators, Symmachus and Sidonius, whose +arid pages are seldom turned by any but a few curious and +weary students. Martial, in his way, is perhaps even more +clear-cut and minute in his portraiture. But Martial is essentially +a wit of the town, viewing its vices, follies, and fashions +with the eye of a keen, but rather detached observer. In +reading Pliny’s Letters, we feel ourselves introduced into the +heart of that society in its better hours; and, above all, we seem +to be transported to those quiet provincial towns and secluded +country seats where, if life was duller and tamer than it was +in the capital, the days passed in a quiet content, unsolicited +by the stormier passions, in orderly refinement, in kindly +relations with country neighbours, and amid the unfading +charm of old-world pieties and the witchery of nature. +</p> + +<p> +Pliny has also done a great service in preserving a memorial +of the literary tone and habits of his time. Even in that +age of fertile production and too enthusiastic appreciation, +Pliny, like Seneca and Statius, has a feeling that the love +for things of the mind was waning.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 18, 5; viii. 12, literarum +senescentium reductor; Stat. <hi rend="italic">Silv.</hi> +i. Prooem.; <hi rend="italic">Petron.</hi> 88; cf. Sidon. Apoll. +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> viii. 8; ii. 14; vii. 15; ii. 10, 1.</note> And he deemed it +an almost religious duty, as Symmachus and Sidonius did +more than three centuries after him, to arouse the flagging +interest in letters, and to reward even third-rate literary +<pb n="164"/><anchor id="Pg164"/>effort with exuberant praise. He avows that it is a matter +of duty to admire and venerate any performance in a field +so difficult as that of letters.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vi. 17, § 5.</note> Yet Pliny was not by any +means devoid of critical honesty and acumen. He could +be a severe judge of his own style. He expects candid +criticism from his friends, and receives it with gratitude and +good temper.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 17; v. 12.</note> This is to him, indeed, the practical purpose of +readings before final publication. He made emendations and +excisions in the Histories of Tacitus, which the great author +had submitted for his revision.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 20; viii. 7.</note> In his correspondence with +Tacitus, there is a curious mixture of vanity along with a clear +recognition of his friend’s immense superiority of genius, and +a sure prescience of his immortal fame. He is proud to hear +their names coupled as chiefs of contemporary literature,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 20; ix. 23, ad hoc illum +<q>Tacitus es an Plinius?</q></note> +and he cherishes the hope that, united by loyal friendship +in life, they will go down together to a remote future. +When, in the year 106, Tacitus had asked him for an account +of the elder Pliny’s death, in the great eruption of Vesuvius, +Pliny expressed a firm belief that the book on which Tacitus +was then engaged was destined to an enduring fame.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vi. 16, 2.</note> He +was not quite so confident as to the immortality of Martial’s +work,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 21, 6, at non erunt aeterna +quae scripsit; non erunt fortasse; ille +tamen scripsit tanquam essent futura.</note> although he appreciates to the full Martial’s brilliant and +pungent wit. On the other hand, writing to a friend about the +death of Silius Italicus, he frankly recognises that the Epic of +the Punic War is a work of industry rather than of genius.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 7, scribebat carmina majore +cura quam ingenio.</note> Yet +he cannot allow the author of this dull mechanical poem to +pass away without some record of his career.<note place="foot">Mart. vii. 63; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iii. 65.</note> The death at +seventy-five of the last surviving consular of the Neronian +age, of the consul in whose year of office the tyranny of Nero +closed, inspired a feeling of pathos which was probably genuine, +in spite of the rather pompous and pedantic expression of it. +And although he wrote the <hi rend="italic">Punica</hi>, a work which was almost +buried till the fifteenth century,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Teuffel, <hi rend="italic">R. Lit.</hi> § 315, n. 5, + and the opinions collected by Mayor, <hi rend="italic">Plin.</hi> iii. p. 120.</note> Silius was probably a not +uninteresting person. He had been a delator under Nero, and +<pb n="165"/><anchor id="Pg165"/>had enjoyed the friendship of Vitellius, but he knew how to +redeem his character under the Flavian dynasty, and he had +filled the proconsulate of Asia with some credit.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 7, 3.</note> Henceforth +he enjoyed the lettered ease and social deference which were +the privilege of his class for centuries. He retired finally +to the shores of Campania, where, moving from one villa to +another, and surrounding himself with books and gems of +art, his life flowed away undisturbed by the agony of Rome +in the last terror of the Caesars. Among his many estates +he was the proud owner of one of Cicero’s villas, and of the +ground where Virgil sleeps. He used to keep the great poet’s +birthday with a scrupulous piety, and he always approached +his tomb as a holy place. This apparently placid and fortunate +life was, like so many in those days, ended by a voluntary +death.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Mayor, <hi rend="italic">Plin.</hi> iii. p. 114, for a +learned note on suicide in the early +Empire.</note> Silius Italicus, in his life and in his end, is a true type +of a generation which could bend before the storm of despotism, +and save itself often by ignominious arts, which could recover +its dignity and self-respect in the pursuit of literary ideals, +and, at the last, assert the right to shake off the burden of +existence when it became too heavy. +</p> + +<p> +Pliny’s theory of life is clearly stated in the Letters, and it +was evidently acted on by a great number of the class to which +he belonged.<note place="foot">Pliny, <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 23, 3. For a similar +ideal in the fifth century, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> <hi rend="italic">Roman +Society in the Last Century of the +Western Empire</hi>, p. 165 (1st ed.).</note> The years of vigorous youth should be given to +the service of the state, in pursuing the well-marked and carefully-graduated +career of honours, or in the strenuous oratorical +strife of the law courts. The leisure of later years might be +portioned out between social duty, the pleasures or the cares +of a rural estate, and the cultivation of literary taste by reading +and imitation of the great masters. The last was the most +imperious duty of all, for those with any literary gifts, because +charm of style gives the one hope of surviving the wreck of +time;<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> v. 8, § 1.</note> for mere cultivated facility, as the most refined and +creditable way of filling up the vacant spaces of life. Even if +lasting fame was beyond one’s reach, it was something to be +able to give pleasure to an audience of cultivated friends at +a reading, and to enjoy the triumph of an hour. There must +<pb n="166"/><anchor id="Pg166"/>have been many a literary coterie who, if they fed one another’s +vanity, also encouraged literary ideals, and hinted gentle criticism,<note place="foot">For a good example cf. Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +iii. 15.</note> +in that polite delicacy of phrase in which the Roman +was always an adept. One of these literary circles stands out +in Pliny’s pages. At least two of its members had held great +office. Arrius Antoninus, the maternal grandfather of the +Emperor Antoninus Pius,<note place="foot">Capitol. <hi rend="italic">Ant. P.</hi> 1.</note> had twice borne the consulship +with antique dignity, and shown himself a model governor as +proconsul of Asia.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 3.</note> He was devoted to Greek literature, and +seems to have preferred to compose in that language. We +need not accept literally Pliny’s praises of his Atticism, and +of the grace and sweetness of his Greek epigrams. But he +seems to have had a facility which Pliny tortured his ingenuity +in vain to imitate with the poorer resources of the Latin +tongue.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 18; cf. viii. 4.</note> Among the friends of Antoninus was Vestricius +Spurinna, who had defended Placentia for Otho, who was +twice consul under Domitian, and was selected by Trajan to +command the troops in a campaign in Germany.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. 11; ii. 18, 36; Plin. +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 5; ii. 7; iii. 1, scribit et +quidem utraqua lingua, lyra doctissima. +Spurinna was 77, at the date of +this letter, <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> 101-102; Momms. p. 11.</note> This dignified +veteran, who had passed apparently untainted through the +reigns of the worst emperors, varied and lightened the ordinary +routine of his old age by the composition of lyrics, both in +Greek and Latin, which seemed to his admirers to have a +singular sweetness. Sentius Augurinus, a familiar friend of +the two consulars, was also a brilliant verse writer,<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 27; cf. ix. 8.</note> who could +enthral Pliny by a recitation lasting for three days, although +the fact that Pliny was the subject of one of the poems may +account for the patience or the pleasure. One of Pliny’s +dearest friends was Passennus Paullus, who claimed kindred +with the poet Propertius, and, at any rate, came from the +same town in Umbria. Passennus has been cruelly treated by +Time, if his lyric efforts recalled, as we are asked to believe, +the literary graces of his ancestor, and even those of Horace.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vi. 15; ix. 22.</note> +Vergilius Romanus devoted himself to comedy, and was thought +to have reproduced not unworthily the delicate charms of +Menander and Terence, as well as the scathing invective of older +<pb n="167"/><anchor id="Pg167"/>Greek masters of the art.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vi. 21.</note> But there were others of Pliny’s +circle who essayed a loftier and weightier style. Probably the +foremost of these was Titinius Capito, who, as an inscription +records,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 798; <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 801. He was +Secretary (ab Epistulis) under Domitian, +Nerva, and Trajan; cf. Macé, +<hi rend="italic">Suétone</hi>, pp. 91, 93, 115.</note> had held high civil office under Domitian, Nerva, and +Trajan. He was an enthusiastic patron of letters, and readily +offered his halls to literary friends for their recitations, which +he attended with punctilious politeness. Cherishing the +memory of the great men of the Republic, the Cassii, the +Bruti, and the Catos, he composed a work on the death of the +noble victims of the Terror.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 17; viii. 12. Cf. C. +Fannius, who wrote a history of the +victims of Nero, Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> v. 5. He +died <hi rend="italic">circ.</hi> 106, Macé, p. 82.</note> He tried in vain to draw Pliny +into the field of historical composition.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> v. 8. For similar unwillingness, +cf. Sidon. Apoll. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 22.</note> But the man who +thought more of style and graceful charity than of truth, was +not the man to write the history of such a time. He has done +a much greater service in providing priceless materials for the +reconstruction of its social history. Caninius Rufus was a +neighbour of Pliny at Como.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 3.</note> He was one of those for whom +the charms of country life had a dangerous seduction. His +villa, with its colonnades, <q>where it was always spring,</q> the +shining levels of the lake beneath his verandah, the water +course with its emerald banks, the baths and spacious halls, +all these delights seem to have relaxed the literary energy and +ambition of their master. Caninius meditated the composition +of a Greek epic on the Dacian wars of Trajan.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> viii. 4; ix. 33.</note> But he was +probably one of those lingering, dilatory writers who meet us in +Martial,<note place="foot">Mart. iv. 33; vi. 14.</note> waiting for the fire from heaven which never comes. +The intractable roughness of barbarian names, which, as Pliny +suggests, might have been eluded by a Homeric licence in +quantity, was probably not the only difficulty of Caninius. +</p> + +<p> +Among the literary friends of Pliny, a much more important +person than Caninius was Suetonius, but Suetonius was +apparently long paralysed by the same cautious hesitation to +challenge the verdict of the public. A younger man than +Pliny,<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">Plin.</hi> p. 13, puts his birth +in 77 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>; but cf. Macé, p. 35, who +places it in the year 69; see too Peter, +<hi rend="italic">Gesch. Litt.</hi> ii. 67. The indications +in Suet. are <hi rend="italic">Domit.</hi> xii.; <hi rend="italic">Ill. Gramm.</hi> +iv.; <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, lvii.</note> Suetonius was one of his most intimate friends. They +<pb n="168"/><anchor id="Pg168"/>both belonged to that circle which nursed the senatorial tradition +and the hatred of the imperial tyrants.<note place="foot">Macé, p. 83; Peter, ii. 69; cf. +Krause, <hi rend="italic">De Sueton. Fontibus.</hi></note> The life of +Suetonius was not very effectual or brilliant, from a worldly +point of view. Although born within the rank to which every +distinction was open,<note place="foot">For the authorities, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Macé, p. 29.</note> he was a man of modest and retiring +tastes, devoted to quiet research, and destitute of the eager +ambition and vigorous self-assertion which are necessary for +splendid success. He was probably for some years a professor +of grammar.<note place="foot">From 97 to 101 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, <hi rend="italic">ib.</hi> pp. 53-57.</note> He made a half-hearted attempt to gain a footing +at the bar. In 101 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> he obtained a military tribunate, +through Pliny’s influence, but speedily renounced his command.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 8.</note> +Henceforth he devoted himself entirely to that historical +research, which, if it has not won for him any dazzling +fame, has made historical students, in spite of some reservations +as to his sources, his debtors for all time. Pliny had the +greatest esteem for Suetonius, and was always ready to befriend +him, whether it were in the purchase of a quiet little +retreat near Rome,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 24; of the year 97. On the +meaning of <hi rend="italic">contubernalis</hi>, Suetonius +being 28, and Pliny 35 years of age, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> +Macé, p. 50.</note> or in obtaining for the childless antiquary +the <hi rend="italic">Jus trium liberorum</hi> from Trajan.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ad Traj.</hi> 94; cf. Macé, p. 50.</note> The two men were +bound to one another by many tastes and sympathies, not the +least strong being a curious superstition, which infected, as we +shall see in a later chapter, even the most vigorous minds of +that age. Suetonius had once a dream which seemed to +portend failure in some legal cause in which he was engaged. +He sought the aid of Pliny to obtain an adjournment. Pliny +does not question the reality of such warnings, but merely +suggests a more cheering interpretation of the vision.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 18.</note> +Although devoted to research, and a most laborious student, +the biographer of the Caesars was strangely tardy in letting his +productions see the light. In 106, he had been long engaged +on a work, which was probably the <hi rend="italic">De Viris Illustribus</hi>.<note place="foot">Macé, p. 68; Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> v. 10; +Momms. <hi rend="italic">Plin.</hi> p. 18.</note> Pliny +assailed him with bantering reproaches on his endless use of +the file, and begs him to publish without delay. From several +indications, it appears that the lingering volume did not appear +till 113.<note place="foot">Macé, p. 69.</note> It was not till the year 118, when Hadrian arrived +<pb n="169"/><anchor id="Pg169"/>from the East after his accession, that Suetonius attained the +rank of one of the imperial secretaryships.<note place="foot">Macé, p. 90. For the disgrace of +Suetonius, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> xi. 2.</note> Pliny in all probability +had died some years before the elevation of his friend. +</p> + +<p> +But although the dawn of a new age of milder and less +suspicious government had, for the first time since Augustus, +left men free to compose a true record of the past, and even +to vilify the early Caesars,<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> 53.</note> the great mass of cultivated men +in Pliny’s time, as in the days of Ausonius and Sidonius, were +devoted to poetry. The chief cause in giving this direction to +the Roman mind was undoubtedly the system pursued in the +schools. In the first century, as in the fifth, the formative +years of boyhood were devoted almost entirely to the study of +the poets. The subject-matter of their masterpieces was not +neglected by the accomplished grammarian, who was often +a man of learning, and sometimes a man of taste; and the +reading of poetry was made the text for disquisitions on +geography and astronomy, on mythology or the antiquities +of religious ritual and constitutional lore.<note place="foot">See <hi rend="italic">Roman Society in the Last +Century of the Western Empire</hi>, p. 348 +sq. (1st ed.).</note> But style +and expression were always of foremost interest in these +studies. The ear of the South has always felt the charm of +rhythmical or melodious speech, with a keenness of pleasure +generally denied to our colder temperament. And the Augustan +age had, in a single generation, performed miracles, under +Greek inspiration, in moulding the Latin tongue to be the +apt vehicle of every mood of poetic feeling. That inspired +band of writers, whose call it was to glorify the dawn of a +world-wide empire and the ancient achievements of the Latin +race,<note place="foot">Virg. <hi rend="italic">Aen.</hi> vi. 848 sq.</note> rose to the full height of their vocation. They were +conscious that they were writing for distant provinces won +from barbarism, and for a remote posterity.<note place="foot">Ov. <hi rend="italic">Trist.</hi> iv. 128; Hor. <hi rend="italic">Carm.</hi> ii. +20; Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> iii. p. 299.</note> They discovered +and revealed resources in the language, hitherto undreamt of. +They wedded to its native dignity and strength a brilliancy, +an easy grace and sprightliness, which positively ravished the +ear of the street boys in Pompeii, or of the rude dweller on +the Tanais or the Baetis.<note place="foot">Mau, <hi rend="italic">Pompeii</hi> (Tr.), 486, 488; +<hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> ii. 4967.</note> In his own lifetime Virgil became +a popular hero. His Eclogues were chanted on the stage; +<pb n="170"/><anchor id="Pg170"/>verses of the Aeneid can still be seen, along with verses of +Propertius, scrawled on the walls of Campanian towns. Virgil, +when he visited Rome, was mobbed by admiring crowds. When +his poetry was recited in the theatre, the whole audience rose +to their feet as if to salute the emperor.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">De Or.</hi> 13, auditis in theatro +Virgilii versibus surrexit universus +populus, etc.</note> He had the doubtful +but significant honour of being recited by Alexandrian boys at +the coarse orgies of a Trimalchio.<note place="foot">Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 68.</note> Never was a worthy fame +so rapidly and splendidly won: seldom has literary fame and +influence been so lasting. +</p> + +<p> +The Flavian age succeeded to this great heritage. Already +there were ominous signs of a decay of originality and force, of +decadence in the language itself.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 18, 4; viii. 12, 1; +cf. Seneca’s complaints of his time, +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 95, § 23; 100; Petron. 83-4.</note> The controversy between +the lovers of the new and the lovers of the archaic style was +raging in the reign of Vespasian, and can be still followed in +the <hi rend="italic">De Oratoribus</hi> of Tacitus, or even in the verses of Martial.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Dial. de Or.</hi> 20; Mart. v. 10; +cf. Suet. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> 86, Cacozelos et antiquarios, +ut diverso genere vitiosos, pari +fastidio sprevit; Pers. i. 69 sq.; Sen. +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 114. For Hadrian’s preference of +Ennius to Virgil, etc., <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> +c. 16; A. Gell. xii. 2; Macé, p. 96; +Martha, <hi rend="italic">Les Moralistes sous l’Empire +Rom.</hi> p. 184.</note> +Already the taste for Ennius and the prae-Ciceronian oratory had +set in, for the dialect of the heroes of the Punic Wars, even for +<q>the Latin of the Twelve Tables,</q><note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 114, § 13, duodecim tabulas +loquuntur.</note> a taste which was destined +to produce its Dead Sea fruit in the age of the Antonines. But +whoever might cavil at Cicero,<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Dial. de Or.</hi> 20.</note> no one ever questioned the +pre-eminence of Virgil, and he and his contemporaries were +still the models of a host of imitators. The mass of facile +talent, thrown back on itself by the loss of free republican +life and public interests, fascinated from earliest infancy by +the haunting cadences of the grand style, rushed into verse-writing, +to beguile long hours of idleness, or to woo a shadowy +fame at an afternoon recital, with a more shadowy hope of +future fame. The grand style was a charmer and deceiver. It +was such a perfect instrument, it was so protean in its various +power, it was so abundant in its resources, that a man of third-rate +powers and thin commonplace imagination, who had been +trained in skilful manipulation of consecrated phrase, might +for the moment delude himself and his friends by faint echoes +of the music of the golden age. +</p> + +<pb n="171"/><anchor id="Pg171"/> + +<p> +The brilliancy of inherited phrase concealed the poverty of +the literary amateur’s fancy from himself. And, even if he +were not deluded about his own powers, the practice in skilful +handling of literary symbols, which was acquired in the schools, +furnished a refined amusement for a too ample leisure. It is +clear from the dialogue <hi rend="italic">De Oratoribus</hi>, and from Pliny’s Letters, +that the meditative life, surrounded by the quiet charm of stream +and woodland, far from the din and strife and social routine of +the great city,<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">De Or.</hi> 12.</note> attracted many people much more than the +greatest oratorical triumphs in the centumviral court, which, +after all, were so pale and bourgeois beside the glories of the +great ages of oratory. And although Aper, in the Dialogue of +Tacitus, sneers at the solitary and unsocial toil of the poet, +rewarded by a short-lived <hi rend="italic">succès d’estime</hi>,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 9, 10.</note> there can be no +doubt that the ambition to cut a figure, even for a day, was +a powerful inspiration at a time when the ancient avenues to +fame had been closed. +</p> + +<p> +It was to satisfy such ambitions that Domitian founded the +quinquennial competition on the Capitol, in the year 86 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> iv.</note> +as well as the annual festival in honour of Minerva on the +Alban Mount. A similar festival, for the cultivation of Greek +poetry, had been established at Naples in honour of Augustus, +at which Statius had won the crown of corn-ears.<note place="foot">Stat. v. 3, 225; cf. Suet. <hi rend="italic">Claud.</hi> +xi. A Greek comedy in honour of +Germanicus was performed.</note> And Nero +had founded another, apparently only for his own glorification.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Ner.</hi> xii. Suetonius says it +was the first of the kind. It was +called <q>Neronia.</q></note> +The festival established by Domitian was more important and +enduring. The judges were taken from the priestly colleges, +and, amid a concourse of the highest functionaries of the state, +the successful poet received his crown at the hands of the +emperor. The prospect of such a distinction drew competitors +from distant provincial parts. It is a curious illustration of +the power and the skill of the literary discipline of the schools +that, twice within a few years, the crown of oak leaves was +won by boys under fourteen years of age. The verses of one +of them may still be read upon his tomb.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 2603, to L. Val. Pudens, +erected by his fellow-citizens in <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> +110. He was only 13. <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Teuffel, +§ 314, n. 4; Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> iii. p. +324.</note> +</p> + +<p> +But these infrequent chances of distinction could not suffice +<pb n="172"/><anchor id="Pg172"/>for the crowd of eager composers. In those days, although the +bookselling trade was extensive and vigorous, there was no +organised publishing system by which a new work could be +brought to the notice of the public.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vi. 2; ix. 11, 2; Mart. +vii. 8. Cf. Haenny, <hi rend="italic">Schriftst. u. Buchh.</hi> +ii. p. 24 sqq.</note> The author had to +advertise himself by giving readings, to which he invited his +friends, and by distributing copies of his book. The mania +for recitation was the theme of satirists from the days of +Horace to the days of Epictetus.<note place="foot">Epict. iii. 23, § 11.</note> Martial comically describes +the frenzied poet torturing his friends day and night, pursuing +them from the bath to the dining-room, and spreading a +solitude around him.<note place="foot">Mart. iii. 44, 45; iv. 81.</note> Juvenal congratulates his friend on +escaping to the country from the hoarse reciter of a frigid +Theseid.<note place="foot">Juv. i. 2; iii. 9.</note> In the bohemian scenes of Petronius, the inveterate +versifier, who will calmly finish a passage, after being cast +ashore from a shipwreck, makes himself a nuisance by his +recitations in the baths and porticoes of Croton, and is very +properly stoned by a crowd of street boys.<note place="foot">Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 90, 91, 115.</note> No aspect of +social life is more prominent in the Letters of Pliny than the +reading of new works, epics, or lyrics, histories, or speeches, +before fashionable assemblies. A liberal patron like Titinius +Capito would sometimes lend a hall for the purpose. But the +reciter had many expenses, from the hire of chairs to the +fees to freedmen and slaves, who acted as <hi rend="italic">claqueurs</hi>. In +the circle of a man like Pliny, to attend these gatherings was +a sacred duty both to letters and to friendship. In a year +when there was a more than usually abundant crop of poets, +the eager advocate could boast that he had failed no one, even +in the month when the courts were busiest.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 13; ii. 19; iv. 5; +27; v. 12; vi. 17, 21; viii. 21.</note> Doubtless, many +of the fashionable idlers, who dawdled away their time in the +many resorts devoted to gossip and scandal, were glad to show +themselves in the crowd. Old friends would consider it a +duty to support and encourage the budding literary ambition +of a young aspirant of their set. Some sincere lovers of +literary art would be drawn by a genuine interest and a wish +to maintain the literary tradition, which was already betraying +signs of weakness and decay. But, to a great many, this duty, +<pb n="173"/><anchor id="Pg173"/>added to the endless round of other social obligations, was +evidently becoming repulsive and wearisome.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vi. 17.</note> Pliny could +listen with delight and admiration to Sentius Augurinus +reciting his poems for three long days.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 27.</note> He would calmly +expect his own friends to listen for as many days to a whole +volume of his poems, or to his <hi rend="italic">Panegyric</hi> on Trajan.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 18; iv. 5.</note> Such was +his high breeding, his kindliness, and such was his passion for +literature in any form or of any quality, that he could hardly +understand how what to him seemed at once a pleasure and +duty should be regarded by others as an intolerable nuisance. +The conduct of such people is treated with some disdain in +one or two of the rare passages in which he writes of his +circle with any severity. Some of these fashionable folk, +after lingering in some place of gossip until the reading was +well advanced, would enter the hall with ostentatious reluctance, +and then leave before the end. Others, with an air +of superiority, would sit in stolid silence and disguise the +slightest expression of interest. This seemed to Pliny, not +only grossly bad manners, but also neglect of a literary duty.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 13, 2; vi. 17; viii. 12, 1.</note> +The audience should not only encourage honest effort; +they should contribute their judgment to the improvement +of style. Pliny, like Aristotle, has an immense faith in the +collective opinion of numbers, even in matters of artistic +taste.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii 17, 7, quia in numero +ipso est quoddam magnum conlatumque +consilium. Cf. Arist. <hi rend="italic">Pol.</hi> iii. 11, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">διὸ καὶ κρίνουσιν ἄμεινον οἱ πολλοὶ καὶ τὰ τῆς μουσικῆς ἔργα καὶ τὰ τῶν ποιητῶν</foreign>.</note> He used to read his own pieces to successively wider +circles, each time receiving suggestions for amendment. +Many of Pliny’s Letters, like the dialogue <hi rend="italic">De Oratoribus</hi>, reveal +the keenness with which in those days questions of style were +debated. But, as in the circle of Sidonius, this very energy +of criticism was perhaps due to a dim consciousness of waning +force.<note place="foot">Sidon. Apoll. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ii. 14; vii. 15; +i. 6.</note> Pliny, with all his kindly optimism, lets fall a phrase +here and there which betrays an uneasiness about the future +of letters.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> viii. 12. Seneca was even +more pessimist, cf. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 95, § 23; 100; +<hi rend="italic">De Brev. V.</hi> xiii. 1.</note> Enthusiasm is failing. Nay, there is a hardly +veiled contempt for that eager mediocrity which Pliny and +Titinius Capito made it a point of honour to encourage. We +feel that we are on the edge of that arid desert of cultivated +<pb n="174"/><anchor id="Pg174"/>impotence in which the freshness and vigour of Roman +literature was soon mysteriously to disappear. +</p> + +<p> +Great as were the attractions of the capital, its gay social +circles with their multifarious engagements, its games and +spectacles, and literary novelties, yet the most devoted +<q>Ardelio,</q> in the end, felt the strain and the monotony to be +oppressive.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 9; quot dies quam +frigidis rebus absumpsi! cf. the social +life of Symmachus, <hi rend="italic">Roman Society in +the Last Century of the Western Empire</hi>, +p. 128 sq. (1st ed.).</note> Seneca and Pliny, Martial and Juvenal,<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Tranq.</hi> xii.; Juv. iii. xi. +Mart. xii. 18.</note> from +various points of view, lament or ridicule the inanity and the +slavery of city life. Roman etiquette was perhaps the most +imperious and exacting that ever existed. Morning receptions, +punctilious attendance at the assumption of the toga, at +betrothals, or the sealing of wills, or the reading of some tedious +epic, advice or support in the law courts, congratulations to +friends on every official success, these duties, and many others, +left men, who had a large circle of acquaintance, hardly a moment +of repose. Hence the rapture with which Pliny escapes to +the stillness of the Laurentine pine woods, or the pure cold +breezes that blew from the Apennines over his Tuscan seat.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 9; iv. 1.</note> +In these calm solitudes the weary advocate and man of letters +became for a little while his own master, and forgot the din +and crush of the streets, the paltry ambitions, the malevolent +gossip and silly rumours of the great world, in some long-suspended +literary task. There can be no doubt that an intense +enjoyment was becoming more and more felt in country +life. Its unbought, home-grown luxuries, its common sights +and sounds, its antique simplicity, have a strange charm even +for a hardened bohemian like Martial.<note place="foot">Mart. iii. 58.</note> But Pliny, besides this +commoner form of enjoyment, has a keen and exquisite feeling for +beauty of scenery. He loves the amphitheatre of hills, crowned +with immemorial forest that looks down on rich pastoral slope, +or vineyard or meadow, bright with the flowers of spring, and +watered by the winding Tiber; he loves the scenery of Como, +where you watch the fishermen at his toils from some retreat +on the terraced banks.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> v. 6, § 7, 8; i. 3; ix. 7 +§ 4.</note> Where in ancient literature can you +find a more sharp and clear-cut picture of a romantic scene than +<pb n="175"/><anchor id="Pg175"/>in his description of the Clitumnus?<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> viii. 8; cf. Virg. <hi rend="italic">Georg.</hi> ii. 146; +once visited by Caligula, Suet. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> +43.</note> The famous stream rises +under a low hill, shaded by ancient cypresses, and broadens +into a basin in whose glassy ice-cold waters you may count the +pebbles. Soon the current grows broader and swifter, and the +barges are swept along under groves of ash and poplar, which, +so vivid is their reflection, seem to be growing in the river-bed. +Hard by, is a temple of the river-god, with many other chapels, +and a seat of ancient augury; the magic charm of antique religious +awe blends with the witchery of nature, and many a villa +is planted on fair spots along the banks. There was plenty of +sport to be had in the Apennines or the Laurentine woods. But +Pliny was plainly not a real sportsman. He once tells his friend +Tacitus, who seems to have rallied him on this failing, that +although he has killed three boars, he much prefers to sit, +tablets in hand beside the nets, meditating in the silent glade.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 6, solitudo ipsumque +illud silentium quod venationi datur +magna cogitationis incitamenta sunt.</note> +The country is charming to Pliny, but its greatest charm lies in +the long tranquil hours which can be given to literary musing. +Part of the well-regulated day of Spurinna, a man who had commanded +armies and governed provinces, and who had reached +his seventy-seventh year, is devoted to lyric composition both +in Greek and Latin.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 1, § 7.</note> Pliny once or twice laments the mass +of literary talent which, from diffidence or love of ease, was +buried in these rural retreats.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 25.</note> There must have been many +a country squire, like that Terentius, who, apparently lost in +bucolic pursuits, surprised his guest by the purity of his taste +and his breadth of culture. We often meet the same buried +talent after nearly four centuries in the pages of Sidonius.<note place="foot">Sidon. Apoll. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 6; ii. 14; vii. +15.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The literature of the Flavian age has preserved for us many +pictures of Roman villas. They occupied every variety of site. +They were planted on rocks where the sea-foam flecked their +walls,<note place="foot">Stat. <hi rend="italic">Silv.</hi> ii. 2, 22, spumant +templa salo.</note> or on inland lakes and rivers, embowered in woods, or +on the spurs of the Apennines, between the ancient forest and +the wealthy plain.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> v. 6.</note> Some of these mansions were remote and +secluded. But on the Bay of Naples, on the Laurentine +shore or the banks of Lake Como,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ii. 17, § 27.</note> they clustered thickly. +<pb n="176"/><anchor id="Pg176"/>Building in the days of Domitian was as much the rage as +it was in the days of Horace, and, just as then, all natural +obstacles were defied in preparing a site to the builder’s +taste. In the grounds of Pollius Felix in the <hi rend="italic">Silvae</hi>, whole +hills had been levelled, and rocks had been cleared away to +make a space for the house with its gardens and woodlands.<note place="foot">Stat. <hi rend="italic">Silv.</hi> ii. 2, 53; cf. iii. 1, 124.</note> +Manlius Vopiscus had built two luxurious seats on opposite +banks of the Anio, where the stream glides silently under +overarching boughs.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 3, 20-37.</note> The villas pressed so close to the water +that you could converse, and almost touch hands, across the +interval between them. The love of variety, or the obligation +imposed on senators to invest a third of their fortune in Italian +land,<note place="foot">Imposed by Trajan on candidates +for office, Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vi. 19. This was +a repetition of former enactments, <hi rend="italic">e.g.</hi> +Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> 48. It was revived again by +M. Aurelius, <anchor id="corr176"/><corr sic="Capitol">Capitol.</corr> xi. Exclusion +from commerce necessitated investments +in land. Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 19, sum prope +totus in praediis, aliquid tamen foenero. +In <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> 106 the price of land was +rising, <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vi. 19; but cf. iii. 19 (<hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> +101); see Friedl. i. p. 197.</note> may account for the number of country seats possessed +even by men who were not of the wealthiest class.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Benef.</hi> vii. 10, 5; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 89, +§ 20; Mart. v. 13, 7; Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> +76, 77; Stat. <hi rend="italic">Silv.</hi> ii. 6, 62.</note> Pliny had +villas at Laurentum, at Tifernum Tiberinum, at Beneventum, +and more than two on Lake Como.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ii. 17; v. 6; ix. 7; iv. +1; iv. 13.</note> The orator Regulus had +at least five country seats.<note place="foot">Mart. vii. 31.</note> Silius Italicus had several stately +abodes in the same district of Campania, and, with capricious +facility, transferred his affections to each new acquisition.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 7.</note> +</p> + +<p> +It is by no means an easy task, and perhaps not a very +profitable one, to trace minutely the arrangement of one of +these great houses. Indeed there seems to have been a good +deal of caprice and little care for symmetry in their architecture. +The builder appears to have given no thought to external +effect. To catch a romantic view from the windows, to escape +the sultry heat of midsummer, or woo the brief sunshine of +December, above all to obtain perfect stillness, were the objects +which seem to have dictated the plans of the Roman +architect.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> iii. 64.</note> The Laurentine villa of Pliny and the Surrentine +of Pollius Felix from their windows or colonnades gave glimpses +of forest or mountain, or sea, or fat herds browsing on the +meadow grass, or a view seaward to the islands off the +Cam<pb n="177"/><anchor id="Pg177"/>panian shore.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ii. 17; Stat. <hi rend="italic">Silv.</hi> ii. 2, +76.</note> One room admits the morning sun, another is +brightened by the glow of evening. Here is a colonnade +where in winter you can pace up and down with shutters +closed on the weather side, or in spring-time enjoy the scent +of violets and the temperate sunshine.<note place="foot">Plin. ii. 17, § 16.</note> In the mansions on +the Anio, there is, according to Statius, an air of everlasting +quietness, never broken even by wandering wind, or ripple +of the stream.<note place="foot">Stat. <hi rend="italic">Silv.</hi> i. 3, 29.</note> Pliny has a distant room at Laurentum, to +which even the licensed din of the Saturnalia never penetrates.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ii. 17, § 24.</note> +Thus these villas threw out their chambers far and wide, +meandering in all directions, according to the fancy of the +master, or the charms of the neighbouring scenery. +</p> + +<p> +The luxury of the Roman villa consisted rather in the +spaciousness and variety of building, to suit the changing +seasons, than in furniture for comfort or splendour. There were, +indeed, in many houses some costly articles, tables of citrus and +ivory, and antique vases, of priceless worth.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> iii. 87.</note> But the chambers +of the most stately houses would probably, to modern taste, seem +scantily furnished. It was on the walls and ceiling and columns +that the Roman of taste lavished his wealth. The houses of +Pliny, indeed, seem to have been little adorned by this sort of +costly display.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> v. 6.</note> But the villa of Pollius Felix, like the baths +of Claudius Etruscus, shone with all the glory of variegated +marbles on plaque and pillar, drawn from the quarries of +Phrygia, Laconia, and Syene, Carystus and Numidia.<note place="foot">Stat. <hi rend="italic">Silv.</hi> ii. 2, 85; i. 5, 36; +Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> iii. 65.</note> Pliny +confesses that he is not a connoisseur in art. He speaks +with hesitation of the merit of a Corinthian bronze which he +has acquired.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 6; cf. the taste of Silius +Italicus, iii. 7, 8; Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 50, 88; +Mahaffy, <hi rend="italic">Greek World</hi>, etc., p. 139 sq.</note> But he was surrounded in his own class by +artistic enthusiasm, much of it, it is to be feared, pretentious +and ignorant. The dispersion of the artistic wealth of Greek +lands had flooded Italy with the works of the great masters. +Collectors of them, like Silius Italicus, abounded. The +fashion became so general and so imperious, that it penetrated +even into the vulgar circle of people like Trimalchio, who, in +interpreting the subject of the chasing on a cup, could confuse +the Punic and the Trojan wars. In the villas described +<pb n="178"/><anchor id="Pg178"/>by Statius, it would seem that the art of Apelles, Pheidias, +Myron, and Polycletus adorned the saloons and colonnades.<note place="foot">Stat. <hi rend="italic">Silv.</hi> i. 3, 50; ii. 2, 63 sq.; +Mart. iv. 39.</note> +It may be doubted, however, whether many of these works +could claim such illustrious parentage. There was plenty of +facile technique in those days which might easily deceive the +vulgar collector by more or less successful reproduction.<note place="foot">Friedl. iii. 196; cf. Croiset, <hi rend="italic">Lucien</hi>, +c. ix. p. 265; Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> ii. 611.</note> The +confident claim to artistic discrimination was not less common +in the Flavian age than in later days, and it was probably as +fallible. It is rather suspicious that, in the attempts at +artistic appreciation in this period, attention seems to be +concentrated on the supposed antiquity, rarity, or costliness of +material. There is little in the glowing descriptions in the +<hi rend="italic">Silvae</hi> to indicate a genuine appreciation of real art. +</p> + +<p> +It is possible that the great Roman country seat, in its vast +extent, although not in the stateliness of its exterior, may have +surpassed the corresponding mansions of our time. It was the +expression in stone of the dominant passion of an enormously +wealthy class, intoxicated with the splendour of imperial power, +and ambitious to create monuments worthy of an imperial +race. Moreover, the Roman’s energy always exulted in +triumphing over natural difficulties. Just as he drove his +roads unswerving over mountain and swamp, so he took a +pride in rearing his piles of masonry on the most obstinate +and defiant sites, or even in the middle of the waves. But, in +the extent of their parks, and the variety of floral display, the +Romans of the most luxurious age seldom reached the modern +English standard. The grounds of the villas which, in thick +succession, lined the Laurentine or Campanian shore, cannot +have been very extensive. Pliny has splendid views from his +windows of forest, mountain, and meadow, but the scene lies +plainly beyond the bounds of his demesne.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> v. 6, 7; cf. ii. 17, § 3.</note> The gardens and +shrubberies are very artificial, arranged in terraces or labyrinths +close to the house, or with hedges of box clipped into shapes of +animals along an open colonnade. The hippodrome at his +Tuscan seat, for riding exercise, is formed by lines of box and +laurel and cypress and plane tree. The fig and mulberry +form a garden at the Laurentine villa.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ii. 17, § 15; v. 6, § 33.</note> The cultivated +<pb n="179"/><anchor id="Pg179"/>flowers are few, only roses and violets. But the Romans made +up for variety by lavish profusion. In the Neronian orgies a +fortune was sometimes spent on Egyptian roses for a single +banquet.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xxvii.; Friedl. iii. 77 sqq.</note> +</p> + +<p> +We might almost conjecture how the days passed amid +such scenes, even without any formal diary. But Pliny has +left us two descriptions of a gentleman’s day in the country.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ix. 36; iii. 1.</note> +Pliny himself, as we might expect, awoke early, about six +o’clock, and in one of those sleeping-rooms, so carefully shut +off from the voices of nature or from household noise, with +shutters still closed, he meditated some literary piece. Then, +calling for his amanuensis, he dictated what he had composed. +About ten or eleven, he passed into a shady cloister, opening +on a bed of violets, or a grove of plane trees, where he +continued his literary work. Then followed a drive, during +which, according to his uncle’s precept and example, his +studies were still continued.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 5, § 15.</note> A short siesta, a walk, declamation +in Greek and Latin, after the habit of Cicero, gymnastic +exercise, and the bath, filled the space till dinner time arrived. +During this meal, a book was read aloud, and the evening +hours were enlivened by acting or music and the society of +friends. Occasional hunting and the cares of a rural estate +came in to vary this routine. The round of Spurinna’s day, +which excited Pliny’s admiration by its rigid regularity, is +pretty much the same as his own, except that Spurinna +seems to have talked more and read less.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 1.</note> +</p> + +<p> +To the ordinary English squire Pliny’s studious life in the +country would not seem very attractive. And his pretence +of sport was probably ridiculed even in his own day.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ix. 36, § 6.</note> But +his Letters give glimpses of a rural society which, both in its +pleasures and its cares, has probably been always much the +same from one age to another in Europe. On his way to +Como, Pliny once turned aside for a couple of days to his +Tuscan estate, to join in the dedication of a temple which he +had built for the people of Tifernum Tiberinum. The consecration +was to be followed by a dinner to his good neighbours, +who had elected him patron of their township, who were +very proud of his career, and greeted him warmly whenever +<pb n="180"/><anchor id="Pg180"/>he came among them.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 1.</note> There is also the record of the restoration, +in obedience to the warning of a diviner, of an ancient +temple of Ceres on his lands, with colonnades to shelter the +worshippers who frequented the shrine. And the venerable +wooden statue of the goddess, which was much decayed, had +to be replaced by a more artistic image. But the life of a +Roman proprietor, of course, had its prosaic and troublesome +side which Pliny does not conceal. There is an interesting +letter in which he consults a friend on the question of the +purchase of an estate.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 19.</note> It adjoined, or rather cut into his +own lands. It could be managed by the same bailiff, and +the same staff of labourers and artisans would serve for both +estates. On the other hand, Pliny thinks, it is better not +to put too many eggs into one basket. It is more prudent +to have estates widely dispersed, and thus less exposed to a +single stroke of calamity. Moreover this estate, however +tempting, with its fertile, well-watered meadows, its vineyards +and woods, is burdened by an insolvent tenantry, who, through +faulty management, have been allowed to fall into arrear. +Pliny, however, is tempted to buy at a greatly reduced price,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 7. This estate was once +worth HS.5,000,000; it was now offered +for HS.3,000,000, <hi rend="italic">i.e.</hi> £25,000; cf. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +iv. 6; ii. 4, 3. The letter iii. 19 +belongs to the year 101 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>; but in +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vi. 19 (106 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>) it appears that +the price of land was rising, owing to +competition, and Pliny advises Nepos +to sell his Italian estates and buy +others in the provinces; cf. vi. 3, 1.</note> +and, in order to meet the payment, although his wealth is +nearly all in land, he can call in some loans at interest, and +the balance can be borrowed from his father-in-law, whose +purse is always at his disposal. Pliny was sometimes worried +by the complaints of the people on his estates, and finds it +very difficult to secure solvent tenants on a five years lease. +He made liberal remissions of rent, but arrears went on +accumulating, until the tenant in despair gave up any attempt +to repay his debt. In this extremity, Pliny resolved to adopt +a different system of letting. He substituted for a fixed rent +a certain proportion of the produce,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ix. 37, medendi una ratio, si +non nummo sed partibus locem; cf. +J. S. Mill, <hi rend="italic">Pol. Econ.</hi> bk. ii. c. 8, 1; +A. Young, <hi rend="italic">Travels in France</hi>, p. 18.</note> in fact the métayer +system, and employed some of his people to see that the +returns were not fraudulently diminished. At another time +he is embarrassed by finding that, owing to a bad vintage, +<pb n="181"/><anchor id="Pg181"/>the men who have bought his grapes in advance are going to +be heavy losers. He makes a uniform remission to all of +about twelve per cent. But he gives an additional advantage to +the large buyers, and to those who had been prompt in their +payments.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> viii. 2; ix. 37, 3.</note> It is characteristic of the man that he says, quite +naturally, that the landlord should share with his tenant such +risks from the fickleness of nature. +</p> + +<p> +So good a man was sure to be far more afflicted by the +troubles of his dependents than by any pecuniary losses of his +own. One year, there were many deaths among his slaves. +Pliny feels this acutely, but he consoles himself by the reflection +that he has been liberal in manumission, and still more liberal in +allowing his slaves to make their wills, the validity of which he +maintains as if they were legal instruments.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> viii. 16; cf. the Lex Coll. +Cultorum Dianae et Antinoi, <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> +6086. The slave member is permitted +to dispose of his funeraticium by will. +Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. 189.</note> If Pliny shows +a little too much self-complacency in this human sympathy, +there can be no doubt that, like Seneca, he felt that slaves +were humble friends, men of the same flesh and blood as the +master, and that the master has a moral duty towards them, +quite apart from the legal conventions of Rome.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 31; 47; 77; <hi rend="italic">De Clem.</hi> i. +18, 3; <hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> iii. 21; Juv. xiv. 16; +D. Chr. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> x.; Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> 18, § 7; +Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> ii. 358; Denis, <hi rend="italic">des +Idées Morales</hi>, etc., ii. 208 sq.; Wallon, +<hi rend="italic">L’Esclav.</hi> i. c. 11; Marq. i. 189.</note> When his +wife’s grandfather proposed to make numerous manumissions, +Pliny rejoiced greatly at the accession of so many new citizens +to the municipality.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vii. 32. Fabatus seems to have +been a model country squire; cf. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +iv. 1; v. 11; vi. 12; vii. 11; viii. 10.</note> When his favourite reader, Encolpius, +was seized with hemorrhage, Pliny displayed a genuine and most +affectionate concern for the humble partner of his studies.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> viii. 1.</note> +Another member of his household, a freedman named Zosimus, +suffered from the same malady. Zosimus seems to have +been a most excellent, loyal, and accomplished man. He was +very versatile, a comedian, a musician, a tasteful reader of +every kind of literature.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> v. 19; cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 27, § 6; +Friedl. <hi rend="italic">SG.</hi> iii. 89; Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. 158.</note> His patron sent him to Egypt to +recruit his health. But, from putting too great a strain upon +his voice, he had a return of his dangerous illness, and once +more needed change of air. Pliny determined to send him to +the Riviera, and begs a friend, Paulinus, to let Zosimus have the +use of his villa and all necessary attention, for which Pliny will +<pb n="182"/><anchor id="Pg182"/>bear the cost.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> v. 19.</note> In his social relations with his freedmen Pliny +always shows himself the perfect, kindly gentleman. Juvenal +and Martial poured their scorn on those unequal dinners, where +the guests were graduated, and where poorer wine and coarser +viands were served out to those of humble degree.<note place="foot">Mart. i. 44; iii. 49; Juv. v. 25 sqq.; +cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> vi. 33, § 4.</note> Pliny +was present at one of these entertainments, and he expresses +his contempt for the vulgar host in terms of unwonted energy.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ii. 6.</note> +His own freedmen, as he tells a fellow-guest, are entertained as +equals at his table. If a man fears the expense, he can find a +remedy by restraining his own luxury, and sharing the plain +fare which he imposes on his company. Pliny’s relations +with his slaves and freedmen were very like those which the +kindly English squire cultivates towards his household and +dependents. The affectionate regret for a good master or +mistress, recorded on many an inscription of that age,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2862, 2874, 6389.</note> shows +that Pliny’s household was by no means a rare exception. +</p> + +<p> +Yet the Letters of Pliny, with all their charity and +tranquil optimism, reveal now and then a darker side of +household slavery. A man of praetorian rank named Largius +Macedo, who forgot, or perhaps too vividly remembered, his +own servile origin, was known as a cruel and haughty master. +While he was enjoying the bath in his Formian villa, he was +suddenly surrounded by a throng of angry slaves who, with +every expression of hatred and loathing, inflicted on him such +injuries that he was left for dead on the glowing pavement. +He seemed, or pretended for a while, to be dead. A few who +remained faithful took up the apparently lifeless corpse, amid +the shrieks of his concubines, and bore him into the Frigidarium. +The coolness and the clamour recalled him from his +swoon. The would-be murderers meanwhile had fled, but many +of them were caught in the end, and the outrage was sternly +avenged.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 14.</note> In another letter, Pliny tells the tale of the +mysterious disappearance of one Metilius Crispus, a citizen +of Como, for whom Pliny had obtained equestrian rank, and +made him a gift of the required HS.400,000. Metilius set +out on a journey and was never heard of again.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vi. 25; cf. the similar fate +of Lampridius, at the close of the Western +Empire in Gaul, Sid. Apoll. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> viii. +11. § 10.</note> It is +<pb n="183"/><anchor id="Pg183"/>significant that of the slaves who attended him no one ever +reappeared. Amid such perils, says Pliny, do we masters live, +and no kindness can relieve us from alarm. Seneca remarks +that the master’s life is continually at the mercy of his slaves.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 4, § 8; 107, 5.</note> +And the cruel stringency of legislation shows how real was the +peril. +</p> + +<p> +Pliny was only an infant in the evil days when suicide +was the one refuge from tyranny, when the lancet so often +opened the way to <q>eternal freedom.</q> Yet, even in his later +years, men not unfrequently escaped from intolerable calamity +or incurable disease by a voluntary death.<note place="foot">See a great mass of instances and +authorities collected, with his unique +learning, by Mayor, <hi rend="italic">Plin.</hi> iii. pp. 114, +115; cf. Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> p. 212.</note> The morality +of suicide was long a debated question. There were strict +moralists who maintained that it was never lawful to quit +one’s post before the final signal to retreat. Men like Seneca +regarded it as a question to be determined by circumstances +and motives.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 24, § 11; 58, § 36; 70, § +8; 117, § 22; <hi rend="italic">De Prov.</hi> ii. 10; vi. 7; +<hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, iii. 15; Epict. i. 24; cf. ii. 15; +iii. 24; M. Aurel. x. 8; x. 32; cf. +Mommsen, <hi rend="italic">De Coll.</hi> p. 100.</note> He would not palliate wild, impetuous self-murder, +without a justifying cause. On the other hand, there +might be, especially under a monster like Nero, cases in which +it were mere folly not to choose an easy emancipation rather +than a certain death of torture and ignominy. Eternal law, +which has assigned a single entrance to this life, has mercifully +allowed us many exits. Any death is preferable to servitude.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 70, § 21, dum hoc constat +praeferendam esse spurcissimam mortem +servituti mundissimae.</note> +So, in the case of disease and old age, it is merely a question +whether the remainder of life is worth living. If the mental +powers are falling into irreparable decay, if the malady is +tormenting and incurable, Seneca would permit the rational +soul to quit abruptly its crumbling tenement, not to escape +pain or weakness, but to shake off the slavery of a worthless +life.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 58, § 36, non adferam mihi +manus propter dolorem: hunc tamen si +sciero perpetuo mihi esse patiendum, +exibo; non propter ipsum, sed quia +impedimento mihi futurus est ad omne +propter quod vivitur ... prosiliam ex +aedificio putri ac ruenti.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Pliny was not a philosopher, and had no elaborate theory of +suicide or of anything else. But his opinion on the question +may be gathered from his remarks on the case of Titius Aristo, +the learned jurist. To rush on death, he says, is a vulgar, +<pb n="184"/><anchor id="Pg184"/>commonplace act. But to balance the various motives, and make +a deliberate and rational choice may, in certain circumstances, +be the proof of a lofty mind.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 22, 10; Aristo was a +fine type of the puritan pagan, an +<q>imago priscae frugalitatis.</q></note> The cases of suicide described +in the Letters are nearly always cases of incurable or prolonged +disease. The best known is that of the luxurious Silius +Italicus, who starved himself to death in his seventy-fifth year.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 7, 1. For similar instances, +<hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 70, § 6; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xi. 3; +Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> 53; Petron. 111; Epict. ii. +15.</note> +He was afflicted with an incurable tumour, almost the only +trouble in his long and happy life. Corellius Rufus, who had +watched over Pliny’s career with almost parental care,<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ix. 13, 6; cf. iv. 17, 4; +vii.</note> chose +to end his life in a similar manner. Pliny was immensely +saddened by the close of a life which seemed to enjoy so many +blessings, high character, great reputation and influence, family +love and friendship. Yet he does not question the last resolve +of Corellius. In his thirty-third year he had been seized with +hereditary gout. During the period of vigorous manhood, he +had warded off its onsets by an extreme abstinence. But as +old age crept on, its tortures, wracking every limb, became +unendurable, and Corellius determined to put an end to the +hopeless struggle. His obstinacy was proof against all the +entreaties of his wife and friends, and Pliny, who was called +in as a last resource, came only to hear the physician repelled +for the last time with a single energetic word.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 12, 10. It is characteristic +of the time that his last word was +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">κέκρικα</foreign>.</note> Sailing once +on Lake Como, Pliny heard from an old friend the tragic tale +of a double suicide from a verandah overhanging the lake. +The husband had long suffered from a loathsome and hopeless +malady. His wife insisted on knowing the truth, and, when +it was revealed to her, she nerved him to end the cruel ordeal, +and promised to bear him company. Bound together, the pair +took the fatal leap.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vi. 24.</note> +</p> + +<p> +In spite of his charity and optimism,<note place="foot">Pliny boasts of idealising his +friends; vii. 28, agnosco crimen.... +Ut enim non sint tales quales a me +praedicantur, ego tamen beatus quod +mihi videntur.</note> it would not be altogether +true to say that Pliny was blind to the faults and vices +of his time. He speaks, with almost Tacitean scorn, of the +rewards which awaited a calculating childlessness, and of the +<pb n="185"/><anchor id="Pg185"/>eager servility of the will-hunter.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> viii. 18; iv. 21; viii. 10, +11, neque enim ardentius tu pronepotes +quam ego liberos cupio; cf. iv. 15, 3, +fecunditate uxoris frui voluit eo saeculo +quo plerisque etiam singulos filios orbitatis +praemia graves faciunt.</note> In recommending a tutor for +the son of Corellia Hispulla, he regards the teacher’s stainless +character as of paramount importance in an age of dangerous +licence, when youth was beset with manifold seductions.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 3, in hac licentia temporum.</note> He +blushes for the degradation of senatorial character displayed in +the scurrilous or obscene entries which were sometimes found on +the voting tablets of the august body.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 25, proximis comitiis in +quibusdam tabellis multa jocularia +atque etiam foeda dictu ... inventa +sunt.</note> The decline of modesty +and courteous deference in the young towards their elders +greatly afflicted so courteous a gentleman. There seemed to be +no respect left for age or authority. With their fancied omniscience +and intuitive wisdom, young men disdain to learn from +any one or to imitate any example; they are their own models.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> viii. 23, 3, ipsi sibi exempla sunt.</note> +Among the many spotless and charming women of Pliny’s +circle, there is one curious exception, one, we may venture to +surmise, who had been formed in the Neronian age. Ummidia +Quadratilla was a lady of the highest rank, who died at the age +of eighty in the middle of the reign of Trajan.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 24, + she was born about +<hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> 27, in the reign of Tiberius. Ummidia +had the virtue of liberality; she +built an amphitheatre and temple for +Casinum, <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 781.</note> She preserved +to the end an extraordinary health and vigour, and evidently +enjoyed the external side of life with all the zest of the old +days of licence in her youth. Her grandson, who lived under +her roof, was one of Pliny’s dearest friends, a spotless and +almost puritanical character. Ummidia, even in her old age, +kept a troop of pantomimic artistes, and continued to enjoy +their doubtful exhibitions. But her grandson would never +witness them, and, it must be said, Ummidia respected and +even encouraged a virtue superior to her own. +</p> + +<p> +It has been remarked that, in nearly all these cases, where +Pliny has any fault to find with his generation, the evil seems +to be only a foil for the virtue of some of his friends. Even in +his own day, there were those who criticised him for his extravagant +praise of the people he loved. He takes the censure +as a compliment, preferring the kind-heartedness which is +occasionally deceived, to the cold critical habit which has +lost all illusions.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vii. 28, 2.</note> Pliny belonged to a caste who were linked +<pb n="186"/><anchor id="Pg186"/>to one another by the strongest ties of loyalty and tradition.<note place="foot">Cf. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> v. 14, on his relations with +Cornutus Tertullus: quae societas amicitiarum +artissima nos familiaritate +conjunxit.</note> +The members of it were bound to support one another by +counsel, encouragement, and influence, they were expected +to help a comrade’s advancement in the career of honours, to +applaud and stimulate his literary ambition, to be prodigal of +sympathy or congratulation or pecuniary help in all the vicissitudes +of public or private life.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vi. 6; vi. 32; in which +he offers a dowry to Quintilian’s +daughter in the most delicate way; +cf. Juv. iii. 215; xv. 150; Sen. <hi rend="italic">De +Benef.</hi> ii. 21, 5; iv. 11, 3; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> +iv. 62; yet cf. the judgment of D. +Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> vii. § 82; Denis, <hi rend="italic">Idées +Morales</hi>, ii. 175 sqq.</note> The older men, who had borne +the weight of great affairs, recognised the duty of forming the +character of their juniors by precept and criticism. In this +fashion the old soldier Spurinna, on his morning drive, would +pour forth to some young companion the wealth of his long experience. +In this spirit Verginius Rufus and Corellius stood by +Pliny throughout his official career, to guide and support him.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> viii. 23, 2; vi. 11, 3; +i. 12, 12; ii. 1, 8 (of Verginius Rufus), +sic candidatum me suffragio ornavit, +etc., iii. 1, 6 (of Spurinna), quibus praeceptis +imbuare!</note> +Pliny, in his turn, was always lavish of this kind of help, and +deemed it a matter of pride and duty to afford it. Sometimes +he solicits office for a friend’s son, or commends a man to the +emperor for the <hi rend="italic">Jus trium liberorum</hi>.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ad Traj.</hi> 87, 94.</note> Sometimes he applauds +the early efforts of a young pleader at the bar, or gives him +counsel as to the causes which he should undertake, or the +discipline necessary for oratorical success.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vi. 29.</note> He was often consulted +about the choice of a tutor for boys, and he responded +with all the earnestness of a man who believed in the infinite +importance of sound influence in the early years of life.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 3.</note> To +his older friends he would address disquisitions on style, consolations +in bereavement, congratulations on official preferment, +descriptions of some fair scene or picturesque incident in rural +life. He often wrote, like Symmachus, merely to maintain +the connection of friendly sympathy by a chat on paper. His +vanity is only too evident in some of these letters. But it is, +after all, an innocent vanity and the consuming anxiety to +cherish the warmth and solidarity of friendship, and a high +tone in the great class to which he belonged, might well cover +even graver faults. If there was too much self-indulgence in +<pb n="187"/><anchor id="Pg187"/>that class, if they often abandoned themselves to the seductions +of ease and literary trifling in luxurious retreats, it is also to +be remembered that a man of rank paid heavily for his place +in Roman society, both in money and in the observance of a +very exacting social code. And no one recognised the obligation +with more cheerful alacrity than Pliny. +</p> + +<p> +Pliny felt a genuine anxiety that young men of birth should +aim at personal distinction. Any gleam of generous ambition, +any sign of strenuous energy, which might save a young +aristocrat from the temptations of ease and wealth, were hailed +by him with unaffected delight. He was evidently very susceptible +to the charm of manner which youths of this class +often possess. When to that was added strength of character, +his satisfaction was complete. Hence his delight when Fuscus +Salinator and Ummidius Quadratus, of the very cream of +the Roman nobility, entered on the conflicts of the Centumviral +Court.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vi. 11.</note> And indeed these young men appear to have +had many graces and virtues. Salinator, in particular, with +exquisite literary culture, had a mingled charm of boyish +simplicity, gravity, and sweetness.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vi. 26.</note> Asinius Bassus, the son +of Asinius Rufus, was another of this promising band of youth, +blameless, learned, and diligent, whom Pliny commends for the +quaestorship to Fundanus, then apparently designated as consul.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 15. Fundanus’s consulship +is mentioned in two inscriptions, <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> +1588, 2471. There is a difficulty about +the dates which is discussed in Momms. +<hi rend="italic">Plin.</hi> p. 17, n. 3. Fundanus does not +appear in the <hi rend="italic">Fasti</hi>.</note> +There is no more genuine feeling in the Letters than the grief +of Pliny for the early death of Junius Avitus, another youth +of high promise. Pliny had formed his character, and supported +him in his candidature for office. He had helped him +with advice in his studies, or in his administrative duties. +Avitus repaid all this paternal care by a docility and deference +which were becoming rare among the young men of the day. +Winning the affection and confidence of his elders in the +service, Avitus was surely destined to develop into one of those +just and strenuous imperial officers, like Corbulo or Verginius +Rufus, many of whom have left only a name on a brief inscription, +but who were the glory and strength of the Empire +in the times of its deepest degradation. But all such hopes for +Avitus were extinguished in a day. +</p> + +<pb n="188"/><anchor id="Pg188"/> + +<p> +The upright and virtuous men of Pliny’s circle, Corellius +Rufus, Titinius Capito the historian, Pegasus the learned +jurist, Trebonius Rufus the magistrate who suppressed the +games at Vienne, Junius Mauricus, who would have denied +them to the capital, and many others of the like stamp, have +often been used to refute the pessimism of Juvenal. We have +in a former chapter seen reason to believe that the satirist’s +view of female character needs to be similarly rectified. Even +in the worst reigns the pages of Tacitus reveal to us strong +and pure women, both in the palace and in great senatorial +houses. In the wide philosophic class there was probably +many an Arria and Plotina. In the <hi rend="italic">Agricola</hi>, and in Seneca’s +letters to Marcia and Helvia, we can see that, even at the +darkest hour, there were homes with an atmosphere of old +Roman self-restraint and sobriety, where good women wielded +a powerful influence over their husbands and their sons, +and where the examples of the old Republic were used, +as Biblical characters with us, to fortify virtue.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> xiii. xiv.; <hi rend="italic">Ad Helv.</hi> +xvi.</note> Seneca, in +his views about women, as in many other things, is essentially +modern. He admires indeed the antique ideal of self-contained +strength and homely virtue. But he also believes +in the equal capacity of women for culture, even in the field of +philosophy, and he half regrets that an old-fashioned prejudice +had debarred Helvia from receiving a philosophic discipline.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> xvi. par illis, mihi crede, +vigor, etc. <hi rend="italic">Ad Helv.</hi> xvii. 4, cf. Plut. +<hi rend="italic">Conj. Praec.</hi> xlviii. + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">φαρμάκων ἐπῳδὰς οὐ προσδέξεται (ἡ γυνὴ) τοῖς Πλάτωνος ἐπᾳδομένη λόγοις, κτλ.</foreign>; cf. Juv. vi. 450; +Mart. vii. 69.</note> +Tacitus and Pliny, who had no great faith in philosophy as a +study for men, would hardly have recommended it for women. +But they lived among women who were cultivated in the +best sense. Pliny’s third wife, Calpurnia, was able to give +him the fullest sympathy in his literary efforts.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 19, § 4.</note> But her +fame, of which she probably little dreamt, is founded on her +purity and sweetness of character. Her ancestors, like Pliny’s, +belonged to the aristocracy of Como. Her aunt, Calpurnia +Hispulla, who was a dear friend of Pliny’s mother, had watched +over her during the years of girlhood with a sedulous care +which made her an ideal wife. What Calpurnia was like as a +girl, we may probably picture to ourselves from the prose elegy +<pb n="189"/><anchor id="Pg189"/>of Pliny on the death of the young daughter of Minutius +Fundanus.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> v. 16.</note> It is the picture of a beautiful character, and a +fair young life cut off too soon. The girl had not yet reached +her fourteenth year. She was already betrothed when she +was seized with a fatal sickness. Her sweet girlish modesty, +which was combined with a matronly gravity, charmed all her +father’s friends. She had love for all the household, her tutors +and slaves, nurses and maids. A vigorous mind triumphed +over bodily weakness, and she passed through her last illness +with a sweet patience, encouraging her father and sister to +bear up, and showing no shrinking from death. +</p> + +<p> +Although we know of a good many happy wedded lives in +that age,<note place="foot">Seneca and Paulina, Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> +xv. 64; Plutarch, <hi rend="italic">Ad Uxorem</hi>, iv. v.</note> there is no picture so full of pure devotion and tenderness +as that which we have in Pliny’s letters to Calpurnia. They +are love-letters in the best sense and the most perfect style.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vi. 4, 5, 7.</note> +Pliny’s youth was long past when he won the hand of Calpurnia, +yet their love for one another is that of boy and girl. When +she has to go into Campania for her health, he is racked with +all sorts of anxiety about her, and entreats her to write once, +or even twice, a day. Pliny reads her letters over and over +again, as if they had just come. He has her image before him +by night, and at the wonted hour by day his feet carry him to +her vacant room. His only respite from these pains of a lover +is while he is engaged in court. Pliny had frequent care about +Calpurnia’s health. They did not belong to the hideous class +who preferred <q>the rewards of childlessness,</q> but their hopes +of offspring were dashed again and again. These griefs were +imparted to Calpurnia’s aunt, and to her grandfather, Calpurnius +Fabatus, a generous old squire of Como, who was as anxious as +Pliny to have descendants of his race. At the time of the old +man’s death, Calpurnia was with her husband in Bithynia, and +she wished to hasten home at once to console her aunt. Pliny, +not having time to secure the emperor’s sanction, gave her +the official order for the use of the public post on her journey +back to Italy. In answer to his letter of explanation and +excuse, Trajan sent his approval in his usual kind and +courteous style. This is the last glimpse we have of Pliny +and Calpurnia.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Ad Traj.</hi> 121, 122.</note> +</p> + +<pb n="190"/><anchor id="Pg190"/> + +<p> +Pliny’s character, as displayed in his Letters, is the embodiment +of the finest moral tone of the great age which had +opened when he died, in kindlier or juster treatment of the +slave, in high respect for women, in conscientious care for the +education of the young, in beneficent provision for the helpless +and distressed. But it would be a mistaken view to regard +these ideas as an altogether new departure. It is dangerous +to assert that anything is altogether new in Roman social +history. The truth is that the moral sentiment in which these +movements took their rise had been for generations in the air. +It was diffused by the Stoic preaching of the brotherhood and +equality of men as fellow-citizens of one great commonwealth. +The duty of redeeming the captive and succouring the poor +had been preached by Cicero a century and a half before Pliny’s +Letters appeared.<note place="foot">Cic. <hi rend="italic">De Off.</hi> ii. 18 (63), atque haec +benignitas etiam reipublicae est utilis, +redimi e servitute captos, locupletari +tenuiores.</note> Horace had, a few years later, asked the +searching question, <q>Why should the worthy be in want while +you have wealth?</q><note place="foot">Hor. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> ii. 2, 103— + +<lg> +<l>Cur eget indignus quisquam, te divite?</l> +</lg></note> Seneca preaches, with the unction of +an evangelist, all the doctrines on which the humane legislation +of the Antonine age was founded, all the principles +of humanity and charity of every age. He asserts the +natural equality of bond and free, and the claim of the +slave to kindness and consideration.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 47, § 1, 31; <hi rend="italic">De Benef.</hi> iii. +21; <hi rend="italic">De Clem.</hi> i. 18, 3; <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, iii. 24.</note> He brands in many +a passage the cruelty and contempt of the slaveholder. He +preaches tolerance of the froward, forgiveness of insult and +injury.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 95, § 52.</note> He enforces the duty of universal kindness and helpfulness +by the example of God, who is bounteous and merciful +even to the evildoer.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Benef.</hi> iv. 5; iv. 26; iv. 28, +Di multa ingratis tribuunt.</note> Juvenal was little of a philosopher, but +he had unconsciously drunk deep of the gospel of philosophy. +Behind all his bitter pessimism there is a pure and lofty moral +tone which sometimes almost approaches the ideal of charity +in S. Paul. The slave whom we torture or insult for some +slight negligence is of the same elements as we are.<note place="foot">Juv. xiv. 16; vi. 219, 476.</note> The +purity of childhood is not to be defiled by the ribaldry of the +banquet and the example of a mother’s intrigues or a father’s +brutal excesses.<note place="foot">Id. xiv. 31.</note> Revenge is the pleasure of a puny soul.<note place="foot">Id. xiii. 190.</note> +<pb n="191"/><anchor id="Pg191"/>The guilty may be left to the scourge of the unseen inquisitor. +Juvenal regards the power of sympathy for any human grief +or pain as the priceless gift of Nature, <q>who has given us tears.</q><note place="foot">Juv. xv. 133.</note> +It is by her command that we mourn the calamity of a friend +or the death of the babe <q>too small for the funeral pyre.</q> The +scenes of suffering and pity which the satirist has sketched in +some tender lines were assuredly not imaginary pictures. We are +apt to forget, in our modern self-complacency, that, at least among +civilised races, human nature in its broad features remains +pretty much the same from age to age. On an obscure epitaph +of this period you may read the words—<hi rend="italic">Bene fac, hoc tecum +feres.</hi><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6042.</note> Any one who knows the inscriptions may be inclined +to doubt whether private benefactions under the Antonines +were less frequent and generous than in our own day. +</p> + +<p> +The duties of wealth, both in Greece and Rome, were at +all times rigorously enforced by public opinion. The rich had +to pay heavily for their honours and social consideration in +the days of Cicero, and in the days of Symmachus, as they +had in the days of Pericles.<note place="foot">Cic. <hi rend="italic">De Off.</hi> i. 14; Sym. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ii. +78; ix. 126; Olympiod. § 44 (Müller, +<hi rend="italic">Fr. H. Gr.</hi> iv. p. 68); cf. Boeckh, +<hi rend="italic">Public Ec. of Athens</hi> (Trans. Lewis), +pp. 458, 520, 578.</note> They had to contribute to the +amusement of the people, and to support a crowd of clients +and freedmen. In the remotest municipality, the same +ambitions and the same social demands, as we shall show +in the next chapter, put an enormous strain on the resources +of the upper class. Men must have often ruined themselves +by this profuse liberality. In the reign of Augustus a great +patron had several times given a favourite freedman sums of +£3000 or £4000. The patron’s descendant in the reign of +Nero had to become a pensioner of the emperor. Juvenal and +Martial reveal the clamorous demands by which the great +patron was assailed.<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. 178 n. 10; cf. Juv. +ii. 117; Mart. vii. 64, dominae munere +factus eques; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiii. 34.</note> The motives for this generosity of the +wealthy class were at all times mixed and various. But in +our period, the growth of a pure humane charity is unmistakable, +of a feeling of duty to the helpless, whether +young or old. The State had from the time of the Gracchi +taken upon itself the immense burden of providing food for a +quarter of a million of the proletariat of Rome. But in the +<pb n="192"/><anchor id="Pg192"/>days of Pliny it recognised fresh obligations. The importance +of education and the growth of poverty appealed powerfully +to a ruling class, which, under the influence of philosophy, was +coming to believe more and more in the duty of benevolence +and of devotion to things of the mind. All the emperors +from Vespasian to M. Aurelius made liberal provision for the +higher studies.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> 18; Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> 16, +§ 8; Capitol. <hi rend="italic">Ant. P.</hi> 11, § 3.</note> But this endowment of culture, which in +the end did harm as well as good, is not so interesting to us +as the charitable foundations for the children of the poor. +It was apparently the emperor Nerva, the rigid economist +who sold the imperial furniture and jewels to replenish the +treasury,<note place="foot">D. Cass. 68. 2; Victor, <hi rend="italic">Epit.</hi> 12.</note> who first made provision for the children of needy +parents throughout Italy. But epigraphy tells us more than +literary history of the charity of the emperors. The tablet of +Veleia is a priceless record of the charitable measures adopted +by Trajan. The motive of the great emperor was probably, +as his panegyrist suggests, political as much as benevolent.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6664; Plin. <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> 28, hi +subsidium bellorum, ornamentum pacis +publicis sumptibus aluntur. Duruy, +iv. 784; Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> ii. 211; +Kratz, <hi rend="italic">De Benef., a Traj. collatis</hi>, p. 11.</note> +He may have wished to encourage the rearing of children who +should serve in the armies of the State, as well as to relieve +distress. The provision was even more evidently intended to +stimulate agriculture. The landed proprietors of the place, to +the number of forty-six, received on mortgage a loan from the +State of about £10,000 in our money, at an interest of five per +cent, which was less than half the usual rate of that time.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> x. 62. The letter reveals +an unwillingness among the people of +Bithynia to become debtors to the +public treasury.</note> +The interest was appropriated to the maintenance of 300 +poor children, at the rate of about £1:11s. a year for +each male child, and £1 for each girl. The illegitimate +children, who, it may be noted, were only two or three out of +so many, received a smaller allowance. The boys were supported +till their eighteenth year, the girls till fourteen. It +was a bold and sagacious attempt to encourage Italian agriculture, +to check the ominous depopulation of Italy,<note place="foot">Cf. Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iv. 27, minore in dies +plebe ingenua; iii. 25; cf. Meriv. viii. +353.</note> and to +answer the cry of the poor. Hadrian continued and even +added to the benefaction of Trajan.<note place="foot">Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> 7.</note> Antoninus Pius, in +<pb n="193"/><anchor id="Pg193"/>honour of his wife Faustina, established a foundation for +young girls who were to be called by her not altogether unspotted +name.<note place="foot">Capitol. <hi rend="italic">Ant. P.</hi> 8.</note> A similar charity was founded in honour of +her daughter by M. Aurelius.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">M. Aurel.</hi> 26; cf. Capitol. +<hi rend="italic">Pertin.</hi> 9. He found the interest on +Trajan’s foundation nine years in arrear. +Lamprid. <hi rend="italic">Alex. Sev.</hi> 57, 7; his charity +children were called Mammaeani; Kratz, +p. 11.</note> +</p> + +<p> +But, while the emperors were responding to the call of +charity by using the resources of the State, it is clear, from +the Letters of Pliny and from the inscriptions, that private +benevolence was even more active. Pliny has a conception +of the uses and responsibilities of wealth which, in spite of +the teaching of Galilee, is not yet very common. Although +he was not a very wealthy man, he acted up to his principles +on a scale and proportion which only a few of our millionaires +have yet reached. The lavish generosity of Pliny is a +commonplace of social history. We have not the slightest +wish to detract from the merited fame of that kindliest of +Roman gentlemen. But a survey of the inscriptions may +incline the inquirer to believe that, according to their means, +there were many men and women in obscure municipalities +all over the world, who were as generous and public-spirited +as Pliny.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6694 to a man who left +Tibur his sole heir; 3733 ob munificentiam; +3765, 3766, 3882, 7190, +6993, 7001, 781; cf. Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Vit. +Soph.</hi> ii. 1 sqq. + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἄριστα δὲ ἀνθρώπων πλούτῳ ἐχρήσατο</foreign>. Plin. <hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> xxix. 4 +(8); Friedländer, <hi rend="italic">Cena Trim. Einl.</hi> +46 sq.</note> With Pliny, as with those more obscure benefactors, +the impelling motive was love for the parent city or +the village which was the home of their race, and where the +years of youth had been passed. Pliny, the distinguished +advocate, the famous man of letters, the darling of Roman +society, still remained the loyal son of Como, from which his +love never strays.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 3, § 1, Comum meae +deliciae; v. 11, 2; iv. 13, respublica +nostra pro filia vel parente.</note> He followed and improved upon the +example of his father in munificence to his native place.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> the inscr. in Momms. <hi rend="italic">Plin.</hi> p. 31.</note> +He had little liking for games and gladiatorial shows, which +were the most popular objects of liberality in those days. But +he gave a sum of nearly £9000 for the foundation of a town +library, with an annual endowment of more than £800 to +maintain it.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 8; v. 7; <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 1172.</note> Finding that promising youths of Como had +to resort to Milan for their higher education, he offered to +<pb n="194"/><anchor id="Pg194"/>contribute one-third of the expense of a high school at Como, +if the parents would raise the remainder. The letter which +records the offer shows Pliny at his best, wise and thoughtful +as well as generous.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 13.</note> He wishes to keep boys under the +protection of home influence, to make them lovers of their +mother city; and he limits his benefaction in order to +stimulate the interest of the parents in the cause of education, +and in the appointment of the teachers. Another sum of +between £4000 and £5000 he gave to Como for the support +of boys and girls of the poorer class.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 18; <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 1172.</note> He also left more than +£4000 for public baths, and a sum of nearly £16,000 to +his freedmen, and for communal feasts. On two of his estates +he built or repaired temples at his own expense.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 1; cf. ix. 12.</note> His private +benefactions were on a similar scale. It is not necessary to +adopt the cynical conclusion that Pliny has told us all his +liberality. The kindly delicacy with which Pliny claims the +right of a second father to make up the dowry of the daughter +of his friend Quintilian, might surely save him from such an +imputation.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vi. 32.</note> In the same spirit he offers to Romatius Firmus +the £2500 which was needed to raise his fortune to the level +of equestrian rank.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 19.</note> When the philosophers were banished by +Domitian, Pliny, who was then praetor, at the most imminent +risk visited his friend Artemidorus, and lent him, free of +interest, a considerable sum of money.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 11.</note> The daughter of one of +his friends was left with an embarrassed estate; Pliny took up +all the debts and left Calvina with an inheritance free from +all burdens.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ii. 4.</note> He gave his old nurse a little estate which cost +him about £800.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vi. 3.</note> But the amount of this good man’s gifts, +which might shame a modern testator with ten times his +fortune, is not so striking as the kindness which prompted +them, and the modest delicacy with which they were made. +</p> + +<p> +Yet Pliny, as we have said, is only a shining example of a +numerous class of more obscure benefactors. For a thousand +who know his Letters, there are few who have read the stone +records of similar generosity. Yet these memorials abound for +those who care to read them. And any one who will spend a +few days, or even a few well-directed hours, in examining the +<pb n="195"/><anchor id="Pg195"/>inscriptions of the early Empire, will find many a common, self-complacent +prejudice melting away. He will discover a profusion +of generosity to add to the beauty, dignity, or convenience +of the parent city, to lighten the dulness of ordinary life, to bring +all ranks together in common scenes of enjoyment, to relieve want +and suffering among the indigent. The motives of this extraordinary +liberality were indeed often mixed, and it was, from +our point of view, often misdirected. The gifts were sometimes +made merely to win popularity, or to repay civic honours +which had been conferred by the populace. They were too +often devoted to gladiatorial shows and other exhibitions which +only debased the spectators. Yet the greatest part of them +were expended on objects of public utility—baths, theatres, +markets, or new roads and aqueducts, or on those public +banquets which knitted all ranks together. There was in +those days an immense <q>civic ardour,</q> an almost passionate +rivalry, to make the mother city a more pleasant and a more +splendid home. The endless foundations for civic feasts to +all orders, in which even children and slaves were not forgotten, +with a distribution of money at the close, softened the +sharp distinctions of rank, and gave an appreciable relief to +poverty. Other foundations were more definitely inspired by +charity and pity. In remote country towns, there were pious +founders who, like Pliny and Trajan, and the Antonines, provided +for the nurture of the children of the poor. Bequests +were left to cheapen the main necessaries of life.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Cena Trim. Einleit.</hi> p. 48.</note> Nor were +the aged and the sick forgotten. In Lorium, near the old +home of the Antonines, a humble spice dealer provided in his +will for a free distribution of medicines to the poor people of +the town.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 114.</note> The countless gifts and legacies to the colleges, +which were the refuge of the poor in that age, in every region +of the Roman world, are an irresistible proof of an overflowing +charity. Pliny’s love of the quiet town where his infancy +was passed, and the record of a like patriotism or benevolence +in so many others, draw us on to the study of that free and +generous municipal life which was the great glory of the +Antonine age. +</p> +</div><div type="chapter" n="2" rend="page-break-before: always"> +<pb n="196"/><anchor id="Pg196"/> +<index index="toc" level1="II. Municipal life"/><index index="pdf" level1="II. Municipal life"/> +<head>CHAPTER II</head> + +<head type="sub">MUNICIPAL LIFE</head> + +<p> +Nearly all the intimate friends of Pliny were, like himself, bred +in the country, and, as we have seen, he has left us a priceless +picture of that rural aristocracy in the calm refinement of +their country seats. But of the ordinary life of the provincial +town we learn very little from Pliny. Indeed, the silence +of Roman literature generally as to social life outside the +capital is very remarkable.<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Promenades Archæologiques</hi>, +p. 330, ce qui nous échappe c’est +la vie de province.</note> In the long line of great Latin +authors from Ennius to Juvenal, there is hardly one whose +native place was Rome. The men who are the glory of +Roman letters in epic and lyric poetry, in oratory and +history, in comedy and satire, were born in quiet country towns +in Italy or the remoter provinces. But the reminiscences of +the scenes of their infancy will generally be found to be faint +and rare. Horace, indeed, displays a tender piety for that +borderland of Apulia, where, in the glades of Mount Vultur as +a child, he drank inspiration from the witchery of haunted +groves.<note place="foot">Hor. <hi rend="italic">Carm.</hi> iii. 4, 9.</note> And Martial, the hardened man about town, never +forgot the oak groves and iron foundries of Bilbilis.<note place="foot">Mart. iv. 55, 11; xii. 18, 9; i. 50.</note> But +for the municipal system and life, the relations of its various +social grades, the humdrum routine of the shops and forums, +the rustic rites and deities,<note place="foot">It must, however, be said that +Virgil has preserved much of local +religious sentiment. Cf. Sellar, <hi rend="italic">Virgil</hi>, +p. 365 sq.</note> the lingering echoes of that dim +common life with its vices and honest tenderness, its petty +ambitions or hopeless griefs, we must generally go to the +records in stone, and the remains of buried cities which the +spade has given back to the light. +</p> + +<pb n="197"/><anchor id="Pg197"/> + +<p> +This silence of the literary class is not due to any want of +love in the Roman for the calm and freshness and haunting +charm of country scenes, still less to callousness towards old +associations. Certainly Virgil cannot be charged with any +such lack of sensibility. In the Eclogues and the Georgics, +the memory of the old farm at Andes breaks through the +more conventional sentiment of Alexandrian tradition. In +the scenery of these poems, there are <q>mossy fountains and +grass softer than sleep,</q> the hues of violet, poppy, and hyacinth, +the shade of ancient ilex, and the yellow wealth of cornfield. +We hear the murmur of bees, <q>the moan of doves in immemorial +elms,</q> the rush of the river, the whispering of the +wind. The pastoral charm of the midsummer prime is +there, from the freshness of fields under the morning +star, through the hours alive with the song of the cicala +and the lowing of the herds around the pool, through the +still, hot, vacant noontide, till the moonbeams are glinting +on the dewy grasses of the glades.<note place="foot">Virg. <hi rend="italic">Ecl.</hi> ii. 48; <hi rend="italic">Georg.</hi> ii. 466 +sqq.; iii. 324-338, et saltus reficit +jam roscida luna; cf. Sellar, <hi rend="italic">Virgil</hi>, pp. +166-167.</note> Nor can any lover +of Virgil ever forget the fire of old sentiment in the +muster of Italian chivalry in the seventh book of the +Aeneid.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Aen.</hi> vii. 630 sqq.; Sellar, p. 80.</note> Tibur and Praeneste, Anagnia, Nomentum, and +Amiternum, and many another old Sabine town, which send +forth their young warriors to the fray, are each stamped +on the imagination by some grace of natural beauty, or some +glory of ancient legend. In the Flavian period, as we have +seen, the great nobles had their villas on every pleasant +site, wherever sea or hill or woodland offered a fair prospect +and genial air. To these scenes they hastened, like emancipated +schoolboys, when the dog-days set in. They had a genuine +love of the unspoilt countryside, with its simple natural +pleasures, its husbandry of the olden time, its joyous plenty, +above all its careless freedom and repose.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 3; i. 6; i. 9; vii. 30; +ix. 36. Mart. iii. 58; i. 56; iv. 66; +iv. 90; vi. 43.</note> The great charm +of a rural retreat was its distance from the <q>noise and smoke +and wealth</q> of Rome. The escape from the penalties of fame, +from the boredom of interminable dinners, the intrusive importunity +of curious busybodies, the malice of jealous rivals, +gives a fresh zest to the long tranquil days under the ilex +<pb n="198"/><anchor id="Pg198"/>shade among the Sabine hills.<note place="foot">Hor. <hi rend="italic">Carm.</hi> i. 17.</note> Horace probably felt more +keenly than Juvenal the charm of hill and stream and the +scenes of rustic toils and gaiety. Yet the exquisite good +sense of Horace would have recoiled from the declamatory +extravagance with which Juvenal justifies his friend’s +retirement from the capital, by a realistic picture of all +its sordid troubles and vices and absurdities.<note place="foot">Juv. iii.</note> <q>To love +Rome at Tibur and Tibur at Rome</q> was the expression +of the educated Roman’s feelings in a form which he would +have recognised to be as just as it was happy. In spite of +the charm of the country, to any real man of letters +or affairs, the fascination of Rome was irresistible. Pliny, +and no doubt hundreds of his class, from Augustus to +Theodosius, grumbled at the wasteful fashion in which their +lives were frittered away by monotonous social duties, as +imperious as they were generally vain.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> <hi rend="italic">Rom. Society in the Last Century +of the Western Empire</hi>, p. 128 sq. +(1st ed.); Sym. i. 101; ii. 26; v. 78. +Cf. Auson. <hi rend="italic">Idyl.</hi> x. 20, 155, 189.</note> Yet to Pliny, as to +Symmachus, the prospect of never again seeing the city, so +seductive and so wearying, would have been absolutely intolerable. +Martial, when he retired to Bilbilis, seems to pity his +friend Juvenal, wandering restlessly through the noisy Suburra, +or climbing the Caelian in hot haste, to hang on the outskirts of +a levee.<note place="foot">Mart. xii. 18— + +<lg> +<l rend="margin-left: 2">Dum per limina te potentiorum</l> +<l rend="margin-left: 4">Sudatrix toga ventilat, vagumque</l> +<l rend="margin-left: 2">Major Caelius, et minor fatigat.</l> +</lg></note> Yet in the preface to this last book, Martial seems +to feel his banishment as keenly as Ovid felt his among the +frozen rivers of Scythia.<note place="foot">Ov. <hi rend="italic">Trist.</hi> ii. 196; iii. 2, 21, Roma +domusque subit, desideriumque locorum; +cf. Hor. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> ii. 7, 28.</note> He misses in the <q>provincial +solitude</q> the sympathetic public which was eager for his +latest epigram, the fine critical judgment to appreciate, the +concourse of elegant idlers to supply the matter for his verses.<note place="foot">Mart. xii. <hi rend="italic">Praef.</hi> illam judiciorum +subtilitatem, illud materiarum ingenium, +bibliothecas, theatra, conventus, +quasi destituti desideramus.</note> +And worst of all, the most famous wit of Rome is now the +mark for the ignorant spite and envy of a provincial clique. +Martial evidently feels very much as Dr. Johnson would have +felt if he had been compelled to live out his days in Skye. +Juvenal may affect to regret the simple ways of those rustic +places, where on festal days in the grass-grown theatre the +infant in his mother’s arms shudders at the awful masks of +<pb n="199"/><anchor id="Pg199"/>the actors, and the aediles take their places in white tunics +like the humble crowd.<note place="foot">Juv. iii. 173 sqq.</note> But, in spite of this sentiment, the +true Roman had a certain contempt for municipal life,<note place="foot">Illustrations may be found in Plaut. +<hi rend="italic">Mil. Glor.</hi> 653; <hi rend="italic">Captiv.</hi> 879; <hi rend="italic">Trinum.</hi> +609; <hi rend="italic">Bacch.</hi> 24; Cic. <hi rend="italic">Phil.</hi> iii. 6, 15, +videte quam despiciamur omnes qui +sumus e municipiis, id est, omnes +plane; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iv. 3, seque ac +majores et posteros municipali adultero +foedabat.</note> for +the narrow range of its interests, the ludicrous assumption of +dignity by its petty magistrates, and its provincialisms.<note place="foot">Juv. x. 100; cf. Cic. <hi rend="italic">post Red. in +Sen.</hi> 17; Hor. <hi rend="italic">S.</hi> i. 5, 34, Insani +ridentes praemia scribae, etc.</note> It was +indeed only natural that the splendour and the vivid energy +of life in the capital of the world should throw provincial +life into the shade. Yet we can realise now, as a Roman +wit or man of fashion could hardly do, that the municipal +system, which had overspread the world from the Solway +to the edge of the Sahara, was not the least glory of the +Antonine age. And in any attempt to estimate the moral +condition of the masses in that age, the influence of municipal +life should occupy a large place. +</p> + +<p> +It is beyond the scope of this work to trace provincial +towns through all their various grades, and their evolution in +the hands of Roman statesmanship from the time of Augustus. +What we are chiefly concerned with is the spirit and the rapid +development of that brilliant civic life, which not only covered +the worlds both of East and West with material monuments of +Roman energy, but profoundly influenced for good, or sometimes +for evil, the popular character. The magical transformation +wrought by Roman rule in a century and a half seized the +imagination of contemporaries such as the rhetor Aristides. And +the mere wreck of that brilliant civilisation which now meets +the traveller’s eye, in regions that have long returned to waste, +will not permit us to treat his eulogy of Rome as only a piece +of rhetoric. Regions, once desert solitudes, are thickly dotted +with flourishing cities; the Empire is a realm of cities. The +world has laid the sword aside, and keeps universal festival, +with all pomp and gladness. All other feuds and rivalries are +gone, and cities now vie with one another only in their splendour +and their pleasures. Every space is crowded with +porticoes, gymnasia, temple fronts, with studios and schools.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xiv. (223), 391, (Jebb. i. p. +223), +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">μία δὲ αὔτη κατέχει ἔρις, ὅπως ἔτι καλλίστη καὶ ἡδίστη ἑκάστη φανείται· +πάντα δὲ μεστὰ γυμνασίων, κρηνῶν, προπυλαίων, νεῶν, δημιουργίων, διδασκάλων.</foreign></note> +<pb n="200"/><anchor id="Pg200"/>Sandy wastes, trackless mountains, and broad rivers present no +barriers to the traveller, who finds his home and country +everywhere. The earth has become a vast pleasure garden.<note place="foot">Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xiv. (225), 393-4, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἡ γῆ πᾶσα οἷον παράδεισος ἐγκηκόσμηται.</foreign></note> +</p> + +<p> +This glowing description of the Roman world of the +Antonine age is not perhaps strengthened by the appeal to the +doubtful statistics of other contemporaries, such as Aelian and +Josephus. We may hesitate to accept the statement that Italy +had once 1197 cities, or that Gaul possessed 1200.<note place="foot">Aelian, <hi rend="italic">V. Hist.</hi> ix. 16, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ᾤκησαν καὶ πόλεις τὴν Ἰταλίαν πάλαι ἑπτὰ καὶ ἐνηνήκοντα καὶ ἑκατὸν πρὸς ταῖς χιλίαις</foreign>; +Jos. <hi rend="italic">B. J.</hi> ii. 16.</note> In these +estimates, if they have any solid foundation, the term <q>city</q> +must be taken in a very elastic sense. But there are other +more trustworthy reckonings which sufficiently support the +glowing description of Aristides. When the Romans conquered +Spain and Gaul, they found a system of <hi rend="italic">pagi</hi> or cantons, +with very few considerable towns. The 800 towns which +are said to have been taken by Julius Caesar can have been +little more than villages. But the Romanisation of both +countries meant centralisation. Where the Romans did not +find towns they created them.<note place="foot">Arnold, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Prov. Administration</hi>, +p. 203.</note> Gradually, but rapidly, the +isolated rural life became more social and urban. In the +north-eastern province of Spain, out of 293 communities in the +time of the elder Pliny, 179 were in some sense urban, 114 +were still purely rustic;<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> iii. 4.</note> and we may be sure that this is an +immense advance on the condition of the country at the time +of the conquest. In the reign of Antoninus Pius, only 27 of +these rural districts remained without an organised civic centre.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">Rom. Prov.</hi> i. 73.</note> +In Gaul, Julius Caesar impressed the stamp of Rome on the +province of Narbo, by founding cities of the Roman type, and +his policy was continued by Augustus. The loose cantonal +system almost disappeared from the province in the south, +although it lingered long in the northern regions of Gaul. Yet +even in the north, on the borders of Germany, Cologne, from +the reign of Claudius, became the envy of the barbarians across +the Rhine,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 168; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> i. 36; Marq. +<hi rend="italic">Röm. Staatsverw.</hi> i. 121; Bury, <hi rend="italic">Rom. +Emp.</hi> p. 83.</note> and Trèves, from the days of Augustus, already +anticipated its glory as a seat of empire from Diocletian to +Gratian and Valentinian.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C. Theod.</hi> xiii. 3, 11.</note> In the Agri Decumates, between +<pb n="201"/><anchor id="Pg201"/>the Rhine and Neckar, the remains of baths and aqueducts, the +mosaics and bronzes and pottery, which antiquarian industry +has collected and explored, attest the existence of at least 160 +flourishing and civilised communities.<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Röm. St.</hi> i. 125.</note> Baden was already a +crowded resort for its healing waters when, in <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> 69, it was +given up to fire and sword by Caecina in his advance to meet +the army of Otho in the valley of the Po.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 67; <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> the dedication +of a temple to Isis by a magistrate of +Baden and his wife and daughter; <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> +457.</note> The Danube was +lined with flourishing communities of Roman origin. In the +170 years during which Dacia was included in the Empire, +more than 120 towns were organised by the conquering race.<note place="foot">Marq. i. 155, in keiner andern +Provinz lässt sich die Entwickelung +der römischen Städteanlagen so genau +verfolgen als in Dacien. Arnold, <hi rend="italic">R. +Prov. Admin.</hi> p. 205.</note> +Greek cities, like Tomi on the Euxine, record their gratitude to +their patrons in the same formal terms as Pompeii or Venusia.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 5287.</note> +If we may believe Philostratus, there were 500 flourishing +cities in the province of Asia which more than rivalled the +splendour of Ionia before the Lydian and Persian conquests.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph.</hi> ii. 3.</note> +Many of these were of ancient origin, but many had been +founded by Rome.<note place="foot">Arnold, p. 205; Marq. i. 199.</note> Laodicea was regarded as an unimportant +place in the reign of Tiberius; yet the wealth of its private +citizens was celebrated.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iv. 55; Strab. xii. 578.</note> One of them had attained a fortune +which enabled him to bequeath it a sum of nearly half +a million. The elder Pliny could reckon 40 cities of importance +in Egypt, which had in his time a population of +over seven millions;<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> v. 60; Friedl. <hi rend="italic">SG.</hi> iii. 110.</note> and Alexandria, next after Rome herself, +was regarded as the most dazzling ornament of the Empire.<note place="foot">Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xiv. 223 (392), + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">πόλις ἐγκαλλώπισμα τῆς ὑμετέρας γέγονεν ἡγεμονίας</foreign>.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps nowhere, however, had the <q>Roman peace</q> worked +greater miracles of civic prosperity than in North Africa. +That the population of Roman Africa was in the period of +the Empire extraordinarily dense, appears from the number +of its episcopal sees, which in the fifth century had reached +a total of 297.<note place="foot">Cf. Victor, <hi rend="italic">Vit.</hi> i. 7; v. 9; Friedl. +<hi rend="italic">SG.</hi> iii. 110; <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Migne, <hi rend="italic">Patrol. Lat.</hi> +t. lviii. 270, notitia Africae.</note> The remains of more than 20 amphitheatres +can still be traced. There is indeed no more startling proof of +the range and sweep of Roman civilisation than the wreck of +<pb n="202"/><anchor id="Pg202"/>those capitols, forums, aqueducts, and temples in what are now +sandy solitudes, not even occupied by a native village. In +the province of Numidia, within a few leagues of the Sahara, +the Roman colony of Thamugadi (Timgad) was founded, as an +inscription tells, by Trajan in the year 100.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii. 2355; Cagnat, <hi rend="italic">L’Armée +Rom. d’Afrique</hi>, p. 582; Boissier, +<hi rend="italic">L’Afr. Rom.</hi> p. 180.</note> There, in what +is now a scene of utter loneliness and desolation, the remains +of a busy and well-organised community have been brought to +light by French explorers. The town was built by the third +legion, which for generations, almost as a hereditary caste, +protected Roman civilisation against the restless tribes of the +desert. The chief buildings were probably completed in 117. +The preservation of so much, after eighteen centuries, is a +proof that the work was well and thoroughly done. The ruts +of carriage wheels can still be seen in the main street, which is +spanned by a triumphal arch, adorned with marble columns. +Porticoes and colonnades gave shelter from the heat to the +passers-by, and two fountains played at the further end. Water, +which is now invisible on the spot, was then brought in +channels from the hills, and distributed at a fixed rate among +private houses.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 5326.</note> The forum was in the usual style, with raised +side walks and porticoes, a basilica, a senate-house and rostrum, +a shrine of Fortuna Augusta, and a crowd of statues to the +emperors from M. Aurelius to Julian.<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Afr. Rom.</hi> p. 187.</note> This petty place had +its theatre, where the seats can still be seen rising in their +due gradation of rank. An imposing capitol, in which, as at +home, the Roman Trinity, Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, were +duly worshipped, was restored in the reign of Valentinian I., +and dedicated by that Publius Caeionius Albinus who was one +of the last of the pagan aristocracy, and who figures in the +Letters of Symmachus and the <hi rend="italic">Saturnalia</hi> of Macrobius.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii. 2388; Hieron. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 107, +§ 1; Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> i, 2, 15.</note> The +inscriptions on the site reveal the regular municipal constitution, +with the names of seventy decurions, each of whom probably +paid his honorarium of £13 or more when he entered on +his office.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii. 2403; <hi rend="italic">Suppl.</hi> ii. 17903; +<hi rend="italic">Suppl.</hi> i. 12058. This inscription, from +an obscure place, shows how an original +honorarium of HS. 1600 was finally +increased by voluntary generosity to +HS. 12,000.</note> The honours of the duumvirate and the aedileship +cost respectively £32 and £24.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2341, 17838.</note> And here, as elsewhere, the +<pb n="203"/><anchor id="Pg203"/>public monuments and buildings were generally erected by +private ambition or munificence. A statue and little shrine +of Fortuna Augusta were given by two ladies, at a cost of over +£200, in the days of Hadrian.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii.; <hi rend="italic">Suppl.</hi> ii. 17831.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The greatest glory of the imperial administration for +nearly two centuries was the skilful and politic tolerance +with which it reconciled a central despotism with a remarkable +range of local liberty. It did not attempt to impose a +uniform organisation or a bureaucratic control on the vast +mass of races and peoples whom the fortune of Rome had +brought under her sway. Rather, for ages its guiding +principle was, as far as possible, to leave ancient landmarks +undisturbed, and to give as much free play to local liberties +as was compatible with the safety and efficiency of the +imperial guardian of order and peace. Hence those many +diversities in the relation between provincial towns and Rome, +represented by the names of free, federate, or stipendiary +cities, municipium and colonia. Many retained their old +laws, constitution, and judicial system.<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Röm. St.</hi> i. 45; Bury, <hi rend="italic">Rom. +Emp.</hi> p. 77; Arnold, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Prov. +Admin.</hi> p. 210.</note> They retained in +some cases the names of magistracies, which recalled the +days of independence: there were still archons at Athens, +suffetes in African towns, demarchs at Naples. The title of +medixtuticus still lingered here and there in old Oscan +communities.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3720, 3800, 3801, 3056, +3057, 3804.</note> When she had crushed the national spirit, +and averted the danger of armed revolt, Rome tolerated, and +even fostered, municipal freedom, for more than a hundred +years after the last shadowy pretence of popular government +had disappeared from her own forum.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> i. 15; Momms. <hi rend="italic">Röm. +St.</hi> ii. 1002; Duruy, v. pp. 336-346; +Gréard, <hi rend="italic">Plut.</hi> 221, 237; Plut. <hi rend="italic">Reip. Ger. +Pr.</hi> c. 17, 19. The first curatores +civitatum are heard of in the reigns +of Nerva and Trajan; cf. Marq. i. 510, +n. 10.</note> Central control and +uniformity were established in those departments which +affected the peace and welfare of the whole vast commonwealth. +Although the interference of the provincial governor +in local administration was theoretically possible in varying +degrees, yet it may well be doubted whether a citizen of +Lyons or Marseilles, of Antioch or Alexandria, was often +made conscious of any limitation of his freedom by imperial +<pb n="204"/><anchor id="Pg204"/>power. While delation and confiscation and massacre were +working havoc on the banks of the Tiber, the provinces were +generally tranquil and prosperous. The people elected their +magistrates, who administered municipal affairs with little +interference from government. The provincial administration +of a Nero, an Otho, a Vitellius, or a Domitian was often no less +prudent and considerate than that of a Vespasian or a Trajan.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> 32; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iv. 6; +Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, x.; <hi rend="italic">Otho</hi>, iii. provinciam +administravit moderatione singulari; +<hi rend="italic">Vitell.</hi> v. Vespasian had to increase +burdens, Suet. xvi.; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. 84; +as to Trajan, cf. Plin. <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> 20; Suet. +<hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> 8. Nero, it is true, is said to +have encouraged plunder (Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, +32; Plin. <hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> 18, 6). Yet the +general prosperity was undisturbed, +Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> 170; Arnold, <hi rend="italic">Rom. +Prov. Admin.</hi> 135; Gréard, <hi rend="italic">Plut.</hi> +199.</note> +And the worst of the emperors share with the best in the +universal gratitude of the provinces for the blessings of the +<q>Roman peace.</q><note place="foot">See a crowd of inscriptions to +Domitian and Commodus in remote +places in Africa; cf. <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii. 1016, +1019; 10570, 8702, in which Commodus +is described as indulgentissimus +princeps, etc.</note> +</p> + +<p> +But although for generations there was a settled abstinence +from centralisation on the part of the imperial government, +the many varieties of civic constitution in the provinces +tended by an irresistible drift to a uniform type of organisation. +Free and federate communities voluntarily sought the position +of a colony or a municipium.<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Röm. St.</hi> i. 517 sq.; Arnold, +p. 212.</note> Just as the provincial town +must have its capitol, with the cult of Jupiter, Juno, and +Minerva, or imported the street names Velabrum or Vicus +Tuscus, so the little community called itself <hi rend="italic">respublica</hi>, its +commons the <hi rend="italic">populus</hi>, its curia the senate or the <hi rend="italic">amplissimus +et splendidissimus ordo</hi>; its magistrates sometimes bore the +majestic names of praetor, dictator, or censor, in a few cases +even of consul.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Henz.</hi> iii. <hi rend="italic">Ind.</hi> p. 156; Inscr. 2322, +6980, 4983; Marq. <hi rend="italic">Röm. St.</hi> i. 477. +There were consuls at Tusculum and +Beneventum. But the grand style was +ridiculed by Cicero, <hi rend="italic">In Pis.</hi> xi. 24.</note> This almost ludicrous imitation of the great +city is an example of the magical power which Rome always +exercised on her most distant subjects, and even on the outer +world of barbarism, down to the last days when her forces +were ebbing away. The ease and rapidity of communication +along the great routes, the frequent visits of proconsuls and +procurators and generals, with the numerous train which +attended them, the presence of the ubiquitous Roman merchant +and traveller, kept even remote places in touch with the +<pb n="205"/><anchor id="Pg205"/>capital. The <hi rend="italic">acta diurna</hi>, with official news and bits of +scandal and gossip, regularly arrived in distant provincial +towns and frontier camps.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiii. 31; xvi. 22, diurna +per provincias, per exercitus curatius +leguntur. Peter, <hi rend="italic">Gesch. Litt.</hi> i. 212; +Macé, <hi rend="italic">Suétone</hi>, p. 191; Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. +88; cf. <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii. 11813; Lamprid. +<hi rend="italic">Com.</hi> 15.</note> The last speech of Pliny, or the +freshest epigrams of Martial, were within a short time selling +on the bookstalls of Lyons or Vienne.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ix. 11, 2; Mart. vii. 88.</note> Until the appearance of +railways and steamboats, it may be doubted whether there was +any age in history in which travelling was easier or more general. +</p> + +<p> +Apart from the immense stimulus which was given to +trade and commerce by the pacification of the world, liberal +curiosity, or restless ennui, or the passion to preach and +propagate ideas, carried immense numbers to the most distant +lands.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 28, 104; Luc. <hi rend="italic">Tox.</hi> 27; +<hi rend="italic">De Dips.</hi> 6; <hi rend="italic">Philops.</hi> 33; <hi rend="italic">Alex.</hi> 44; +Epict. <hi rend="italic">Dis.</hi> iii. 13.</note> The travelling sophist found his way to towns on the +edge of the Scythian steppes, to the home of the Brahmans, +or to the depths of the Soudan.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iii. 50, vi.; +D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 36.</note> The tour up the Nile was +part of a liberal culture in the days of Lucian as it was in the +days of Herodotus. The romantic charm of travel in Greece +was probably heightened for many by the tales of Thessalian +brigands and sorceresses which meet us in the novel of +Apuleius. The Emperor Hadrian, who visited almost every +interesting scene in his dominions, from the Solway to the +Euphrates, often trudging for days at the head of his soldiers, +is a true representative of the migratory tastes of his time. +Seneca, indeed, finds in this rage for change of scene only +a symptom of the universal unrest. Epictetus, on the other +hand, and Aristides expatiate with rapture on the universal +security and wellbeing, due to the disappearance of brigandage, +piracy, and war. The seas are alive with merchantmen; +deserts have become populous scenes of industry; the +great roads are carried over the broadest rivers and the most +defiant mountain barriers. The earth has become the common +possession of all. Nor is this mere rhetoric. Travelling to all +parts of the known world had become expeditious, and even +luxurious. From the Second Punic War, traders, couriers, and +travellers had moved freely along the great roads.<note place="foot">Hudemann, <hi rend="italic">Gesch. des röm. Postwesens</hi>, +p. 8 <anchor id="corr205"/><corr sic="sq.">sq.;</corr> Marq. <hi rend="italic">Röm. St.</hi> i. +417; Friedl. <hi rend="italic">SG.</hi> ii. 8.</note> The +<pb n="206"/><anchor id="Pg206"/>government post, which was first organised by Augustus on +the model of the Persian, provided at regular intervals the +means of conveyance for officials, or for those furnished with +the requisite diploma. Private enterprise had also organised +facilities of travel, and at the gates of country towns such as +Pompeii, Praeneste, or Tibur, there were stations of the posting +corporations (the <hi rend="italic">cisiarii</hi> or <hi rend="italic">jumentarii</hi>) where carriages could +be hired, with change of horses at each stage.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4093, 2413, 5163, 6983.</note> The speed +with which great distances were traversed in those days is at +first sight rather startling. Caesar once travelled 100 miles +a day in a journey from Rome to the Rhone.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Jul. Caes.</hi> 57.</note> The freedman +Icelus in seven days carried the news of Nero’s death to Galba +in Spain,<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Galba</hi>, 7.</note> the journey of 332 miles from Tarraco to Clunia +having been made at the rate of nearly ten miles an hour. +This of course was express speed. The ordinary rate of +travelling is probably better represented by the leisurely +journey of Horace and Maecenas to Brundisium, or that of +Martial’s book from Tarraco to Bilbilis.<note place="foot">Mart. x. 104; cf. Hor. <hi rend="italic">S.</hi> i. 5, 104.</note> About 130 miles a +day was the average distance accomplished by sea. Vessels put +out from Ostia or Puteoli for every port in the Mediterranean. +From Puteoli to Corinth was a voyage of five days. About +the same time was needed to reach Tarraco from Ostia. A +ship might arrive at Alexandria from the Palus Maeotis in a +fortnight.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">SG.</hi> ii. 12 sqq.</note> Many a wandering sophist, like Dion Chrysostom +or Apollonius of Tyana, traversed great distances on foot, or +with a modest wallet on a mule. The rhetor Aristides once +spent a hundred days in a journey at mid-winter from Mysia +to Rome.<note place="foot">Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xxiv. 537; cf. Hor. <hi rend="italic">S.</hi> +i. 6, 105.</note> But there was hardly any limit to the luxury and +ostentatious splendour with which the great and opulent made +their progresses, attended or preceded by troops of footmen and +runners, and carrying with them costly plate and myrrhine +vases.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 123, § 7.</note> The thousand carriages which Nero took with him on a +progress, the silver-shod mules of Poppaea, the paraphernalia of +luxury described by Seneca, if they are not mythical, were +probably the exceptional displays of a self-indulgence bordering +on lunacy.<note place="foot">Cf. Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xliv. xxx.; Sen. +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 87, § 9; 123.</note> But practical and sensible comfort in travelling +<pb n="207"/><anchor id="Pg207"/>was perhaps then commoner than it was, until quite recently, +among ourselves. The carriages in which the two indefatigable +Plinies used to ride, enabled them to read at their ease, or dictate +to an amanuensis.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 5, 15; cf. Suet. <hi rend="italic">Claud.</hi> +xxxiii.; Friedl. <hi rend="italic">SG.</hi> ii. 19.</note> The inns, from the time of Horace to the +time of Sidonius, were as a rule bad, and frequently disreputable, +and even dangerous, places of resort.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> i. 7; i. 17; Sidon. +Apoll. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> viii. 11. Cf. <hi rend="italic">Rom. Soc. in +the Last Century of the Western Empire</hi>, +p. 172 (1st ed.); Friedl. ii. 20.</note> And vehicles were +often arranged for sleeping on a journey. We may be sure +that many an imperial officer after the time of Julius Caesar +passed nights in his carriage, while hurrying to join the forces +on the Rhine or the Danube. With all this rapid circulation +of officials and travellers, the far-stretching limits of the +Roman world must, to the general eye, have contracted, the +remotest places were drawn more and more towards the centre, +and the inexhaustible vitality of the imperial city diffused itself +with a magical power of silent transformation. +</p> + +<p> +The modes in which the fully developed municipalities of +the Antonine age had originated and were organised were +very various. Wherever, as in the Greek East or Carthaginian +Africa, towns already existed, the Romans, of course, used them +in their organisation of a province, although they added liberally +to the number, as in Syria, Pontus, and Cappadocia.<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Röm. St.</hi> i. 17, 199, 214, 317; +Arnold, <hi rend="italic">Prov. Adm.</hi> 203.</note> Where +a country was still in the cantonal state, the villages or markets +were grouped around a civic centre, and a municipal town, +such as Nîmes or Lyons, would thus become the metropolis +of a considerable tract of territory. The colony of Vienne was +the civic centre of the Allobroges.<note place="foot">Arn. 205, 208; Marq. i. 114, 118.</note> In the settlement of the +Alps many of the remote mountain cantons were attached to +towns such as Tridentum, Verona, or Brixia.<note place="foot">Marq. i. 14.</note> Sometimes, as +in Dacia, the civic organisation was created at a stroke.<note place="foot">Id. i. 155.</note> But +it is well known that, especially towards the frontiers of the +Empire, in Britain, on the Rhine, and in North Africa, the +towns of the second century had often grown out of the <hi rend="italic">castra +stativa</hi> of the legions. +</p> + +<p> +The great reorganisation of Augustus had made each legion +a permanent corps, with a history and identity of its own. +To ensure the tranquillity of the Empire the legions were +<pb n="208"/><anchor id="Pg208"/>distributed in permanent camps along the frontier, the only +inland cities with a regular military garrison being Lyons and +Carthage.<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Afr. Rom.</hi> p. 104.</note> Many legions never changed their quarters for +generations. The Tertia Augusta, which has left so many +memorials of itself in the inscriptions of Lambaesis, remained, +with only a single break, in the same district from the time +of Augustus to that of Diocletian.<note place="foot">See the history of this legion in +Cagnat, <hi rend="italic">L’Armée Rom. d’Afrique</hi>, p. +148 sqq. <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii., Momms. <hi rend="italic">Praef.</hi> +xix. sq. The legion was first stationed +at Thevesta.</note> There, for two generations, +it kept sleepless watch against the robber tribes of the +Sahara. The legion was also peacefully employed in erecting +fortifications and making roads and bridges, when the camp was +visited by Hadrian in the year 130.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 5319; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii. 2532, +10048; <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Mommsen, p. 21. For the +date of this visit, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Cagnat, p. 154. +<hi rend="italic">Vit. Hadr.</hi> 12, 13.</note> Gradually soldiers were +allowed to form family relations, more or less regular, until, +under Septimius Severus, the legionary was permitted to live +in his household like any other citizen.<note place="foot">Herodian, iii. 8; cf. Cagnat, p. 451.</note> From the remains +at Lambaesis, it is now considered certain that, in the third +century, the camp had ceased to be the soldier’s home. The +suttlers and camp-followers had long gathered in the neighbourhood +of the camp, in huts which were called <hi rend="italic">Canabae legionis</hi>. +There, for a long time, the soldier, when off duty, sought his +pleasures and amusements, and there, after the changes of +Septimius Severus, he took up his abode. At first the +Canabae of Lambaesis was only a <hi rend="italic">vicus</hi>; it became, under +Marcus Aurelius, a <hi rend="italic">municipium</hi>—the <hi rend="italic">Respublica Lambaesitanorum</hi>, +with the civic constitution which is rendered familiar to +us by so many inscriptions.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii. 2611; <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 7408.</note> The Legionaries seem to have +been happy and contented at Lambaesis; their sons were trained +to arms and followed their fathers in the ranks;<note place="foot">Cagnat, 365, 453; cf. <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii. +3015.</note> the legion +became to some extent a hereditary caste. Old veterans +remained on the scene of their service, after receiving their +discharge with a pension from the chest.<note place="foot">Cagnat, 481-87; Marq. ii. 544.</note> The town developed +in the regular fashion, and dignified itself by a capitol, +an amphitheatre, two forums, a triumphal arch; and the many +monuments of public and private life found on the site reveal +a highly organised society, moulded out of barbarous and alien +<pb n="209"/><anchor id="Pg209"/>elements, and stamped with the inimitable and enduring +impress of Rome. Out of such casual and unpromising +materials sprang numbers of urban communities, which reproduced, +in their outline and in their social tone, the forms and +spirit of the free Republic of Rome. The capitol and the +forum are merely the external symbols of a closer bond of +parentage. The Roman military discipline did not more +completely master and transform the Numidian or Celtic +recruit, than the inspiration of her civil polity diffused among +races imbruted by servitude, or instinct with the love of +a lawless, nomadic freedom, the sober attachment to an ordered +civic life which was obedient to a long tradition, yet vividly +interested in its own affairs. +</p> + +<p> +On hardly any side of ancient life is the information +furnished by the inscriptions so rich as on the spirit and +organisation of municipalities. Here one may learn details of +communal life which are never alluded to in Roman literature. +From this source, also, we must seek the only authentic +materials for the reconstruction of a municipality of the first +century. The <hi rend="italic">Album Canusii</hi> and the tablets containing the +laws of Malaga and Salpensa have not only settled more than +one question as to the municipal organisation of the early +Empire, but have enabled us to form almost as clear-cut a +conception of it as we have of the corporate organisation of +our own great towns. +</p> + +<p> +But, unlike our civic republics, the Roman municipal town +was distinctly aristocratic, or rather timocratic, in its constitution. +A man’s place in the community, as a rule, was fixed by his +ancestry, his official grade, or his capacity to spend. The +dictum of Trimalchio was too literally true in the municipal +life of that age—<q>a man is what he is worth.</q> Provincial +society was already parted and graduated, though less decidedly, +by those rigid lines of materialistic demarcation which became +gaping fissures in the society of the Theodosian code. The +Curia or Senate was open only to the possessor of a certain +fortune; at Como, for instance, HS.100,000, elsewhere perhaps +even more. On the other hand, the richest freedman could not +become a member of the Curia or hold any civic magistracy,<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Röm. St.</hi> i. 499; Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Cena Trim. Einl.</hi> 29; Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 19; +Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Afr. Rom.</hi> p. 195.</note> +<pb n="210"/><anchor id="Pg210"/>although he might be decorated with their insignia. His +ambition had to be satisfied with admission to the order of +the Augustales, which ranked socially after the members of the +Curia. In the list of the Curia, which was revised every five +years, the order of official and social precedence was most +scrupulously observed. In the Album Canusii of the year +<hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> 223,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3721; Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Cena Trim. +Einl.</hi> 30.</note> the first rank is assigned to thirty-nine patrons, +who have held imperial office, or who are senators or knights. +Next come the local magnates who have been dignified by +election to any of the four great municipal magistracies. +Last in order are the <hi rend="italic">pedani</hi>, that is, the citizens possessing +the requisite qualification, who have not yet held any municipal +office. At the bottom of the list stand twenty-five <hi rend="italic">praetextati</hi>, +who were probably the sons of the more distinguished +citizens, and who, like the sons of senators of the Republic, +were silent witnesses of the proceedings in the Curia. From +this body, and from all the magistracies, all persons engaged +in certain mean or disgraceful occupations were expressly +excluded, along with the great mass of the poorer citizens, +the <hi rend="italic">tenuiores</hi>. The taint of servile birth, the possession of +<hi rend="italic">libertinae opes</hi>, was an indelible blot. In countless inscriptions +this gradation of rank is sharply accentuated. If a man leaves +a bequest for an annual feast, with a distribution of money, the +rich patron or the decurio will receive perhaps five times the +amount which is doled out to the simple plebeian.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6989, 7001, 7199, ob +duplam sportulam collatum sibi, 4020, +3703.</note> The distinction +of rank, even in punishment for crime, which meets +us everywhere in the Theodosian Code, has already appeared. +The <hi rend="italic">honestior</hi> is not to be degraded by the punishment of +crucifixion or by the stroke of the rod.<note place="foot">Hartmann, <hi rend="italic">De Exilio</hi>, pp. 58 sq.; +Duruy, <hi rend="italic">Hist. Rom.</hi> vi. 643.</note> But it is on their +tombs that the passion of the Romans for some sort of distinction, +however shadowy, shows itself most strikingly. On these slabs +every grade of dignity in a long career is enumerated with +minute care. The exact value of a man’s public benefactions +or his official salary will be recorded with pride.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 946, 3708.</note> Even the +dealer in aromatics or in rags will make a boast of some petty +office in the college of his trade.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 7192.</note> But, although rank and office +<pb n="211"/><anchor id="Pg211"/>were extravagantly valued in these societies, wealth was after +all the great distinction. The cities were in the hands of the +rich, and, in return for social deference and official power, the +rich were expected to give lavishly to all public objects. The +worship of wealth, the monumental flattery of rich patrons and +benefactors, was very interested and servile. On the other +hand, there probably never was a time when the duties of wealth +were so powerfully enforced by opinion, or so cheerfully, and +even recklessly, performed. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, although these communities were essentially aristocratic +in tone and constitution, the commonalty still retained some +power in the Antonine age. On many inscriptions they appear +side by side with the Curial <q>ordo</q> and the Augustales.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3703, 3706, 4009, 3937, +3704, 3725, 4020; Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> x. 111; cf. +Ohnesseit, <hi rend="italic">De Jure Municip.</hi> 41.</note> They +had still in the reign of Domitian the right to elect their +magistrates. It was long believed that, with the suppression +of popular elections at Rome in the reign of Tiberius, the +popular choice of their great magistrates must also have been +withdrawn from municipal towns.<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Röm. St.</hi> i. 472.</note> This has now been disproved +by the discovery of the laws of Malaga and Salpensa, +in which the most elaborate provisions are made for a free and +uncontaminated election by the whole people.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. + <anchor id="corr211"/><corr sic="Henz,">Henz.</corr></hi> 7421; <hi rend="italic">Lex Mal.</hi> §§ 53, 55.</note> And we can +still almost hear the noise of election days among the ruins of +Pompeii.<note place="foot">Mau, 376, 388-89 (Tr.).</note> Many of the inscriptions of Pompeii are election +placards, recommending particular candidates. There, in red +letters painted on the walls, we can read that <q>the barbers +wish to have Trebius as aedile,</q> or that <q>the fruit-sellers, with +one accord, support the candidature of Holconius Priscus for +the duumvirate.</q> The porters, muleteers, and garlic dealers +have each their favourite. The master fuller, Vesonius Primus, +backs Cn. Helvius as a worthy man. Even ladies took +part in the contest and made their separate appeals. <q>His +little sweetheart</q> records that she is working for Claudius.<note place="foot">Claudium iivir. animula facit, <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iv. 425, 677, 644.</note> +Personal popularity no doubt then, as always, attracted such +electoral support. But the student of the inscriptions may be +inclined to think that the free and independent electors had +also a keen eye for the man who was likely to build a new +colonnade for the forum, or a new <hi rend="italic">schola</hi> for the guild, or, best +<pb n="212"/><anchor id="Pg212"/>of all, to send down thirty pairs of gladiators into the arena +<q>with plenty of blood.</q><note place="foot">Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 45, ferrum optimum +daturus est, sine fuga, carnarium in +medio, etc.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The laws of Malaga and Salpensa prescribe, in the fullest +detail, all the forms to be observed in the election of magistrates. +These were generally six in number—two duumvirs,<note place="foot">The title of the highest magistracy +varied a good deal: cf. Marq. <hi rend="italic">Röm. St.</hi> +i. 475, 89, <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> iii. <hi rend="italic">Ind.</hi> 154.</note> who were +the highest officers, two aediles, and two quaestors, for each year. +Every fifth year, instead of the duumvirs, two <hi rend="italic">quinquennales</hi> +were elected, with the extraordinary duty of conducting the +municipal census.<note place="foot">Marq. i. 485; <hi rend="italic">Henz. Ind.</hi> p. 157. +Often described as iivir quinquennalis, +or iivir censoria potestate quinq. etc., +or shortly quinquennalis; cf. <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> +3882, 3721.</note> The candidates for all these offices were +required to be free born, of the age of twenty-five at least, of +irreproachable character, and the possessors of a certain fortune. +The qualifications were the same as those prescribed by the <hi rend="italic">lex +Julia</hi> for admission to the municipal Senate, which expressly +excluded persons engaged in certain disreputable callings—gladiators, +actors, pimps, auctioneers, and undertakers.<note place="foot">Arnold, <hi rend="italic">Prov. Adm.</hi> pp. 225, 226.</note> In +the best days the competition for office was undoubtedly keen, +and the candidates were numerous. In the year <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> 4, the year +of the death of C. <anchor id="corr212"/><corr sic="Cæsar">Caesar</corr>, the grandson of Augustus, so hot was +the rivalry that the town of Pisa was left without magistrates +owing to serious disturbances at the elections.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 643.</note> But it is an +ominous fact that the law of Malaga, in the reign of Domitian, +makes provision for the contingency of a failure of candidates. +In such a case the presiding duumvir was to nominate the required +number, they in turn an equal number, and the combined +nominees had to designate a third set equal in number to themselves. +The choice of the people was then restricted to these +involuntary candidates. The city has evidently advanced a stage +towards the times of the Lower Empire, when the magistrates +were appointed by the Curia from among themselves, with no +reference to the people.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Lex Malag.</hi> § 51; <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 7421; Marq. +i. 475; <hi rend="italic">C. Th.</hi> xii. 5, 1.</note> A man might, indeed, well hesitate +before offering himself for an office which imposed a heavy expenditure +on the holder of it. The honorarium payable on +admission amounted, in an obscure place like Thamugadi, to +about £32 for the duumvirate, and £24 for the aedileship.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii. 2341, 17838.</note> In +<pb n="213"/><anchor id="Pg213"/>the greater Italian cities it probably would be much more; at +Pompeii the newly elected duumvir paid more than £80.<note place="foot">Marq. i. 499 n. 13.</note> But +the man chosen by the people often felt bound to outstrip the +bare demands of law or custom by a prodigal liberality. He +must build or repair some public work, to signalise his year of +office, and, at the dedication of it, good taste required him to +exhibit costly games, or to give a banquet to the citizens, with a +largess to all of every rank small or great.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 7080, 7082, 3811, 3817, 3882.</note> +</p> + +<p> +But in return for its liabilities, the position of a duumvir +gave undoubted power and distinction. The office was the +image or shadow of the ancient consulship, and occasionally, +as the inscriptions attest, a Hadrian or an Antoninus Pius +did not disdain to accept it.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 3817; cf. Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> c. 19.</note> The duumvirs commanded the +local militia, when it was, on emergency, called out.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Lex Urson.</hi> § 103.</note> They +presided at meetings of the people and the Curia, they proposed +questions for their deliberation, and carried the decrees +into effect. They had civil jurisdiction up to a certain +amount, and their criminal jurisdiction, which, in the third +century, had been transferred to imperial functionaries, was, +according to the most probable opinion, undiminished at least +down to the end of the first century.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Cena Trim. Einl.</hi> 28; +Duruy, v. 349 sqq.</note> This judicial power, +however, was limited by the <hi rend="italic">intercessio</hi> of colleagues and the +right of appeal. They had extensive responsibilities in finance, +for the collection of dues and taxes, and the recovery of all +moneys owing to the municipality.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Lex Malag.</hi> § 60 sq.</note> After the fall of the +free Republic, when so many avenues of ambition were closed, +many an able man might well satisfy his desire for power +and distinction by the duumvirate of a provincial town. +</p> + +<p> +The Curia, or local senate, is peculiarly interesting to the historical +student, because it was to the conversion of the curiales +into a hereditary caste, loaded with incalculable liabilities, +that the decay of the Western Empire was to a large extent +due.<note place="foot">See <hi rend="italic">Roman Society in the Last +Century of the Western Empire</hi>, bk. +iii. c. 2.</note> But, in the reign of Domitian, the Curia is still erect +and dignified. Although the individual decurio seldom or never +assumes the title senator in the inscriptions,<note place="foot">There is one case in <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2279.</note> the Curia as a +<pb n="214"/><anchor id="Pg214"/>whole often bears the august name and titles of the majestic +Roman Senate.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> vol. iii. <hi rend="italic">Ind.</hi> p. 152.</note> And assuredly down to the middle of the +second century there was no lack of candidates for admission. +Every five years the roll of the Curia was revised and drawn +up afresh by the quinquennales. The conditions were those +for holding a magistracy, including a property qualification, +which varied in different places.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 19; at Como the census +was HS.100,000; cf. Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 44.</note> The number of ordinary +members was generally 100.<note place="foot">The Curia is sometimes designated +as Cviri, <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 764, 3737, 1552. +Or., however, interprets CV. as Civium +universorum in 764.</note> But it was swelled by patrons +and other extraordinary members. The quinquennales, in +framing the list, took first the members on the roll of the +previous term, and then those who had been elected to +magistracies since the last census. If any vacancies were still +left, they were filled up from the ranks of those who, not +having yet held any municipal office, were otherwise qualified +by the possession of a sufficient fortune.<note place="foot">Ohnesseit, <hi rend="italic">De Jure Municip.</hi> p. +55; Marq. <hi rend="italic">Röm. St.</hi> i. 504.</note> In the <hi rend="italic">Album +Canusii</hi>, the men who had held official rank constitute at least +two-thirds of the Curia. In the composition of such a body +there would appear to be ample security for administrative +skill and experience. And yet we shall find that it was +precisely through want of prudence or skill that the door was +opened for that bureaucratic interference which, in the second +century, began, with momentous results, to sap the freedom +and independence of municipal life. +</p> + +<p> +The honours and powers of the provincial council were +long sufficient to compensate the decurio for the heavy +demands made upon his generosity. To all but comparatively +few the career of imperial office and distinction was closed. +His own town became each man’s <q>patria,</q> as Como was even +to a man like Pliny, who played so great a part in the life of +the capital.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 13, 9.</note> There is the ring of a very genuine public spirit +and a love for the local commonwealth in a host of the +inscriptions of that age.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">e.g.</hi> <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3703, 7190.</note> The vastness and overwhelming +grandeur of a world-wide Empire, in which the individual +citizen was a mere atom, made men crave for any distinction +which seemed to raise them above the grey flat level which +surrounds a democratic despotism. And even the ordinary +<pb n="215"/><anchor id="Pg215"/>decurio had some badges to mark him off from the crowd. +The pompous honorific titles of the Lower Empire, indeed, +had not come into vogue. But the Curial had a place of +honour at games and festivals, a claim to a larger share in +the distributions of money by private benefactors, exemption, +as one of the <hi rend="italic">honestiores</hi>, from the more degrading forms of +punishment, the free supply of water from the public sources,<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Cena Trim. Einl.</hi> 31.</note> +and other perquisites and honours, which varied in different +localities. The powers of the Curia were also very considerable. +The duumvirs indeed possessed extensive prerogatives +which strong men may have sometimes strained.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 22. This autocratic +act was the abolition of the games at +Vienne by a duumvir.</note> But there +was a right of appeal to the Curia from judicial decisions of +the duumvirs in certain cases. And their control of games and +festivals, and of the finances of the community, was limited +by the necessity of consulting the Curia and of carrying out +its orders.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Lex Urson.</hi> § 129.</note> In the <hi rend="italic">lex Ursonensis</hi> we find a long list of +matters on which the duumvirs were obliged to take their instructions +from the Curia.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 99; Ohnesseit, <hi rend="italic">De Jure +Municip.</hi> p. 51.</note> The quorum needed for a valid +decision varied in different places. In the election of a patron +a quorum of two-thirds of the decurions was legally required.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 53; <hi rend="italic">Lex Urson.</hi> §§ 96, 97, +130.</note> +The names of the duoviri appeared at the head of every curial +decree, as those of the consuls in every senatusconsultum. +</p> + +<p> +After the local aristocracy of curial rank came, in order of +social precedence, members of the knightly class and the order +of the Augustales. In the latter half of the first century equestrian +rank had been conferred with perhaps too lavish a hand. +And satire was never tired of ridiculing these sham aristocrats, +Bithynian knights as they were called, often of the lowest +origin, who on public occasions vulgarly asserted their mushroom +rank.<note place="foot">Mart. iii. 29; v. 14; v. 23; Juv. +i. 28; iii. 131, 159.</note> In particular, the army contributed many new +knights to the society of the provincial towns. A veteran, +often of humble birth, who had risen to the first place among +the sixty centurions of a legion, was, on his discharge with +a good pension, sometimes raised to equestrian rank. He +frequently returned to his native place, where he became a +personage of some mark. Such men, along with old officers of +<pb n="216"/><anchor id="Pg216"/>higher grade, frequently appear in the inscriptions invested +with priesthoods and high magistracies,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 7002, 7018, 3785, 3789, +3798, 3733, 3747.</note> and were sometimes +chosen as patrons of the community.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2287, 3714, 3851.</note> Many of them were +undoubtedly good and public-spirited men, with the peculiar +virtues which the life of the Roman camp engendered. But +some of their class also displayed that coarse and brutal self-assertion, +and that ignorant contempt for the refinement of +culture, on which Persius and Juvenal poured their scorn.<note place="foot">Pers. iii. 77; Juv. xvi.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The Augustales, ranking next to the curial order, are peculiarly +interesting, both as representing the wide diffusion of +the cult of the emperors, and as a class composed of men of +low, or even servile origin, who had made their fortunes in +trade, yet whose ambition society found the means of satisfying, +without breaking down the barriers of aristocratic exclusiveness.<note place="foot">In the Inscr. they are mentioned +after the decurions and before the +plebs; cf. <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4009, 3807, 1167. +On the distinction between the Augustales +and the Seviri Aug. <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Marq. +<hi rend="italic">Röm. St.</hi> i. 514; Ohnesseit, <hi rend="italic">De Jure +Munic.</hi> 46; Nessling, <hi rend="italic">De Seviris Aug.</hi> + <anchor id="corr216"/><corr sic="(italics removed)">Marq.</corr> says, scheinen die Augustales +als lebenslängliche Mitglieder des +Collegiums, die Seviri als jährlich +<anchor id="corr216a"/><corr sic="wechselude">wechselnde</corr> Beamte desselben zu betrachten +zu sein.</note> +The origin of the order of the Augustales was long a subject of +debate. But it has now been placed beyond doubt that in +the provincial towns it was a plebeian institution for the cult +of Augustus, and succeeding emperors, modelled on the aristocratic +order of the Sodales Augustales, which was established +by Tiberius in the capital.<note place="foot">Marq. i. 513; Ohnesseit, p. 46; cf. +<hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3959, 7089; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> i. +54, 73.</note> The Augustales were elected by +vote of the local curia, without regard to social rank, although +probably with due respect to wealth, and they included the +leaders of the great freedman class, whose emergence is one of +the most striking facts in the social history of the time. +Figuring on scores of inscriptions, the Augustales are mentioned +only once in extant Roman literature, in the novel of Petronius, +where the class has been immortalised, and probably caricatured.<note place="foot">Petron. 65, 71.</note> +The inscription, for which Trimalchio gives an order to his +brother Augustal, the stone-cutter, is to record his election in +absence to the Sevirate, his many virtues and his millions. +Actual monuments at Assisi and Brescia show that Trimalchio +was not an altogether imaginary person.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 2983; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> v. 4482.</note> +</p> + +<pb n="217"/><anchor id="Pg217"/> + +<p> +Yet the Augustales, in spite of the vulgar ostentation and +self-assertion, which have characterised similar classes of the +<hi rend="italic">nouveaux riches</hi> in all ages, were a very important and useful +order. They overspread the whole Roman world in the West. +Their monuments have been traced, not only in almost every +town in Italy, and in great provincial capitals, like Lyons or +Tarraco, but in Alpine valleys and lonely outposts of civilisation +on the edge of the Sahara.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3917, 3924, 1561, 7092, +4077, 3127, 4020, 5655, 2374.</note> Their special religious duties +involved considerable expense, from which no doubt the more +aristocratic class were glad to be relieved. They had to bear +the cost of sacrifices and festivities on certain days in honour +of dead emperors. They had to pay an entrance fee on +admission to the college, which the ambitious among them +would often lavishly exceed.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Cena Trim. Einl.</hi> 37.</note> They were organised on the +lines of other colleges, with patrons, quinquennales, and other +officials. They had their club-houses where their banquets +were regularly held, they possessed landed property, and had +their common places of burial.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3787-8; 7103.</note> But their expenditure and +their interests were by no means limited to their own immediate +society. They regarded themselves, and were generally +treated as public officials, ranking next to the magistrates of +the Curia. They had the right to wear the purple-bordered +toga, and to have lictors attending them in the streets.<note place="foot">Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 65.</note> Places +of honour were reserved for them at the games and festivals. +Although as a class they were not eligible for a seat in the +Curia, or for the municipal magistracies, yet the <hi rend="italic">ornamenta</hi>, the +external badges and honours attached to these offices, were +sometimes granted even to freedmen who had done service to +the community. Thus an Augustal who had paved a road at +Cales received the <hi rend="italic">ornamenta</hi> of a decurio.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6983.</note> And another, for +his munificence to Pompeii, by a decree of the Curia, was +awarded the use of the <hi rend="italic">bisellium</hi>, a seat of honour which was +usually reserved for the highest dignitaries.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4044, 7094.</note> But the ornaments +and dignities of their own particular college became +objects of pride and ambition. Thus a man boasts of having +been made <hi rend="italic">primus Augustalis perpetuus</hi>, by a decree of the +Curia.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 7112.</note> A worthy of Brundisium received from the Curia a +<pb n="218"/><anchor id="Pg218"/>public funeral, with the ornaments and insignia of an Augustal.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> ix. 58.</note> +In this way, in a society highly conventional, and dominated +by caste feeling, the order of the Augustales provided both a +stimulus and a reward for the public spirit of a new class, +powerful in its wealth and numbers, but generally encumbered +by the heritage of a doubtful origin. It was a great elevation +for a man, who, perhaps, had been sold as a boy in some +Syrian slave market into the degradation of a minion, and +who had emerged, by petty savings or base services, into the +comparative freedom of a tainted or despised trade, to find +himself at last holding a conspicuous rank in his municipality, +and able to purchase honour and deference from those who +had trampled on him in his youth. +</p> + +<p> +The Augustales shared with the members of the Curia the +heavy burdens which public sentiment then imposed upon the +rich. Direct taxation for municipal purposes was in the first +century almost unknown. The municipalities often possessed +landed property, mines, or quarries. Capua is said to have had +distant possessions in the island of Crete.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Cena Trim. Einl.</hi> 42.</note> The towns also +derived an income from the public baths,<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> viii. 8, 6.</note> from the rent +of shops and stalls in the public places, from the supply +of water to private houses or estates, and from port dues +and tolls. A very considerable item of revenue must have +been found in the fee which all decurions, Augustales, and +magistrates paid on entering on their office or dignity. +Since the reign of Nerva, the towns had the right of receiving +legacies and bequests.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Cena Trim. Einl.</hi> 43.</note> And, on the occurrence of any desolating +calamity, an earthquake or a fire, the emperor was never +slow or niggardly in giving relief. In the year 53 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> the town +of Bologna received an imperial subsidy of about £83,000.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xii. 58.</note> +The cities of Asia were again and again relieved after desolating +earthquakes.<note place="foot">Sueton. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> 13; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> ii. 47; +cf. Nipperdey’s note referring to the +monument erected to Tiberius in <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> +30, at Puteoli.</note> +</p> + +<p> +With regard to municipal expenditure, the budget was free +from many public charges which burden our modern towns. +The higher offices were unpaid, and in fact demanded large +generosity from their holders. The lower functions were dis<pb n="219"/><anchor id="Pg219"/>charged, to a great extent, by communal slaves. The care or +construction of streets, markets, and public buildings, although +theoretically devolving on the community through their aediles, +was, as a matter of fact, to an enormous extent undertaken by +private persons. The city treasury must have often incurred +a loss in striving to provide corn and oil for the citizens at a +limited price, and the authorities were often reviled, as at Trimalchio’s +banquet, for not doing more to cheapen the necessaries +of life.<note place="foot">Petron. 44.</note> Although our information as to municipal expenditure +on education and medical treatment is scanty, it is pretty clear +that the community was, in the Antonine age, beginning to +recognise a duty in making provision for both. Vespasian +first gave a public endowment to professors of rhetoric in the +capital.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> xviii. Latinis Graecisque +rhetoribus annua centena constituit.</note> The case of Como, described in Pliny’s Letters, +was probably not an isolated one. Finding that the youth +of that town were compelled to resort to Milan for higher +instruction, Pliny, as we have seen, proposed to the parents to +establish by general subscription a public school, and he offered +himself to contribute one-third of the sum required for the +foundation, the rest to be provided by the townsfolk, who were +to have the management and selection of teachers in their +hands.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 13.</note> The Greek cities had public physicians 500 years +before Christ,<note place="foot">Herodot. iii. 131.</note> and Marseilles and some of the Gallic towns in +Strabo’s day employed both teachers and doctors at the public +expense.<note place="foot">Strab. iv. c. i. 5 (181), + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">σοφιστὰς γοῦν ὑποδέχονται ... κοινῄ μισθούμενοι καθάπερ καὶ ἰατρούς</foreign>.</note> The regular organisation of public medical attendance +in the provinces dates from Antoninus Pius, who required +the towns of Asia to have a certain number of physicians +among their salaried officers.<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> ii. 777.</note> The title <hi rend="italic">Archiater</hi>, which in +the Theodosian Code designates an official class in the provinces +as well as at Rome, is found in inscriptions of Beneventum +and Pisaurum belonging to an earlier date.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3994, 4017.</note> But these +departments of municipal expenditure were hardly yet fully +organised in the age of the Antonines, and were probably not +burdensome. The great field of expenditure lay in the +basilicas, temples, amphitheatres, baths, and pavements, whose +<pb n="220"/><anchor id="Pg220"/>vanishing remains give us a glimpse of one of the most brilliant +ages in history. +</p> + +<p> +The municipal towns relied largely on the voluntary munificence +of their wealthy members for great works of public utility +or splendour. But we have many records of such enterprises +carried out at the common expense, and the name of a special +magistracy (<hi rend="italic">curator operum publicorum</hi>) to superintend them +meets us often in the inscriptions.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3716, 6709, 7146.</note> These undertakings were +frequently on a great scale. The famous bridge of Alcantara +was erected in the reign of Trajan by the combined efforts of +eleven municipalities in Portugal.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> iii. 116; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> ii. pp. 89-96.</note> In Bithynia the finances of +some of the great towns had been so seriously disorganised by +expensive and ill-managed undertakings that the younger Pliny +was in the year 111 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> sent as imperial legate by Trajan to repair +the misgovernment of the province.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ad Traj.</hi> 17.</note> Pliny’s correspondence +throws a flood of light on many points of municipal administration, +and foreshadows its coming decay. The cities appear +to have ample funds, but they are grossly mismanaged. There +is plenty of public money seeking investment, but borrowers +cannot be found at the current rate of 12 per cent. Pliny +would have been inclined to compel the decurions to become +debtors of the state, but Trajan orders the rate of interest to be +put low enough to attract voluntary borrowers.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 54, 55, 23.</note> Apamea, +although it had the ancient privilege of managing its own affairs, +requested Pliny to examine the public accounts.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 47.</note> He did the +same for Prusa, and found many signs of loose and reckless +finance, and probable malversation.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 17.</note> Nicaea had spent £80,000 +on a theatre, which, from some faults either in the materials +or the foundation, was settling, with great fissures in the walls.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 39.</note> +The city had also expended a large sum in rebuilding its +gymnasium on a sumptuous scale, but the fabric had been +condemned by a new architect for radical defects of structure. +Nicomedia has squandered £40,000 on two aqueducts which +have either fallen or been abandoned.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 37.</note> In authorising the construction +of a third the emperor might well emphatically order +the responsibility for such blunders to be fastened on the proper +<pb n="221"/><anchor id="Pg221"/>persons.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ad Traj.</hi> 38.</note> In the same city, when a fire of a most devastating +kind had recently occurred, there was no engine, not even a +bucket ready, and the inhabitants stood idly by as spectators.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 33.</note> +Pliny was most assiduous in devising or promoting engineering +improvements for the health and convenience of the province, +and often called for expert assistance from Rome. Irregularities +in the working of the civic constitutions also gave him +much trouble. The <hi rend="italic">ecdicus</hi> or <hi rend="italic">defensor</hi> has demanded repayment +of a largess made to one Julius Piso from the treasury of +Amisus, which the decrees of Trajan now forbade.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 110; cf. Marq. <hi rend="italic">Röm. St.</hi> i. 522.</note> Just as +Pliny had suggested that members of a curia should be forced +to accept loans from the State, so we can see ominous signs of +a wish to compel men to accept the curial dignity beyond the +legal number, in order to secure the honorarium of from £35 +to £70 on their admission.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ad Traj.</hi> 112, 114, 116.</note> The <hi rend="italic">Lex Pompeia</hi>, which forbade +a Bithynian municipality to admit to citizenship men from +other Bithynian states, had long been ignored, and in numbers +of cities there were many sitting in the senate in violation of +the law. The Pompeian law also required that a man should +be thirty years of age when he was elected to a magistracy or +took his place in the Curia, but a law of Augustus had reduced +the limit for the minor magistracies to twenty-two. Here was +a chance of adding to the strength of the Curia which was +seized by the municipal censors. And if a minor magistrate +might enter the Curia as a matter of course at twenty-two, why +not others equally fit?<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 79.</note> In another typical case the legate +was disturbed by the lavish hospitality of leading citizens. On +the assumption of the toga, at a wedding, or an election to +civic office, or the dedication of a public work, not only the +whole of the Curia, but a large number of the common people, +were often invited to a banquet and received from their host +one or two denarii apiece.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 116.</note> Pliny was probably unnecessarily +alarmed. The inscriptions show us the same scenes all over +the Empire,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 7001; Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Cena +Trim. Einl.</hi> 53; corruption, however, +by means of hospitality is expressly +forbidden by the <hi rend="italic">Lex Urson.</hi> § 132; +<hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> ii. <hi rend="italic">Suppl.</hi> p. 852.</note> and the emperor with calm dignity leaves the question +of such entertainments to the prudence of his lieutenant. +</p> + +<pb n="222"/><anchor id="Pg222"/> + +<p> +There are many religious questions submitted to the +emperor in these celebrated despatches, especially those relating +to the toleration of Christians.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ad Traj.</hi> 96.</note> But, however profoundly +interesting, they lie beyond the scope of this chapter. We are +occupied with the secular life of the provincial town. And the +Letters of Pliny place some things in a clear light. In the first +place, the state has begun in the reign of Trajan to control +the municipality, especially in the management of its finances; +but the control is rather invited than imposed. At any rate, +it has become necessary, owing to malversation or incompetence.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Cena Trim. Einl.</hi> 33; +Gréard, <hi rend="italic">Plut.</hi> pp. 246-7.</note> +Nothing could be more striking than the contrast between +the civic bungling exposed by Pliny, and the clear, patient +wisdom of the distant emperor. And in another point we +can see that the municipalities have entered on that disastrous +decline which was to end in the ruin of the fifth century. +Wasteful finance is already making its pressure felt on +the members of the Curia, and membership is beginning to +be thought a burden rather than an honour. From the reign +of Trajan we begin to hear of the <hi rend="italic">Curatores</hi>, who were +imperial officers, appointed at first to meet a special emergency, +but who became permanent magistrates, with immense powers, +especially over finance.<note place="foot">The different classes of Curatores, +which must be carefully distinguished, +are clearly given by Arnold, <hi rend="italic">Prov. +Admin.</hi> 236. Cf. <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3899, +3902, 3989. For a good example of the +function of the Curator, cf. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 3787.</note> The free civic life of the first century +is being quietly drawn under the fatal spell of a bureaucratic +despotism. +</p> + +<p> +The cities did much for themselves out of the public +revenues.<note place="foot">For the sources of these, cf. Marq. +<hi rend="italic">Röm. St.</hi> ii. p. 96.</note> But there are many signs that private ambition +or munificence did even more. The stone records of +Pompeii confirm these indications in a remarkable way. +Pompeii, in spite of the prominence given to it by its tragic fate, +was only a third-rate town, with a population probably of not +more than 20,000.<note place="foot">Mau, <hi rend="italic">Pompeii</hi> (Eng. Tr.), p. 16.</note> Its remains, indeed, leave the impression +that a considerable class were in easy circumstances; but it +may be doubted whether Pompeii could boast of any great +capitalists among its citizens. Its harbour, at the mouth of +the Sarno, was the outlet for the trade of Nola and Nuceria. +<pb n="223"/><anchor id="Pg223"/>There were salt works in a suburb near the sea. The fish +sauces of Umbricius Scaurus had a great celebrity.<note place="foot">Mau, <hi rend="italic">Pompeii</hi> (Eng. Tr.), p. 15.</note> The +vine and the olive were cultivated on the volcanic offshoot +from Vesuvius; but the wine of Pompeii was said by the elder +Pliny to leave a lingering headache. Mill-stones were made +from the lava of the volcano. The market gardeners drove a +flourishing trade, and the cabbage of Pompeii was celebrated. +On the high ground towards Vesuvius many wealthy Romans, +Cicero, and Drusus, the son of Claudius, built country seats, in +that delicious climate where the winters are so short, and the +summer heats are tempered by unfailing breezes from the +mountains or the western sea. All these things made Pompeii +a thriving and attractive place; yet its trade hardly offered +the chance of the huge fortunes which could be accumulated +in those days at Puteoli or Ostia.<note place="foot">Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 38.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, a large number of the public buildings of +Pompeii were the gift of private citizens. The Holconii were +a great family of the place in the reign of Augustus. M. +Holconius Rufus had been ordinary duumvir five times, and +twice quinquennial duumvir; he was priest of Augustus, and +finally was elected patron of the town.<note place="foot">Mau, p. 143.</note> Such dignities in +those days imposed a corresponding burden. And an inscription +tells that, on the rebuilding of the great theatre, probably +about 3 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, Holconius Rufus and Holconius Celer defrayed +the expense of the crypt, the tribunals, and the whole space for +the spectators. Women did not fall behind men in their +public benefactions. On the eastern side of the forum of +Pompeii there is a building and enclosure, with the remains of +porticoes, colonnades, and fountains, which are supposed to +have been a cloth market. In a niche stood a marble statue, +dedicated by the fullers of Pompeii to Eumachia, a priestess of +the city. And Eumachia herself has left a record that she +and her son had erected the building at their own expense.<note place="foot">Id. p. 111.</note> +The dedication probably belongs to the reign of Tiberius. The +visitor who leaves the forum by the arch, at the north-east +corner, and turns into the broadest thoroughfare of the town, +soon reaches the small temple of Fortuna Augusta, erected in +the reign of Augustus. Both the site and the building were +<pb n="224"/><anchor id="Pg224"/>the gift of one M. Tullius, who had, like M. Holconius, borne all +the honours which the city could bestow.<note place="foot">Mau, p. 124.</note> The amphitheatre +in the south-east corner of the town, the scene of so many +gladiatorial combats recorded in the inscriptions, was erected +by two men of the highest official rank, C. Quinctius Valgus +and M. Porcius, probably the same men who bore at least part +of the cost of the smaller theatre of Pompeii.<note place="foot">Id. pp. 147, 206.</note> The last +instance of this generous public spirit which we shall mention +is of interest in many ways. It is well known that in the +year 63 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> an earthquake overthrew many buildings, and +wrought great havoc in Pompeii. Among other edifices, the +temple of Isis was thrown down. The temple, of which we +can now study the remains, had been built by a boy of six +years of age, Numerius Popidius Celsinus, who, in acknowledgment +of his own, or rather of his father’s liberality, was at that +unripe age co-opted a member of <q>the splendid order.</q><note place="foot">Id. p. 164.</note> This +mode of rewarding a father by advancing his infant son to +premature honours is not unknown in other inscriptions.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 7008, 7010.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The literature of the age contains many records of profuse +private liberality of the same kind. The circle and family of +Pliny were, as we have seen in this, as in other respects, models +of the best sentiment of the time. Pliny was not a very rich +man, according to the standard of an age of colossal fortunes; yet +his benefactions, both to private friends and to the communities +in which he was interested, were on the scale of the largest +<anchor id="corr224"/><corr sic="wealth">wealth.</corr> It has been calculated that he must have altogether +given to his early home and fatherland, as he calls it, a sum +of more than £80,000; and the gifts were of a thoroughly +practical kind—a library, a school endowment, a foundation for +the nurture of poor children, a temple of Ceres, with spacious +colonnades to shelter the traders who came for the great fair.<note place="foot">Duruy, v. 396.</note> +A great lady, Ummidia Quadratilla, known to us not altogether +favourably in Pliny’s letters, built a temple and amphitheatre +for Casinum.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 781.</note> From the elder Pliny we learn that the distinguished +court physicians, the two Stertinii, whose professional +income is said to have ranged from £2000 to £5000 a +year, exhausted their ample fortune in their benefactions to +<pb n="225"/><anchor id="Pg225"/>the city of Naples.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> xxix. 5.</note> A private citizen bore the cost of an aqueduct +for Bordeaux, at an expenditure of £160,000.<note place="foot">Duruy, v. 396.</note> Another +benefactor, one Crinas, spent perhaps £80,000 on the walls of +Marseilles.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">l.c.</hi></note> The grandfather of Dion Chrysostom devoted his +entire ancestral fortune to public objects.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 46 (519).</note> Dion, himself, +according to his means, followed the example of his ancestor. +The site alone of a colonnade, with shops and booths, which he +presented to Prusa, cost about £1800. When Cremona was +destroyed by the troops of Vespasian in <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> 69, its temples and +forums were restored by the generous zeal of private citizens, +after all the horror and exhaustion of that awful conflict.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iii. 34, reposita fora +templaque munificentia municipum.</note> +</p> + +<p> +But the prince of public benefactors in the Antonine age +was the great sophist Herodes Atticus, the tutor of M. Aurelius, +who died in the same year as his pupil, 180 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> He acted up +to his theory of the uses of wealth on a scale of unexampled +munificence.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph.</hi> ii. 1; Friedl. +<hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> ii. p. 120.</note> His family was of high rank, and claimed descent +from the Aeacidae of Aegina. They had also apparently inexhaustible +resources. His father spent a sum of nearly +£40,000 in supplementing an imperial grant for the supply of +water to the Troad. The munificence of the son was extended +to cities in Italy, as well as to Corinth, Thessaly, Euboea, +Boeotia, Elis, and pre-eminently to Athens. He gave an +aqueduct to Canusium and Olympia, a racecourse to Delphi, +a roofed theatre to Corinth.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph.</hi> ii. 5.</note> He provided sulphur baths at +Thermopylae for the visitors from Thessaly and the shores of +the Maliac gulf. He aided in the restoration of Oricum in +Epirus, and liberally recruited the resources of many another +decaying town in Greece. He was certainly benevolent, but +he had also a passion for splendid fame, and cherished an +ambition to realise the dream of Nero, by cutting a canal +across the Corinthian Isthmus.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ii. 6.</note> But Attica, where he +was born, and where he had a princely house on the Ilissus, +was the supreme object of his bounty. In his will he left +each Athenian citizen an annual gift of a mina. He would +offer to the Virgin Goddess a sacrifice of a hundred oxen on a +single day; and, when the great festivals came round, he used to +<pb n="226"/><anchor id="Pg226"/>feast the people by their tribes, as well as the resident strangers, +on couches in the Ceramicus. He restored the ancient shrines +and stadia with costly marbles. And, in memory of Rhegilla, +his wife, he built at the foot of the acropolis a theatre for +6000 spectators, roofed in with cedar wood, which, to the eye +of Pausanias, surpassed all similar structures in its splendour.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph.</hi> ii. 3.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The liberality of Herodes Atticus, however astonishing it +may seem, was only exceptional in its scale. The same spirit +prevailed among the leading citizens or the great <hi rend="italic">patroni</hi> of +hundreds of communities, many of them only known to us +from a brief inscription or two; and we have great reason to +be grateful on this score to the imperial legislation of later +days, which did its best to preserve these stone records for the +eyes of posterity.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C. Theod.</hi> ix. 17, 5; <hi rend="italic">Nov. Valent.</hi> +5.</note> But in forming an estimate of the splendid +public spirit evoked by municipal life, it is well to remind +ourselves that much has necessarily been lost in the wreck of +time, and also that what we have left represents the civic life +of a comparatively brief period. Yet the remains are so +numerous that it is almost impossible to give any adequate +idea of their profusion to those who are unacquainted with +the inscriptions. The objects of this liberality are as various +as the needs of the community—temples, theatres, bridges, +markets, a portico or a colonnade, the relaying of a road or +pavement from the forum to the port, the repair of an aqueduct, +above all the erection of new baths or the restoration +of old ones, with perhaps a permanent foundation to provide +for the free enjoyment of this greatest luxury of the south. +The boon was extended to all citizens of both sexes, and in +some cases, even to strangers and to slaves.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6993, 7013, 7190, 6622, +2287, 6985, 3325.</note> There is an +almost monotonous sameness in the stiff, conventional record +of this vast mass of lavish generosity. It all seems a spontaneous +growth of the social system. One monument is +erected by the senate and people of Tibur to a man who +had borne all its honours, and had left the town his sole +heir.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 6994.</note> On another, an Augustal of Cales, who had received +the insignia of the duumvirate, tells posterity that he had +laid down a broad road through the town.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 6983.</note> Another + bene<pb n="227"/><anchor id="Pg227"/>factor bore the chief cost of a new meat market at Aesernia, the +authorities of the town supplying the pillars and the tiles.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 7013.</note> +A priestess of Calama in Numidia expended a sum of £3400 +on a new theatre.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii. 5366; she received the +honour of five statues in return.</note> Perhaps the commonest object of private +liberality was the erection or maintenance of public baths. An +old officer of the fourth legion provided free bathing at Suessa +Senonum for every one, even down to the slave girls.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2287.</note> At +Bononia, a sum of £4350 was bequeathed for the same liberal +purpose.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 3325.</note> A magnate of Misenum bequeathed 400 loads of +hard wood annually for the furnaces of the baths, but with +the stipulation that his son should be made patron of the +town, and that his successors should receive all the magistracies.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 3772.</note> +</p> + +<p> +These are only a few specimens taken at random from the +countless records of similar liberality to the parent city. The +example of the emperors must have stimulated the creation +of splendid public works in the provinces. It has been +remarked by M. Boissier that the imperial government at +all times displayed the politic or instinctive love of monarchy +for splendour and magnificence.<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> p. 44.</note> The Roman Code, down to +the end of the Western Empire, gives evidence of a jealous +care for the preservation of the monuments and historic +buildings of the past, and denounces with very unconventional +energy the <q>foul and shameful</q> traffic in the relics of ancient +glory which prevailed in the last age of the Empire.<note place="foot">See <hi rend="italic">Rom. Soc. in the Last Century of +the Western Empire</hi> (1st ed.), p. 202.</note> After +great fires and desolating wars, the first thought of the most +frugal or the most lavish prince was to restore in greater +grandeur what had been destroyed. After the great conflagration +of <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> 64, which laid in ashes ten out of the fourteen +regions of Rome, Nero immediately set to work to rebuild the +city in a more orderly fashion, with broader streets and open +spaces.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xvi.</note> Vespasian, on his accession, found the treasury +loaded with a debt of £320,000,000. Yet the frugal emperor +did not hesitate to begin at once the restoration of the Capitol, +and all the other ruins left by the great struggle of <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> 69 +from which his dynasty arose.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> ix.; D. Cass. lxvi. 10.</note> He even undertook some new +<pb n="228"/><anchor id="Pg228"/>works on a great scale, the temple of Peace and the amphitheatre, +on the plans projected by Augustus. Titus completed +the Colosseum, and erected the famous baths.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tit.</hi> vii. nemine ante se +munificentia minor.</note> Domitian once +more restored the Capitol, and added many new buildings, +temples to his <q>divine</q> father and brother, with many shrines +of his special patroness Minerva; a stone stadium for 30,000 +people, and an Odeum for an audience of 10,000.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Domit.</hi> v.</note> Trajan +was lauded by Pliny for his frugal administration of the +treasury, combined with magnificence in his public works.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> 51.</note> +Nor was the encomium undeserved. He made docks and erected +warehouses at Ostia; he ran a new road through the Pomptine +marshes; he lavished money on aqueducts and baths.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lxviii. 7, 15; Plin. <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> +29, 51.</note> His +most imposing construction was a new forum between the +Capitoline and the Quirinal, with stately memorials of the +achievements of his reign. But the prince of imperial builders +and engineers was Hadrian. Wherever he went he took with +him in his journeys a troop of architects to add something to +the splendour or convenience of the cities through which he +passed. <q>In almost every city,</q> says his biographer, <q>he +erected some building.</q><note place="foot">Ael. Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> c. 29.</note> But the capital was not neglected +by Hadrian. He restored historic structures such as the +Pantheon and the temple of Neptune, the forum of Augustus, +and Agrippa’s baths, with no ostentatious intrusion of his +own name.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 19, § 10, eaque omnia propriis +auctorum nominibus consecravit.</note> In his own name he built the temples of Venus +and Roma, the bridge across the Tiber, and that stately +mausoleum, which, as the castle of S. Angelo, links the +memory of the pagan Empire with the <anchor id="corr228"/><corr sic="mediæval">mediaeval</corr> Papacy and +the modern world. The example of the imperial masters of +the world undoubtedly reinforced the various impulses which +inspired the dedication of so much wealth to the public +service or enjoyment through all the cities of the Empire. +</p> + +<p> +But the wealthy and public-spirited citizen was also +expected to cater for the immediate pleasure or amusement of +his neighbours in games and feasts. We have seen that Pliny, +during his administration of Bithynia, seems to have regarded +the public feasts given to a whole commune on occasions of +<pb n="229"/><anchor id="Pg229"/>private rejoicing, as dangerous to the general tranquillity. Yet +the usage meets us everywhere in the inscriptions, and even in +the literary history of the time. This spacious hospitality was +long demanded from the rich and powerful, from the general +at his triumph, from the great noble on his birthday or his +daughter’s marriage, from the rich burgher at the dedication +of a temple or a forum which he had given to the city, from +the man who had been chosen patron of a town in expectation +of such largesses, not to speak of the many private patrons +whose morning receptions were thronged by a hungry crowd, +eager for an invitation to dinner, or its equivalent in the +sportula.<note place="foot">On the sportula at this time, cf. +Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xvi., <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> vii.; Marq. <hi rend="italic">Pr.</hi> +<anchor id="corr229"/><corr sic="1">i.</corr>, 207 sq.; Momms. <hi rend="italic">De Coll.</hi> p. 109.</note> Julius Caesar on his triumph in 46 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> had +feasted the people at 22,000 tables.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Caes.</hi> 55, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἑστιάσας μὲν ἐν δισμυρίοις καὶ δισχιλίοις τρικλίνοις ὁμοῦ σύμπαντας</foreign>: D. Cass. 43, 21, 3.</note> Great houses, like the +sumptuous seat of Caninius Rufus at Como, had enormous +banquet halls for such popular repasts.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 3, triclinia illa popularia.</note> The Trimalchio of +Petronius desires himself to be sculptured on his tomb in +the character of such a lavish host.<note place="foot">Petron. 71.</note> There was in that age +no more popular and effective way of testifying gratitude for +the honours bestowed by the popular voice, or of winning +them, than by a great feast to the whole commune, generally +accompanied by a distribution of money, according to social +or official grade. It was also the most popular means of +prolonging one’s memory to bequeath a foundation for the +perpetual maintenance of such repasts in honour of the dead.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 7115, 1368, 4088, 4115.</note> +One P. Lucilius of Ostia had held all the great offices of his town, +and had rewarded his admirers with a munificence apparently +more than equivalent to the official honours they had bestowed. +He had paved a long road from the forum to the arch, restored +a temple of Vulcan, of which he was the curator, and the +temples of Venus, Spes, and Fortuna; he had provided standard +weights for the meat market, and a tribunal of marble for the +forum. But probably his most popular benefaction was a +great banquet to the citizens, where 217 couches were arrayed +for them.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 3882.</note> The same munificent person had twice entertained the +whole of the citizens at luncheon. Elsewhere a veteran, with +a long and varied service, had settled at Auximum where he +<pb n="230"/><anchor id="Pg230"/>had been elected patron of the community. His old comrades, +the centurions of the Second Legion (Traj. Fortis) erected a +monument to his virtues, and, at the dedication, he gave a +banquet to the townsfolk.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3868.</note> One other example, out of the +many which crowd the inscriptions, may serve to complete +the picture of civic hospitality. Lucius Cornelius of Surrentum +received on his death the honour of a public funeral by a +vote of the Curia. The inscription on his statue records that, on +assuming the garb of manhood, he had provided a meal of pastry +and mead for the populace; when he became aedile, he exhibited +a contest of gladiators; and, twice reaching the honours +of the duumvirate, he repaid the compliment by splendid +games and a stately banquet.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 6211.</note> +</p> + +<p> +At these entertainments a gift of money, always graduated +according to the social rank of the guests, decurio, augustal, +or plebeian, was generally added to the fare.<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. 210; Petron. 45; +<hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 842; Momms. <hi rend="italic">Colleg.</hi> p. 110.</note> Sometimes the +distribution took the form of a lottery. A high official of +Beneventum, who had probably inherited a fortune from his +father, a leading physician of the capital, once scattered +tickets among the crowd, which gave the finder the right to +a present of gold, silver, dress, or other smaller prizes.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3394; cf. Suet. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> 18.</note> +Women appeared sometimes both as hostesses and guests +on these occasions. Caesia Sabina of Veii, on the day on +which her husband was entertaining all the citizens, invited +the female relatives of the decurions to dinner, with the +additional luxury of a gratuitous bath.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3738.</note> It is curious to +observe that at the festivities in which women are entertained, +the sharp demarcation of ranks is maintained as strictly +as it is among their male relations. Thus, in a distribution +at Volceii, the decurions, augustales, and vicani, receive +respectively thirty, twenty, and twelve sesterces apiece; while +the proportion observed among the ladies of the three social +grades is sixteen, eight, and four. Nor were children, even +those of the slave class, forgotten on these festive occasions. +One kindly magnate of Ferentinum left a fund of about £750 +to give an annual feast of pastry and mead upon his +birthday for all the inhabitants with their wives, and at the +<pb n="231"/><anchor id="Pg231"/>same time, 300 pecks of nuts were provided for the children, +bond and free.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> x. 5853; Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Cena Trim.</hi> p. 55.</note> +</p> + +<p> +These provincial societies, as we have already seen, were organised +on aristocratic or plutocratic principles. The distinction +between <hi rend="italic">honestior</hi> and <hi rend="italic">humilior</hi>, which becomes so cruel in the +Theodosian Code, was, even in the Antonine age, more sharply +drawn and more enduring than is agreeable to our modern +notions of social justice. The rich have a monopoly of all +official power and social precedence; they have even the +largest share in gifts and paltry distributions of money which +wealth might be expected to resign and to despise. Their sons +have secured to them by social convention, or by popular +gratitude and expectancy, a position equal to that of their +ancestors. The dim plebeian crowd, save for the right +of an annual vote at the elections, which was in a few +generations to be withdrawn, seem to be of little more +consequence than the slaves; they were of far less consequence +than those freedmen who had the luck or the +dexterity to build up a rapid fortune, and force their way +into the chasm between the privileged and the disinherited. +Yet this would hardly be a complete and penetrating view +of the inner working and the spirit of that municipal society. +The apparent rigidity and harshness of the lines of demarcation +were often relieved by a social sentiment which, on the +one hand, made heavy demands on rank and wealth, and on +the other, drew all classes together by the strong bond of +fellowship in a common social life. There has probably seldom +been a time when wealth was more generally regarded as a +trust, a possession in which the community at large has a +right to share. There never was an age in which the wealthy +more frankly, and even recklessly, recognised this imperious +claim. It would indeed be difficult to resolve into its +elements the complicated mass of motives which impelled +the rich burgher to undertake such enormous, and often +ruinous, expenditure for the common good or pleasure. There +was of course much of mere selfish ambition and love of +popularity. The passion for prominence was probably never +stronger. Direct or even veiled corruption of the electors was, +indeed, strictly prohibited by law.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Lex Urson.</hi> § 132.</note> But it was a recognised +<pb n="232"/><anchor id="Pg232"/>principle of public life that the city should honour its benefactors, +and that those whom she had raised to her highest +distinctions should manifest their gratitude by some contribution +to the comfort or the enjoyments of the people. But, +when we have admitted all vulgar motives of munificence, a +man would show himself a very unobservant, or else a very +cynical student of the time, if he failed to recognise that, +among these countless benefactors, there were many animated, +not only by a sense of duty, but by a real ardour of public +spirit, men who wished to live in the love and memory of +their fellows, and who had a rare perception of the duties of +wealth. Philostratus has left us in his own words a record +of the principles which inspired Herodes Atticus in his almost +fabulous donations to many cities in Asia, Greece, and Italy. +Herodes used to say that the true use of money was to succour +the needs of others; riches which were guarded with a niggard +hand were only a <q>dead wealth</q>; the coffers in which they +were stowed away were merely a prison; and the worship of +money resembled the sacrifice which the fabled Aloidae offered +to a god after putting him in chains.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph.</hi> ii. 1.</note> The main characteristics +of human nature are singularly fixed from age to age, +although the objects of its love and devotion may endlessly +vary. The higher unselfish impulses must assert themselves +in any society which is not plunging into the abyss. The +choicer spirits will be always ready to lavish effort or material +wealth on objects which are sacred to their own age, although +they may seen chimerical or unworthy to the next. And we +may well believe that the man who in the second century +built a bath or a theatre for fellow townsmen, might possibly, +had he lived in the fifth, have dedicated a church to a patron +saint, or bequeathed his lands to a monastery. +</p> + +<p> +The Antonine age was on one side perhaps rather coarse in +its ideals, passionately fond of splendour and brilliant display, +proud of civic dignity, and keenly alive to the ease and +comfort and brightness which common effort or individual +generosity might add to the enjoyment of life. It was also +an intensely sociable age. Men looked for their happiness to +their city rather than to the family or the state. If their city +could not play a great part as an independent commonwealth, +<pb n="233"/><anchor id="Pg233"/>it might, by the self-sacrifice of its sons, assert its dignity +among its rivals. It could make itself a society which men +would proudly or affectionately claim as their <q>patria</q> and +their parent, and on which they would vie with one another in +lavishing their time and their gold. And the buildings and +banquets and bright festivals, on which so much was lavished, +were enjoyed by all citizens alike, the lowest and the highest, +although high and low had sometimes by prescriptive usage an +unequal share in the largesses. The free enjoyment of sumptuous +baths, of good water from the Atlas, the Apennines, or the +Alban Hills, the right to sit at ease with one’s fellows when +the <hi rend="italic">Pseudolus</hi> or the <hi rend="italic">Adelphi</hi> was put upon the boards, the +pleasure of strolling in the shady colonnades of the forum or +the market, surrounded by brilliant marbles and frescoes, with +fountains shedding their coolness around; the good fellowship +which, for the time, levelled all ranks, in many a simple communal +feast, with a coin or two distributed at the end to recall +or heighten the pleasure—all these things tended to make the +city a true home, to some extent almost a great family circle. +There was much selfishness and grossness, no doubt, in all this +civic life. Which later age can cast the first stone? Yet +a study of the inscriptions of the Antonine age leaves the +impression that, amid all the sharply drawn distinctions of +rank, with all the petty ambition and self-assertion, or the +fawning and expectant servility, there was also a genuine +patriotic benevolence on the one hand, and a grateful recognition +of it on the other. The citizens record on many a tablet +their gratitude to patron or duumvir or augustal, or to some +simple old centurion, returned from far frontier camps, who +had paved their promenade, or restored their baths, or given +them a shrine of Neptune or Silvanus. They also preserved +the memory of many a kindly benefactor who left, as he fondly +thought for ever, the funds for an annual feast, with all the +graduated shares scrupulously prescribed, to save an obscure +tomb from the general oblivion. Thus, although that ancient +city life had its sordid side, which is laid bare with such +pitiless Rabelaisian realism by Petronius, it had its nobler +aspect also. Notwithstanding the aristocratic tone of municipal +society in the age of the Antonines, it is possible that the +separation of classes in our great centres of population is +<pb n="234"/><anchor id="Pg234"/>morally more sharp and decided than it was in the days when +the gulf between social ranks was in theory impassable. +</p> + +<p> +There is however another side to this picture of fraternal +civic life. If some of its pleasures were innocent and even +softening and elevating, there were others which pandered to +the most brutal and cruel passions. The love of amusement +grew upon the Roman character as civilisation developed in +organisation and splendour, and unfortunately the favourite +amusements were often obscene and cruel. The calendar of +the time is sufficiently ominous. The number of days which +were annually given up to games and spectacles at Rome rose +from 66 in the reign of Augustus, to 135 in the reign of +M. Aurelius, and to 175, or more, in the fourth century. In +this reckoning no account is taken of extraordinary festivals +on special occasions.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> ii. 142; cf. Jul. +Capitol. <hi rend="italic">M. Ant.</hi> c. x.</note> The Flavian amphitheatre was inaugurated +by Titus with lavish exhibitions extending over 100 +days.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tit.</hi> vii.</note> The Dacian triumphs of Trajan were celebrated by +similar rejoicings for 123 days, and 10,000 gladiators were +sent down into the arena.<note place="foot">D. Cass. 68. 15, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καὶ θέας ἐν τρισὶ καὶ εἴκοσι καὶ ἑκατὸν ἡμέραις ἐποίησεν ... + καὶ μονομάχοι μύριοι ἠγωνίσαντο</foreign>.</note> The rage of all classes of the +Roman populace for these sights of suffering and shame continued +unabated to the very end of the Western Empire. The +lubricity of pantomime and the slaughter of the arena were +never more fiercely and keenly enjoyed than when the Germans +were thundering at the gates of Trèves and Carthage.<note place="foot">Salv. <hi rend="italic">De Gub. Dei</hi>, vi. § 69.</note> +</p> + +<p> +It is difficult for us now to understand this lust of cruelty +among a people otherwise highly civilised, a passion which was +felt not merely by the base rabble, but even by the cultivated +and humane.<note place="foot">Aug. <hi rend="italic">Conf.</hi> vi. 8; cf. Sym. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ii. 46.</note> There was undoubtedly at all times a coarse +insensibility to suffering in the Roman character. The institution +of slavery, which involves the denial of ordinary human +rights to masses of fellow-creatures, had its usual effect in rendering +men contemptuously callous to the fate of all who did not +belong to the privileged class. Even a man of high moral tone +like Tacitus, while he condemns Drusus for gloating over his +gladiatorial shows, has only a word of scorn for the victims +of the butchery.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> i. 76, <hi rend="italic">vili</hi> sanguine nimis +gaudens.</note> And the appetite grew with what it fed on. +<pb n="235"/><anchor id="Pg235"/>From father to son, for nearly seven centuries, the Roman +character became more and more indurated under the influence +of licensed cruelty. The spectacle was also surrounded +by the emperors, even the greatest and best, for politic reasons, +with ever growing splendour. The Flavian amphitheatre, +which remains as a monument of the glory of the Empire and +of its shame, must have been a powerful corruptor. There, +tier above tier, was gathered the concentrated excitability and +contagious enthusiasm of 87,000 spectators. The imperial +circle and the emperor himself, members of high senatorial +houses, the great officers of state, the priests, the vestal virgins, +gave an impressive national dignity to the inhuman spectacle. +And now and then an Eastern prince or ambassador, or the +chief of some half-savage tribe in Germany or Numidia,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> xxxv.</note> amused +the eyes of the rabble who swarmed on the upper benches. +Every device of luxurious art was employed to heighten the baser +attractions of the scene. The magnificent pile was brightened +with gems of artistic skill.<note place="foot">Calpurn. <hi rend="italic">Ecl.</hi> vii. 24 sqq. + +<lg> +<l>Vidimus in caelum trabibus spectacula textis</l> +<l>Surgere, Tarpeium prope despectantia culmen—</l> +<l>... Sic undique fulgor</l> +<l>Percussit: stabam defixus et ore patenti,</l> +<l>Cunctaque mirabar, etc.</l> +</lg></note> The arena was tesselated with rich +colouring from the sunlight which streamed through the awnings. +The waters of perfumed fountains shot high into the air, spreading +their fragrant coolness; and music filled the pauses in the +ghastly conflict. From scenes like these was probably drawn +the picture in the Apocalypse: <hi rend="italic">Mulier circumdata purpura et +coccino—mater fornicationum—ebria de sanguine sanctorum.</hi> +</p> + +<p> +In the first and second centuries the passion for cruel +excitement was as strong in the provincial towns as it was even +at Rome. This may have been partly due to the monotony of +provincial life. It was also stimulated by the ease with which +public sentiment extorted the means for these gratifications +from the richer citizens. The opinion of the powerful and +enlightened class, with rare exceptions, made no effort to purify +and humanise the grossness of the masses. Seneca and Demonax +indeed display a modern humanity in their view of the degrading +influence of these displays.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Brev. Vit.</hi> viii.; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 95, § 33; +Plut. <hi rend="italic">Reipubl. Ger. Pr.</hi> c. 29; Luc. <hi rend="italic">Dem.</hi> +c. 57.</note> A humane magistrate of +Vienne, one Trebonius Rufinus, in the reign of Trajan, having +autocratically abolished them in his city, was called upon to +<pb n="236"/><anchor id="Pg236"/>defend his conduct before the emperor, and Junius Mauricus had +the courage to express before the council a wish that they could +be abolished also at Rome.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iv. 22.</note> Augustus had, by an imperial edict, +restrained the cruel exhibitions of the father of Nero.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, iv.</note> Vespasian, +according to Dion Cassius,<note place="foot">D. Cass. 66. 15; cf. M. Aur. vi. 46.</note> had little pleasure in the +shows of the arena. But the emperors generally, and not +least Vespasian’s sons, encouraged and pandered to the lust +for blood.<note place="foot">D. Cass. 68. 10 and 15, 66. 25; +Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xi.; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> iv.</note> The imperial gladiators were organised elaborately +in four great schools by Domitian,<note place="foot">D. Cass. 67. 1; cf. Friedl. ii. 202.</note> with a regular administration, +presided over by officers of high rank. The gentle Pliny, +who had personally no liking for such spectacles, applauded +his friend Maximus for giving a gladiatorial show to the people +of Verona, to do honour to his dead wife, in the true spirit +of the old Bruti and Lepidi of the age of the Punic Wars.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vi. 34; <hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> 33.</note> +He found in the shows of Trajan a splendid incentive of contempt +for death. +</p> + +<p> +It is little wonder that, with such examples and such +approval, the masses gloated unrestrained over these inhuman +sports. The rag-dealer at Trimalchio’s dinner is certainly +drawn to the life.<note place="foot">Petron. 45.</note> They are going to have a three days’ +carnival of blood. There is to be no escape; the butcher is +to do his work thoroughly in full view of the crowded tiers +of the amphitheatre. It was in Etruria, and in Campania, +where Trimalchio had his home, that the gladiatorial combats +took their rise. Campanian hosts used to entertain their guests +at dinner with them in the days before the second Punic War.<note place="foot">Strabo, v. c. 4, 13.</note> +And it was in Campanian towns that in the first century was +displayed most glaringly the not unusual combination of +cruelty and voluptuousness. The remains of Pompeii furnish +us with the most vivid and authentic materials for a study of +the sporting tastes of a provincial town. It is significant +that the amphitheatre of Pompeii, which was capable of +holding 20,000 people, was built fifty years before the first +stone amphitheatre erected by Statilius Taurus at Rome.<note place="foot">Mau, 206, 207.</note> It +is also remarkable that, although Pompeii is mentioned only +twice by Tacitus, one of the references is to a bloody riot +<pb n="237"/><anchor id="Pg237"/>arising out of the games of the amphitheatre.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 17.</note> In the year +59 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> a Roman senator in disgrace, named Livineius Regulus, +gave a great gladiatorial show at Pompeii, which attracted +many spectators from the neighbouring town of Nuceria. +The scenes of the arena were soon reproduced in a fierce +street fight between the people of the two towns, in which +many Nucerians were left dead or wounded. The catastrophe +was brought before the emperor, and referred by him to the +Senate, with the result that Pompeii was sternly deprived of +its favourite amusement for a period of ten years. But when +the interdict was removed, the Pompeians had the enjoyment +of their accustomed pleasure for ten years more, till it was +finally interrupted by the ashes of Vesuvius. +</p> + +<p> +A building at Pompeii, which was originally a colonnade +connected with the theatre,<note place="foot">Mau, 152.</note> had been converted into barracks +for a school of gladiators in the time of the early Empire.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> ii. 206.</note> +Behind the colonnade of more than seventy Doric columns +had been built a long row of small cells, with no opening +except on the central enclosure. There was a mess room, +and the <hi rend="italic">exedra</hi> on the southern side served as a retiring +room for the trainers and the men in the intervals of +exercise. The open area was used for practice. These +buildings have yielded many specimens of gladiators’ arms, +helmets, and greaves richly embossed in relief, scores of mail-coats, +shields, and horse-trappings. In one room there were +found the stocks, and four skeletons with irons on their legs. +In another, eighteen persons had taken refuge in the last +catastrophe, and, among them, a woman wearing costly jewels. +The walls and columns were covered with inscriptions and +rude sketches of gladiatorial life. Indeed the graffiti relating +to it are perhaps the most interesting in Pompeii. On some +of the tombs outside the city we can still read the notices +of coming games, painted on the walls by a professional +advertiser, one Aemilius Celer, <q>by the light of the moon.</q><note place="foot">Mau, 216, 217. The words in one +of these, flaminis Neronis Caesaris Aug. +fili, fix the date between 50 and 54 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi></note> +They announce that a duumvir or aedile or flamen will exhibit +twenty or thirty pairs of combatants on the calends of May +or the ides of April. There will also be a hunt, athletic +<pb n="238"/><anchor id="Pg238"/>games, a distribution of gifts, and awnings will be provided. +Programmes were for sale in advance, with a list of the +events. The contents of one can still be read scratched on +a wall, with marginal notes of the results of the competition. +In one conflict, Pugnax, in the Thracian arms, had beaten +Murranus the Myrmillo, fighting in the arms of Gaul, with +the fish upon his helmet; and the fate of Murranus is +chronicled in one tragic letter p. (<hi rend="italic">periit</hi>). Two others fought +in chariots in old British fashion. And the Publius Ostorius +who won was, as his name may suggest, a freedman, now +fighting as a voluntary combatant, according to the inscription, +in his fifty-first conflict.<note place="foot">Mau, 217, 218.</note> The tomb of Umbricius Scaurus, on +the highway outside the Herculaneum gate, was adorned in +stucco relief with animated scenes from the arena of hunting +and battle. Hunters with sword and cloak, like a modern +toréador, are engaging lions or tigers. Two gladiators are +charging one another on horseback. Here, a vanquished +combatant, with upturned hand, is imploring the pity of +the spectators, while another is sinking in the agony of death +upon the sand. The name, the school, and the fighting +history of each combatant are painted beside the figure.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 411.</note> +The universal enthusiasm for the shows is expressed in many +a rude sketch which has been traced by boyish hands upon +the walls. The record of the heroes of the arena was evidently +then as familiar as that of a champion footballer or +cricketer is now to our own sporting youth. In the peristyle +of a house in Nola Street, the names of some thirty gladiators +can be read, with the character of their arms and the number +of their conflicts. Portraits of gladiators are figured on lamps +and rings and vases of the period. The charm of their manly +strength, according to Juvenal, was fatal to the peace of many +a Roman matron of the great world. And the humbler girls +of Pompeii have left the memorial of their weakness in more +than one frank outburst of rather unmaidenly admiration.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 220; Juv. vi. 82 sqq.; cf. Mart. v. 24.</note> +</p> + +<p> +It is a grave deduction from the admiring judgment of the +glory of the Antonine age, that its most splendid remains +are the stately buildings within whose enclosure, for centuries, +the populace were regaled with the sufferings and the blood of +<pb n="239"/><anchor id="Pg239"/>the noblest creatures of the wild animal world and of gallant +men. The deserts and forests of Africa and the remotest East +contributed their elephants and panthers and lions to these +scenes. And every province of the Empire sent its contingent +of recruits for the arena, Gaul, Germany, and Thrace, Britain +and Dacia, the villages of the Atlas, and the deserts of the +Soudan.<note place="foot">Friedl. ii. 189.</note> Just in proportion to the depth of the impress made by +Roman civilisation, was the amphitheatre more or less popular +in the provinces. In Italy itself the passion was naturally +strongest. Quiet little places, buried in the Apennines, or in +the mountains of Samnium, had their regular spectacles, and +record their gratitude for the pleasure to some magistrate or +patron.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ii. 92.</note> The little town of Fidenae, in the reign of Tiberius, +gained for a moment a sinister fame by the collapse of its amphitheatre, +involving the death or mutilation of 50,000 spectators.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iv. 62.</note> +An augustal of Praeneste endowed his town with a school of +gladiators, and received a statue for this contribution to the +pleasures of the populace.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2532.</note> A. Clodius Flaccus of Pompeii, in +his first duumvirate, on the Apollinaria, gave an exhibition in the +forum of bull-fighting, pugilism, and pantomime. He signalised +his second tenure of the office by a show of thirty-five pairs +of gladiators, with a hunting scene of bulls, boars, and bears.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2530.</note> +At Minturnae, a monument reminds <q>the excellent citizens</q> +that, in a show lasting for four days, eleven of the foremost of +Campanian gladiators had died before their eyes, along with +ten ferocious bears.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 6148; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> x. 1074, 6012. +This was given <hi rend="italic">postulante populo</hi>.</note> At Compsa in Samnium, a place hardly +ever heard of, the common people erected a statue to a priest +of Magna Mater, who had given them a splendid show, and he +in turn rewarded their gratitude by a feast to both sexes, +which lasted over two days.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 5963, 5972, 2531; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> +x. 228.</note> Similar records of misplaced +munificence might be produced from Bovianum and Beneventum, +from Tibur and Perusia, and many another obscure Italian +town. But the brutal insensibility of the age is perhaps nowhere +so glaringly paraded as in the days following the short-lived +victory of the Vitellian arms at Bedriacum. There, on +that ghastly plain, on which his rival had been crushed and +had closed a tainted life by a not inglorious death, Vitellius +<pb n="240"/><anchor id="Pg240"/>gloated over the wreck of the great struggle. The trees were cut +down, the crops trampled into mire; the soil was soaked and +festering with blood, while mangled forms of men and horses +still lay rotting till the vultures should complete their obsequies. +Within forty days of the battle, the emperor attended great +gladiatorial combats given by his generals at Cremona and +Bononia, as if to revive the memory of the carnage by a +cruel mimicry.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. 70-72.</note> The grim literary avenger of that carnival of +blood has pictured the imperial monster’s end, within a short +space, in colours that will never fade, deserted by his meanest +servants, shuddering at the ghastly terrors of the vast, silent +solitudes of the palace, dragged forth from his hiding, and flung +with insults and execrations down the Gemonian Stairs. The +dying gladiator of Cremona was more than avenged.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 84.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The western provinces bordering on the Mediterranean, Gaul, +Spain, and Africa, drank deepest of the spirit which created the +great amphitheatres of Arles, Trèves, and Carthage, Placentia and +Verona, of Puteoli, Pompeii, and Capua. But the East caught +the infection, and gladiatorial combats were held at Antioch in +Pisidia, at Nysa in Caria, and at Laodicea; Alexandria had its +amphitheatre from the days of Augustus, and a school of +gladiators, presided over by a high imperial officer.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3725, 6156; Strab. +xvii. 1, 10; Friedl. ii. 204, 378 sqq.</note> The +Teutonic regions of the north and Greece were almost the only +provinces in which the bloody games were not popular. The +one Greek town where the taste for them was fully developed +was the mongrel city of Corinth, which was a Roman colony. +In the novel of Apuleius we meet a high Corinthian magistrate +travelling through Thessaly to collect the most famous gladiators +for his shows.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> x. 18; cf. iv. 13.</note> Yet even in Greece, even at Athens, which had +been the home of kindly pity from the days of Theseus, the cruel +passion was spreading in the days of the Antonines. Plutarch +urges public men to banish or to restrain these exhibitions in their +cities.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Reipubl. Ger. Pr.</hi> 30; Philostr. +<hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iv. 21.</note> When the Athenians, from an ambition to rival the +splendour of Corinth, were meditating the establishment of a +gladiatorial show, the gentle Demonax bade them first to overturn +their altar of Pity.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Dem.</hi> 57; cf. Mahaffy, <hi rend="italic">Greek +World under Roman Sway</hi>, p. 271.</note> The apostles of Hellenism, Dion, Plutarch, +<pb n="241"/><anchor id="Pg241"/>and Lucian, were unanimous in condemning an institution +which sacrificed the bravest men to the brutal passions of +the mob. +</p> + +<p> +The games of the arena were sometimes held at the expense +of the municipality on great festivals, with a public officer, +bearing the title of <hi rend="italic">curator</hi>,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2373, 7037, 148, 2532.</note> to direct them. But, perhaps more +frequently, they were given by great magistrates or priests at +their own expense; or some rich <hi rend="italic">parvenu</hi>, like the cobbler of +Bologna or the fuller of Modena, who have been ridiculed by +Martial, would try by such a display to force an entrance into +the guarded enclosure of Roman rank.<note place="foot">Mart. iii. 59, 16.</note> There were also frequent +bequests to create a permanent agonistic foundation. +The most striking example of such a legacy is to be found on +an inscription in honour of a munificent duumvir of Pisaurum. +He left a capital sum of more than £10,000 to the community. +The interest on two-fifths of this bequest, perhaps amounting +to £500, was to be spent in giving a general feast on the +birthday of the founder’s son. The accumulated interest of the +remaining three-fifths, amounting, perhaps, to £4000, was to +be devoted to a quinquennial exhibition of gladiators.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 81.</note> An +aedile in Petronius is going to spend between £3000 and +£4000 on a three days’ show.<note place="foot">Petron. 45.</note> The cost of these exhibitions, +however, must have widely varied. We hear of one in the +second century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> which cost over £7000.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> ii. 137, Doch +diese Summe erscheint gering im Vergleich +mit der kolossalen Verschwendung, +mit der die Schauspiele in der +letzten Zeit der Republik gegeben +wurden; cf. <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> ii. 6278 (<hi rend="italic">Suppl.</hi> p. +1032).</note> The number of +pairs engaged appears from the inscriptions to have ranged +from five to thirty. The shows lasted from one to as many +as eight days.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2530; 2533; Friedl. +<hi rend="italic">Cena Trim.</hi> p. 58; Cic. <hi rend="italic">Ad Att.</hi> 12, 2.</note> And the quality of the combatants was +also very various. Tiberius once recalled some finished veterans +from their retirement at a fee of about £800 each.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> vii.</note> On the +other hand, a grumbler at Trimalchio’s dinner sneers at a stingy +aedile, whose gladiators were <q>two-penny men,</q> whom you +might knock over with a breath.<note place="foot">Petron. 45.</note> Besides the great imperial +schools at Praeneste, Capua, or Alexandria, and the <q>families</q> +maintained at all times by some of the great nobles, there +<pb n="242"/><anchor id="Pg242"/>were vagrant troops, kept up by speculative trainers for hire, +such as that gang into which Vitellius sold his troublesome +minion Asiaticus.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> ii. 202; Suet. +<hi rend="italic">Vitell.</hi> xii. circumforaneo lanistae +vendidit.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The profession of gladiator was long regarded as a tainted +one, on which social sentiment and law alike placed their +ban. It was a calling which included the vilest or the most +unfortunate of mankind. Slaves, captives in war, or criminals +condemned for serious offences, recruited its ranks.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> ii. 192.</note> The death +in the arena was thus often, really, a deferred punishment for +crime. But even from the later days of the Republic, men of +free birth were sometimes attracted by the false glory or the +solid rewards of the profession. Freedmen sometimes fought +at the call of their patrons.<note place="foot">Petron. 45; D. Cass. 60. 30.</note> And, when Septimius Severus +began to recruit the Pretorian guard from the provinces, the +youth of Italy, who had long enjoyed the monopoly of that +pampered corps, satisfied their combative or predatory instincts +by joining the ranks either of the gladiators or of the brigands.<note place="foot">D. Cass. 74. 2.</note> +The gladiator had, indeed, to submit to fearful perils and a +cruel discipline. His oath bound him to endure unflinchingly +scourging, burning, or death.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> ii. 196.</note> His barracks were a closely +guarded prison, and, although his fare was necessarily good, +his training was entirely directed to the production of a fine +fighting animal, who would give good sport in the arena. Yet +the profession must have had some powerful attractions. +Some of the emperors,<note place="foot">D. Cass. 66. 15; Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> 14; +cf. Suet. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> xxxiv.</note> Titus and Hadrian, themselves took a +pleasure in the gladiatorial exercises. Commodus, as if to +confirm the scandal about his parentage, actually descended +into the arena,<note place="foot">Lamprid. <hi rend="italic">Com.</hi> xi.; cf. viii.; +Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> ii. 150.</note> and imperial example was followed by men of +high rank, and even, according to the satirist, by matronly +viragoes.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Jul. Caes.</hi> xxxix.; Juv. vi. +252.</note> The splendour of the arms, the ostentatious pomp +of the scene of combat, the applause of thousands of spectators +on the crowded benches, the fascination of danger, all this +invested the cruel craft with a false glory.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> ii. 198.</note> The mob of +all ages are ready to make a hero of the man who can +perform rare feats of physical strength or agility. And the +<pb n="243"/><anchor id="Pg243"/>skilful gladiator evidently became a hero under the early +Empire, like his colleague of the red or green. His professional +record was of public interest; the number of his +combats and his victories was inscribed upon his tomb.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2571, 2572; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> x. +7364; xii. 5836.</note> His +name and his features were scratched by boys on the street +walls. He attracted the unconcealed, and not always discreet, +admiration of women,<note place="foot">Mau, <hi rend="italic">Pompeii</hi>, p. 219 sq.</note> and his praise was sung in classic verse, +as his pathetic dignity in death has been immortalised in +marble. The memories of a nobler life of freedom sometimes +drove the slave of the arena to suicide or mutiny.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 70, § 20; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xv. +46. Sym. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> ii. 46; cf. Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> +ii. 211.</note> But he was +oftener proud of his skill and courage, and eager to display +them. When shows were rare in the reign of Tiberius, a +Myrmillo was heard to lament that the years of his glorious +prime were running to waste.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Prov.</hi> iv.</note> Epictetus says that the imperial +gladiators were often heard praying for the hour of conflict.<note place="foot">Epict. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> i. 29, § 37.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Great imperial schools were organised on the strictest +military principles, and were under the command of a +procurator who had often held high office in the provinces +or the army.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> ii. 204.</note> Each school had attached to it a staff of +masseurs, surgeon-dressers, and physicians to attend to +the general health of the members. There were various +grades according to skill or length of service, and a man +might rise in the end to be trainer of a troop. Gladiators, +like all other callings in the second century, had their colleges. +We have the roll of one of these, in the year 177 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, +a college of Silvanus.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2566.</note> The members are divided into three +decuries, evidently according to professional rank, and their +names and arms are also given. Their comrades often erected +monuments to them with a list of their achievements. Thus +a dear companion-in-arms commemorates a young Secutor at +Panormus, who died in his thirtieth year, who had fought in +thirty-four combats, and in twenty-one came off victorious.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2571.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Our authorities do not often permit us to follow the +gladiator into retirement. The stern discipline of the <hi rend="italic">Ludus</hi> +no doubt made better men even of those condemned to it for +grievous crimes. The inscriptions contain a few brief records +<pb n="244"/><anchor id="Pg244"/>of their family life, which seems to have been as natural and +affectionate as that of any other class; wives and daughters +lamenting good husbands and fathers in the usual phrases, +and fathers in turn mourning innocent young lives, cut short +by the cruelty of the gods.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2572-9; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> xii. 3329.</note> Sometimes the veteran gladiator +might be tempted to return to the old scenes for a high fee, +or he might become a trainer in one of the schools.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2573-5; D. Cass. 72. 22.</note> His son +might rise even to knightly rank;<note place="foot">Juv. iii. 158.</note> but the career of ambition +was closed to himself by the taint of a profession which the +people found indispensable to their pleasures, and which they +loaded with contempt. +</p> + +<p> +The inscriptions pay all honour to the voluntary, single-minded +generosity with which men bore costly charges, and +gave time and effort to the business of the city. But there +was a tendency to treat public benefactions as the acknowledgment +of a debt, a return for civic honours. We can sometimes +even see that the gift was extorted by the urgency of the +people, in some cases even by menaces and force.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> x. 1074.</note> The cities +took advantage of the general passion for place and social +precedence, and, often from sordid motives, crowded their +curial lists with <hi rend="italic">patroni</hi> and persons decorated with other +honorary distinctions. On the famous roll of the council of +Canusium, out of a total of 164 members, there are 39 +<hi rend="italic">patroni</hi> of senatorial or knightly rank, and 25 <hi rend="italic">praetextati</hi>, +mere boys, who were almost certainly of the same aristocratic +class, and were probably destined to be future patrons of +the town.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3721.</note> In the desire to secure the support of wealth and +social prestige, the municipal law as to the age for magisterial +office was frequently disregarded, and even mere infants were +sometimes raised to the highest civic honours.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 7008, 7010; cf. 7082, where a +youth of twenty had been iivir quinquennalis, +and had given a gladiatorial +show. Cf. 3714, quaestor designatus +est annorum xxiiii., 3745, 3246, 3768.</note> The position +of patron seems to have been greatly prized, as it was heavily +paid for. A great man with a liberal soul might be patron of +several towns,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 3764.</note> and sometimes women of rank had the honour +conferred on them.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 3773, 4036, 82, 5134; cf. 3744.</note> The <hi rend="italic">ornamenta</hi> or external badges of +official rank were frequently bestowed on people who were not +eligible by law for the magistracy. A resident alien (<hi rend="italic">incola</hi>), +<pb n="245"/><anchor id="Pg245"/>or an augustal, might be co-opted into the <q>splendid order</q> +of the Curia, or he might be allowed to wear its badges, or +those of some office which he could not actually hold.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3709, 3750; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> xii. +3203, 3219.</note> But it +is plain that such distinctions had to be purchased or repaid. +The city seldom made any other return for generous devotion, +unless it were the space for a grave or the pageant of a public +funeral. It is true that a generous benefactor or magistrate is +frequently honoured with a statue and memorial tablet. Indeed, +the honour is so frequently bestowed that it seems to dwindle +to an infinitesimal value.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Reipubl. Ger. Pr.</hi> c. 27.</note> And it is to our eyes still further +reduced by the agreeable convention which seems to have +made it a matter of good taste that the person so distinguished +by his fellow-citizens should bear the expense of the record +himself!<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6992.</note> Nor did the expectations of the grateful public end +even there; for, at the dedication of the monument, it was +seemingly imperative to give a feast to the generous community +which allowed or required its benefactor to bear the +cost of the memorial of his own munificence.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 3811, 3722, 6999, 7007, 7004 +(honore usus inpensam remisit), 7011, +7190, 4100.</note> It is only fair, +however, to say that this civic meanness was not universal, +and that there are records to show that even the poorest +class sometimes subscribed among themselves to pay for the +honour which they proposed to confer.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 3865, ex aere collato; 6996.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The Antonine age was an age of splendid public spirit and +great material achievement. But truth compels us to recognise +that even in the age of the Antonines, there were ominous signs +of moral and administrative decay. Municipal benefactors +were rewarded with local fame and lavish flattery; but the +demands of the populace, together with the force of example +and emulation, contributed to make the load which the rich +had to bear more and more heavy. Many must have ruined +themselves in their effort to hold their place, and to satisfy an +exacting public sentiment. Men actually went into debt to +do so;<note place="foot">This seems clear from Plut. <hi rend="italic">Reip. +Ger. Pr.</hi> c. 31, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καὶ μὴ δανειζόμενον οἰκτρὸν ἅμα καὶ καταγέλαστον εἶναι περὶ τὰς λειτουργίας</foreign>.</note> and as municipal life became less attractive or more +burdensome, the career of imperial office opened out and +offered far higher distinction. The reorganisation of the +<pb n="246"/><anchor id="Pg246"/>imperial service by Hadrian had immense effects in diverting +ambition from old channels. It created a great hierarchy of +office, which absorbed the best ability from the provinces. +Provincials of means and position were constantly visiting the +capital for purposes of private business or pleasure, or to +represent their city as envoys to the emperor. They often +made powerful friends during their stay, and their sons, if not +they themselves, were easily tempted to abandon a municipal +career for the prospect of a high place in the imperial army +or the civil service.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Reip. Ger. Pr.</hi> c. 18; cf. c. 10.</note> It is true that the local tie often remained +unbroken. The country town, of course, was proud +of the distinction to which its sons rose in the great world; +and many a one who had gained a knighthood or some military +rank, returned to his birthplace in later years, and was +enrolled among its patrons. We may be sure that many a +successful man, like the Stertinii of Naples, paid <q>nurture +fees</q> in the most generous way. But already in the reign of +Domitian, as we have seen, legal provision had to be made for +the contingency of an insufficient number of candidates for the +municipal magistracies. Already, in the reign of Trajan, the +cities of Bithynia are compelling men to become members +of the Curia, and lowering the age of admission to official +rank.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> x. 113; 79.</note> Plutarch laments that many provincials are turning +their backs on their native cities and suing for lucrative +offices at the doors of great Roman patrons.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Reip. Ger. Pr.</hi> c. 18.</note> Apollonius of +Tyana was indignant to find citizens of Ionia, at one of their +great festivals, masquerading in Roman names.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. T.</hi> iv. 5.</note> The illustrious +son of Chaeronea, with a wistful backward glance +at the freedom and the glories of the Periclean age, frankly +recognises that, under the shadow of the Roman power, the +civic horizon has drawn in.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Reip. Ger. Pr.</hi> c. 32; cf. +Gréard, <hi rend="italic">Morale de Plut.</hi> p. 230.</note> It is a very different thing to +hold even the highest magistracy at Thebes or Athens from +what it was in the great days of Salamis or Leuctra. But +Plutarch accepts the Empire as inevitable. He appreciates +its blessings as much as Aristides or Dion Chrysostom. He +has none of the revolutionary rage which led Apollonius to +cast reproaches at Vespasian, or to boast of his complicity +<pb n="247"/><anchor id="Pg247"/>in the overthrow of Nero.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. T.</hi> v. 41, 10; cf. +Gréard, p. 227.</note> He has little sympathy with +philosophers like Epictetus, who would sink the interests of +everyday politics in the larger life of the universal commonwealth +of humanity. The Empire has extinguished much +of civic glory and freedom, but let us recognise its compensating +blessings of an ordered peace. <hi rend="italic">Spartam nactus es, hanc +exorna</hi>, might be the motto of Plutarch’s political counsels. He +himself, with a range of gifts and culture, which has made his +name immortal, did not disdain to hold a humble office in the +poor little place which was his home. And he appeals to the +example of Epameinondas, who gave dignity to the magistracy +which was concerned with the duty of the cleansing of the +sewers and streets of Thebes.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Reip. Ger. Pr.</hi> c. 15.</note> He tells his young pupil that, +although we have now no wars to wage, no alliances to conclude, +we may wage war on some evil custom, revive some +charitable institution, repair an aqueduct, or preside at a sacrifice. +Yet Plutarch has a keen insight into the municipal +vices of his age, the passion for place and office, the hot +unscrupulous rivalry which will stoop to any demagogic arts, +the venality of the crowd, and the readiness of the rich to +pamper them with largesses and shows, the insane passion for +pompous decrees of thanks and memorial statues; above all, +the eager servility which abandoned even the poor remnant of +municipal liberty, and was always inviting the interference of +the prince on the most trivial occasions.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 27, 29, 30, 20.</note> Such appeals paralyse +civic energy and hasten the inevitable drift of despotism. He +exhorts men to strive by every means to raise the tone of +their own community, instead of forsaking it in fastidious +scorn, or ambition for a more spacious and splendid life. +</p> + +<p> +The growing distaste for municipal honours was to some +extent caused by bureaucratic encroachments on the independence +of the Curia. As early as the reign of Trajan there are +unmistakable signs, as we have seen, of financial mismanagement +and decay. The case of Bithynia, in Trajan’s reign, is +sometimes treated as an exceptional one. It may be doubted +whether it is not a conspicuous example of general disorganisation. +The Bithynian towns were probably not alone +in their ill-considered expenditure on faultily planned aqueducts +<pb n="248"/><anchor id="Pg248"/>and theatres. Apamea was certainly not the only city +which called for an imperial auditor of its accounts. Inscriptions +of the reign of Trajan show that many towns in +Italy, Como, Canusium, Praeneste, Pisa, Bergamum, and +Caere, had curators of their administration appointed, some as +early as the reigns of Hadrian or Trajan.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4007 (Canusium), 2391 +(Praeneste), 4491 (Pisa), 3898 (Bergamum), +3787 (Caere). For places +out of Italy, cf. <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> xii. 3212 (datus +a Trajano); viii. 2403, 2660 (Timgad +and Lambesi); iii. 3485 (Aquincum); +ii. 484 (Emerita); 4112 (Tarraco); cf. +x.; ii. p. 1158; Capitol. <hi rend="italic">M. Ant.</hi> c. 11.</note> These officers, +who were always unconnected with the municipality, took +over the financial control, which had previously belonged to +the duumvirs and quaestors. They were often senators or +equites of high rank, and a single curator sometimes had the +supervision of several municipalities. The case of Caere is +peculiarly instructive and interesting.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3787, placuit tibi scribi +an in hoc quoque et tu consensurus +esses.</note> There, an imperial freedman, +named Vesbinus, proposed to erect at his own cost +a club-house (<hi rend="italic">phretrium</hi>), for the augustales, and asked the +municipal authorities for a site close to the basilica. At a +formal meeting of the Curia, the ground was granted to him, +subject to the approval of Curiatius Cosanus, the curator, +with a vote of thanks for his liberality. A letter to that +official was drawn up, stating the whole case, and asking for +his sanction. The curator, writing from Ameria, granted it in +the most cordial terms. It is noteworthy that at the very time +when Caere was consulting its curator about the proposal of +Vesbinus,<note place="foot"><hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> 113, as the names of the +consuls show.</note> the Bithynian cities were laying bare their +financial and engineering difficulties to Pliny and Trajan. The +glory of free civic life is already on the wane. The municipality +has invited or submitted to imperial control. The burdens of +office have begun to outweigh its glory and distinction. In a +generation or two the people will have lost their elective power, +and the Curia will appoint the municipal officers from its own +ranks. It will end by becoming a mere administrative machine +for levying the imperial taxes; men will fly from its crushing +obligations to any refuge; and the flight of the curiales will +be as momentous as the coming of the Goths.<note place="foot">See <hi rend="italic">Roman Society in the Last +Century of the Western Empire</hi>, p. 208 +sqq. (1st ed.).</note> +</p> + +<p> +The judgment on that externally splendid city life of the +<pb n="249"/><anchor id="Pg249"/>Antonine age will be determined by the ideals of the inquirer. +There was a genuine love of the common home, a general pride +in its splendour and distinction. And the duty, firmly +imposed by public sentiment on the well-endowed to contribute +out of their abundance to its material comfort and its glory, +was freely accepted and lavishly performed. Nor was this +expenditure all devoted to mere selfish gratification. The +helplessness of orphanhood and age, the penury and monotonous +dulness of the lives of great sunken classes, the education of +the young, were drawing forth the pity of the charitable. Munificence +was often indeed, in obedience to the sentiment of the +time, wasted on objects which were unworthy, or even to our +minds base and corrupting. Men seemed to think too much of +feasting and the cruel amusement of an hour. Yet when a whole +commune was regaled at the dedication of a bath or a temple, +there was a healthy social sympathy diffused for the moment +through all ranks, which softened the hard lines by which that +ancient society was parted. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, in looking back, we cannot help feeling that over +all this scene of kindliness and generosity and social good-will, +there broods a shadow. It is not merely the doom of free +civic life, which is so clearly written on the walls of every curial +hall of assembly from the days of Trajan, to be fulfilled +in the long-drawn tragedy of the fourth and fifth centuries; +three hundred years have still to run before the inevitable +catastrophe. It is rather the feeling which seems to lurk +under many a sentence, half pitiful, half contemptuous, of +M. Aurelius, penned, perhaps, as he looked down on some +gorgeous show in the amphitheatre, when the Numidian +lion was laid low by a deft stroke of the hunting-spear, or +a gallant Myrmillo from the Thames or the Danube sank +upon the sand in his last conflict.<note place="foot">M. Aurel. vi. 46; vii. 3; ix. 30.</note> It is the feeling of +Dion, when he watched the Alexandrians palpitating with +excitement over a race in the circus, or the cities of Bithynia +convulsed by some question of shadowy precedence or the +claim to a line of sandhills. It is the swiftly stealing shadow +of that mysterious eclipse which was to rest on intellect and +literature till the end of the Western Empire. It is the +burden of all religious philosophy from Seneca to Epictetus, +<pb n="250"/><anchor id="Pg250"/>which was one long warning against the perils of a materialised +civilisation. The warning of the pagan preacher was +little heeded; the lesson was not learnt in time. Is it +possible that a loftier spiritual force may find itself equally +helpless to arrest a strangely similar decline? +</p> + +</div><div type="chapter" n="3" rend="page-break-before: always"> +<pb n="251"/><anchor id="Pg251"/> +<index index="toc" level1="III. The colleges and plebeian life"/><index index="pdf" level1="III. The colleges and plebeian life"/> +<head>CHAPTER III</head> + +<head type="sub">THE COLLEGES AND PLEBEIAN LIFE</head> + +<p> +The <hi rend="italic">Populus</hi> or <hi rend="italic">Plebs</hi> of a municipal town of the early Empire +is often mentioned in the inscriptions along with the <hi rend="italic">Ordo</hi> +and the Augustales, generally in demanding some benefaction, +or in doing honour to some benevolent patron.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz. Ind.</hi> 151; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> xii. p. +940; <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3763, 7170 (consensus +plebis); <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> xii. 3185 (ex postulatione +populi); x. 5067, 1030, 8215, 3704.</note> They also +appear as recipients of a smaller share at public feasts and +distributions. They occasionally engage in a fierce conflict +with the higher orders, as at Puteoli in the reign of Nero, +when the discord was so menacing as to call for the presence +of a praetorian cohort.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiii. 48; Hi (<hi rend="italic">i.e.</hi> plebs) +magistratuum et primi cujusque avaritiam +increpantes.</note> The election placards of Pompeii also +disclose a keen popular interest in the municipal elections.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iv. 202, 710, 787.</note> +But the common people are now as a rule chiefly known to us +from the inscriptions on their tombs. Fortunately there is an +immense profusion, in all the provinces as well as in Italy, of +these brief memorials of obscure lives. And although Roman +literature, which was the product of the aristocratic class or +of their dependents, generally pays but little attention to the +despised mass engaged in menial services or petty trades, we +have seen that the novel of Petronius flashes a brilliant light +upon it in the reign of Nero. +</p> + +<p> +The immense development of the free proletariat, in the +time of the early Empire, is one of the most striking social +phenomena which the study of the inscriptions has brought to +light. It has sometimes been the custom to speak of that +society as depending for the supply of its wants entirely on slave +labour. And undoubtedly at one time slave labour occupied +the largest part of the field of industry. A household in the +<pb n="252"/><anchor id="Pg252"/>time of the Republic, of even moderate wealth, might have +400 slaves, while a Crassus would have as many as 20,000, +whom he hired out in various industries.<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. 159, 160; Duruy, +<hi rend="italic">Hist. des Rom.</hi> v. 631; Athen. vi. 272 <hi rend="small">D.</hi></note> But several causes +conspired gradually to work a great industrial revolution. +From the days of Augustus, the wars beyond the frontier, +which added fresh territory and yielded crowds of captives to +the slave-markets, had become less frequent. And it is probable +that births among the slave class hardly sufficed to +maintain its numbers against the depletion caused by mortality +and manumission. The practice of emancipating slaves of +the more intelligent class went on so rapidly that it had even +to be restrained by law.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> 40; D. Cass. 55. 13.</note> Masters found it economically +profitable to give skilful slaves an interest in the profits of +their industry, and the <hi rend="italic">peculium</hi>, which was thus accumulated, +soon provided the means of purchasing emancipation. At +the same time, the dispersion of colossal fortunes, gained in the +age of rapine and conquest, and squandered in luxury and +excess, together with the exploitation of the resources of +favoured regions, which were now enjoying the blessings of +unimpeded commerce, rapid intercommunication, and perfect +security, must have given an immense stimulus to free +industry. A very casual glance at the inscriptions, under +the heading <hi rend="italic">Artes et Opificia</hi>,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> iii. <hi rend="italic">Ind.</hi> p. 180.</note> will show the enormous +and flourishing development of skilled handicrafts, with +all the minutest specialisation of the arts that wait on a +highly-organised and luxurious society. The epitaphs of these +obscure toilers have been brought to light in every part of +the Roman world, in remote towns in Spain, Gaul, Noricum, +Dacia, and North Africa, as well as in the ancient centres of +refinement in Italy or the Greek East. On a single page or +two you can read the simple record of the bridle-maker or +flask-maker of Narbonne, the cabriolet-driver of Senegallia, the +cooper of Trèves, the stone-cutter of Nîmes, the purple-dealer +of Augsburg, beside those of the wool-comber of Brescia, the +oculist of Bologna, the plumber of Naples, or the vendors of +unguents in the Via Sacra, and the humble fruiterer of the +Circus Maximus.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4148, 4143, 4268, 4154. +For the provinces of <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> ii. Suppl. +p. 1171; viii. p. 1102; x. 1163; xii. +p. 943.</note> Many of these people had risen from +<pb n="253"/><anchor id="Pg253"/>slavery into the freedman class. Most of them are evidently +humble folk, although, like a certain female pearl-dealer of the +Via Sacra, they may have freedmen and freedwomen of their +own, for whom they provide a last resting-place beside themselves.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi>, 4148, Marcia margaritaria +de Via Sacra legavit ... libertis +libertabusque suis....</note> +The barber, or auctioneer, or leather-seller, who had +become the owner of lands and houses, and who could even +give gladiatorial shows, excited the contempt of Juvenal and +Martial.<note place="foot">Juv. i. 24; x. 224; Mart. iii. 16, 59.</note> But these insignificant people, although despised by +the old world of aristocratic tradition, were proud of their crafts. +They tell posterity who and what they were, without any vulgar +concealment; nay, they have left expensive tombs, with the +emblems or instruments of their petty trades proudly blazoned +upon them like the armorial devices of our families of gentle +birth. In the museum of S. Germain may be seen the effigy +of the apple-seller commending his fruit to the attention of the +ladies of the quarter; the cooper, with a cask upon his shoulder; +the smith, hammer in hand, at the forge; the fuller, treading +out and dressing the cloth.<note place="foot">Duruy, v. 637.</note> This pride in honest industry is +a new and healthy sign, as a reaction from the contempt for it +which was engrained in old Roman society, and which is always +congenial to an aristocratic caste supported by slave labour. +In spite of the grossness and base vulgarity of sudden wealth, +portrayed by Petronius and Juvenal, the new class of free +artisans and traders had often, so far as we can judge by stone +records, a sound and healthy life, sobered and dignified by +honest toil, and the pride of skill and independence. Individually +weak and despised, they were finding the means of +developing an organisation, which at once cultivated social +feeling, heightened their self-respect, and guarded their collective +interests. While the old aristocracy were being rapidly +thinned by vice and extravagance, or by confiscation, the leaders +of the new industrial movement probably founded many a +senatorial house, which, in the fourth and fifth centuries, in an +ever-recurring fashion, came to regard manual industry with +sublime contempt, and traced themselves to Aemilius Paullus +or Scipio, or even to Aeneas or Agamemnon.<note place="foot">S. Hieron. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 108, § 3.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The organisation of industry through the colleges attained +<pb n="254"/><anchor id="Pg254"/>an immense development in the Antonine age, and still more +in the third century, after the definite sanction and encouragement +given to these societies by Alexander Severus. The +records of the movement are numerous, and we can, after the +scholarly sifting of recent years, now form a tolerably complete +and vivid conception of these corporations which, springing up +at first spontaneously, in defiance of government, or with its +reluctant connivance, were destined, under imperial control, to +petrify into an intolerable system of caste servitude in the last +century of the Empire of the West.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Roman Society in the Last Century +of the Western Empire</hi> (1st. ed.), p. +193.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The sodalitia and collegia were of immemorial antiquity. +Certain industrial colleges and sacred sodalities were traced +back to Numa, and even to the foundation of Rome.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">De Coll.</hi> (Morel) p. 28 sq.; +Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> ii. 278; Plut. +<hi rend="italic">Numa</hi>, c. 17, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἦν δὲ διανομὴ κατὰ τὰς τέχνας αὐλητῶν, χρυσοχόων, κτλ.</foreign></note> In the +flourishing days of the Republic they multiplied without +restraint or suspicion, the only associations at which the law +looked askance being those which met secretly or by night. +It was only in the last century of the Republic that the +colleges came to be regarded as dangerous to the public peace, +and they were, with some necessary exceptions, suppressed by +a decree of the Senate in 64 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> They were revived again +for factious or revolutionary purposes in 58 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> by Clodius.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">De Coll.</hi> p. 76.</note> +The emperors Julius and Augustus abolished the free right of +association, except in the case of a few consecrated by their +antiquity or their religious character.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Caes.</hi> 42; <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> 32.</note> And it was enacted +that new colleges could not be created without special +authorisation. In the middle of the second century, the jurist +Gaius lays it down that the formation of new colleges +was restrained by laws, decrees of the Senate, and imperial +constitutions, although a certain number of societies, both in +Rome and the provinces, such as those of the miners, salt +workers, bakers, and boatmen, were authorised.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">De Coll.</hi> p. 84.</note> And down to +the time of Justinian, the right of free association was jealously +watched as a possible menace to the public peace. The +refusal of Trajan to sanction the formation of a company of +firemen in Nicomedia, with the reasons which he gave to +Pliny for his decision, furnishes the best concrete illustration +<pb n="255"/><anchor id="Pg255"/>of the imperial policy towards the colleges.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> x. 34.</note> That the +danger from the colleges to the public order was not an +imaginary one, is clear from the passage in Tacitus describing +the bloody riots between the people of Nuceria and Pompeii in +the reign of Nero, which had evidently been fomented by +<q>illicit</q> clubs.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 17, re ad patres +relata ... collegia quae contra leges +instituerant dissoluta.</note> It is seen even more strikingly in the serious +troubles of the reign of Aurelian, when 7000 people were +killed in the organised outbreak of the workmen of the mint.<note place="foot">Vop. <hi rend="italic">Aurel.</hi> c. 38.</note> +Yet it is pretty clear that, in spite of legislation, and imperial +distrust, the colleges were multiplying, not only in Rome, but +in remote, insignificant places, and even in the camps, from +which the legislator was specially determined to avert their +temptations. In the blank wilderness, created by a universal +despotism, the craving for sympathy and mutual succour +inspired a great social movement, which legislation was powerless +to check. Just as in the reigns of Theodosius and +Honorius, imperial edicts and rescripts were paralysed by the +impalpable, quietly irresistible force of a universal social +need or sentiment. One simple means of evasion was provided +by the government itself, probably as early as the first +century. In an inscription of Lanuvium, of the year 136 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, +there is a recital of a decree of the Senate according the +right of association to those who wish to form a funerary +college, provided the members did not meet more than once a +month to make their contributions.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6086; cf. Momms. +<hi rend="italic">De Coll.</hi> p. 98; Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> ii. +313; Duruy, v. 408.</note> It appears from +Marcian’s reference to this law that other meetings for +purposes of religious observance might be held, the provisions +of the <hi rend="italic">senatusconsultum</hi> against illicit colleges being +carefully observed.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">De Coll.</hi> p. 87.</note> Mommsen has shown that many other +pious and charitable purposes could be easily brought within +the scope of the funerary association. And it was not +difficult for a society which desired to make a monthly +contribution for any purpose to take the particular form +recognised by the law. In the reign of M. Aurelius, although +membership of two colleges is still prohibited, the colleges +obtained the legal right to receive bequests, and to emancipate +<pb n="256"/><anchor id="Pg256"/>their slaves. And finally, Alexander Severus organised all +the industrial colleges and assigned them <hi rend="italic">defensores</hi>.<note place="foot">Lamprid. <hi rend="italic">Alex. Sev.</hi> c. 33; cf. Duruy, v. 408.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The law against illicit associations, with all its serious +penalties, remained in the imperial armoury. But the Empire, +which had striven to prevent combination, really furnished +the greatest incentive to combine. In the face of that world-wide +and all-powerful system, the individual subject felt, ever +more and more, his loneliness and helplessness. The imperial +power might be well-meaning and beneficent, but it was so +terrible and levelling in the immense sweep of its forces, that +the isolated man seemed, in its presence, reduced to the insignificance +of an insect or a grain of sand. Moreover, the aristocratic +constitution of municipal society became steadily more and more +exclusive. If the rich decurions catered for the pleasures of +the people, it was on the condition that they retained their +monopoly of political power and social precedence. The +plebeian crowd, recruited from the ranks of slavery, and ever +growing in numbers and, in their higher ranks, in wealth, did +not indeed dream of breaking down these barriers of exclusiveness; +but they claimed, and quietly asserted, the right to +organise a society of their own, for protection against oppression, +for mutual sympathy and support, for relief from the deadly +dulness of an obscure and sordid life. Individually weak and +despised, they might, by union, gain a sense of collective +dignity and strength. To our eyes, as perhaps to the eyes of +the Roman aristocrat, the dignity might seem far from imposing. +But these things are greatly a matter of imagination, and +depend on the breadth of the mental horizon. When the +brotherhood, many of them of servile grade, met in full conclave, +in the temple of their patron deity, to pass a formal +decree of thanks to a benefactor, and regale themselves with +a modest repast, or when they passed through the streets and +the forum with banners flying, and all the emblems of their +guild, the meanest member felt himself lifted for the moment +above the dim, hopeless obscurity of plebeian life. +</p> + +<p> +No small part of old Roman piety consisted in a scrupulous +reverence for the dead, and a care to prolong their memory +by solid memorial and solemn ritual, it might be to maintain +some faint tie of sympathy with the shade which had passed +<pb n="257"/><anchor id="Pg257"/>into a dim and rather cheerless world. The conception of +that other state was always vague, often purely negative. It +is not often that a spirit is sped on its way to join a loved +one in the Elysian fields, and we may fear that such phrases, +when they do occur, are rather literary and conventional.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4841, Elysiis campis +floreat umbra tibi; but cf. 4793, manus +levo contra deum qui me innocentem +sustulit; 4796, Dii irati aeterno somno +dederunt.</note> The +hope of blessed reunion after death seldom meets us till we +come to some monument of a Christian freedman.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4662, Qutia Silvana Uxor virum +expecto meum.</note> But two +of the deepest feelings in the Roman mind did duty for a +clear faith in the life beyond the tomb: one was family piety, +the other the passionate desire of the parting spirit to escape +neglect and oblivion. Whoever will cast his eyes over some +pages of the sepulchral inscriptions will be struck with the +intensity and warmth of affection, the bitterness of loss and +grief, which have been committed to the stone. The expressions, +of course, are often conventional, like obituary memorials in +every age. The model wife appears again and again, loving, +chaste, pious, a woman of the antique model, a keeper at home, +who spun among her maids and suckled her own children, who +never gave her husband a moment’s vexation, except when she +died.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2677, 2655, 4626, 4639, 4848, +Domum servavit, lanam fecit. Dixi, abei.</note> Good husbands seem to have been not less common. +And the wife’s grief sometimes far outruns the regular forms +of eulogy or regret. In one pathetic memorial of a union +formed in earliest youth, the lonely wife begs the unseen +Powers to let her have the vision of her spouse in the hours +of night, and bring her quickly to his side.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4775.</note> There is just the +same pure affection in the less regular, but often as stable, +unions of the slaves and soldiers, and the <hi rend="italic">contubernalis</hi> is +lamented with the same honourable affection as the great lady, +although the faulty Latin sometimes betrays the class to which +the author belongs. The slave world must always have its +shame and tragedy; yet many an inscription shows, by a +welcome gleam of light, that even there human love and ties +of family were not always desecrated.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2669, 4653, 2413, 2414.</note> The slave nurse +erects a monument to her little foster child; or a master and +mistress raise an affectionate memorial to two young <hi rend="italic">vernae</hi> +<pb n="258"/><anchor id="Pg258"/>who died on one day. A freedman bewails, with warm sincerity, +a friendship begun in the slave market, and never interrupted +till the last fatal hour.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2815, 2817, 4687, 4777, +4653.</note> The common tragedies of affection +meet us on these slabs, as they are reproduced from age to +age with little variation. The prevalent note is, <hi rend="italic">Vale vale +in aeternum</hi>, with thoughts of the ghostly ferryman and the +infernal stream and hopeless separation. Now and then, +but seldom, a soul passes cheerfully from the light which it +has loved, happy to escape the burden of old age.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4852, effugi crimen longa senecta +tuum.</note> And +sometimes, too, but seldom, we meet with a cold, hard grossness, +which looks back with perfect content upon a full +life of the flesh and takes the prospect of nothingness with a +cheerful acquiescence.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4816, balnea, vina, Venus corrumpunt +corpora nostra, sed vitam +faciunt. Vixi; quod comedi et ebibi +tantum meum est. Non fui, fui; non +sum, non curo; 4807, 7407, 7387.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The true Roman had a horror of the loneliness of death, +of the day when no kindly eye would read his name and +style upon the slab, when no hand for evermore would bring +the annual offering of wine and flowers. It is pathetic to see +how universal is the craving to be remembered felt even by +slaves, by men plying the most despised or unsavoury crafts. +The infant Julius Diadumenus, who has only drawn breath +for four hours, receives an enduring memorial. A wife consoles +her grief with the thought that her husband’s name and fame +will be forever prolonged by the slab which she dedicates.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4795, 7406.</note> +On another monument the traveller along the Flaminian Way +is begged to stop and read again the epitaph on a boy of nine.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4836.</note> +Many are tortured by the fear of the desertion or the violation +of their <q>eternal home.</q> An old veteran bequeaths from his +savings a sum of about £80, to provide a supply of oil for +the lamp above his tomb.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4416.</note> An unguent seller of Montferrat +leaves a fine garden to afford to the guardians of his grave an +annual feast upon his birthday, and the roses which are to be +laid upon it for ever.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4417.</note> Many a prayer, by the gods of the +upper and the lower worlds, appeals to the passing wayfarer +not to disturb the eternal rest.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4781, 4783, 4.</note> The alienation or desecration +of a tomb is forbidden with curses or the threat of heavy +<pb n="259"/><anchor id="Pg259"/>penalties.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4386, 4357, 4360, 4362, +4388, 4396, 4423, 4425, 4427.</note> A place of burial was a coveted possession, which +was not easily attainable by the poor and friendless, and +practical persons guarded their repose against lawless intrusion +by requiring the delinquent to pay a heavy fine to the +municipal or to the imperial treasury, or to the pontifical +college. It was the most effectual way of securing the peace +of the dead. For the public authorities had a direct pecuniary +interest in enforcing the penalty for the desecration. But it +would be interesting to know how long these provisions to +protect for ever the peace of the departed fulfilled the hopes +of the testator. +</p> + +<p> +The primary object of a multitude of colleges, like that +of the worshippers of Diana and Antinous at Lanuvium, was +undoubtedly, after the reign of Nerva, the care of the memory +of their members after death. In the remarkable inscription +of Lanuvium, as we have seen, the formal permission by +decree of the Senate, to meet once a month for the purpose of +a funerary contribution is recorded.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 6086. Ex S.C.P.R. quibus +coire convenire collegiumque habere +liceat qui stipem menstruam conferre +volent in funera, in id collegium coeant +neque sub specie ejus collegii nisi +semel in mense coeant, etc.</note> It was a momentous +concession, and carried consequences which the legislator may +or may not have intended.<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> ii. 313.</note> The jurist Marcian, who gives +an imperfect citation of this part of the decree, goes on to +add, that meetings for a religious purpose were not prohibited, +provided that the previous legislation against illicit societies +was observed.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">De Coll.</hi> p. 87.</note> And the law of the Lanuvian College shows +how often such meetings might take place. It did not need +much ingenuity to multiply occasions for reunion. The +anniversary of the foundation, the birthday of founders or +benefactors, the feast of the patron deity, the birthday of the +emperor, these and the like occasions furnished legal pretexts +for meetings of the society, when the members might have a +meal together, and when the conversation would not always +be confined to the funerary business of the college. At a +time when, according to juristic theory, a special permission +was needed for each new foundation, and when the authority +was grudgingly accorded, the whole vast plebeian mass of +petty traders, artisans, freedmen, and slaves were at one stroke +<pb n="260"/><anchor id="Pg260"/>allowed to organise their societies for burial. We may +fairly assume that, liberally interpreted, the new law was +allowed to cover with its sanction many a college of which +funeral rites were not the sole, or even the primary object. +And this would be made all the easier because many of the +industrial colleges, and perhaps still more of the strictly +religious colleges, had a common burial-place, and often +received bequests for funerary purposes. This is the case, +for example, with a college of worshippers of Hercules at +Interamna, and a similar college at Reate.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2399, 2400.</note> A young Belgian, +belonging to the guild of armourers of the 20th legion, +was buried by his college at Bath.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4079.</note> One C. Valgius Fuscus +gave a burial-ground at Forum Sempronii, in Umbria, to a +college of muleteers of the Porta Gallica, for their wives or +concubines, and their posterity.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4093.</note> There is even a burial-place, +duly defined by exact measurement, for those <q>who are in the +habit of dining together,</q> a description which, as time went +on, would have applied as accurately as any other to many +of these clubs.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4073, Loc. sep. convictor. qui +una epulo vesci solent.</note> +</p> + +<p> +We are, by a rare piece of good fortune, admitted to the +interior of one of the purely funerary colleges. In the reign +of Hadrian there was at Lanuvium a college which, by a +curious fancy, combined the worship of the pure Diana +with that of the deified minion of the emperor. It was +founded in <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> 133, three years after the tragic death of +the young favourite. And in 136, the patron of the society, +who was also a magnate of the town, caused it to be convened +in the temple of Antinous. There he announced +the gift of a sum of money, the interest of which was to be +spent at the festivals of the patron deities; and he directed +that the deed of foundation should be inscribed on the inner +walls of the portico of the temple, so that newly admitted +members might be informed of their rights and their obligations. +This document, discovered among the ruins of the +ancient Lanuvium in 1816, reveals many important facts in +the constitution and working of funerary colleges.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 6086; Momms. <hi rend="italic">De Coll.</hi> p. 98; +Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> ii. p. 309 sqq.; +Duruy, v. 412.</note> It recites, +as we have seen, a part of the <hi rend="italic">senatusconsultum</hi>, which +<pb n="261"/><anchor id="Pg261"/>authorised the existence of such colleges, and after loyal +wishes for the prosperity of the emperor and his house, it +prays for an honest energy in contributing to the due interment +of the dead, that by regular payments the society may +prolong its existence. +</p> + +<p> +The entrance fee of the college is to be 100 sesterces +(16s. 8d.), together with a flagon of good wine. A monthly +subscription of five asses is appointed. It is evident that +the members are of the humblest class, and one clause shows +that they have even a sprinkling of slaves among them, who, +with the permission of their masters, might connect themselves +with these burial clubs.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6086; Col. ii., placuit +ut quisquis servus ex hoc collegio liber +factus fuerit, etc.</note> The brethren could not aspire +to the erection even of a <hi rend="italic">columbarium</hi>, still less to the possession +of a common burial-ground. They confined themselves +to making a funeral grant of HS.300 to the appointed heir +of each member who had not intermitted his payments to the +common fund.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">De Coll.</hi> p. 99; Boissier, +<hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> ii. p. 309.</note> Out of this sum, HS.50 are to be paid to +members present at the funeral. The member dying intestate +will be buried by the society, and no claim upon his remaining +interest in it will be recognised. The slave, whose +body was retained by his master after death, was to have a +<hi rend="italic">funus imaginarium</hi>, and probably a cenotaph. In the case +of a member dying within a radius of twenty miles from +Lanuvium, three members, on timely notice, were deputed to +arrange for the funeral, and required to render an account of the +expenses so incurred. A fee of HS.20 was granted to each. +But if any fraud were discovered in their accounts, a fine of +quadruple the amount was imposed. Lastly, when a member +died beyond the prescribed limit, the person who had arranged +his funeral, on due attestation by seven Roman citizens, and +security given against any further claims, received the burial +grant, with certain deductions.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">De Coll.</hi> p. 104.</note> In such precise and orderly +fashion, with all the cautious forms of Roman law, did this +poor little society order its performance of duty to the +dead. +</p> + +<p> +Our knowledge of the funerary colleges is still further +amplified by an inscription of a date twenty years later than +<pb n="262"/><anchor id="Pg262"/>that of Lanuvium.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2417; Junio Rufino Cos. <hi rend="italic">i.e.</hi> <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> 153; Momms. p. 73.</note> In the reign of Antoninus Pius a lady +named Salvia Marcellina resolved to commemorate her husband +by a gift to the college of Aesculapius and Hygia. She +presented to it the site for a shrine close to the Appian Way, +a marble statue of Aesculapius, and a hall opening on a terrace, +where the banquets of the brotherhood should be held. To +this benefaction Marcellina, along with one P. Aelius Zeno, +who apparently was her brother, added two donations of +HS.15,000 and HS.10,000 respectively, the interest of +which was to be distributed in money, or food and wine, at +six different festivals. The proportions assignable to each rank +in the college were determined at a full meeting, held in the +shrine of the <q>Divine Titus.</q> Marcellina attaches certain +conditions to her gift. The society is to be limited to sixty +members, and the place of each member, on his decease, is to +be filled by the co-optation of his son. If any member +chooses to bequeath his place and interest, his choice is +confined to his son, his brother, or his freedman, and he is +required to pay for this limited freedom of selection by refunding +one-half of his burial grant to the chest of the +college.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">De Coll.</hi> p. 93.</note> The college of Aesculapius is nominally a religious +and funerary corporation, yet there is only a single reference, +in a long document, to the subject of burial. No information is +given as to the amount of the <hi rend="italic">funeraticium</hi> or burial grant, the +sources from which it is derived, or the conditions on which +it is to be paid. The chief object of Marcellina seems to have +been to connect the memory of her husband with a number of +festivals, for the perpetuity of which she makes provision, to +promote social intercourse, and to prevent the intrusion of +strangers by making membership practically hereditary. +</p> + +<p> +The colleges, of whose inner working we have tried to give +a picture, are classed as religious corporations in the collections +of the inscriptions. They bear the name of a god, and +they provide a solemn interment for their members. But in +these respects they do not differ from many other colleges +which are regarded as purely secular. The truth is, that any +attempt to make a sharp division of these societies on such +lines seems futile. Sepulture and religion being admitted by the +<pb n="263"/><anchor id="Pg263"/>government as legitimate objects for association, any college, +however secular in its tone, might, and probably would, screen +itself under sacred names. Nor would this be merely a +hypocritical pretence. It is clear that many of the purely +industrial colleges, composed as they were of poor people who +found it impossible to purchase a separate burial-place, and +not easy, unaided, to bear the expense of the last rites, at once +consulted their convenience, and gratified the sentiment of +fraternity, by arranging for a common place of interment. +And with regard to religion, it is a commonplace to point out +that all Graeco-Roman societies, great or small, rested on +religion. The state, the clan, the family, found their ideal +and firmest bond in reverence for divine or heroic ancestors, a +reverent piety towards the spirits who had passed into the +unseen world. The colleges, as we shall see presently, were +formed on the lines of the city which they almost slavishly +imitated.<note place="foot">They have their ordo, plebs, decuriones, +quinquennales, curatores, +honorati, patroni, quaestores, etc.; <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> + <hi rend="italic">Henz. Ind.</hi> p. 176 sqq.</note> It would be strange and anomalous if they should +desert their model in that which was its most original and +striking characteristic. And just as Cleisthenes found divine +and heroic patrons for his new tribes and demes,<note place="foot">Herodot. v. 66.</note> so would a +Roman college naturally place itself under the protection of +one of the great names of the Roman pantheon. Sometimes, +no doubt, there may not have been much sincerity in this +conformity to ancient pieties. But do we need to remind +ourselves how long a life the form of ancient pieties may +have, even when the faith which gave birth to them has +become dim and faint? +</p> + +<p> +The usual fashion of writing Roman history has concentrated +attention on the doings of the emperor, the life of the +noble class in the capital, or on the stations of the legions and +the political organisation of the provinces. It is a stately and +magnificent panorama. But it is apt to throw the life of the +masses into even deeper shadow than that in which time has +generally enwrapped them. We are prone to forget that, +behind all this stately life, there was a quiet yet extraordinarily +busy industrial activity which was its necessary +basis and which catered for all its caprices. In the most +cursory way Tacitus tells us that a great part of Italy +<pb n="264"/><anchor id="Pg264"/>was gathered for the great fair at Cremona, on the fateful +days when the town was stormed by the army of Vespasian.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iii. 32, tempus quoque +mercatus ditem alioqui coloniam majore +opum specie complebat.</note> +Yet what a gathering it must have been! There were laid +out in the booths the fine woollens of Parma and Mutina, the +mantles of Canusium, the purples of Tarentum, the carpets +of Patavium. Traders from Ilva brought their iron wares, +Pompeii sent its fish sauces, and Lucania its famous sausages. +Nor would there be missing in the display the oil of Venafrum, +and the famous Setine and Falernian vintages.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Cena Trim. Einl.</hi> p. 63.</note> The improvement +of the great roads in the reign of Trajan must have +given a vast stimulus to inland commerce. And we may be +sure that many a petty merchant with his pack was to be +seen along the Aemilian or Flaminian ways, like the travelling +vendor of honey and cheese, whom Lucius, in the tale of +Apuleius, meets hurrying to Hypata.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> i. 5.</note> The great roads of +Spain, since the days of Augustus, carried an immense traffic, +which made even the distant Gades a magnificent emporium +and one of the richest places in the Roman world.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">Rom. Prov.</hi> i. 74.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The wandering traders in Germany, Spain, or Syria, by a +natural instinct drew together in their exile. In the revolt +of Julius Civilis, they are found settled among the Batavians, +and a <hi rend="italic">collegium peregrinorum</hi> has left its memorial on the +lower Rhine.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 178; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iv. 5.</note> The <hi rend="italic">sodalicium urbanum</hi> at Bracara Augusta is +a similar society.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> ii. 2423.</note> Another mercantile college meets us at +Apulum in Dacia.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 1500.</note> The Syrians of Berytus had a club at +Puteoli, and there were at least two clubs of Syrian traders at +Malaga.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> x. 1634, 1579.</note> The graves of Syrian traders have been found at +Sirmium in Pannonia, and, on the other hand, there are +memorials of Roman merchants at Apamea and Tralles, at +Salamis and Mitylene.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 365, 444, 455, 6051.</note> Immense stimulus to this transmarine +trade must have been given by the Emperor Claudius, who +provided insurance against loss by storms, and a liberal system +of bounties and rewards for shipping enterprise.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Claud.</hi> xviii.; cf. Merivale, +vi. 126 sq.</note> Apollonius +of Tyana once expostulated with a young Spartan, who claimed +descent from Callicratidas, for having forsaken the true career +<pb n="265"/><anchor id="Pg265"/>of a man of his race, to soil himself with the trade of +Carthage and Sicily. It is the sentiment of Juvenal who +treats as a lunatic the man who will venture his life with a +cargo on the wintry Aegean.<note place="foot">Juv. xiv. 276.</note> But the antiquarian rhetoric +attributed to Apollonius embalms the fact that at the opening +of a springtime in the reign of Domitian, a great merchant +fleet was lying at Malea, ready to sail to the western seas.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iv. 34.</note> +These wandering merchants, wherever they went, banded themselves +in colleges for mutual protection and for society. In +the same way, old soldiers, on their return from long service +on the frontiers, gathered in military brotherhoods at such +places as Ostia or Misenum.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6111, 6835.</note> The veterans of Augustus seem +to have become a distinct and recognised class, like the +Augustales.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4109.</note> Colleges of youth sprang up everywhere from +the days of Nero, at Beneventum, Cremona, and Ameria, or at +Moguntiacum, Lauriacum, and Poetovio.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 6414, 2211, 4095, 4100, 4096; +<hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> x. 5928, 1493; iii. 4045, 5678.</note> They were formed, +like our own sporting clubs, for exercise and healthy rivalry, +often under the patronage of the divine hero who, to all the +moralists of that age, had become the mythic type of the +continent vigour of early manhood. There is one sodality at +least devoted to the preservation of chastity.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2401.</note> But it is +balanced by the clubs of the <q>late sleepers</q> and <q>late +drinkers</q> of Pompeii.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iv. 575, 581.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The colleges in which the artisans and traders of the +Antonine age grouped themselves are almost innumerable, +even in the records which time has spared. They represent +almost every conceivable branch of industry or special skill +or social service, from the men who laid the fine sand in the +arena, to the rich wine merchants of Lyons or Ostia.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4063, 4072, 4087, 7007.</note> The +mere catalogue of these associations in an index will give an +enlarged conception of the immense range and minute specialisation +of Roman industry. It may be doubted whether a +similar enumeration of our English crafts would be longer or +more varied. The great trades, which minister to the first +necessities of human life, occupy of course the largest space, +the bakers, the cloth-makers, the smiths, carpenters, and wood-<pb n="266"/><anchor id="Pg266"/>merchants, trades often grouped together, the shoemakers +and fullers and carders of wool. The mechanics, who made +the arms and engines for the legions, naturally hold a +prominent place. Nor less prominent are the boatmen of +Ostia, and of the Rhone and the Saône.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4243, 7205, 6950.</note> The sailors of +these great rivers had several powerful corporations at +Lyons, and, on many an inscription,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 7007, 7254, 4110, 6950.</note> claim the wealthiest +citizens, men who have gained the whole series of municipal +honours, as their chiefs and patrons. Arles, which was +then a great sea-port, had its five corporations of sailor-folk, +and Ostia an equal number, charged with the momentous +task of taking up the cargoes of the African corn-ships for +the bakeries of Rome.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 3655, 6029, 3178.</note> Transport by land is represented by +colleges of muleteers and ass drivers in the Alps and Apennines.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4093, 7206.</note> +All the many trades and services which ministered to +the wants or pleasures of the capital were similarly banded +together, the actors and horn-blowers, the porters and paviors, +down to the humble dealers in pastils and salt fish.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4105, 2619, 4113, 4112, 2625.</note> We +have seen that even the gladiators, in their barrack-prisons, +were allowed to form their clubs. Although traces of these +combinations are found in remote and obscure places all +over the Roman world, it is at great commercial centres, +at Ostia, Puteoli, Lyons, and Rome itself, that they have +left the most numerous remains. They had probably for +one of their objects the protection of their members against +encroachments or fiscal oppression. Strabo once came across a +deputation of fishermen on their way to plead with the Emperor +for a reduction of their dues.<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> ii. p. 286.</note> Yet it would be a mistake to +suppose that these trades unions were always organised for +trade objects, or that the separate colleges were composed of +people engaged in the same occupation. They had many +honorary members from among the richer classes, and, even +in the lower ranks, in defiance of the law,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Dig.</hi> L. 7.</note> a dealer in salt +might be enrolled among the boatmen of the Rhone, and +member of a college of builders.<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> ii. 287.</note> In truth, the great object +of association among these humble people appears to have +been not so much the protection of their trade, as the cheer<pb n="267"/><anchor id="Pg267"/>fulness of intercourse, the promotion of fellowship and good-will, +the relief of the dulness of humdrum lives. +</p> + +<p> +Probably no age, not even our own, ever felt a greater +craving for some form of social life, wider than the family, +and narrower than the State. It was a movement at which, +as we have seen, even the greatest and strongest of the +emperors had to connive. It penetrated society down to +its lowest layers. Even the slaves and freedmen of great +houses organised themselves in colleges. There were colleges +in the imperial household.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6302.</note> T. Aelius Primitivus, chief of the +imperial kitchen, being a man of great posthumous ambition, +left the care of his own and his wife’s monument to the +college of the palatine cooks.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi></note> In the inscriptions of Moesia +there is the album of a Bacchic club of household slaves +containing 80 names, with apparently different grades among +them, designated by such titles as <hi rend="italic">archimysta</hi>, <hi rend="italic">bouleuta</hi>, <hi rend="italic">frater</hi> +and <hi rend="italic">filius</hi>.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iii. 2, 6150.</note> A similar club of the servile class, devoted to +the worship of Isis, existed at Tarraco.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ii. 6004.</note> The officers of +another bear the pompous titles of tribune, quaestor, and +triumvir, and the slab records the thanks of one Hilara, +that her ashes have been allowed to mingle in the same urn +with those of Mida the chamberlain.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2863, Hilara viva rogavit +ut ossa sua in olla Midaes coicerentur +cum mort. esset.</note> A provincial treasurer +at Ephesus, who was a <hi rend="italic">verna Augusti</hi>, commits the custody +of his wife’s monument to five colleges of slaves and freedmen +in the emperor’s household. One of the colleges bears the +name of Faustina. Another college is devoted to the cult +of the Lares and images of Antoninus Pius.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iii. 6077, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> note.</note> Private masters +seem to have encouraged the formation of such associations +among their dependents, and sometimes to have endowed +them with a perpetual foundation.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2386, 4938, 4123.</note> It was probably politic, +as well as kind, to provide for slaves social pleasures within +the circle of the household, and thus to forestall the attractions +of the numerous clubs outside, which freely offered their +hospitality.<note place="foot">Such as that in <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6086.</note> We may be sure that the college <q>which was +in the house of Sergia Paulina</q> was not encouraged by the +mistress without good reason. +</p> + +<pb n="268"/><anchor id="Pg268"/> + +<p> +Thus it appears that in every part of the Roman world, +in the decaying little country town, and in the great trading +centres, the same great movement of association, is going +on apace. It swept into its current almost every social grade, +and every trade, handicraft or profession, the pastil-makers, +the green-grocers and unguent sellers of Rome, the muleteers +of the Alps, the fullers of Pompeii, the doctors at Beneventum, +the boatmen of the Seine, the wine merchants of Lyons. Men +formed themselves into these groups for the most trivial or +whimsical reasons, or for no reason at all, except that they +lived in the same quarter, and often met.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6010, Colleg. Capitolinorum, etc.; cf. Cic. <hi rend="italic">Ad Quint. Fratr.</hi> ii. 5.</note> From the view +which the inscriptions give us of the interior of some of these +clubs, it is clear that their main purpose was social pleasure. +And this is especially true of the clubs of the humblest class. +M. Boissier has well remarked that the poor workman, the +poor freedman, with the brand of recent slavery upon him, +who was often engaged in some mean or disgusting occupation, +amidst a society which from tradition regarded any industry +soiled by servile touch with distant scorn, must have felt +themselves solitary exiles in the desert of a great town, the +most awful desert in the world. The remote splendour of the +court and aristocratic life must have deepened the gloom of +isolation and helplessness. Shut out for ever from that +brilliant world of fashion and pleasure and power, whose social +life seemed so charming and gay and friendly, the despised and +lonely toiler sought a refuge in little gatherings of people as +lonely as himself. At some chance meeting, some one, more +energetic than the rest, would throw out the suggestion to form +a club, on the model of some of the old trade societies which +had always been authorised by the State from the days of +Numa, or of those newer associations which were now tacitly +permitted under the guise of religion. A small entrance fee +would meet, for the time, their modest expenses. In that age +of generous or ambitious profusion, it was not hard to find +some influential patron, a kindly gracious noble, or an aspiring +or generous <hi rend="italic">parvenu</hi>, to give the infant society his countenance, +along with a substantial donation for the building of a club-house, +and for simple convivial pleasures on his birthday, and +other festivals which could easily be multiplied. Then the +<pb n="269"/><anchor id="Pg269"/>brethren met in solemn form to frame their constitution and +commemorate their benefactor, on one of those many monuments +which illuminate a social life on which the literature of +the age is generally silent. +</p> + +<p> +The continuity and repetition of proved political organisation +is a notable characteristic of the great races which have +left, or are destined to leave, their mark on history. The +British settlers on the prairies of Oregon or Manitoba immediately +order themselves into communities, which are modelled +on a social system as old as the Heptarchy. The Latin +race had perhaps an even more stubborn conservatism than +the English. Under the most various circumstances, the +Roman instinctively clung to forms and institutions of tested +strength and elasticity, and consecrated by the immemorial +usage of his race. The most distant and most humble municipality +was fashioned after the pattern of the great <q>city which +had become a world.</q><note place="foot">Rutil. Namat. i. 63.</note> It had its senate, the <hi rend="italic">ordo splendidissimus +et amplissimus</hi>, and the popular assembly which elected +the magistrates. The municipal magistrates, if they do not +always bear the ancient names, reproduce in shadowy form +the dictators, the praetors, the aediles, quaestors, and censors of +the old republic.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz. Ind.</hi> p. 154 sqq.</note> The same continuity of form is seen in the +colleges. As the municipal town was modelled on the constitution +of the State, so we may say that the college was modelled +on the municipal town. The college, indeed, became a city for +the brotherhood, at once a city and a home. They apply to it +such terms as <hi rend="italic">respublica collegii</hi>.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4068, 4107.</note> The meetings often took place +in a temple, whether of a patron deity or of an emperor, as +those of the Roman Senate were held in the temple of Concord +or of Bellona. There they elected their administrative officers, +generally for a period of one year; in some cases, by way of +special distinction, for life. The heads of these little societies +bear various names, <hi rend="italic">magistri</hi>, <hi rend="italic">curatores</hi>, <hi rend="italic">quinquennales</hi>, <hi rend="italic">praefecti</hi>, +or <hi rend="italic">praesides</hi>.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 6127, 7181, 7182, 3217, 4138 (<hi rend="italic">v.</hi> +Orelli’s note to this Inscription), 4071; +<hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> x. p. 1163; iii. (2) p. 1180.</note> They have also quaestors,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2863, 7183, 5372.</note> who managed their +financial affairs, which, although perhaps on no great scale, +still involved the investment of trust moneys to yield the +prescribed amounts which had to be distributed either as burial +<pb n="270"/><anchor id="Pg270"/>payments, or in food and money on the high festivals. The +number of the members was generally limited, either by the +government in the interests of public order, or by the will of +a benefactor, to prevent the progressive diminution in the +value of the divisible shares of the income.<note place="foot"> <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 2417, ut ne plures adlegantur +quam numerus s. s. etc.; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> ii. +1167, collegio hominum centum <sic>dumtaxet</sic> +constituto. Cf. Plin. x. 33, where +the coll. fabrorum is to be limited to +150.</note> A periodical +revision of the roll of members was therefore conducted every +five years, as it was in the municipality, by the chief officers, +exercising for the time censorial powers in miniature. Fortunately +the albums of three or four colleges have been preserved. +The lists throw a vivid light on their constitution and social +tone. We have drawn attention in a former chapter to the +strict gradation of social rank in the city polity. The same +characteristic is repeated in the collegiate organisation. In these +humble plebeian coteries, composed of <q>men without a grandfather,</q> +of men, perhaps, whose father was a slave, or of men +who were slaves themselves, there emerges, to our astonishment, +a punctilious observance of shadowy social distinctions, which +is an inheritance from the exclusive aristocratic pride of the +old republic. This characteristic has excited in some French +critics and historians a certain admiration,<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> ii. 295.</note> in which it is +not altogether easy to join. Gradation of rank to ensure +devotion and order in public service is a precious and admirable +thing. But artificial and unreal distinctions, invented and +conferred to flatter wealth, to stimulate or reward the largesses +of the rich patron, to gratify the vulgar self-complacency of +the <hi rend="italic">parvenu</hi>, are only a degrading form of mendicancy. Some +indulgence is no doubt due to men who were still under the yoke +of slavery, or only just released from it; the iron had entered +into their souls. But both the college and the municipality +of the Antonine age cannot be relieved of the charge of +purchased or expectant deference to mere wealth. Hence we +cannot altogether share the pleasure of M. Boissier in these +pale and vulgar reproductions of the hierarchy of a real +aristocracy. But the image of the hierarchy is there, and it is +very instructive. In a college of smiths in Tarraconensis, there +were fifteen patrons at the head of the roll, followed by +twelve decurions, including two doctors and a soothsayer, one +<pb n="271"/><anchor id="Pg271"/>man isolated by the honours of the <hi rend="italic">bisellium</hi>, two honorary +members, twenty-eight plain plebeians. There were also several +<q>mothers</q> and <q>daughters</q> of the society.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4055.</note> The album of +another club at Ostia shows a list of nine patrons, two holders +of quinquennial rank, and one hundred and twenty-three +plebeians.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4054, 2417, 4056.</note> The plebs of many colleges included slaves, and +in more than one inscription the men of ingenuous and those +of servile birth are carefully distinguished, the slaves being +sometimes placed at the bottom of the roll.<note place="foot">The ranks are mingled, however, +in <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 2394; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iii. 633.</note> Yet it was surely +a great advance when slaves and freemen could meet together +for the time, on a certain footing of equality, for business or +convivial intercourse. The rigid lines of old pagan society are +indeed still marked on the face of these clubs. And yet many +an inscription leaves the impression that these little societies +of the old pagan world are nurseries, in an imperfect way, of +the gentle charities and brotherliness which, in shy retirement, +the young Church was cultivating in her disciples to be +the ideal of the world. +</p> + +<p> +These colleges became homes for the homeless, a little +fatherland, or <hi rend="italic">patria</hi>, for those without a country. Sometimes +they may have met in low taverns, which were on that +account jealously watched by some of the emperors.<note place="foot">D. Cass. 60. 6, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τά τε καπελεῖα ἐς ἃ συνιόντες ἔπινον κατέλυσε, κτλ.</foreign></note> But +they generally attained to the possession of a club-room or +<hi rend="italic">schola</hi>, a name which had been previously given to the +lounging-room of the public baths. Sometimes the <hi rend="italic">schola</hi> +was erected at their own cost, the site being perhaps granted +by some rich patron, or by the town council, on a vacant +spot close to the basilica or the theatre.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4088, 3298, 2279, 3787, +4085.</note> But frequently a +hall was built for them by some generous friend. A like +generosity often provided for them a little chapel of their +patron deity, with a shaded court, or a balcony open to the +air and sun, where the brethren took their common meals.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2417, solarium tectum junctum +in quo populus collegi s. s. epuletur.</note> +Or a rich patron, anxious to secure some care and religious +observance of his last resting-place, would bequeath to a +college a pleasant garden adjoining the tomb, with a house +in which to hold their meetings.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4070.</note> And, as a further security +<pb n="272"/><anchor id="Pg272"/>against neglect and oblivion, a sum of 10,000 or 15,000 +sesterces would be invested to provide a dinner for the +college on their benefactor’s birthday.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 65, 900, 4088; cf. 4107, +4366.</note> As years went on, +the scene of many a pleasant gathering became a centre +round which clustered a great deal of sentiment, and even +pride. We may imagine that, allowing for differences of +time and faith, the little school or shrine would, in the course +of years, attract something of the feeling which consecrates +an ancient village church in England, or a little Bethel which +was built in the year of the visit of John Wesley. It became +a point of honour to make gifts to the schola, to add to its +comfort or beauty. One benefactor would redeem a right of +ancient lights, or build a boundary wall.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2416, 4057.</note> Another would +make a present of bronze candelabra on a marble stand, with +the device of a Cupid holding baskets in his hands.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4068.</note> Or a +college would receive from its curator a gift of some silver +statues of the gods, on the dedication of the <hi rend="italic">schola</hi>, with a +brass tablet, no doubt recording the event.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2502.</note> The gift of a +place where the brethren of the club might be buried beside +their wives or concubines, was probably, to these poor people, +not the least valued benefaction.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2400, 4093.</note> Many a humble donation +was probably made, which was too slight for a memorial. +But it happens that we have one record of gifts evidently +offered by poor, insignificant people. It is contained in a very +interesting inscription found upon a rock near the theatre at +Philippi in Macedonia.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iii. 1, 633.</note> It records that P. Hostilius Philadelphus, +in recognition of the aedileship of the college, which +had been conferred upon him, bore the expense of polishing +the rock, and inscribing upon it the names of the members of +a college of Silvanus, sixty-nine in number, together with a list +of those who had presented gifts to their temple. The college +was a religious one, with a priest who is named in the first +place. It is also a funerary society, and seems to be composed +of freedmen and of slaves, either belonging to the colony +or private masters. They had just erected a temple of their +patron god, to which some had given subscriptions in money, +while others made various offerings for its adornment. One +<pb n="273"/><anchor id="Pg273"/>brother presents an image of the god in a little shrine, another +statuettes of Hercules and Mercury. There is another +donation of some stone-work in front of the temple, and +Hostilius, at his own expense, cut away the rock to smooth +the approach to the shrine. Most of the gifts are of trifling +value, a poor little picture worth 15 <hi rend="italic">denarii</hi>, a marble image +of Bacchus costing not much more. But they were the +offerings of an enthusiastic brotherhood, and the good Hostilius +has given them an immortality of which they never dreamed. +</p> + +<p> +The contributions of the members would generally have +been but a sorry provision for the social and religious life of a +college. Reproducing, as it did, the constitution and the tone +of the city in so many traits, the college in nothing follows +its model so closely as in its reliance on the generosity of +patronage. At the head of the album of the society there +is a list, sometimes disproportionately long, of its <hi rend="italic">patroni</hi>. +Countless inscriptions leave us in no doubt as to the reason +why the patron was elected. His <hi rend="italic">raison d’être</hi> in the +club is the same as in the city; it is to provide luxuries or +amusements for the society, which the society could not +generally obtain for itself. The relation of patron and client +is, of all the features of ancient life, the one which, being so +remote from the spirit of our democratic society, is perhaps +most difficult for us to understand. The mutual obligations, +enforced by a powerful traditional sentiment, were of the most +binding, and sometimes burdensome character. And in that +form of relation, between former master and freedman, which +became so common in the first age of the Empire, the old +master was bound to continue his support and protection to +the emancipated slave.<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. 203.</note> Although there was much that +was sordid and repulsive in the position of the client in +Juvenal’s and Martial’s days, we must still recognise the fact +that the fortune of the rich patron had to pay a heavy price +for social deference. Not less heavy was the demand made +on the patrons of municipalities and colleges. +</p> + +<p> +There must have been wide distinctions of dignity and +importance among the industrial colleges of the Empire. +The <hi rend="italic">centonarii</hi>, the <hi rend="italic">fabri</hi>, and <hi rend="italic">dendrophori</hi> of the more +important centres, such as Aquileia, Lyons and Milan, the +<pb n="274"/><anchor id="Pg274"/>boatmen of Arles or Ostia, would probably have looked +down with scorn on the flute-players of the Via Sacra, the +hunters of Corfinium, or the muleteers of the Porta Gallica.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4082, 4118.</note> +And there was a corresponding variety in the rank of the +patrons. Some are high officials of the Empire, procurators +of provinces, curators of great public works, or distinguished +officers of the legions. Or they are men evidently of high +position and commanding influence in their province, priests +of the altar of Augustus, augurs of the colony, magistrates +or decurions of two or three cities.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4082, 194, 73, 4077, 6654, 4109, +4069; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iii. 1, 1209, 1497, 1051; +x. 228; 1696; 3910.</note> Sometimes the +patron is a great merchant, with warehouses of oil or wine +at Lyons or Tarragona or Ostia.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 7007, 4109.</note> Yet in spite of his wealth, +the patron’s social position in those days might be rather +uncertain, and we may without difficulty, from modern +analogies, believe that a new man might find his vanity +soothed, or his position made less obscure, by being known +as the titular head of an ancient corporation of the clothworkers, +or <hi rend="italic">dendrophori</hi>, or of the boatmen on the Saône. +Probably in obscure country towns, remote from the seat of +Empire, these bourgeois dignities were even more valued.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iii. 1968; <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3927, +3321, 6275.</note> The +humbler colleges would have to be content with one of the new +freedmen, such as the vulgar friends of Trimalchio, who, after +a youth of shameful servitude, had leapt into fortune by +some happy chance or stroke of shrewdness, and who sought +a compensation for the contempt of the great world in the +deference and adulation of those who waited for their largesses. +</p> + +<p> +The election of a patron was an event of great moment, +especially to a poor college. And it was conducted with a +formal preciseness, and an assumption of dignity, which, at this +distance of time, are sometimes rather ludicrous. In a little town +of Cisalpine Gaul in the year 190, the college of smiths and +clothworkers met in solemn session in their temple. Their +quaestors, who may have had the financial condition of the +college in view, made a formal proposal that the college should +set an example of the judicious reward of merit, by electing +one Tutilius Julianus, a man distinguished by his modesty +and liberality, as the patron of their society. The meeting +<pb n="275"/><anchor id="Pg275"/>commended the sage proposal of the quaestors, and formally +resolved that the honourable Julianus should be requested +to accept the distinction, with an apology for so tardy a +recognition of his merits, and that a brass plate, containing a +copy of this decree, should be placed above his door.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4133.</note> +</p> + +<p> +It is significant that the patrons were, in very many cases, +Seviri and Augustales, a body which in the provinces, as we have +seen, was generally composed of new men of the freedman class. +Although they were steadily rising in importance and in strength +of organisation, the provincial Augustales always ranked after +the decurions of a town. They often displayed boundless +liberality to their city and to their own order.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 7116, 3914, 3923, 4080, qui +facultates suas coll. reliq.</note> But the +leading Augustales seem to have been quite as generous to the +other corporations who placed themselves under their patronage. +And they were not unfrequently patrons of several colleges.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4109; 194, 4069, 4071, 4094, +7194.</note> +It is no long task to find men who were the titular protectors +of two or three, of eight, or even of as many as twelve or +fifteen colleges. One inscription to Cn. Sentius of Ostia would +seem to include among his dependents almost every industrial +college in that busy port.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4109.</note> Sentius must have been a very +wealthy and a very generous man to accept the patronage of +so many societies, which in those days expected or demanded +that their honours should be paid for in solid cash. The +crowning distinction of a statue, or a durable inscription, was +often solemnly decreed with all seemly forms of deference or +unstinted flattery in a full meeting of the society. But in a +great majority of cases we are amused or disgusted to read +that, after all his other liberalities, the benefactor or his heir +is permitted to pay for the record of popular gratitude.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 3724, honore usus impensam +remisit; cf. 7011, 6992, 7190, so +<hi rend="italic">passim</hi>.</note> This +fact may explain the extraordinary abundance of these honours, +if it somewhat lowers their value in the eyes of posterity. +</p> + +<p> +But, besides the benefactions which sprang either from +ambition or real generosity, a vast number were inspired by the +Roman passion for long remembrance, and for the continuity +of funerary ritual. The very position of so many tombs by +the side of the great roads beyond the city gates, was a silent +<pb n="276"/><anchor id="Pg276"/>appeal to the passing traveller not to forget the departed. The +appeal is also often expressly made on the stone by those who +had no other means of prolonging their own memory or that of +some one they loved. It is impossible to read without some +emotion the prayer of an old Spanish soldier, that his brethren +of the college may never suffer grief like his, if they will only +keep the lamp burning for ever over the tomb of his child.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> ii. 2102.</note> The +more opulent took more elaborate measures to provide for the +guardianship of their <q>last home.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4371, 4070, 4400, 7365; +cf. Marq. <hi rend="italic">Pr.</hi> i. 370.</note> They often attached to the +tomb a field or gardens of considerable extent, to be cultivated +for profit, or to bear the roses for the annual offering. +The whole area, the dimensions of which, in many inscriptions, +are defined with mathematical precision, would be surrounded +by a wall. Within the enclosure there would be a little +shrine containing statues of the dead, an arbour and a well, and +a hall in which the kindred of coming generations might hold +their annual banquet, till the tie was dissolved by the cruel oblivion +of time.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4456 aediculae in quibus +simulacra, etc., 4510, 4400 area quae +ante se est maceria cincta long. p. x̅l̅i̅i̅x̅., lat. p. x̅x̅x̅i̅x̅., 7365, 4337, 4070, +4085.</note> There will be a cottage (<hi rend="italic">taberna</hi>) in which a freedman +or dependent of the house may be lodged, to watch over the +repose of the dead.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4366 ejusque mausolei claves +duae penes aliquem libertorum meorum +... sint, 4637, 4353.</note> But all these precautions, as the testator +feels, were likely to be defeated in the end by the vicissitudes +of human fortunes.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 6206.</note> He had, indeed, before his eyes the fate +of many a forsaken and forgotten tomb of old worthies of the +Republic. Families die out; faithful freedmen and their children +cannot keep their watch for ever. The garden will grow +wild, a time may come when no kindly hand will pour the +libation or scatter the roses on the natal day. Families will die +out, but a college may go on for ever by the perpetual renewal +of its members. Inspired with this idea, a worthy of Nîmes +created a funerary college to dine regularly in his honour.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4366.</note> +It was to consist of thirty persons, and the number was +to be maintained by co-optation into the places of deceased +members. Members of the college who were obliged to be +absent might send one of their friends to join in the repast. +Thus the dead man, who had taken such care to prolong his +<pb n="277"/><anchor id="Pg277"/>memory, would at no distant date be festively celebrated by +people who barely knew his name. Many another left a +bequest to a college to be spent in a feast on the testator’s +memorial day.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 3999, 4076, 4107, 4088.</note> A freedman of Mevania leaves a tiny +legacy of HS.1000 to the guild of clothworkers, of whom he +is patron, with the condition that not less than twelve of +their number shall feast once a year in memory of him.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 3999.</note> A +more liberal provision for convivial enjoyment was left to +a college of Silvanus in honour of Domitian. It consisted +of the rents of four estates, with their appurtenances, which +were to be spent on the birthdays of the emperor and his +wife, <q>for all time to come,</q> with the sacrifices proper to +such a holy season.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 6085.</note> Due provision is often made for the +seemly and impressive performance of a rite which was at +once a religious duty and a convivial pleasure. There is +a curious letter of the time of Antoninus Pius containing a +deed of gift to the college of the <hi rend="italic">fabri</hi> at Narbo, in return for +their constant favours to the donor. One Sextus Fadius +presents them with the sum of 16,000 sesterces, the interest +of which is to be divided every year at the end of April for +ever, at a banquet on his birthday; the guests on this festive +occasion are to be habited in their handsomest attire.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 7215 (<hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> 149).</note> +</p> + +<p> +But the fullest and minutest arrangements for these modest +meals are to be found in the document relating to the foundation +of the poor college of Diana and Antinous, to which reference +has already been made. The master of the feast was taken in +regular order from the roll of the society. Each brother had to +accept this office in his turn, or pay a fine of five shillings of our +money. The regular festivals of the club were six in the year, +on the natal days of Diana and Antinous, and those of the +founder and some of his relatives. There is some obscurity in +the regulations for these common feasts, and at first sight they +are a ludicrous contrast to the pontiff’s famous banquet in the +days of Julius Caesar, described by Macrobius.<note place="foot">Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> iii. 13, 11-13.</note> M. Boissier +naturally refuses to imagine that even the poor brethren of the +club of Diana and Antinous would be contented with bread, +four sardines, a bottle of good wine, with hot water and the +<pb n="278"/><anchor id="Pg278"/>proper table service. The slave steward of Horace probably +found much better fare in his <hi rend="italic">popina</hi>.<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> ii. 319; Marq. +<hi rend="italic">Pr.</hi> i. 208; Hor. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 14, 21.</note> Dr. Mommsen has +resolved the mystery. It is evident, from several inscriptions, +that <hi rend="italic">sportulae</hi> were sharply distinguished from distributions of +bread and wine.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">De Colleg.</hi> p. 109; cf. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> +2385 (panem vinum et sportulas dedit), +3949.</note> The <hi rend="italic">sportula</hi> was a gift of richer food or +dainties, which in public distributions might be carried home; +it was sometimes an equivalent in money. If those who +received the <hi rend="italic">sportula</hi> preferred to enjoy it at a common table, +an appointed member of the college would have the food +prepared, or convert the money into dishes for the feast. The +bread and wine he might add from his own pocket, if they were +not provided by the foundation. How much for these meals +came from the club funds, and how much out of the pocket of +the <hi rend="italic">magister coenae</hi>, is not always clearly stated. But we may +be sure, from the tone of the times, that additions to a modest +<hi rend="italic">menu</hi> were often made by the generosity of patrons and officers +of the club. +</p> + +<p> +It would be futile and uninteresting to pursue into all its +minute details throughout the inscriptions, the system of +<hi rend="italic">sportulae</hi> founded by so many patrons and benefactors. Any +one who wishes can temperately regale himself for hours at +these shadowy club-feasts of the second century. Perhaps +the clearest example of such distributions is the donation of +Marcellina and Aelius Zeno to the little college of Aesculapius, +to which reference has been made for another purpose.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2417.</note> On +seven different anniversaries and festivals, sums of money, with +bread and wine, were distributed to the brethren of the college +in due proportions, according to their official dignity and social +rank. Thus, in the division on the 4th of November, the fête-day +of the society, the shares in money, according to the various +grades, from the father of the college downwards, are six, four, +and two. The division of the wine, according to social rank, +follows the proportion of nine, six, and three. A slightly different +scale is followed on the birthday of the Emperor Antoninus +Pius in September, and on the day for New Year’s gifts in +January. But in these benefactions the difference of grade is +always observed, the patron and the chief magistrates and +<pb n="279"/><anchor id="Pg279"/>magnates of the society always receiving a larger share than +the obscure brethren at the bottom of the list. In the college +of Aesculapius, Marcellina herself, and Aelius Zeno, the two +great benefactors of the society, along with the highest of its +dignitaries, are allotted three times as much as the plebeian +brother. The excellent Marcellina, who, in the fourth century +might perhaps have followed S. Jerome and Paula to Bethlehem, +was the widow of a good and tender husband, who had been +curator of the imperial picture galleries.<note place="foot">Fl. Apolloni Proc. Aug. qui fuit a +pinacothecis.... Optimi piissimi, etc.</note> Had she been drawn +into the ranks of that hidden society, who were beginning to +lay their dead in the winding vaults beneath the Appian Way, +she would certainly have dealt out her bounty on a different +scale and on different principles. Her bequest to the college +of Aesculapius reveals how deep in the soul of a charitable +pagan woman, who was probably sprung from servile stock, +lay that aristocratic instinct of the Roman world which survived +the advent of the Divine Peasant and the preaching of the +fishermen of Galilee, for far more than four hundred years. +</p> + +<p> +The most curious and interesting among the regulations for +these club entertainments are those relating to order and +decorum. The club of Diana and Antinous was not very +select, being probably composed of poor freedmen and slaves.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6086, quisquis ex hoc +collegio servus defunctus fuerit, etc.; +cf. the composition of the club in <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> +2394.</note> +The manners of this class, if we may judge by the picture +given by Petronius, were, to say the least, wanting in reserve +and self-restraint. The great object of such reunions was, as +the founder tells us, that the brethren might dine together +cheerfully and quietly.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ut quieti et hilares diebus +solemnibus epulemur, etc.</note> Hence he most wisely orders that +all serious proposals and complaints shall be reserved for +business meetings. If any member quits his place or makes +a disturbance, he is to pay a fine of four sesterces. Twelve +sesterces is the penalty for insulting a fellow-guest. The +man who, under the influence of good wine, so far forgot +himself as to insult the chief officer of the society, was to be +punished by a forfeit of twenty sesterces, which would probably +be a powerful discouragement of bad manners to most of the +brotherhood of Antinous. +</p> + +<p> +Many another gift or bequest, of the same character as +<pb n="280"/><anchor id="Pg280"/>Marcellina’s, meets the eye of the student of the inscriptions +The motives are singularly uniform—to repay the honours conferred +by a college, to celebrate the dedication of a statue, to +save from forgetfulness a name which to us is only a bit of the +wreckage of time. Everything is conventional about these bequests. +The money is nearly always left for the same purpose, +an anniversary repast in honour of the humble dead, of the +emperor, or of the patron gods. Sometimes the burial fee is +refunded to the college, with the prayer that on the natal +day the poor pittance derived from the gift be spent on pious +rites, with roses strewn upon the grave.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4107.</note> Another will beg only +that the lamp in the humble vault may be kept for ever burning. +These pieties and longings, which have their roots in a +rude pagan past before the dawn of history, were destined to +prolong their existence far into Christian times. The lamp +will be kept burning over many a tomb of saint or martyr in +the fourth or fifth century. And the simple feasts which the +clothworkers of Brescia, or the boatmen of Ostia or Lyons, +observed to do honour to some departed patron, will be +celebrated, often in riotous fashion, over the Christian dead +in the days of S. Augustine and S. Paulinus of Nola.<note place="foot">S. Paul. Nol. <hi rend="italic">Carm.</hi> xxvii. 547-585; +S. Aug. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 32; <hi rend="italic">Serm.</hi> v.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Mommsen believes that the collegiate life which blossomed +forth so luxuriantly in the early Empire, was modelled +on the sacred union of the Roman family.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Coll.</hi> p. 3.</note> And the instinct +of the Roman nature for continuity in institutions prepossesses +us in favour of the theory. In the college endowed by +Marcellina and Zeno, there are a father and a mother, and elsewhere +we read of daughters of a college. The members sometimes +call themselves brethren and sisters.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2417, 4055, 2392, 3774, +3815, 1485, 4134.</note> One of the feasts +of the brotherhood is on the day sacred to <q>dear kinship,</q> when +relations gathered round a common table, to forget in kindly +intercourse any disturbance of affection.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2417, Item viii K. Mart. die +Karae cognationis eodem loco dividerent +sportulas, etc.</note> They also met in the +early days of January, when presents were exchanged. Above +all, like the primal society, they gathered on the birthdays of +the revered dead to whom they owed duty and remembrance. +And in many cases the members of the society reposed beside +<pb n="281"/><anchor id="Pg281"/>one another in death.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2399, 4073, 4093.</note> The college was a home of fraternal +equality in one sense. As M. Boissier has pointed out, the +members had equal rights in the full assembly of the club. +A quorum was needed to pass decrees and to elect the officers. +And, in the full conclave, the slave member had an equal voice +with the freeman, and might, perchance, himself even be elected +to a place of dignity.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> i. 1406; ii. 5927.</note> He might thus, in a very humble realm, +wield authority for the time over those who were accustomed +to despise him. It is true that he needed his master’s leave +to join a college, and his master had the legal power to deny +to him the last boon of burial by the hands of his collegiate +brethren.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">De Coll.</hi> p. 102; Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +viii. 16.</note> Yet it was undoubtedly a great stride in advance +when a slave could sit at table or in council on equal terms +with free-born men, and might receive pious Roman burial, +instead of being tossed like a piece of carrion into a nameless +grave. The society of one of these humble colleges must +have often for the moment relieved the weariness and misery +of the servile life, and awakened, or kept alive, some sense +of self-respect and dignity. The slave may have now and +then felt himself even on the edge of political influence, as +when his college placarded its sympathies in an election contest +on the walls of Pompeii. Yet we must not allow ourselves to +be deceived by words and appearances. In spite of legislative +reform, in spite of a growing humane sentiment, whether in the +Porch or the Christian Church, the lot of the slave and of the +poor plebeian will be in many respects as hopeless and degraded +in the reign of Honorius as it was in the reign of Trajan.<note place="foot">For the contempt for slaves in the +fourth and fifth centuries, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> S. Hieron. +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 54, § 5; Salv. <hi rend="italic">De Gub. Dei</hi>, iv. 26. +For humaner sentiment, cf. Macrob. +<hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> i. 11, 12 sqq.; <hi rend="italic">C. Theod.</hi> ix. 6, 2, +3, vii. 13, 8; ix. 7, 4; ix. 9, 1; ix. 12, +1.</note> Even +in the reign of Trajan, it is true, perhaps even in the reign of +Nero, there were great houses like the younger Pliny’s, where +the slaves were treated as humble friends, where their weddings +were honoured by the presence of the master, where, in spite +of legal disabilities, they were allowed to dispose of their +savings by will.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> viii. 16, § 1; on the more +humane feeling to slaves, cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +47; <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, iii. 24, 32; <hi rend="italic">De Clem.</hi> i. +18; <hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> iii. 18, 19, 20; Juv. xiv. +16; Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> c. 18; Wallon, +<hi rend="italic">L’Esclav.</hi> i. c. 11; Marq. <hi rend="italic">Pr.</hi> i. 177.</note> And the inscriptions record the gratitude +<pb n="282"/><anchor id="Pg282"/>and affection to their masters and mistresses of many who +were in actual slavery, or who had but just emerged from it. +But these instances cannot make us forget the cruel contempt +and barbarity of which the slave was still the victim, and +which was to be his lot for many generations yet to run. And +therefore the improvement in the condition of the slave or of +his poor plebeian brother by the theoretical equality in the +colleges, may be easily exaggerated. In the humblest of these +clubs, the distribution of good fare and money is not according +to the needs of the members, but regulated by their social +and official rank. We cannot feel confident that in social +intercourse the same distinction may not have been coldly +observed. In modern times we often see a readiness to accord +an equality of material enjoyment, along with a stiff guardianship +of social distinctions which are often microscopic to +the detached observer. And it would not be surprising to +discover that the <q>master</q> or the <q>mother</q> of the college of +Antinous protected their dignity by an icy reserve at its +festive meetings. +</p> + +<p> +The question has been raised whether the ordinary colleges +were in any sense charitable institutions for mutual help. And +certainly the inscriptions are singularly wanting in records of +bequests made directly for the relief of poverty, for widows and +orphans or the sick. The donations or bequests of rich patrons +seem to have had chiefly two objects in view, the commemoration +of the dead and the provision for social and convivial enjoyment. +It is true that, just as in municipal feasts, there is often a distribution +of money among the members of colleges. But this +appears to be deprived of an eleemosynary character by the +fact that by far the largest shares are assigned to those who +were presumably the least in need of them. Yet it is to be +recollected that we probably have left to us the memorial of +only a small proportion of these gifts, and that, if we had a full +list of all the benefactions bequeathed to some of the colleges, +the total amount received by each member in the year might +be very considerable, if judged by the standard of ordinary +plebeian incomes. To the ambitious slave any addition, however +small, to his growing <hi rend="italic">peculium</hi>, which might enable him +to buy his freedom, would certainly be grateful. +</p> + +<p> +There is one class of colleges, however, which were +un<pb n="283"/><anchor id="Pg283"/>doubtedly formed to meet various exigencies in the course of +life, as well as to make a provision for decent burial. These +are the military clubs, on the objects and constitution of which +a flood of light has been thrown by the study of the inscriptions +in the great legionary camps of North Africa.<note place="foot">Cagnat, <hi rend="italic">L’Armée Rom.</hi> pp. 457 sqq.</note> A passage +of Vegetius shows us the provident arrangement made by +government for the future of the ordinary legionary.<note place="foot">Veget. ii. 20.</note> It is +well known that, on the accession of each new emperor, or +on the occurrence of some interesting event in the history of +the prince’s family, or of some great military success, and often +without any particular justification, a donative was distributed +throughout the army. It sometimes reached a considerable +amount, ranging from the 25 <hi rend="italic">denarii</hi> granted by Vespasian, +to the 5000 of M. Aurelius.<note place="foot">D. Cass. 65. 22; Capitol. <hi rend="italic">M. Ant.</hi> +c. 7; D. Cass. 73. 8; Cagnat, p. 459; +Marq. <hi rend="italic">Röm. St.</hi> ii. pp. 136, 543.</note> One half of this largess was +by orders set aside, and retained under the custody of the +standard-bearers, to provide a pension on the soldier’s retirement +from the service. Another fund, entirely different, was +formed by the soldiers’ own contributions, to furnish a decent +burial for those who died on service. But the law against +the formation of colleges fell with peculiar severity on the +soldier.<note place="foot">Cf. Marcian ap. Momms. <hi rend="italic">De Coll.</hi> +p. 87, neve milites collegia in castris +habeant.</note> Not even for a religious purpose was he permitted +to join such a society. This prohibition, however, seems to +have been relaxed in the case of the officers, and some of the +more highly skilled corps.<note place="foot">Cagnat, p. 463.</note> And we have among the inscriptions +of Lambaesis a few instructive records of these military +colleges.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii. 2552-7.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Lambaesis, as we have seen, was one of those camps which +developed into a regular municipality, after the recognition of +soldiers’ marriages by Septimius Severus. Henceforth the +camp became only a place of drill and exercise, and ceased to +be the soldier’s home. And on the ground where the soldiers’ +huts used to stand, there are left the remains of a number of +buildings of the basilica shape, erected probably in the third +century, which were the club-houses of the officers of the Tertia +Augusta. The interior was adorned with statues of imperial +personages, and on the wall was inscribed the law of the college, +<pb n="284"/><anchor id="Pg284"/>commencing with an expression of gratitude for the very +liberal pay which enabled the college to make provision for +the future of its members.<note place="foot">Cagnat, pp. 467, 540; cf. + <anchor id="corr284"/><corr sic="Boissier">Boissier,</corr> +<hi rend="italic">L’Afr. Rom.</hi> p. 111. <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii. 2554, +optiones scholam suam cum statuis et +imaginibus domus div. ex largissimis +stipendiis ... fecerunt, etc.</note> The provision was made in various +ways. An ambitious young officer was allowed a liberal +viaticum for a journey across the sea to seek promotion. If +promotion came, he received another grant to equip him. One +half the amount granted in these cases was mercifully paid to +him in the unpleasant contingency of his losing his grade. If +he died on active service, his heir received a payment on the +larger scale. And, when a man, in due course, retired from +the army, he received the same sum under the name of +<hi rend="italic">anularium</hi>, which has puzzled the antiquary.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii. 2552, 3, 4; 2557, iii. +3524; <hi rend="italic">Henz.</hi> 6790; Cagnat, p. 472; +Marq. <hi rend="italic">Röm. St.</hi> ii. 544.</note> +</p> + +<p> +It has been maintained that these military clubs were +really and primarily funerary societies.<note place="foot">Cagnat, p. 474.</note> And provision for +burial was certainly one of their objects. Yet, on a reading +of the law of the society of the <hi rend="italic">Cornicines</hi>, it may be doubted +whether the subject of burial is more prominent than the +other contingencies of the officer’s life, and in some of the +inscriptions, burial is not even alluded to. The grant on +retirement or promotion, and the grant to his heir on the +death of a member, are the same. But probably the majority +of officers had the good fortune to carry the money with +them into peaceful retirement, if not into higher rank in +another corps. In this case they would probably join another +college, whether of soldiers or veterans, and secure once more +the all-important object of a decent and pious interment. +The military clubs seem rather intended to furnish an insurance +against the principal risks and occasions of expenditure +in a soldier’s career. A calculation shows that, after providing +for all these liabilities, the military college must have had a +considerable surplus.<note place="foot">The Cornicines of the 3rd Legion +at Lambesi paid an entrance fee of 750 +denarii (<hi rend="italic">Scamnari nomine</hi>). The anularium +on retirement, and the funeraticium, +were each 500 <hi rend="italic">denarii</hi>. It would +seem that there must have been a considerable +surplus. <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii. 2557.</note> How it was spent, it is not hazardous +to conjecture. If the poor freedmen and slaves at Ostia +or Lanuvium could afford their modest meals, with a fair +allowance of good wine, drunk to the memory of a generous +<pb n="285"/><anchor id="Pg285"/>benefactor, we may be sure that the college of the <hi rend="italic">Cornicines</hi> +at Lambesi would relieve the tedium of the camp by many +a pleasant mess dinner, and that they would have been +astonished and amused on such occasions to hear themselves +described merely as a burial society. +</p> + +<p> +The foundation law of the college of Diana and Antinous +betrays some anxiety lest the continuity of the society should +be broken. And in many a bequest, the greatest care is taken +to prevent malversation or the diversion of the funds from +their original purpose.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6086, universi consentire +debemus ut longo tempore inveterescere +possimus; cf. 4357, 4360, 4366, 4386, +4395.</note> We feel a certain pathetic curiosity, +in reading these records of a futile effort to prolong the +memory of obscure lives, to know how long the brotherhoods +continued their meetings, or when the stated offerings of wine +and flowers ceased to be made. In one case the curiosity is +satisfied and we have before our eyes the formal record of the +extinction of a college. It is contained in a pair of wooden +tablets found in some quarry pits near Alburnus, a remote +village of Dacia. The document was drawn up, as the names +of the consuls show, in the year 167, the year following the +fierce irruption of the Quadi and Marcomanni into Dacia, +Pannonia, and Noricum, in which Alburnus was given to the +flames.<note place="foot">The diptych, which has been singularly +preserved, was found in a deserted +mine or quarry about 1780, along with +some other private documents of a +commercial character; <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iii. +p. 213, and 921. The dates range from +131 to 167 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> Cf. <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6087; +Schiller, <hi rend="italic">Gesch. der röm. Kaiserzeit</hi>, i. +2, p. 643.</note> Artemidorus the slave of Apollonius, and Master of +the college of Jupiter Cernenius, along with the two quaestors, +places it on record, with the attestation of seven witnesses, +that the college has ceased to exist. Out of a membership of +fifty-four, only seventeen remain. The colleague of Artemidorus +in the mastership has never set foot in Alburnus since +his election. The accounts have been wound up, and no balance +is left in the chest. For a long time no member has attended +on the days fixed for meetings, and, as a matter of course, no +subscriptions have been paid. All this is expressed in the +rudest, most ungrammatical Latin, and Artemidorus quaintly +concludes by saying, that, if a member has just died, he must +not imagine that he has any longer a college or any claim to +funeral payments! The humble brothers of the society, whom +<pb n="286"/><anchor id="Pg286"/>Artemidorus reproaches for their faithless negligence, may +probably have fled to some refuge when their masters’ lands +were devastated by the Marcomanni, or been swept on in the +fierce torrent of invaders which finally broke upon the walls of +Aquileia. +</p> + +</div></div><div type="book" n="3" rend="page-break-before: right"> +<pb n="287"/><anchor id="Pg287"/> +<index index="toc" level1="Book III. Nec philosophia sine virtute est nec sine philosophia virtus"/><index index="pdf" level1="Book III. Nec philosophia sine virtute est nec sine philosophia virtus"/> +<head>BOOK III.</head> + +<head type="sub"><hi rend="italic">NEC PHILOSOPHIA SINE VIRTUTE EST NEC SINE +PHILOSOPHIA VIRTUS</hi></head> + +<pb n="288"/><anchor id="Pg288"/> + + <div type="chapter" n="3" rend="page-break-before: right"> +<index index="toc" level1="I. The philosophic director"/><index index="pdf" level1="I. The philosophic director"/> +<pb n="289"/><anchor id="Pg289"/> + +<head>CHAPTER I</head> + +<head type="sub">THE PHILOSOPHIC DIRECTOR</head> + +<p> +Philosophy in the time of Seneca was a very different thing +from the great cosmic systems of Ionia and Magna Graecia, +or even from the system of the older Stoicism. Speculative +interest had long before his time given way to the study of +moral problems with a definite practical aim. If the stimulus +of the searching method of Socrates gave an impetus for a +century to abstract speculation, it had an even more decided +and long-lived influence in diverting thought to moral questions +from the old ambitious paths. His disciples Antisthenes +and Aristippus prepared the way for the Stoic and Epicurean +schools which dominated the Roman world in the last century +of the Republic and the first of the Empire. And even Plato +and Aristotle indirectly helped forward the movement. It is +not merely that, for both these great spirits, the cultivation of +character and the reform of society have a profound interest. +But even in their metaphysics, they were paving the way for +the more introspective and practical turn which was taken by +post-Aristotelian philosophy, by giving to what were mere +conceptions of the mind a more real existence than to the +things of sense.<note place="foot">See Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, +13, 14, Jener dualistische Idealismus, +welchen Plato begründet, und auch +Aristoteles nicht grundsätzlich überwunden +hatte, <anchor id="corr289"/><corr sic="fuhrt">führt</corr> in letzter Beziehung +auf nichts anderes zurück, als +auf den Gegensatz des Inneren und +Aeusseren des Denkens und der gegenständlichen +Welt.... Es war nur ein +Schritt weiter in dieser Richtung, wenn +die nacharistotelische Philosophie den +Menschen in grundsätzlicher Abkehr +von der Aussenwelt auf sich selbst +wies, um in seinem Innern die Befriedigung +zu suchen, etc.</note> The <q>ideas</q> or <q>forms</q> which they contrast +with the world of concrete things, are really creations of the +individual mind of which the reality must be sought in the +<pb n="290"/><anchor id="Pg290"/>depths of consciousness, however they may be divinised and +elevated to some transcendental region beyond the limits of +sense and time. With Aristotle, as with Plato, in the last +resort, the higher reason is the true essence of man, coming +into the body from a diviner world, and capable of lifting +itself to the ideal from the cramping limitations of sensuous +life. The philosopher in the <hi rend="italic">Phaedo</hi> who turns his gaze +persistently from the confusing phantasmagoria of the senses +to that realm of real existence, eternal and immutable, of +which he has once had a vision, is really the distant progenitor +of the sage of Stoicism, who cuts himself off from the external +objects of desire, to find within a higher law, and the peace +which springs from a life in harmony with the Reason of the +world. +</p> + +<p> +The ancient schools, if they maintained a formal individuality +even to the days of Justinian,<note place="foot">See Luc. <hi rend="italic">Eun.</hi> c. 3, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">συντέτακται ἐκ βασιλέως μισθοφορά τις οὐ φαύλη κατὰ γένη τοῖς φιλοσόφοις, + Στοϊκοῖς λέγω, κτλ.</foreign> +Cf. Capitol. <hi rend="italic">M. Ant.</hi> c. 3; Philostr. +<hi rend="italic">Apoll.</hi> T. i. 7, § 8.</note> had worked themselves +out. A host of scholarchs, from all the cities of the Greek +East, failed to break fresh ground, and were content to guard +the most precious or the least vulnerable parts of an ancient +tradition. Moreover, the scrutiny of the long course of speculation, +issuing in such various conclusions, with no criterion +to decide between their claims, gave birth to a scepticism +which sheltered itself even under the great name of the +Academy. And as the faith in the truth of systems dwindled, +the marks of demarcation between them faded; men were less +inclined to dogmatise, and began to select and combine +elements from long discordant schools. In this movement the +eclectic and the sceptic had very much the same object in view—the +support and culture of the individual moral life.<note place="foot">Zeller, iii, 1, 16.</note> The +sceptic sought his ideal in restrained suspense of judgment +and in moral calm. The eclectic, without regard to speculative +consistency, and with only a secondary interest in speculation, +sought for doctrines from any quarter which provided a basis +for the moral life, and, in the conflict of systems on the deeper +questions, would fall back, like Cicero, on intuition and the +consent of consciousness.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 493-5; Überweg, <hi rend="italic">Hist. of Phil.</hi> +i. 220; Cic. <hi rend="italic">De Nat. Deor.</hi> i. c. 17; <hi rend="italic">De +Fin.</hi> i. c. 9.</note> Creative power in philosophy was +no more. Speculative curiosity, as pictured in the <hi rend="italic">Phaedo</hi> or +<pb n="291"/><anchor id="Pg291"/>the <hi rend="italic">Theaetetus</hi>, had lost its keenness. The imperious craving +was for some guide of life, some medicine for the deeply-felt +maladies of the soul. +</p> + +<p> +The extinction of the free civic life of Greece, the conquests +of Macedon, the foundation of the world-wide empire of Rome, +had wrought a momentous moral change. In the old city-state, +religion, morals, and political duty were linked in a +gracious unity and harmony. The citizen drew moral support +and inspiration from ancestral laws and institutions clothed +with almost divine authority. Even Plato does not break +away from the old trammels, but requires the elders of his +Utopia as a duty, after they have seen the vision of God, +to descend again to the ordinary tasks of government. But +when the corporate life which supplied such vivid interests +and moral support was wrecked, the individual was thrown +back upon himself. Morals were finally separated from +politics. Henceforth the great problem of philosophy was +how to make character self-sufficing and independent; how to +find the beatitude of man in the autonomous will, fenced +against all assaults of chance and change.<note place="foot">Bussell, <hi rend="italic">School of Plato</hi>, p. 264; Zeller, iii. 1; p. 8, 9.</note> At the same +time, the foundation of great monarchies, Macedonian or Roman, +embracing many tribes and races and submerging old civic or +national barriers, brought into clearer light the idea of a universal +commonwealth, and placed morals on the broad foundation +of a common human nature and universal brotherhood. +The mundane city of old days, which absorbed, perhaps too +completely, the moral life and conscience of her sons, has +vanished for ever. And in its place and over its ruins has +risen an all-embracing power which seems to have all the +sweep of an impersonal force of nature, though it is sometimes +impelled by one wild, lawless will. If, in return for the loss +of civic freedom, ambitious and patriotic energy, or pride of +civic life, it has given to its subjects a marvellous peace and +order and culture, have not the mass of men become grosser +and more materialised? If there is greater material well-being +and better administration, have not the moral tone and +ideal, in the lack of stimulus, been lowered? Has not vice +become more shameless, and the greed for all things pleasant +grown harder and more cruel? Are not the mass of men +<pb n="292"/><anchor id="Pg292"/>hopelessly and wearily wandering in a tangled maze without +a clue?<note place="foot">On pessimism in the reign of +Augustus, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> i. p. +241. Cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 8; <hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> +i. 10; <hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> 20, 22; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. +37; Petron. 88.</note> +</p> + +<p> +With such questionings ringing in his inner ear, the man +with some lingering instinct of goodness might well crave, +beyond anything else, for an inner law of life which should +bring order into the chaos of his conduct and desires.<note place="foot">Cf. Epict. iii. 13, §§ 9, 10, where the +contrast between the <q>pax Romana</q> +and moral unrest is drawn.</note> And +philosophy, having in magnificent effort failed to scale the +virgin heights, fell back on conduct, which seemed then, even +more than to a lost teacher of our youth, <q>three-fourths of +life.</q> The great science which, in the glory and fresh vigour +of the Hellenic prime, aspired to embrace all existence and all +knowledge, to penetrate the secret of the universe and God, +by general consent narrowed its efforts to relieve the struggles +of this transient life set <q>between two eternities.</q> The +human spirit, weary of the fruitless quest of an ever-vanishing +ideal of knowledge, took up the humbler task of solving the +ever-recurring problem of human happiness and conduct. +Henceforth, in spite of traditional dialectic discordance, all the +schools, Stoic or Epicurean, Sceptic or Eclectic, are seeking for +the secret of inner peace, and are singularly unanimous in their +report of the discovery.<note place="foot">Zeller, iii. 1, pp. 12, 14, cf. Baur, +<hi rend="italic">Ch. Hist.</hi> i. p. 14 (Tr.).</note> The inner life of the spirit becomes +all in all. Speculation and political activity are equally unimportant +to the true life of the soul. Calm equipoise of the +inner nature, undisturbed by the changes of fortunes or the +solicitations of desire, is the ideal of all, under whatever difference +of phrase. What has he to do with any single state who +realises his citizenship in the great commonwealth of man? If +the secret of peace cannot be won by launching in adventurous +thought into the Infinite, perchance it may be found in discipline +of the rebellious will. Philosophy, then, must become the guide +of life, the healer of spiritual maladies.<note place="foot">Cic. <hi rend="italic">Tusc.</hi> iii 3, est profecto animi +medicina philosophia, Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 22, +vena tangenda est; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 53, Epict. iii. +23, § 30, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἰατρεῖόν ἐστι τὸ τοῦ φιλοσόφου σχολεῖον</foreign>.</note> It must teach the +whole duty of man, to the gods, to the state, to parents and +elders, to women and to slaves. It must attempt the harder +task of bringing some principle of order into the turmoil of +<pb n="293"/><anchor id="Pg293"/>emotion and passion: it must teach us, amid the keen claims +of competing objects of desire, to distinguish the true from the +false, the permanent from the fleeting. +</p> + +<p> +The moral reformer cannot indeed dispense with theory and +a ground of general principles,<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 94, § 5, § 22.</note> but he will not forget that his +main business is to impart the <hi rend="italic">ars vivendi</hi>; he will be more occupied +with rules which may be immediately applied in practice, +than with the theory of morals. A profound acquaintance with +the pathology of the soul, minute study of the weaknesses of +character, long experience of the devices for counteracting +them, will be worth far more than an encyclopædic knowledge +of centuries of speculation.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 64, § 8.</note> He will not undervalue the moral +discourse, with the practical object of turning souls from their +evil ways; but he has only contempt for the rhetoric of the +class-room which desecrates solemn themes by the vanities of +phrase-making.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Rect. Rat. Aud.</hi> c. 8; Epict. +iii. 23, § 23.</note> The best and most fruitful work of practical +philosophy is done by private counsel, adapted to the special +needs of the spiritual patient. He must be encouraged to +make a full confession of the diseases of his soul.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Rect. Rat. Aud.</hi> c. 12.</note> He must +be trained in daily self-examination, to observe any signs of +moral growth or of backsliding. He must be checked when +over confident, and cheered in discouragement. He must have +his enthusiasm kindled by appropriate examples of those who +have trodden the same path and reached the heights.<note place="foot">Plut. (?) <hi rend="italic">De Lib. Ed.</hi> c. 14.</note> +</p> + +<p> +This serious aim of philosophy commended itself to the +intensely practical and strenuous spirit of the Romans. And +although there were plenty of showy lecturers or preachers in +the first century who could draw fashionable audiences, the +private philosophic director was a far more real power. The +triumph of Aemilius Paulus brought numbers of Greek exiles +to Italy, many of whom found a home as teachers in Roman +families.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, 487; +Plut. <hi rend="italic">Aemil. P.</hi> c. vi.; Plin. <hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> +xxxv. 135; Polyb. xxxii. 10. But cf. +Mahaffy on Zeller’s view, in <hi rend="italic">Greek +World under Roman Sway</hi>, p. 67.</note> Panaetius, who revolutionised Stoicism, and made +it a working system, profoundly influenced the circle of Scipio +Aemilianus, in whose house he lived. Great generals and +leaders of the last age of the Republic, a Lucullus or a Pompey, +often carried philosophers in their train. From Augustus to +<pb n="294"/><anchor id="Pg294"/>Elagabalus we hear of their presence at the imperial court. +The wife of Augustus sought consolation on the death of Drusus +from Areus, her husband’s philosophic director.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> 4.</note> Many of these +men indeed did not take their profession very seriously, and in +too many cases they were mere flatterers and parasites whom the +rich patron hired from ostentation and treated with contumely.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">De Merc. Cond.</hi> 2, 4, 25.</note> +Both Nero and Hadrian used to amuse themselves with the +quarrels and vanity of their philosophers.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 16, etiam sapientiae +doctoribus tempus impertiebat post +epulas, utque contraria adseverantium +discordia frueretur; Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> 15.</note> But in the terror +of the Claudian Caesars, the Stoic director is often seen performing +his proper part. Julius Canus, when ordered to execution +by Caligula, had his philosopher by his side, with whom he discussed +till the last fatal moment the future of the soul.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Tranq.</hi> xiv. § 7.</note> The +officer who brought the sentence of death to Thrasea found him +absorbed in conversation with the Cynic Demetrius on the +mystery which the lancet was in a few moments to resolve.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xvi. 34.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Of this great movement to cultivate a moral life in paganism +L. Annaeus Seneca was not the least illustrious representative. +Musonius, his younger contemporary, and Epictetus, the pupil +of Musonius, were engaged in the same cure of souls, and +taught practically the same philosophic gospel. They equally +paid but slight attention to the logic and physics of the older +schools.<note place="foot">Zeller, iii. 1, 656, 663.</note> Virtue, to all of them, is the one great end of philosophic +effort. They were all deeply impressed by the spiritual +wants of the time,<note place="foot">Epict. iii. 23, §§ 24-34; i. 4, § 9, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οὗτος, φησίν, ἤδη δι’ αὐτοῦ δύναται Χρύσιππον ἀναγιγνώσκειν. +Εὖ, νὴ τοὺς θεούς, προκόπτεις ἄνθρωπε. Ποίαν προκοπήν;</foreign></note> and they all felt that men needed not +subtleties of disquisition or rhetorical display, but direct, personal +teaching which appealed to the conscience. To all of them +the philosopher is a physician of souls. Musonius and Epictetus +were probably loftier and more blameless characters than +Seneca. Epictetus especially, from the range and simple +attractiveness of his teaching, might seem to many a better representative +of the philosophic director than Seneca. Seneca, +as the wealthy minister of Nero, excites a repugnance in some +minds, which prevents them doing justice to his unquestionable +power and fascination. His apparent inconsistency has +<pb n="295"/><anchor id="Pg295"/>condemned him in the eyes of an age which professes to believe +in the teaching of the Mount, and idolises grandiose wealth +and power. His rhetoric offends a taste that can tolerate and +applaud verbose banalities, with little trace of redeeming art. +He cannot always win the hearing accorded to the repentant +sinner, whose dark experience may make his message more +real and pungent. The historian, however, must put aside +these rather pharisaic prejudices, and give Seneca the position +as a moral teacher which his writings have won in ages not +less earnest than ours. Nor need we fear to recognise a power +which led the early Fathers to trace the spiritual vision of +Seneca to an intercourse with S. Paul,<note place="foot">Tertull. <hi rend="italic">De An.</hi> c. 20, Seneca saepe +noster; S. Hieron. <hi rend="italic">Adv. Jovin.</hi> i. +49.</note> supported by a feigned +correspondence which imposed on S. Augustine and S. Jerome.<note place="foot">S. Hieron, <hi rend="italic">Adv. Jovin.</hi> i. 29; <hi rend="italic">De +Scrip. Eccl.</hi> 12; S. Aug. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 153, cujus +etiam ad Paulum apostolum leguntur +epistolae.</note> +The man who approaches Seneca thinking only of scandals +gleaned from Tacitus and Dion Cassius,<note place="foot">The worst about Seneca is collected +in D. Cass. 61. 10. But cf. the attack +of P. Suillius, Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiii. 42 and +xiv. 52.</note> and frozen by a criticism +which cannot feel the power of genius, spiritual imagination, and +a profound moral experience, behind a rhetoric sometimes forced +and extravagant, had better leave him alone. The Christianity +of the twentieth century might well hail with delight the +advent of such a preacher, and would certainly forget all the +accusations of prurient gossip in the accession of an immense +and fascinating spiritual force. The man with any historical +imagination must be struck with amazement that such spiritual +detachment, such lofty moral ideals, so pure an enthusiasm for +the salvation of souls, should emerge from a palace reeking +with all the crimes of the haunted races of Greek legend. +That the courtier of the reigns of Caligula and Claudius, the +tutor and minister of Nero, should not have escaped some +stains may be probable: that such a man should have composed +the Letters and the <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi> of Seneca is almost a miracle. Yet +the glow of earnestness and conviction, the intimate knowledge +of the last secrets of guilty souls, may well have been the +reward of such an ordeal. +</p> + +<p> +Seneca’s career, given a latent fund of moral enthusiasm, +was really a splendid preparation for his mission, as an analyst +of a corrupt society and a guide to moral reform. He lived +<pb n="296"/><anchor id="Pg296"/>through the gloomiest years of the imperial tyranny; he had +been in the thick of its intrigues, and privy to its darkest +secrets; he had enjoyed its favour, and knew the perils of +its jealousy and suspicion. He came as an infant from +Cordova to Rome in the last years of Augustus.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ad Helv.</hi> xix. § 2.</note> In spite of +weak health, he was an ardent student of all the science and +philosophy of the time, and he fell under the influence of +Sotion, a member of the Sextian School, which combined a +rigorous Stoicism with Pythagorean rules of life.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 108, §§ 13-17.</note> As a young +advocate and prosperous official, he passed unharmed through +the terror and ghastly rumours of the closing years of Tiberius.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 108, § 22. He abandoned +Pythagorean abstinence, as suspicious, +during the persecution of eastern cults; +cf. Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> 36.</note> +His eloquence in the Senate excited the jealousy of Caligula, +and he narrowly escaped the penalty.<note place="foot">D. Cass. 59. 19.</note> In the reign of Claudius +he must have been one of the inner circle of the court, for his +banishment, at the instance of Messalina, for eight years to +Corsica was the penalty of a supposed intrigue with Julia, the +niece of the emperor.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 60. 8; 61. 10; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiii. +42, schol. Juv. v. 109.</note> Seneca knew how to bend to the storm, +and, by the influence of Agrippina, he was recalled to be the +tutor of the young Nero, and on his accession four years afterwards, +became his first minister by the side of Burrus.<note place="foot">D. Cass. 61. 4; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiii. 2. +Dion suggests an intrigue with Agrippina, +61. 10.</note> The +famous <hi rend="italic">quinquennium</hi>, an oasis in the desert of despotism, was +probably the happiest period of Seneca’s life. In spite of some +misgivings, the dream of an earthly Providence, as merciful as it +was strong, seemed to be realised.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Clem.</hi> i. 5, 8.</note> But it was, after all, a giddy +and anxious elevation, and the influence of Seneca was only +maintained by politic concessions, and was constantly threatened +by the daemonic ambition of Agrippina.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiii. 2, quo facilius +... voluptatibus concessis retinerent, +etc.</note> And Seneca had +enemies like P. Suillius, jealous of his power and his millions, +and eagerly pointing to the hypocrisy of the Stoic preacher, +whom gossip branded as an adulterer and a usurer.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xiii. 42; D. Cass. 61. 10.</note> The +death of Burrus gave the last shock to his power.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 52, mors Burri +infregit Senecae potentiam, etc.</note> His +enemies poured in to the assault. The emperor had long +wished to shake off the incubus of a superior spirit; and the +<pb n="297"/><anchor id="Pg297"/>riches, the pointed eloquence, and more pointed sarcasms, the +gardens and villas and lordly state of the great minister, suggested +a possible aspirant to the principate. Seneca acted on +his principles and offered to give up everything.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 54.</note> But his +torture was to be prolonged, and his doom deferred for about +two years. His release came in the fierce vengeance for the +Pisonian conspiracy.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xv. 56 sqq.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Seneca was an ideal director for the upper class of such an +age. He had risen to the highest office in a world-wide +monarchy, and he had spent years in hourly fear of death. +He had enjoyed the society of the most brilliant circles, and +exchanged epigrams and repartees with the best; he had also +seen them steeped in debauchery and treachery, and terror-stricken +in base compliance. He had witnessed their fantastic +efforts of luxury and self-indulgence, and heard the tale of +wearied sensualism and disordered ambition and ineffectual +lives.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 55; <hi rend="italic">De Tranq.</hi> 1 and 2.</note> His disciples were drawn, if not from the noblest class, +at any rate from the class which had felt the disillusionment +of wealth and fashion and power. And the vicissitudes in his +own fate and character made him a powerful and sympathetic +adviser. He had long to endure the torturing contrast of +splendid rank and wealth, with the brooding terror of a doom +which might sweep down at any moment. He was also tortured +by other contrasts, some drawn by the fierceness of envious +hatred, others perhaps acknowledged by conscience. Steeped in +the doctrines of Chrysippus and Pythagoras, he had subdued +the ebullient passions of youth by a more than monastic asceticism.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 108, §§ 17-22.</note> +He had passionately adopted an ethical creed which +aimed at a radical reform of human nature, at the triumph of +cultivated and moralised reason and social sympathy over the +brutal materialism and selfishness of the age. He had pondered +on its doctrines of the higher life, of the nothingness of the +things of sense, on death, and the indwelling God assisting +the struggling soul, on the final happy release from all the +sordid misery and terror, until every earthly pleasure and +ambition faded away in the presence of a glorious moral ideal.<note place="foot">Cf. Baur, <hi rend="italic">Ch. Hist.</hi> i. p. 16 (Tr.).</note> +And yet this pagan monk, this idealist, who would have been +at home with S. Jerome or Thomas à Kempis, had accumulated +<pb n="298"/><anchor id="Pg298"/>a vast fortune, and lived in a palace which excited the envy +of a Nero. He was suspected of having been the lover of two +princesses of the imperial house.<note place="foot">D. Cass. 61. 10.</note> He was charged with having +connived at, or encouraged the excesses of Nero, and even of +having been an accomplice in the murder of Agrippina, or its +apologist.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiii. 13; xiv. 7; and +11, sed Seneca adverso rumore erat, +quod oratione tali confessionem scripsisset.</note> Some of these rumours are probably false, the work +of prurient imaginations in the most abandoned age in history. +Yet there are traces in Seneca’s writings that he had not +passed unscathed through the terrible ordeal to which character +was exposed in that age. There are pictures of voluptuous +ease and jaded satiety which may be the work of a keen sympathetic +observation, but which may also be the expression of +repentant memory.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 77, § 16, ecquid habes +propter quod expectes? Voluptates ipsas +quae te morantur consumpsisti.... +Nihil tibi luxuria tua in futuros annos +reservavit intactum: cf. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 89, § 21; +90, § 42.</note> In any case, he had sounded the very +depths of the moral abysses of his time. He had no illusions +about the actual condition of human nature. The mass of +men, all but a few naturally saintly souls, were abandoned to +lust or greed or selfish ambition. Human life was an obscene +and cruel struggle of wild beasts for the doles flung by fortune +into the arena.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 8.</note> The peace and happiness of the early Eden +have departed for ever, leaving men to the restlessness of +exhausted appetite, or to the half-repentant sense of impotent +lives, spent in pursuing the phantoms of imaginary pleasure, +with broken glimpses now and then of a world for ever lost.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 90, §§ 38-41.</note> +With such a scene about him in his declining years, whatever +his own practice may have been, Seneca came to feel an +evangelistic passion, almost approaching S. Paul’s, to open to +these sick perishing souls the vision of a higher life through +the practical discipline of philosophy. +</p> + +<p> +The tendency to regard the true function of philosophy as +purely ethical, reforming, guiding and sustaining character and +conduct, finds its most emphatic expression in Seneca. He is +far more a preacher, a spiritual director, than a thinker, and he +would have proudly owned it. His highest, nay, one may +almost say his only aim, is, in our modern phrase, to which +his own sometimes approaches, to save souls. Philosophy +<pb n="299"/><anchor id="Pg299"/>in its highest and best sense is not the pursuit of knowledge +for its own sake, nor the disinterested play of intellect, +regardless of intellectual consequences, as in a Platonic +dialogue.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 49, § 5, non vaco ad istas +ineptias: ingens negotium in manibus +est; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 75, § 5, non delectent, verba +nostra, sed prosint ... non quaerit +aeger medicum eloquentem; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 88, § +36, plus scire quam sit satis, intemperantiae +genus est. Cf. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 71, § 6.</note> It is pre-eminently the science or the art of right +living, that is of a life conformed to right reason.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 89, § 8, nec philosophia sine +virtute est, nec sine philosophia virtus.</note> Its great +end is the production of the <hi rend="italic">sapiens</hi>, the man who sees, in +the light of Eternal Reason, the true proportions of things, +whose affections have been trained to obey the higher law, +whose will has hardened into an unswerving conformity to it, +in all the difficulties of conduct.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 66, § 12.</note> And the true philosopher +is no longer the cold, detached student of intellectual problems, +far removed from the struggles and the miseries of human +life. He has become the <hi rend="italic">generis humani paedagogus</hi>,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 89, § 13; 117, §§ 30, 31.</note> the +schoolmaster to bring men to the Ideal Man. In comparison +with that mission, all the sublimity or subtlety of the great +masters of dialectic becomes mere contemptible trifling, as if a +man should lose himself in some game, or in the rapture of +sweet music, with a great conflagration raging before his eyes. +In the universal moral shipwreck, how can one toy with these +old world trifles, while the perishing are stretching out their +hands for help?<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 48, § 8; 75, § 6.</note> Not that Seneca despises the inheritance of +ancient wisdom, so far as it has any gospel for humanity.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 64, § 3; 58, § 26.</note> He +will accept good moral teaching from any quarter, from Plato +or Epicurus, as readily as from Chrysippus or Panaetius.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Vita B.</hi> xiii, where he defends +Epicurus.</note> He +is ready to give almost divine honours to the great teachers +of the human race. But he also feels that no moral teaching +can be final. After a thousand ages, there will still be room +for making some addition to the message of the past. There +will always be a need for fresh adjustments and applications +of the remedies which past wisdom has handed down.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 64, § 8.</note> +</p> + +<p> +It is almost needless to say that Seneca has almost a contempt +for the so-called liberal studies of his day.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 88, § 37, § 20.</note> There is only +one truly liberal study, that which aims at liberating the will +from the bondage of desire. Granted that it is necessary as a +<pb n="300"/><anchor id="Pg300"/>mental discipline to submit to the grammarian in youth; yet +experience shows that this training does nothing to form the +virtuous character.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 88, § 2, unum studium vere +liberale est quod liberum facit, etc.</note> Who can respect a man who wastes his +mature years, like Didymus, in inquiries as to the relative +ages of Hecuba or Helen, or the name of the mother of <anchor id="corr300"/><corr sic="Æneas">Aeneas</corr>, +or the character of Anacreon or Sappho?<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 39; cf. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 88.</note> The man of serious +purpose will rather try to forget these trifles than continue +the study of them. And Seneca treats in the same fashion the +hair-splitting and verbal subtleties of some of the older Stoics. +He acquiesces indeed, in their threefold division of Philosophy +into Logic, Physics, and Ethics; but for the first department +he seems to have but scant respect, though once or twice he +amuses his pupil Lucilius by a disquisition on Genus and +Species, or the Platonic and Aristotelian <q>Causes,</q> in the +style of the Stoic scholasticism.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 89; 66, § 33; 58, § 8.</note> Seneca was writing for +posterity; he has his intellectual vanity; and he probably +wished to show that, while he set but little store by such +studies, this was not due to an imperfect knowledge of them. +It is because life is too short, and its great problems are too +urgent, to permit a serious man to spend his precious years in +fruitless intellectual play. He calls on Lucilius to leave such +barren subtleties, which bring the greatest of all themes down +to the level of intellectual jugglery.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 71, § 6, erige te et relinque +istum ludum literarium philosophorum +qui rem magnificam ad syllabas vocant, +etc.</note> +</p> + +<p> +For the department of Physics Seneca has much more +respect, and he evidently devoted much attention to it. We +have traces of some lost works of his on scientific subjects, and +there is still extant a treatise in seven books on <hi rend="italic">Natural +Questions</hi>, which became a handbook of science in the Middle +Ages.<note place="foot">Teuffel, ii. § 284, n. 6; cf. Zeller, +<hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, p. 623.</note> It deals with such subjects as we meet with in the +poem of Lucretius, thunder and lightning, winds and earthquakes, +and rising and failing springs. But it has perhaps +less of the scientific spirit than Lucretius, according to our +modern standards. We have abundant reference to old +physical authorities, to Thales, Anaximenes, Anaximander, +Diogenes of Apollonia, to Caecina and Attalus. But +the conception of any scientific method beyond more or +<pb n="301"/><anchor id="Pg301"/>less ingenious hypothesis, or of any scientific verification of +hypothesis, is utterly absent. This is of course a general +characteristic of most of the scientific effort of antiquity. The +truth is that, although Seneca probably had some interest in +natural phenomena, he had a far more profound interest in +human nature and human destiny. The older Stoics, with some +variations, subordinated Physics to Ethics, as of inferior and +only subsidiary importance.<note place="foot">Zeller, iii. 1, p. 56.</note> Seneca carries this subordination +almost to extremes, although he also is sometimes inconsistent.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 117, § 19; <hi rend="italic">Nat. Quaest. Prol.</hi>; +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 65, § 15; cf. Zeller, iii. 1. 622.</note> +He thinks it significant that while the World-Spirit has hidden +gold, the great tempter and corruptor, far beneath our feet, it +has displayed, in mysterious yet pompous splendour, in the +azure canopy above us, the heavenly orbs which are popularly +believed to control our destiny in the material sense, and which +may really govern it, by raising our minds to the contemplation +of an infinite mystery and a marvellous order.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Nat. Quaest.</hi> v. 15; cf. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 88, § 15.</note> To Seneca, as +to Kant, there seems a mystic tie between the starry heavens +above and the moral law within. In the prologue to the <hi rend="italic">Natural +Questions</hi>, indeed, carried away for the moment by the grandeur +of his theme, Seneca seems to exalt the contemplation of the +infinite distances and mysterious depths and majestic order of +the stellar world far above the moral struggles of our mundane +life. The earth shrinks to a mere point in infinitude, an +ant-hill where the human insects mark out their Lilliputian +territories and make their wars and voyages for their lifetime +of an hour.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Nat. Quaest. Prol.</hi> § 11, formicarum +iste discursus est in augusto laborantium.... +Punctum est istud in quo +navigatis, in quo bellatis; Sursum ingentia +spatia sunt, etc.; cf. Macrob. +<hi rend="italic">Som. Scip.</hi> i. 16, § 6.</note> This, however, is rather a piece of rhetoric than a +careful statement of Seneca’s real view. In the Letters, again +and again, we are told that virtue is the one important thing, +that the conquest of passion raises man to be equal to God,<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 73, § 13, sic deus non vincit +sapientem felicitate etiamsi vincit +aetate.</note> +and that in the release of the rational or divine part of us +from bondage to the flesh, man recovers a lost liberty, a +primeval dignity. But in this struggle the spirit may refresh +and elevate itself by looking up to the divine world +from which it draws its origin, and to which it may, perchance, +return. To Seneca’s mind the so-called physics really involve +<pb n="302"/><anchor id="Pg302"/>theology and metaphysics. In the contemplation of the vastness +of the material universe, the mind may be aroused to +the urgency and interest of the great questions touching God, +His relation to fate, to the world, and man.<note place="foot">Cf. Pl. <hi rend="italic">Phaed.</hi> 79 <hi rend="small">D</hi>; Arist. <hi rend="italic">Eth.</hi> +ix 8, § 7.</note> The scientific interest +in Seneca is evidently not the strongest. There are still +indeed the echoes of the old philosophies which sought man’s +true greatness and final beatitude in the clear vision of abstract +truth. But Seneca is travelling rapidly on the way which +leads to another vision of the celestial city, in which emotion, +the passionate yearning for holiness as well as truth, blends +with and tends to overpower the ideal of a passionless eternity +of intellectual intuition. In Seneca’s rapturous outburst on +the gate of deliverance opened by death, making allowance for +difference of associations and beliefs, there is surely a strange +note of kindred sympathy, across the gulf of thirteen centuries, +with Thomas à Kempis.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 102, § 26, dies iste, quem +tanquam extremum reformidas, aeterni +natalis est ... discutietur ista caligo +et lux undique clara percutiet ... +nulla serenum umbra turbabit. Cf. +<hi rend="italic">De Imit.</hi> iii. 48, § 1, O supernae +civitatis mansio beatissima! O dies +aeternitatis clarissima, quam nox non +obscurat, sed summa Veritas semper +irradiat! Lucet quidem Sanctis perpetua +claritate splendida, sed non nisi +a longe et per speculum peregrinantibus +in terra.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The <hi rend="italic">Natural Questions</hi> were, as he tells us, the work of his +old age.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Nat. Quaest.</hi> iii. Praef., non praeterit +me quam magnarum rerum fundamenta +ponam senex.</note> He has a lofty conception of his task, of the importance +of the subject to the right culture of the spirit, and +he summons up all his remaining energy to do it justice. +But the work falls far short, in interest and executive skill, +of a treatise like the <hi rend="italic">De Beneficiis</hi>, and the principle of +edification—<hi rend="italic">omnibus sermonibus aliquid salutare miscendum</hi><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ii. 59, § 2.</note>—is +too obtrusive, and sometimes leads to incongruous and +almost ludicrous effects. A reference to the mullet launches +him on a discourse on luxury.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii, § 18.</note> A discourse on mirrors would +hardly seem to lend itself to moralising. Yet the invention +furnishes to Seneca impressive lessons on self-knowledge, and +a chance of glorifying the simple age when the unkempt +daughter of a Scipio, who received her scanty dowry in +uncoined metal, had never had her vanity aroused by the +reflected image of her charms.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 17, § 8, An tu existimas auro +inditum habuisse Scipionis filias speculum +cum illis dos fuisset aes grave?</note> The subject of lightning +<pb n="303"/><anchor id="Pg303"/>naturally gives occasion to a homily against the fear of death.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Nat. Quaest.</hi> ii. 59, § 3.</note> +A prologue, on the conflict to be waged with passion and +luxury and chance and change, winds up abruptly with the +invitation—<hi rend="italic">quaeramus ergo de aquis</hi> ... <hi rend="italic">qua ratione fiant</hi>.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 1, § 1.</note> The +investigation closes with an imaginative description of the +great cataclysm which is destined to overwhelm in ruin the +present order. The earthquakes in Campania in <sic>66</sic> <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> +naturally furnish many moral lessons.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vi. 32.</note> The closing passage of +the <hi rend="italic">Natural Questions</hi> is perhaps the best, and the most worthy +of Seneca. In all these inquiries, he says, into the secrets of +nature, we should proceed with reverent caution and self-distrust, +as men veil their faces and bend in humbleness before +a sacrifice.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 30, § 1.</note> How many an orb, moving in the depths of space, +has never yet risen upon the eyes of man.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 30, § 3, quam multa praeter +hos per secretum eunt nunquam humanis +oculis orientia?</note> The Great Author +Himself is only dimly visible to the inner eye, and there are +vast regions of His universe which are still beyond our ken, +which dazzle us by their effulgence, or elude our gross senses +by their subtle secrecy. We are halting on the threshold of +the great mysteries. There are many things destined to be +revealed to far-distant ages, when our memory shall have +passed away,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 5, multa venientis aevi populus +ignota nobis sciet, multa saeculis +tunc futuris, cum memoria nostra exoleverit, +reservantur.</note> of which our time does not deserve the revelation. +Our energies are spent in discovering fresh ingenuities of +luxury and monstrous vice. No one gives a thought to +philosophy; the schools of ancient wisdom are deserted and +left without a head.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 31.</note> It is in this spirit that Seneca undertook +his mission as a saviour of souls. +</p> + +<p> +Seneca, in the epilogue to the <hi rend="italic">Natural Questions</hi>, remarks +sarcastically that, as all human progress is slow, so, even with +all our efforts of self-indulgence, we have not yet reached the +finished perfection of depravity; we are still making discoveries +in vice. In another passage he maintains that his own age is no +worse than others.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Benef.</hi> i. 10.</note> But this is only because at all times the mass +of men are bad. Such pessimism in the first and second centuries +was a prevalent tone. We meet it alike in Persius, Petronius, +Martial, and Juvenal, and in Seneca, Tacitus, Pliny, Epictetus, +<pb n="304"/><anchor id="Pg304"/>and Marcus Aurelius.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 8, 9; <hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> ii. +11, 17, 20; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. 37; Petron. +<hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 88; M. Aurel. v. 33; v. 10.</note> The rage for wealth and luxury, the +frenzy of vice which perverted natural healthy instincts and +violated the last retreats of modesty, the combination of +ostentation and meanness in social life, the cowardice and the +cruelty which are twin offspring of pampered self-indulgence, +the vanity of culture and the vanishing of ideals, the vague +restless ennui, hovering between satiety and passion, between +faint glimpses of goodness and ignominious failure, between fits +of ambition and self-abandoned languor, all these and more had +come under the eye of Seneca as an observer or a director of +souls.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 77, § 6; 24, § 25; 89, § 21; +95, § 16; <hi rend="italic">De Tranq.</hi> c. i.</note> It is a lost world that he has before him, trying fruitless +anodynes for its misery, holding out its hands for help from +any quarter.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 48, § 8.</note> The consuming earnestness of Seneca, about which, +in spite of his rhetoric, there can be no mistake, and his endless +iteration are the measure of his feeling as to the gravity of the +case. Seneca is the earliest and most powerful apostle of a +great moral revival. His studied phrase, his epigrammatic +point seem often out of place; his occasionally tinsel rhetoric +sometimes offends a modern taste. We often miss the austere +and simple seriousness of Epictetus, the cultivated serenity and +the calm clear-sighted resignation of Marcus Aurelius. Still let +us admit that here is a man, with all his moral faults which he +freely confesses, with all his rhetoric which was a part of +his very nature, who felt he had a mission, and meant to fulfil +it with all the resources of his mind. He is one of the +few heathen moralists who warm moral teaching with the +emotion of modern religion, and touch it with the sadness +and the yearning which spring from a consciousness of man’s +infinite capacities and his actual degradation; one in whose +eyes can be seen the <hi rend="italic">amor ulterioris ripae</hi>, in whose teaching +there are searching precepts which go to the roots of conduct, +and are true for all ages of our race. He adheres formally to +the lines of the old Stoic system in his moments of calm +logical consistency. But when the enthusiasm of humanity, the +passion to win souls to goodness and moral truth is upon him, +all the old philosophical differences fade, the new wine bursts +the old bottles; the Platonic dualism, the eternal conflict of +<pb n="305"/><anchor id="Pg305"/>flesh and spirit,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 71, § 27; 94, § 50; <hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> +24, § 5; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 79, § 12, tunc animus +noster habebit quod gratuletur sibi, +cum emissus his tenebris, in quibus +volutatur, non tenui visu clara perspexerit +... et caelo redditus suo +fuerit; Zeller, iii. i. 637.</note> the Platonic vision of God, nay, a higher +vision of the Creator, the pitiful and loving Guardian, the Giver +of all good, the Power which draws us to Himself, who receives +us at death, and in whom is our eternal beatitude, these +ideas, so alien to the older Stoicism, transfigure its hardness, +and its cold, repellent moral idealism becomes a religion.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 79, § 12; 102, § 22, per has +mortalis aevi moras illi meliori vitae +longiorique proluditur, §§ 26, 28; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +73, § 15, Deus ad homines venit, etc. +But cf. Zeller, iii. 1, 650; and for a +different view, <anchor id="corr305"/><corr sic="Burgmann.">Burgmann,</corr> <hi rend="italic">Seneca’s +Theologie in ihrem Verhältn. zum +Stoicismus</hi>, etc. pp. 20-32. That Burgmann’s +is the truer view appears from +Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 95, § 49; 65, § 9; <hi rend="italic">De Clem.</hi> +i. 5, § 7; <hi rend="italic">De Benef.</hi> ii. 29, § 4; <hi rend="italic">De Prov.</hi> +v. 10; <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 28, § 1; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 41, § + <anchor id="corr305-2"/><corr sic="2">2.</corr></note> +Seneca’s system is really a religion; it is morality inspired by +belief in a spiritual world and <q>touched by emotion.</q> In a +remarkable letter, he discusses the question whether, for the +conduct of life, precept is sufficient without dogma, whether +a man can govern his life by empirical rules, without a +foundation of general principles. Can a religion dispense with +dogma?<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 95, § 10.</note> Seneca, as a casuist and spiritual director, was not +likely to undervalue the importance of definite precept, adapted +to the circumstances of the case. The philosopher, who was +a regular official in great families, probably dealt chiefly in +precept, on a basis of authority concealed and rarely scrutinised. +But Seneca is not an ordinary professional director. He has +a serious purpose; he feels that he is dealing with the +most momentous of all problems—how to form or reform a life, +with a view to its true end, how the final good of man is to +be realised only in virtuous action. But action will not be right +and virtuous unless the will be also right, and rightness of will +depends on ordered habit of the soul,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 57, rursus voluntas non erit +recta nisi habitus animi rectus fuerit, +etc.</note> and that again springs +from right general principles or dogmas. In other words, a true +theory of conduct is necessary to virtue in the highest sense. +Mere imperative precept and rule cannot give steadiness and +continuity to conduct. The motive, the clear perception of the +guiding principle, can alone dignify an act with a peculiar moral +distinction. In order to possess that character, the external +act must be rooted in a faith in the rational law of conduct. +Particular precepts may produce an external obedience to +<pb n="306"/><anchor id="Pg306"/>that law, but they cannot give the uniformity and certainty of +the inner light and the regulated will. +</p> + +<p> +Seneca is not a sectarian dogmatist, although he lays so +much stress on the necessity of dogma to virtuous conduct. He +boldly declares that he does not follow absolutely any of +the Stoic doctors. He defends Epicurus against the vulgar +misunderstanding of his theory of pleasure, and the more +vulgar practical deductions from it. He often quotes his +maxims with admiration to Lucilius.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Vit. Beat.</hi> xii. § 4, nec aestimant, +voluptas illa Epicuri quam sobria +et sicca sit, sed ad nomen ipsum advolant +quaerentes libidinibus suis patrocinium +aliquod ac velamentum. Cf. +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 18, § 14; 16, § 7; 22, § 13; 28, +§ 9.</note> In his views of the +nature of God and His relation to the external world and to +the human soul, Seneca often seems to follow the old Stoic +tradition. There are other passages where he seems to waver +between different conceptions of God, the Creator of the universe, +the incorporeal Reason, the divine breath diffused through all +things, great and small, Fate, or the immutable chain of interlinked +causation.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ad Helv.</hi> viii. § 3, quisquis formator +universi fuit, sive ille deus est +potens omnium, sive incorporalis ratio +ingentium operum artifex, sive divinus +spiritus per omnia aequali intentione +diffusus, sive fatum et immutabilis +causarum inter se cohaerentium series. +Cf. <hi rend="italic">N. Quaest.</hi> ii. 45, § 2.</note> It is also clear that, from the tone of his +mind, and the fact that the centre of philosophical interest for +him is the moral life of man, he tends towards a more ethical +conception of the Deity, as the Being who loves and cares for +man. All this may be admitted and will be further noticed +on a later page. Yet Seneca, in strict theory, probably never +became a dissenter from the physical or ontological creed of +his school. He adhered, in the last resort, to the Stoic pantheism, +which represented God and the universe, force and +formless matter, as ultimately issuing from the one substratum +of the ethereal fire of Heraclitus, and in the great cataclysm, +returning again to their source.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 71, § 14.</note> He also held theoretically the +Stoic materialism, and the Stoic principle, that only corporeal +natures can act on one another.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 57, § 8; 66, § 12; 117, § 2.</note> The force which moulds +indeterminate matter into concrete form is spirit, breath, in the +literal sense, interfused in rude matter, and by its tension, +outward and again inward upon itself, producing form and +quality and energy. Mere matter could never mould itself, +or develop from within a power of movement and action. But +<pb n="307"/><anchor id="Pg307"/>this material force which shapes the universe from within is +also rational, and the universe is a rational being, guided by +the indwelling reason to predestined ends, and obedient to +a universal law. The God of the Stoics is thus a very elastic +or comprehensive conception. He may be viewed as the +ubiquitous, impalpable force, which may, in the lack of more +accurate expression, be called air, ether, fire. He is the soul, +the breath, the Anima Mundi. He is also the universal law, +the rational principle, underlying all the apparently casual and +fitful phenomena of physical nature and human life. God +may also surely be regarded as the eternal Fate, the power in +the ruthless, yet merciful sequence of inevitable causation.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, 122; +cf. <hi rend="italic">Nat. Quaest.</hi> ii. 45, § 2.</note> +And, in milder and more optimistic moods, we may view Him +as a watchful Providence, caring for men more than they seem +to care for themselves, saving them from the consequences of +their own errors and misdeeds. In Seneca, He develops into +a moral and spiritual Being, the source of all spiritual intuition +and virtuous emotion, the secret power within us making for +righteousness, as He is the secret force in all nature making +for order.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Prov.</hi> i. ii. § 6; <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 27; +<hi rend="italic">De Benef.</hi> ii. 29; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 73, § 16.</note> +</p> + +<p> +It seems a little crude and superficial to contrast the +materialist and idealist conceptions of God in the later Stoic +creed. What human conception of Him is free from similar +contradictions? How can any conception of Him, expressed +in human language, avoid them? And in Seneca’s conception +of soul, even as material, there is something so thin, so subtle, +and elusive, that the bounds of matter and spirit seem to +melt away and disappear.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 57, § 8, animus qui ex tenuissimo +constat, deprehendi non potest, etc.</note> However loyal he may be in +form to Stoic materialism, Seneca in the end regards God as +no mere material force, however refined and etherealised, but +a spiritual power; not perhaps limited by the bounds of +personality, but instinct with moral tendencies, nay, a moral +impetus, which no mere physical force could ever develop.<note place="foot">Burgmann, <hi rend="italic">Seneca’s Theologie</hi>, p. +41.</note> The +growing dualism in Seneca’s metaphysics is the result of the +growing dualism of his psychology. In accord with the old +Stoic doctors, he sometimes formulates the material nature of +the soul, and its essential unity. It is, like the Anima Mundi, +<pb n="308"/><anchor id="Pg308"/>warm breath or subtle fire, penetrating all parts of the body, +discharging currents from the central heart to the several organs. +It is primarily rational, and all the lower powers of passion are +derived from the controlling and unifying reason. It is a spark +of the universal Spirit, holding the same place in the human +organism as the Divine Spirit does in the universe.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 65, § 24, quem in hoc mundo +deus obtinet, hunc in homine animus.</note> But +experience and reflection drove Seneca more and more into an +acceptance of the Platonic opposition of reason and passion, an +unceasing struggle of the flesh and spirit, in which the old +Stoic theory of the oneness of the rational soul tended to +disappear.<note place="foot">Pl. <hi rend="italic">Phaed.</hi> 83 <hi rend="small">C, D</hi>; 79 <hi rend="small">B</hi>; <hi rend="small">D</hi>; cf. +Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 183; iii. +2, p. 634; Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 71, § 27.</note> This is only one, but it is the most important, +modification of ancient theory forced on Seneca by a closer +application of theory to the facts of human life, and a completer +analysis of them. The individual consciousness, and the +spectacle of human life, alike witness to the inevitable tendency +of human nature to corruption. Even after the great cataclysm, +when a new earth shall arise from the waters of the deluge, +and a new man, in perfect innocence, shall enter on this fair +inheritance, the clouds will soon gather again, and darken +the fair deceitful dawn.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Nat. Quaest.</hi> iii. 30, § 8, sed illis +quoque innocentia non durabit—cito +nequitia subrepit.</note> The weary struggle of flesh and +spirit will begin once more, in which the flesh is so often the +victor. For to Seneca, as to the Orphic mystics and to Plato, +the body is a prison, and life one long punishment.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 120, § 14; 65, § 16, nam corpus +hoc animi pondus ac poena est; +premente illo urgetur, in vinculis +est, etc. <hi rend="italic">Ad Polyb.</hi> ix. § 6, omnis vita +supplicium est; <hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> xx. § 2.</note> Such +is the misery of this mortal life, such the danger of hopeless +corruption, that no one would accept the gift of existence if +he could foresee the evil in store for him.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 22, § 3.</note> And death, the +object of dread to the blind masses, is really the one compensation +for the calamity of birth, either as a happy return to +antenatal tranquillity, or as the gateway to a glorious freedom +and vision of the Divine.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 24, § 18, mors nos aut consumit +aut eximit; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 36, § 10; +102, § 23; <hi rend="italic">De Prov.</hi> vi. § 6; <hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> +25, § 1; <hi rend="italic">ib.</hi> 19, § 5; 20, § 2, quae efficit +ut nasci non sit supplicium; cf. Epict. +ii. 1; iii. 10; iii. 13; iv. 1; M. Aurel. +viii. 18; vi. 28; iii. 3; ix. 3.</note> Seneca, indeed, does not always +express himself in this strain. He is often the consistent, +orthodox Stoic, who glories in the rounded perfection of the +<pb n="309"/><anchor id="Pg309"/><hi rend="italic">sapiens</hi>, triumphing, even in this life, over all the seductions +of sense and the fallacies of perverted reason, and, in virtue +of the divine strength within him, making himself, even here +below, equal with God in moral purity and freedom.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 53, § 11, est aliquid quo sapiens +antecedat deum; cf. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 59, § 16, +talis est sapientis animus, qualis mundus +super lunam; semper illic serenum +est; 72, § 8.</note> In such +moods, he will adhere to the Stoic psychology: reason will be +all in all; virtue will be uniform, complete, attained by one +supreme victorious effort. But the vision is constantly crossed +and darkened by doubts which are raised by the terrible facts +of life. The moral problem becomes more difficult and complicated; +the vision of perfection recedes to an infinite distance, +and the glorious deliverance is reserved for an immortal life +of which the older Stoics did not often dream. +</p> + +<p> +Still, we can find in Seneca all the Stoic gospel, and +moral idealism. <q>Nil bonum nisi verum</q> is the fundamental +principle. The failures, aberrations, and sins of men arise +from a false conception of what is good, produced by the +warping effect of external things upon the higher principle. +The avaricious, the ambitious, the sensual, live in a vain show. +They are pursuing unreal objects of desire, which cheat and +befool the reason, and turn to ashes when they are won. +The <q>kingdom of Heaven is within.</q> It is the freedom, the +peace, the tranquil sense of power over all that is fortuitous +and external and fleeting, which alone can realise the highest +good of man.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 74, § 1; 62, § 3, brevissima ad +divitias per contemptum divitiarum +via est; 59, § 14.</note> It is attained only by virtue, that is, by living +in obedience to the law of reason, which has its voice and +representative in each human soul. The summons to yield +ourselves to the law of nature and reason simply calls us to +obey our highest part (<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τὸ ἡγεμονικόν</foreign>), which is a steadfast +witness to the eternal truth of things, and, if unbribed and +unperverted, will discern infallibly the right line of conduct +amid all the clamorous or seductive temptations of the flesh or +of the world. Nothing is a real good which has not the +stamp and hall-mark of reason, which is not within the soul +itself, that is within our own power. Everything worth +having or wishing for is within. External things, wealth, +power, high place, the pleasures of sense, are transitory, deceptive, +unstable, the gifts of Fortune, and equally at her +<pb n="310"/><anchor id="Pg310"/>mercy. In the mad struggle for these ephemeral pleasures, +the wise man retires unobserved from the scene of cruel and +sordid rapacity, having secretly within him the greatest prize +of all, which Fortune cannot give or take away.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 74, §§ 6-12; cf. M. Aurel. v. +15, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">νῦν δὲ ὅσῳ περ πλείω τις ἀφαιρῶν ἑαυτοῦ τούτων ἢ καὶ ἀφαιρούμενός τι +τούτων ἀνέχηται, τοσῷδε μᾶλλον ἀγαθός ἐστι</foreign>: Epict. ii. 16, § 18; iii. 3, § 14.</note> If these +things were really good, then God would be less happy than +the slave of lust and ambition, than the sensualist who is fascinated +by a mistress or a minion, the trader who may be ruined +by a storm, the wealthy minister who may at any moment be +ordered to death by a Nero.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 31, § 10; 74, § 14 aut +ista bona non sunt, quae vocantur, aut +homo felicior deo est, etc.</note> The only real liberty and +human dignity are to be found in renunciation. If we +jealously guard and reverence the divine reason within us, +and obey its monitions, which are in truth the voice of God, +the Universal Reason, then we have an impregnable fortress +which cannot be stormed by any adverse fortune. The peace +and freedom so won may be called, although Seneca does not +so call it, the <q>peace of God.</q> For it is in fact the restored +harmony between the human spirit and the Reason of the +world, and the cessation of the weary conflict between the +<q>law in the members</q> and <q>the law of the mind,</q> which +ends so often in that other peace of a <q>mare mortuum,</q> a +stillness of moral death.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 67, § 14.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The gospel of Seneca, with all its searching power, seems +wanting in some of the essentials of an effective religion which +can work on character. Where, it may be asked, is the force +to come from which shall nerve the repentant one to essay +the steep ascent to the calm of indefectible virtue? And +what is the reward which can more than compensate for the +great renunciation? With regard to the first question, the +Stoic answer is clear. The reforming force is the divine +reason, indwelling in every human soul,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 66, § 12, ratio autem nihil aliud +est quam in corpus humanum pars +divini spiritus mersa.</note> which, if it is able, +or is permitted, to emancipate itself from bondage to the things +of sense, will inevitably gravitate to the divine world, from +which it sprang. The question of necessity and freedom of the +will has not much interest for Seneca, as a practical moralist. +He believes theoretically in the old Stoic dogmas on the subject. +<pb n="311"/><anchor id="Pg311"/>From one point of view, God may be regarded as the eternal +Fate, the inevitable law of causation. And as the Universal +Reason, He cannot act otherwise than He does, without violating +His very nature. But His action is self-determined and therefore +free and spontaneous.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Nat. Quaest.</hi> ii. 36; <hi rend="italic">De Prov.</hi> 5, +§ 8, eadem necessitate et deos adligat +... ille ipse omnium conditor scripsit +quidem fata, sed sequitur; semper paret, +semel jussit.</note> This freedom man only attains by +breaking away from the cruel servitude to passion and external +circumstance. As a practical moral teacher, Seneca is bound +to say that we can take the higher road if we will. The first +step towards freedom is to grasp firmly the fundamental law +of the moral life—that the only good lies in conformity to +reason, to the higher part of our being. If we yield to its +bidding, we can at once cut ourselves off from the deceitful life +of the senses, and the vision of the true beatitude in virtue at +once opens on the inner eye. When that vision has been seen, +we must then seek to form a habit of the soul which shall +steadily conform to the universal law, and finally give birth +to a settled purpose, issuing inevitably in virtuous act.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 95, § 57; cf. 116, § 7, satis +natura dedit roboris si illo utamur.</note> It +is this fixed and stable resolution which is the Stoic ideal, +although experience showed that it was rarely attained. The +great renunciation is thus the entrance on a state of true freedom, +which is realised only by submitting ourselves to the +law of reason, that is of God. By obedience to rational law +man is raised to a level far transcending the transient and +shadowy dignities of the world. His rational and divine part +is reunited to the Divine Spirit which <q>makes for righteousness</q>; +he places himself in the sweep and freedom of a movement +which finds its image and counterpart in the majestic +and ordered movements of the heavenly spheres. If we ask, +how can poor humanity, so abject, so brutalised, so deadened +by the downward pressure of the flesh and the world, ever +release itself and rise to those empyrean heights, the answer is, +through the original strength of the rational, which is the +divine element in the human soul. It may be, and actually +is, in the mass of men, drugged and silenced by the seductions +of sense and the deceptions of the world. But if, in some +moment of detachment and elation, when its captors and +jailors relax their guard, it can escape their clutches, it will at +<pb n="312"/><anchor id="Pg312"/>once seek the region of its birth, and its true home. It is in +the kindred of the human reason with the Divine, the Reason +of the world, that we must seek the reconciliation of two +apparently opposite points of view. At one time the Stoic +doctor tells us that we must trust to our own strength in the +moral struggle. And again Seneca, in almost Christian phrase, +comforts his disciple with the vision of God holding out a +succouring hand to struggling virtue, just as he warns the +backslider of an eye <q>that seeth in secret.</q> Woe to him +who despises that Witness.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 73, § 15, non sunt di + <anchor id="corr312"/><corr sic="fastidiodosi">fastidiosi</corr>: +adscendentibus manum porrigunt; +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 83, § 1, nihil deo clusum est; +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 43, § 5, O te miserum si contemnis +hunc testem.</note> +</p> + +<p> +With such a conception of the relation of the human reason to +the Divine, Seneca was bound to believe that human nature, as +it is, had fallen away from original and spontaneous innocence. +In the equal enjoyment of the unforced gifts of nature, in the +absence of the avarice and luxury which the development of +the arts, the exploitation of the earth’s hidden wealth, and the +competitive struggle, born of a social life growing more and +more complicated, have generated, the primeval man was unsolicited +by the passions which have made life a hell.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi>, 90, § 38 sqq. avaritia omnia +fecit aliena et in angustum ex immenso +redacta paupertatem intulit, et multa +concupiscendo omnia amisit.</note> Yet +this blissful state was one of innocence rather than of virtue; +it was the result of ignorance of evil rather than determined +choice of good.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 46, non fuere sapientes;... +ignorantia rerum innocentes erant.</note> And the man who, in the midst of a corrupt +society, fights his way to virtue, will take far higher moral rank +than our simple ancestors, who wandered in the unravaged +garden of the Golden Age. For the man born in a time when +the nobler instincts have been deadened by the lust of gold +and power and sensual excess, the virtuous will can only be +won by a hard struggle. +</p> + +<p> +Confronted with the facts of life, and fired with a passion to +win men to a higher law, the later Stoicism had in some points +to soften the rigid lines of earlier theory. The severe idealism +of the great doctors was a mere dream of an impossible detachment, +the inexorable demand of a pitiless logic. Virtue, being +conformity to the immutable law of reason, was conceived as a +rounded, flawless whole, to which nothing could be added, and +to which nothing must be wanting. It presupposes, or is +<pb n="313"/><anchor id="Pg313"/>identical with, a settled intellectual clearness, an unclouded +knowledge of the truly good, which must inevitably issue in +perfect act. It is a single, uniform mental state from which all +the separate virtues spring as from a single root.<note place="foot">Sen. + <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 66, § 13 sqq.; 113, § 14, +Cic. <hi rend="italic">Tusc.</hi> iv. 15, 34; Plut. <hi rend="italic">Virt. Mor.</hi> +c. 2; Zeller, iii. 1, p. 224.</note> The moral +value of an act depends entirely on will, intention, that is, on +the intellectual perception. And as there are no gradations in +the mental state, so there are no gradations in moral conduct +which issues from it. There are no distinctions between +things morally good, between <q>divine</q> things; and so, just as +in the older Calvinistic system, there is no class intermediate +between the wise and the foolish, the saved and the lost. +And conversion, <q>transfiguration,</q> the change from folly to +wisdom, is regarded as instantaneous and complete.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, p. +235; Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Prof. in Virt.</hi> i. + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὥστε τὸν πρωΐ κάκιστον ἑσπέρας γεγονέναι κράτιστον κτλ.</foreign>; + <hi rend="italic">Adv. St.</hi> c. x.; cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +76, § 19.</note> Even +those who are struggling upward, but have not yet reached +the top, are still to be reckoned among the foolish, just as the +man a few inches below the waves will be drowned as certainly +as if he were sunk fathoms deep. And, as there is no mean state +in morals, so the extremes are necessarily finished and perfect +types of virtue and reprobacy. The ideal <hi rend="italic">sapiens</hi>, who combines +in himself all the moral and intellectual attributes that +go to make up the ideal of serene, flawless virtue, has been the +mark for ridicule from the days of Horace.<note place="foot">Hor. + <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> i. 3, 124; Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 1, +106; cf. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 73, § 13; Aelian, <hi rend="italic">Var. Hist.</hi> +iv. 13; Luc. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Auct.</hi> c. 20, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">μόνος οὗτος σοφός, μόνος καλός, μόνος ανδρεῖος βασιλεὺς ῥήτωρ, κτλ.</foreign></note> Such an ideal, +soaring into the pure cold regions of virgin snow, left the great +mass of men grovelling in filth and darkness. And it was in +this light that the severe Stoic regarded the condition of the +multitude. They are all equally bad, and they will always be +bad, from age to age. Every generation mourns over its degeneracy, +but it is no worse than its ancestors, and its posterity +will be no better. The only variation is in the various fashion of +the vices.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Benef.</hi> i. 10, § 1, hoc majores +nostri questi sunt, hoc nos querimur, +hoc posteri nostri querentur, eversos +mores regnare nequitiam, in deterius +res humanas labi. Cf. <hi rend="italic">Ad Polyb.</hi> c. iv.</note> In any crowded scene, says Seneca, in the forum or +the circus, you have a mere gathering of savage beasts, a spectacle +of vice incarnate.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 8, § 1, istic + tantumdem +esse vitiorum quantum hominum.</note> In the garb of peace, they are engaged in +a truceless war, hating the fortunate, trampling on the fallen. +<pb n="314"/><anchor id="Pg314"/>Viewing this scene of shameless lust and cupidity where every +tie of duty or friendship is violated, if the wise man were to +measure his indignation by the atrocity of the offenders, his +anger must end in madness. But we are all bad men living +among the bad, and we should be gentle to one another. +</p> + +<p> +The idealism and the pessimism of the earlier Stoics were +alike fatal to any effort of moral reform. The cold, flawless +perfection of the man of triumphant reason was an impossible +model which could only discourage and repel aspirants to the +higher life. The ghastly moral wreck of ordinary human nature, +in which not a single germ of virtuous impulse seemed to have +survived the ruin, left apparently no hope of rescue or escape. +If morals were to be anything but an abstract theory, if they +were to have any bearing on the actual character and destiny +of man, their demand must be modified. And so in many +essential points it was, even before Seneca.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, p. +637; cf. p. 249. Cf. Martha, <hi rend="italic">Mor. +sous l’Emp.</hi> p. 62. On Seneca’s relation +to the old Stoic theology, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> +Burgmann, <hi rend="italic">Seneca’s Theologie</hi>, p. 42 sq.</note> The ideal contempt +for all external things had to give way to an Aristotelian +recognition of the value of some of them for a virtuous life. +And Seneca is sometimes a follower of Aristotle, as in the +admission, so convenient to the millionaire, that wealth may be +used by the wise man for higher moral ends.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Vit. Beat.</hi> c. 22.</note> He will not be +the slave of money; he will be its master. He will admit it +to his home, but not to his heart, as a thing which may take to +itself wings at any moment, but which may meanwhile be used +to cheer and warm him in his struggles, and may be dispensed +in beneficent help to dependents. In the same way, beside the +ideal of perfect conformity to the law of reason, there appeared +a class of conditional duties. To conform absolutely to the law +of reason, to realise the highest good through virtue, remains +the highest Stoic ideal. But if, beside the highest good, +it is permitted to attach a certain value to some among +the external objects of desire, manifestly a whole class of +varying duties arises in the field of choice and avoidance.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 74, § 17; 87, § 29 sq.: <hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> +v. 13, § 1 sq.; Zeller, iii. 1, p. 638.</note> +And again the ideal of imperturbable calm, which approached +the apathy of the Cynics, was softened by the admission of +rational dispositions of feeling.<note place="foot"><foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">εὐπάθειαι</foreign>, cf. <hi rend="italic">De Brev. Vit.</hi> xiv. § +2; <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 2-4; Zeller, iii. 1, p. 216.</note> These concessions to + im<pb n="315"/><anchor id="Pg315"/>perious facts of human life, of course, modified the awful +moral antithesis of wise and foolish, good and reprobate. +Where is the perfectly wise man, with his single moral +purpose, his unruffled serenity, his full assurance of his own +impregnable strength, actually to be found?<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Tranq.</hi> vii. § 4, ubi enim +istum invenies quem tot seculis quaerimus? +Pro optimo est minime malus. +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 42, § 1.</note> He is not to +be discovered among the most devoted adherents of the true +philosophic creed. Even a Socrates falls short of the sublime +standard. If we seek for the wise man in the fabulous past, +we shall find only heroic force, or a blissful, untempted ignorance, +which are alike wanting in the first essential of virtue.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 90, § 44 sqq.</note> As +the perfect ideal of moral wisdom, imperturbable, assured, +and indefectible, receded to remote ideal distances, so the +condemnation of all moral states below an impossible perfection +to indiscriminate reprobacy<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 72, §§ 6-11.</note> had to be revoked. +Seneca maintains that men are all bad, but he is forced to +admit that they are not all equally bad, nay, that there are +men who, although not quite emancipated from the snares of +the world and the flesh, have reached various stages on the +upward way. He even distinguishes three classes of <hi rend="italic">proficientes</hi>, +of persons on the path of moral progress.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 75, § 8 sqq.</note> There is +the man who has conquered many serious vices, but is still +captive to others. Again, there is the man who has got rid +of the worst faults and passions, but who is not secure against +a relapse. There is a third class who have almost reached +the goal. They have achieved the great moral victory; they +have embraced the one true object of desire; they are safe +from any chance of falling away; but they want the final +gift of full assurance reserved for the truly wise.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 72, <sic>§ 8 sapiens</sic> laetitia fruitur +maxima, continua, sua.</note> They have +not attained to the crowning glory of conscious strength. Seneca +is still in bondage to the hard Stoic tradition, in spite of his +aberrations from it. The great Catholic virtue of humility is +to him still, theoretically at least, a disqualification for the +highest spiritual rank. +</p> + +<p> +And yet Seneca is far from wanting in humility. In giving +counsels of perfection, he candidly confesses that he is himself +far from the ideal.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 57, § 3, non de me loquor, qui +multum ab homine tolerabili, nedum a +perfecto absum: cf. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 89, § 2.</note> Indeed, his <hi rend="italic">Letters</hi> reveal a character +<pb n="316"/><anchor id="Pg316"/>which, with lofty ideals, and energetic aspiration, is very far +removed from the serene joy and peace of the true Stoic sage. +He has not got the invulnerable panoply from which all the +shafts of fortune glance aside. He shows again and again how +deep a shadow the terror of his capricious master could cast +over his life, how he can be disturbed even by the smaller +troubles of existence, by the slights of great society, by the +miseries of a sea voyage, or the noises of a bath.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ad Polyb.</hi> ii. § 1; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 53, § 4; +<sic>56 §§ 1-3</sic>.</note> In the +counsels addressed to Lucilius, Seneca is probably quite as +often preaching to himself. The ennui, the unsteadiness of +moral purpose, the clinging to wealth and power, the haunting +fears or timid anticipations of coming evil, for which he is +constantly suggesting spiritual remedies, are diagnosed with +such searching skill and vividness that we can hardly doubt +that the physician has first practised his art upon himself.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 24; esp. § 14.</note> +Nor has he entire faith in his own insight or in the potency +of the remedies which ancient wisdom has accumulated. The +great difficulty is, that the moral patient, in proportion to the +inveteracy of his disease, is unconscious of it.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 53, § 7, quo quis pejus se habet, +minus sentit.</note> Society, with +its manifold temptations of wealth and luxury and irresponsible +ease, can so overwhelm the congenital tendency to virtue,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 94, §§ 55, 56.</note> +that the inner monitor may be silenced, and a man may +come to love his depravity.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 112, vitia sua et amat simul et +odit.</note> If men are not getting better, +they are inevitably getting worse. There is such a state, in +the end, as hopeless, irreclaimable reprobacy. Yet even for +the hoary sinner Seneca will not altogether despair, so long +as there lingers in him some divine discontent, however faint, +some lingering regret for a lost purity. He will not lose +hope of converting even a mocker like Marcellinus, who +amuses himself with jeers at the vices and inconsistencies of +professing philosophers, and does not spare himself. Seneca +may, perchance, give him a pause in his downward course.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 29.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Seneca’s gospel, as he preaches it, is for a limited class. +With all his professed belief in the equality and brotherhood +of men, Seneca addresses himself, through the aristocratic +Epicurean Lucilius, to the slaves of wealth and the vices +<pb n="317"/><anchor id="Pg317"/>which it breeds. The men whom he wishes to save are +masters of great households, living in stately palaces, and +striving to escape from the weariness of satiety by visits to +Baiae or Praeneste.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 28, § 1.</note> They are men who have awful secrets, +and whose apparent tranquillity is constantly disturbed by +vague terrors,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 13, § 4 sq.; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 24, § 11.</note> whose intellects are wasted on the vanities +of a conventional culture or the logomachies of a barren +dialectic.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 117, § 31; 75, § 6.</note> They are people whose lives are a record of weak +purpose and conflicting aims, and who are surprised by old +age while they are still barely on the threshold of real moral +life.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 13, § 17, quid est turpius quam +senex vivere incipiens?</note> With no religious or philosophic faith, death is to such +men the great terror, as closing for ever that life of the +flesh which has been at once so pleasant and so tormenting.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 24.</note> +In dealing with such people, Seneca recognises the need both +of the great principles of right living and of particular precepts, +adapted to varieties of character and circumstance. The +true and solid foundation of conduct must always be the clear +perception of moral truth, giving birth to rightly-directed purpose +and supplying the right motive. For example, without a +true conception of God as a spirit, worship will be gross and +anthropomorphic.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 95, § 49.</note> The doctrine of the brotherhood of all men +in the universal commonwealth is the only solid ground of the +social charities and of humanity to slaves. Yet dogma is not +enough; discipline must be added. The moral director has to +deal with very imperfect moral states, some of quite rudimentary +growth, and his disciples may have to be treated as boys +learning to write, whose fingers the master must guide +mechanically across the tablet.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 94, § 5, digiti puerorum tenentur +et aliena manu per literarum +simulacra ducuntur.</note> The latent goodness of +humanity must be disencumbered of the load which, through +untold ages, corrupt society has heaped upon it. The delusions +of the world and the senses must be exposed, the judgment, +confused and dazzled by their glamour, must be cleared and +steadied, the weak must be encouraged, the slothful and backsliding +must be aroused to continuous effort in habitual converse +with some good man who has trodden the same paths +before.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 11, § 8; Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Pr. Virt.</hi> xv.</note> +<pb n="318"/><anchor id="Pg318"/>Thus the great <q>Ars Vitae,</q> founded on a few simple +principles of reason, developed into a most complicated system +of casuistry and spiritual direction. How far it was successful +we cannot pretend to say. But the thoughtful reader of +Seneca’s <hi rend="italic">Letters</hi> cannot help coming to the conclusion that, +even in the reign of Nero, there must have been many of the +<hi rend="italic">proficientes</hi>, of candidates for the full Stoic faith. If Seneca +reveals the depths of depravity in his age, we are equally +bound to believe that he represents, and is trying to stimulate, +a great moral movement, a deep seated discontent with the hard, +gross materialism, thinly veiled under dilettantism and spurious +artistic sensibility, of which Nero was the type. Everything +that we have of Seneca’s, except the <hi rend="italic">Tragedies</hi>, deals with the +problems or troubles of this moral life, and the demand for +advice or consolation appears to have been urgent. Lucilius, +the young Epicurean procurator, who has been immortalised +by the <hi rend="italic">Letters</hi>, is only one of a large class of spiritual inquirers. +He not only lays his own moral difficulties before +the master, but he brings other spiritual patients for advice.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 25, § 1.</note> +There were evidently many trying to withdraw from the +tyranny or temptations of high life, with a more or less stable +resolution to devote themselves to reflection and amendment. +It is a curious pagan counterpart to the Christian ascetic +movement of the fourth and fifth centuries.<note place="foot">S. Hieron. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 127, §§ 5-7; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +118, § 5; Sulp. <hi rend="italic">Sev.</hi> ii. 13, § 7.</note> And, just as in +the days of S. Jerome and S. Paulinus, the deserter from the +ranks of fashion and pleasure in Nero’s time had to encounter +a storm of ridicule and misrepresentation. Philosophic retreat +was derided as mere languid self-indulgence, an unmanly +shrinking from social duty, nay, even a mere mask for the +secret vices which were, too often with truth, charged against +the <hi rend="italic">soi-disant</hi> philosopher.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 36, § 1, illum objurgant +quod umbram et otium petierit; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +123, § 15, illos quoque nocere nobis +existimo, qui nos sub specie Stoicae +sectae hortantur ad vitia: hoc enim +jactant solum sapientem et doctum esse +amatorem.</note> Sometimes the wish to lead a +higher life was openly assailed by a cynical Epicureanism. +Virtue and philosophy were mere idle babble. The only +happiness is to make the most of the senses while the senses +still keep their fresh lust for pleasure. The days are fleeting +away never to return in which we can drink with keen zest +<pb n="319"/><anchor id="Pg319"/>the joys of the flesh. What folly to spare a patrimony for a +thankless heir!<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 123, § 10. Cf. <hi rend="italic">Inscr. Or. +Henz.</hi> 4806, 4807, 4816.</note> Seneca had to deal with many souls wavering +between the two ideals. One of his treatises is addressed +to a kinsman, Annaeus Serenus, who had made a full confession +of a vague unrest, an impotence of will, the conflict of moral +torpor with high resolve.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Tranq.</hi> i.</note> In his better moments, Annaeus +inclines to simplicity of life and self-restraint. Yet a visit to +a great house dazzles him and disturbs his balance, with the +sight of its troops of elegant slaves, its costly furniture and +luxurious feasting. He is at one time drawn to philosophic +quietude; at another he becomes the strenuous ambitious +Roman of the old days, eager for the conflicts of the forum. +He is always wavering between a conviction of the vanity of +literary trifling and the passion for literary fame.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. §§ 13-15, nec aegroto nec +valeo;... In omnibus rebus haec +me sequitur bonae mentis infirmitas. +<hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 17, rogo, si quod habes remedium +quo hanc fluctuationem meam sistam, +dignum me putes qui tibi tranquillitatem +debeam.</note> Cannot +Seneca, to whom he owes his ideal, furnish some remedy for +this constant tendency to relapse and indecision? +</p> + +<p> +It is in the sympathetic handling of such cases, not in +broad philosophic theory, that the peculiar strength of Seneca +lies. His counsels were adapted to the particular difficulties +presented to him. But many of them have a universal validity. +He encourages the wish to retire into meditative quietude, but +only as a means to moral cure.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 7, § 8; 19, § 2.</note> Retreat should not be an +ostentatious defiance of the opinion of the world.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 68, ipsum otium absconde; +jactandi autem genus est nimis latere.</note> Nor is it +to be a mere cloak for timid or lazy shrinking from the +burdens of life. You should withdraw from the strife and +temptations of the mundane city, only to devote yourself to +the business of the spiritual city, to cultivate self-knowledge +and self-government, to inspire the soul with the contemplation +of the Eternal and the Divine. Solitude may be a +danger, unless a man lives in the presence of <q>One who seeth +in secret,</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 43, § 4; cf. 83, § 1; 10, § 2, +mecum loquor ... cave ne cum +homine malo loquaris.</note> from whom no evil thought is hidden, to whom +no prayer for evil things must be addressed.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 10, § 5, turpissima vota dis +insusurrant; cf. Pers. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> ii. 7-18; +Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 41, § 1.</note> And, lest the +thought of God’s presence may not come home with sufficient +<pb n="320"/><anchor id="Pg320"/>urgency, Seneca recommends his disciples to call up the +image of some good man or ancient sage, and live as if under +his eye.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 11, § 8; 104, § 21, vive cum Chrysippo, +cum Posidonio.</note> The first step in moral progress is self-knowledge +and confession of one’s faults.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 6, § 1; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 28; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 50, § 4; +Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Prof. in Virt.</hi> c. xi. + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τὸ πάθος λέγειν καὶ τὴν μοχθηρίαν ἀποκαλύπτειν οὐ φαῦλον ἂν εἴη προκοπῆς σημεῖον</foreign>.</note> Ignorance of our spiritual +disease, the doom of the indurated conscience, is the great +danger, and may be the mark of a hopeless moral state. +Hence the necessity for constant daily self-examination. In +the quiet of each night we should review our conduct and +feeling during the day, marking carefully where we have +fallen short of the higher law, and strengthening ourselves +with any signs of self-conquest. Seneca tells us that this +was his own constant practice.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, iii. 36, § 3.</note> For progress is only slow +and difficult. It requires watchful and unremitting effort to +reach that assured and settled purpose which issues spontaneously +in purity of thought and deed, and which raises man +to the level of the Divine freedom. There must be no pauses +of self-complacency until the work is done. There is no +mediocrity in morals. There must be no halting and unsteadiness +of purpose, no looking back to the deceitful things of +the world. Inconstancy of the wavering will only shortens the +span of this short life. How many there are who, even when +treading the last stage to death, are only beginning to live, +in the true sense, and who miss the beatitude of the man +who, having mastered the great secret, can have no addition +to his happiness from lengthened years. In the long tract of +time any life is but a moment, and of that the least part by +most men is really lived.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 32, § 2, in tanta brevitate vitae +quam breviorem inconstantia facimus, +etc.; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 99, § 11, + <anchor id="corr320"/><corr sic="intelliges">intelleges</corr> etiam in +longissima vita minimum esse quod +vivitur.</note> And this unsettled aim is liable to +constant temptation from without. We are continually within +sight and earshot of the isles of the Sirens, and only the +resolution of a Ulysses will carry us past in safety.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 56, § 15; 51, § 5.</note> In fact +no isle of the Sirens can have been more dangerous than the life +of a great household in the Neronian age, when the dainties +and the vices of every land assailed the senses with multiplied +seductions, and men craved in vain for a heightened and keener +sensibility. Perpetual change of scene to the shores of Baiae, +<pb n="321"/><anchor id="Pg321"/>to Apulia, to some glen in the Apennines, or to the northern +lakes, or even further, to the Rhone, the Nile, the Atlas, was +sought by the jaded man of pleasure or the man struggling in +vain to reform. But Seneca warns his disciple that wherever +he may go he will take his vices and his weakness with him.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 51, § 4; 104, § 20, si vis peregrinationes +habere jucundas, tuum +comitem sana.</note> +Let him try to work out his salvation within his great palace +on the Esquiline. Surrounded by splendour and luxury, +let him, for a time, isolate himself from them; let him lie +on a hard bed, and live on scanty fare, and fancy himself +reduced to that poverty which he dreads so much and so +foolishly.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 17, § 5; 18, § 8; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 87, § 1; +cf. Martha, p. 42.</note> The change will be good for body and soul; and +the temporary ascetic may return to his old life, at least +released from one of his bugbears, and refreshed with a new +sense of freedom. +</p> + +<p> +Such were some of the precepts by which Seneca strove to +fortify the struggling virtue of his disciples. But he never +concealed from them that it is only by struggle that the remote +ideal can be attained. <q>Vivere militare est.</q> And almost in +the words of S. Paul, he uses the example of the gladiator or +the athlete, to arouse the energy of the aspirant after moral +perfection.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 96, § 5.</note> <q>They do it for a corruptible crown.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 78, § 16, 4, nos quoque evincamus +omnia, quorum praemium non +corona nec palma est, etc.</note> The +reward of the Stoic disciple is vain and poor to the gross +materialist. But, from the serene heights, where ideal Reason +watches the struggle, the only victor is the man who has +adopted the watchwords—self-knowledge, renunciation, resignation. +Only by following that steep path can any one ever +reach the goal of assured peace within, and be delivered from +the turmoil of chance and change. The misery of the sensual, +the worldly, and the ambitious lies in the fact that they have +staked their happiness on things which are beyond their own +power, which are the casual gifts of fortune, and may be as +capriciously withdrawn. This state is one of slavery to +external things, and the pleasure, after all, which can be drawn +from them is fleeting. Hence it is that the sensualist is +equally miserable when his pleasures are denied, and when +they are exhausted.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Vit. Beat.</hi> vii. § 4; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 83, § 27.</note> He places his happiness in one brief +<pb n="322"/><anchor id="Pg322"/>moment, with the danger or the certainty either of privation +or satiety. The wise man of the Stoics, on the other hand, +has built his house upon the rock. He shuns, according to +the Pythagorean maxim, the ways of the multitude, and +trusting to the illumination of divine Reason, he takes the +narrow path.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 37.</note> His guiding light is the principle that the +<q>kingdom of heaven is within,</q> that man’s supreme good +depends only on himself, that is, on the unfettered choice of +reason. To such a man <q>all things are his,</q> for all worth +having is within him. His mind creates its own world, or +rather it rediscovers a lost world which was once his. He can, +if he will, annihilate the seductions of the flesh and the world, +which cease to disturb when they are contemned. He may +equally extinguish the griefs and external pains of life, for each +man is miserable just as he thinks himself.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 96; 98, §§ 2, 7.</note> Human nature, +even unfortified by philosophic teaching, has been found capable +of bearing the extremity of torture with a smile. The man +who has mastered the great secret that mind may, by its latent +forces, create its own environment, should be able to show the +endurance of a Scaevola or a Regulus.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Prov.</hi> iii. § 4.</note> All he needs to do is to +unmask the objects of his dread.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 24, § 13, rebus persona demenda +est.</note> For just as men are deluded +by the show of material pleasure, so are they unmanned by +visionary fears. Even the last event of life should have no +terror for the wise man, on any rational theory of the future of +the soul. The old mythical hell, the stone of Sisyphus, the +wheel of Ixion, Cerberus, and the ghostly ferryman, may be +dismissed to the limbo of fable.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 18; cf. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 36, § 10; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 30, +§ 17; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 58, § 27; cf. Epict. ii. 1.</note> For the man who has followed +the inner light, death must either be a return to that +antenatal calm of nothingness which has left no memory, or +the entrance to a blissful vision of the Divine.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Prov.</hi> vi. § 6; <hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> 25; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +102, §§ 23-26, Per has mortalis aevi +moras illi meliori vitae longiorique proluditur.</note> Even in this +luxurious and effeminate time, men and women of all ranks and +ages have shown themselves ready to escape from calamity or +danger by a voluntary death.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 24, § 11.</note> And what after all is death? +It is not the terminus of life, a single catastrophe of a moment. +In the very hour of birth we enter on the first stage in the +journey to the grave. We are dying daily, and our last day +<pb n="323"/><anchor id="Pg323"/>only completes the process of a life-long death.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 24, § 20; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 36.</note> And as to +the shortness of our days, no life is short if it has been full.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 93, § 2, longa est vita si +plena est; cf. 101, § 10, singulos dies +singulas vitas puta.</note> +The mass of men are only living in an ambiguous sense; they +linger or vegetate in life, they do not really live. Nay, many +are long since dead when the hour of so-called death arrives. +And the men who mourn over the shortness of their days are +the greatest prodigals of the one thing that can never be +replaced.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Brev. Vit.</hi> viii. § 1.</note> In the longest life, on a rational estimate, how +small a fraction is ever really lived! The whole past, which +might be a sure and precious possession, is flung away by the +eager, worldly man.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> x.</note> The fleeting present is lost in unrest or +reckless procrastination, or in projecting ourselves into a future +that may never come. Thus old age surprises us while we +are mere children in moral growth.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ix. § 4, pueriles adhuc animos +senectus opprimit.</note> +</p> + +<p> +At certain moments, the Stoic ideal might seem to be in +danger of merging itself in the self-centred isolation of the +Cynic, asserting the defiant independence of individual virtue, +the nothingness of all external goods, the omnipotence of the +solitary will. And undoubtedly, in the last resort, Seneca +has pictured the wise man thus driven to bay, and calmly +defying the rage of the tyrant, the caprices of fortune, the +loss of health and wealth, nay the last extremity of torture +and ignominious death. His own perilous position, and the +prospect of society in the reign of Nero, might well lead a +man of meditative turn so to prepare himself for a fate which +was always imminent. But the Stoic doctor could never +acquiesce in a mere negative ideal, the self-centred independence +of the individual soul. He was too cultivated, he +had drunk too deep of the science and philosophy of the +past, he had too wide an outlook over the facts of human life +and society, to relegate himself to a moral isolation which was +apt to become a state of brutal disregard of the claims of +social duty, and even of personal self-respect.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, p. +329, der Stoiker ist zu gebildet ... um +den Werth der wissenschaftlichen Weltbetrachtung +zu verkennen.</note> Such a position +was absolutely impossible to a man like Seneca. Whatever +his practice may have been, it is clear that in temperament he +was almost too soft and emotional. He was a man with an +<pb n="324"/><anchor id="Pg324"/>intense craving for sympathy, and lavish of it to others; he was +the last man in the world who could enjoy a solitary paradise +of self-satisfied perfection. It is true the Roman world to +the eyes of Seneca lay in the shadow of death, crushed under +a treacherous despotism, and enervated by gross indulgence. +Yet, although he sees men in this lurid light, he does not +scorn or hate them. It was not for nothing that Seneca had +been for five years the first minister of the Roman Empire. +To have stood so near the master of the world, and felt the +pulse of humanity from Britain to the Euphrates, to have +listened to their complaints and tried to minister to their needs, +was a rare education in social sympathy. It had a profound +effect on M. Aurelius, and it had left its mark on Seneca.<note place="foot">Cf. Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, +p. 277, die Philosophie immer nur die +geschichtlich vorhandenen Zustände +abspiegele.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Two competing tendencies may be traced in Stoicism, and +in Seneca’s exposition of it. On the one hand, man must +seek the harmony of his nature by submitting his passions +and emotions to his own higher nature, and shaking himself free +from all bondage to the flesh or the world. On the other +hand, man is regarded as the subject of the universal Reason, +a member of the universal commonwealth, whose maker and +ruler is God.<note place="foot">Burgmann, <hi rend="italic">Seneca’s Theologie</hi>, p. +26.</note> The one view might make a man aim merely +at isolated perfection; it might produce the philosophic monk. +The other and broader conception of humanity would make man +seek his perfection, not only in personal virtue, but in active +sympathy with the movement of the world. The one impulse +would end in a kind of spiritual selfishness. The other +would seek for the full development of spiritual strength in +the mutual aid and sympathy of struggling humanity, in +friendship,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 109, § 10; 9, § 15.</note> in the sense of a universal brotherhood and the +fatherhood of God. There are two cities, says Seneca, in +which a man may be enrolled—the great society of gods and +men, wide as the courses of the sun; the other, the Athens or +the Carthage to which we are assigned by the accident of +birth.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Otio</hi>, iv.; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 68, § 2; cf. S. +Aug. <hi rend="italic">De Civ. Dei</hi>, xi. 1.</note> A man may give himself to the service of both +societies, or he may serve the one and neglect the other. The +wise man alone realises to the full his citizenship in the +spiritual commonwealth, in pondering on the problems of +<pb n="325"/><anchor id="Pg325"/>human conduct, the nature of the soul, of the universe and +God, and conforming his moral being to the eternal law of +Nature. The sage, a Zeno or a Chrysippus, may rightly devote +himself exclusively to contemplation and moral self-culture.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, p. +274; Stob. <hi rend="italic">Flor.</hi> 45, 29; Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 29, +§ 11.</note> +He may not, by wealth and station, have access to the arena of +active life. And, although a seeming recluse, he may really be +a far greater benefactor of his kind than if he led the Senate, +or commanded armies. There may be cases in which a man +may be right in turning his back on public life, in order to +concentrate all his energies on self-improvement. And Seneca +does not hesitate to counsel Lucilius to withdraw himself from +the thraldom of office.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 19, § 6, subduc cervicem jugo +tritam.</note> Yet Zeno’s precept was that the +wise man will serve the State unless there be some grave +impediment in his way.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Otio</hi>, iii. § 2, accedet ad rempublicam +nisi si quid impedierit.</note> For, on Stoic principles, we are all +members one of another, and bound to charity and mutual +help. And all speculation and contemplation are vain and +frivolous unless they issue in right action. Yet the practical +difficulty for the <hi rend="italic">sapiens</hi> was great, if not insuperable. What +earthly commonwealth could he serve with consistency; is it +an Athens, which condemned a Socrates to death, and drove an +Aristotle into exile?<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> viii. § 1, interrogo ad quam +rempublicam sapiens sit accessurus, +ad Athenas in qua Socrates damnatur, +etc.; cf. Diog. <anchor id="corr325"/><corr sic="(italics removed)">Laert.</corr> v. 1.</note> How please the vulgar sensual crowd +without displeasing God and conscience? It might seem that +the true disciple of Stoicism could not take a part in public +life save under some ideal polity, such as Plato or Chrysippus +dreamed of.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. § 131.</note> Here, as elsewhere, the problem was solved +with varying degrees of consistency. The problem is stated +by Seneca—<q>Se contentus est sapiens ad beate vivendum, +non ad vivendum.</q><note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 9, § 13.</note> It is the ever-recurring conflict between +lofty idealism and the facts of human life, which is softened, +if not solved, from age to age by casuistry. The wise and +good man should have the springs of his happiness in himself. +Yet a wise friend may call forth his powers, and furnish an +object of self-sacrifice.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 109, § 3 sqq.</note> The wise man will not entangle +himself in the cares of family life.<note place="foot">Epict. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> iii. 22, § 69.</note> Yet wife and child are +<pb n="326"/><anchor id="Pg326"/>needed to give completeness to the life of the citizen. Since +man exists for the general order, how can he avoid lending his +services to the State, unless there be some insuperable bar? +The controversy between the dream of solitary perfection and +altruism was variously solved, and the particular solution +could always be defended in the light of the great law of +life. Epictetus, cut off from the great world by servile birth +and poverty, could make light of marriage, of the begetting of +future citizens, and the duties of political life.<note place="foot">Epict. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> i. 9, § 1 sqq. + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἢ τὸ τοῦ Σωκράτους, μηδέποτε πρὸς τὸν πυθόμενον, ποδαπός ἐστι, + εἰπεῖν ὅτι Ἀθηναῖος ἢ Κορίνθιος, ἀλλ’ ὅτι Κόσμος</foreign>.</note> On the other +hand, M. Aurelius, by nature as detached as Epictetus, might +refuse to follow the transcendental counsels of Chrysippus and +Seneca. He might strive painfully to reconcile devotion to an +irksome political charge with a dream of that unseen commonwealth +<q>in which the cities of men are as it were houses.</q><note place="foot">M. Aurel. iii. 11; vi. 44, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">πόλις καὶ πατρὶς ὡς μὲν Ἀντωνίνῳ μοι ἡ Ῥώμη, ὡς δὲ ἀνθρώπῳ ὁ Κόσμος</foreign>.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Yet in spite of these difficulties about public duty, no +one outside the pale of Christianity has perhaps ever insisted +so powerfully on the obligation to live for others, on the +duty of love and forgiveness, as Seneca has done. We are +all, bond or free, ruler or subject, members one of another, +citizens of a universal commonwealth.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 95, § 52; cf. M. Aurel. +iv. 4, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὁ κόσμος ὡσανεὶ πόλις ἐστί</foreign>: Epict. +<hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> i. 13, § 3; Cic. <hi rend="italic">De Leg.</hi> i. 7, 23, ut +jam universus hic mundus una civitas +sit communis deorum atque hominum +existimanda.</note> We have all within +us a portion of the Divine spirit. No man can live entirely +to himself.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 47, § 2, alteri vivas oportet, +si vis tibi vivere; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 55, non sibi vivit +qui nemini.</note> If we are not doing good to others we are doing +harm. The nature of man and the constitution of the universe +make it a positive obligation to seek the welfare of our fellows.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Otio</hi>, iii. § 5.</note> +The social instinct is innate and original in us. As man is +flung upon the world at birth, or in the natural state, with all +his immense possibilities as yet undeveloped, no creature is +so helpless.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Benef.</hi> iv. 18, § 2, nudum et +infirmum societas munit.</note> It was only by combination and mutual good +offices that men were able to repel the dangers which surrounded +the infancy of the race, and to conquer the forces +of nature. Man is born for social union, which is cemented +by concord, kindness, and love,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, i. 5, § 2.</note> and he who shows anger, +selfishness, perfidy, or cruelty to his fellows strikes at the +<pb n="327"/><anchor id="Pg327"/>roots of social life. Nor should the spectacle of universal +depravity cause us to hate or despise our kind.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 10, § 5 sqq.</note> It is quite +true that the mass of men are bad, and always will be bad, +with only rare exceptions. If society is the source of many +blessings, it is also a great corruptor, and the conquest of +nature and the development of the arts have aroused insatiable +passions which have darkened the eye of reason.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ii. 8 and 9; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 90, § 9 sqq.; +<hi rend="italic">N. Quaest.</hi> v. 15.</note> Yet this +crowd of sinners are our brothers, with the germs of virtue in +their grain. They have taken the broad way almost necessarily, +because it is broad. A general may punish individual soldiers, +but you must pardon an army when it deserts the standards. +The truly wise, not knowing whether to laugh or weep, will +look kindly on the erring masses, as sick men who need a +physician.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ii. 10, §§ 6-8.</note> And beside the few truly wise, who can cast the +first stone? We are all more or less bad, we have all gone +astray.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Clem.</hi> i. 6, § 3, peccavimus +omnes.</note> And yet we constantly show the utmost severity to +the faults of others, while we forget or ignore our own.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 28, § 8, aliena vitia in +oculis habemus, a tergo nostra sunt.</note> Even +as God is long-suffering to transgressors, and sends His rain +upon the evil and good alike, so should we be merciful in +judgment and lavish in beneficence.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> iv. 4 and 5; iv. 28; <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, +iii. 26.</note> The spectacle of universal +greed and selfishness and ingratitude should not harden +us against our fellows, but rather make us turn our eyes to our +own faults.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 28.</note> Sometimes, indeed, the note of humility is +absent, and Seneca is the serene <hi rend="italic">sapiens contra mundum</hi>, or +the proud Roman gentleman who will not demean himself to +resent or even notice the insults or injuries of the spiteful +crowd.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 5, ingens animus et verus +aestimator sui non vindicat injuriam +quia non sentit.... Ultio doloris +confessio est.</note> They will pass him by as the licensed jests of the +slaves on the Saturnalia. He reminds himself that it is the lower +air which is turbid with storm and thunder; the ether which +spreads around the stars is never vexed and darkened by the +tempest.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 6.</note> This is one of the recurring contrasts in Seneca +between the moral tone of the old world and that of the great +movement which was setting in. But the new prevails in the +end. The conception of God as cold reason or impersonal law +<pb n="328"/><anchor id="Pg328"/>or fate gives way to the thought of a God who guides by His +providence, who embraces all by His love, whose goodness is +as boundless as His power, who is best worshipped by the +imitation of His goodness.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 65, § 24; <hi rend="italic">Ad Helv.</hi> viii. § 3; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +41, § 2; <hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> iv. 4 and 7; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 10, +§ 5, sic vive tamquam deus videat; +Siedler, <hi rend="italic">De Sen. Phil. Mor.</hi> p. 14; +Burgmann, <hi rend="italic">Seneca’s Theologie</hi>, p. 32.</note> As the vision grows, the pride of +the invulnerable <hi rend="italic">sapiens</hi>, who might make himself the equal or +more than the equal of God,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Prov.</hi> vi. § 6, hoc est quo deum +antecedatis.</note> shrinks and is abased. We are +all more or less bad, and we should be gentle to one another.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, iii. 26; <hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> i. 10.</note> +Do we complain of coldness and ingratitude? Let us think +how many a kindness done to us in early days, the tenderness +of a nurse, a friend’s wise counsel or help in critical times, +we have carelessly let slip from memory.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> vii. 28, § 2.</note> The faults which +irritate us in another are often lurking in ourselves. Forgive +if you wish for forgiveness; conquer evil with good; do good +even to those who have wrought you evil.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, iii. 26; ii. 28; ii. 31.</note> Let us copy the +serene example of those Eternal Powers who constantly load +with their benefits even those who doubt of their existence, +and bear with unruffled kindness the errors of frail souls that +stumble by the way. +</p> + +<p> +And as we shall not be harsh to those of our own external +rank, so shall we soften the lot of those whom fortune has +condemned to slavery. Even the slave is admitted to that +great city of gods and men, which has no frontiers, which +embraces all races and ranks, where all ranks should be +levelled by the consciousness of a common Divine descent and +a universal brotherhood of men.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> iii. 28, unus omnium +parens mundus est. Cf. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 47; <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, +iii. 24; iii. 35; <hi rend="italic">De Clem.</hi> i. 18.</note> The conquests of Macedon +and Rome, overthrowing all old-world national barriers, had +prepared the way for the greatest and most fruitful triumph +of ancient philosophy. And the Stoic school has the glory of +anticipating the diviner dream, yet far from realised, of a +human brotherhood under the light from the Cross. Seneca +has never risen higher, or swept farther into the future than +in his treatment of slavery. He is far in advance of many +a bishop or abbot or Christian baron of the middle age. Can +a slave confer a benefit? he asks.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> iii. 18.</note> Is his service, however +lavish, not merely a duty to his lord, which, as it springs +<pb n="329"/><anchor id="Pg329"/>from constraint, is undeserving of gratitude? Seneca repudiates +the base suggestion with genuine warmth. On +the same principle a subject cannot confer a benefit on his +monarch, a simple soldier on his general. There is a limit +beyond which power cannot command obedience. There is a +line between cringing compliance and generous self-sacrifice. +And the slave has often passed that limit. He has often borne +wounds and death to save his master’s life in battle. He has +often, in the years of the terror, endured the last extremity of +torture, rather than betray his secrets.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> iii. 19 and 26; cf. Macrob. +<hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> i. 11, § 16.</note> The body of the slave +is his master’s; his mind is his own.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> iii. 20, interior illa pars +mancipio dari non potest.</note> It cannot be bought and +sold. And in his inner soul, the slave is his master’s equal. +He is capable of equal virtue and equal culture; nay, in both he +may be his master’s superior. He can confer a benefit if he can +suffer injury in the outrages which cruelty and lust inflict upon +him. When he confers a benefit, he confers it as man upon +man, as an equal in the great family whose Father is God. +</p> + +<p> +Seneca gives a lurid picture of the corruption of women in +the general licence of his age.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ad Helv.</hi> xvi. § 3; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 95, § 21, +libidine vero ne maribus quidem +cedunt.</note> Yet he has a lofty ideal of +what women might become. Like other Stoic preachers, it +was his good fortune to be surrounded by good women from +his infancy. He remembers the tenderness of his aunt, in +whose arms he first entered Rome as a child, who nursed him +through long sickness, and broke through her reserve to help +him in his early career of ambition. Her blameless character +escaped even the petulance of Alexandrian gossip.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ad Helv.</hi> xix. § 2, § 6; Marcia’s +husband, probably Vitrasius Pollio, +was governor of Egypt.—Teuffel, <hi rend="italic">R. +Lit.</hi> § 282, 1.</note> His letters +to his mother, Helvia, reveal a matron of the best Roman +type—strong, self-denying, proud of her motherhood, and +despising the extravagance and ostentation of her class. In +spite of her father’s limited idea of female culture, she had +educated herself in liberal studies, and found them a refuge +in affliction.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ad Helv.</hi> xv.-xvii. § 3.</note> Marcia was of a softer type, and gave way to +excessive grief for a lost child. Yet it is to her that Seneca +unfolds most fully his ideal of feminine character. He will not +admit the inferior aptitude of women for virtue and culture.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> xvi. par illis, mihi crede, +vigor, etc.</note> +<pb n="330"/><anchor id="Pg330"/>Women have the same inner force, the same capacity for nobleness +as men. The husband of Paulina who surrounded him +with affectionate sympathy, and was prepared to die along with +him, the man who had witnessed the stern courage and loving +devotion of the wives of the Stoic martyrs, might well have a +lofty ideal of woman’s character.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xv. 63, 64; Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +104, §§ 1-6.</note> But to any true disciple of +the Porch that ideal had a surer ground than any personal +experience, however happy. The creed which Seneca held was +at once a levelling and an elevating creed. It found the only +nobility or claim to rank in higher capacity for virtue.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> iii. 28; iii. 20.</note> It +embraced in the arms of its equal charity all human souls, +bond or free, male or female, however they might be graded +by convention or accident, who have a divine parentage, and +may, if they will, have a lofty, perhaps an eternal future. +</p> + +<p> +And now, in taking leave of Seneca, let us forget the +fawning exile in Corsica, the possible lover of Julia or +Agrippina, the millionaire minister of Nero, who was surrounded +by a luxury and state which moved the envy of the tyrant.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ad Polyb.</hi> xii. xiii. § 4; D. Cass. +lxi. 10; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiii. 42.</note> +Rather let us think of the ascetic from his early youth, who, +raised by his talents to the highest place, had to reconcile an +impossible ideal with the sordid or terrible realities of that rank +which was at once a <q>pinnacle and a precipice.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 94, § 73, quae aliis excelsa +videntur, ipsis praerupta sunt.</note> He was +continually torn by the contrast between the ideal of a lofty +Stoic creed and the facts of human life around him, between +his own spiritual cravings and the temptations or the necessities +of the opportunist statesman. He was imbued with principles +of life which could be fully realised only in some Platonic +Utopia; he had to deal with men as they were in the reign of +Nero, as they are painted by Tacitus and Petronius. If he +failed in the impossible task of such a reconciliation, let us do +him the justice of recognising that he kept his vision clear, +and that he has expounded a gospel of the higher life, which, +with all its limitations from temperament or tradition, will be +true for our remotest posterity, that he had a vision of the City +of God.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Otio</hi>, iv. duas respublicas +animo complectamur, etc.</note> He was not personally perhaps so pure and clear a +soul as Plutarch or Aristides or Dion Chrysostom. But he +<pb n="331"/><anchor id="Pg331"/>had utterly cast off that heathen anthropomorphism which +crossed and disturbed their highest visions of the Divine.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Frag.</hi> ap. Aug. <hi rend="italic">De Civ. Dei</hi>, +vi. 10; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 41, § 1, non sunt ad caelum +elevandae manus, nec exorandus aedituus, +ut nos ad aurem simulacri quasi +magis exaudiri possimus admittat.</note> +Seneca is far more modern and advanced than even the +greatest of the Neo-Platonic school, just because he saw that +the old theology was hopelessly effete. He could never have +joined in the last struggle of philosophic paganism with +the Church. And so the Church almost claimed him as +her son, while it never dreamt of an affinity with Plutarch +or Plotinus. +</p> + +<p> +Indeed, there needed only the change of some phrases to +reconcile the teaching of Seneca with that of the great ascetic +Christian doctors. Many of the headings of the <hi rend="italic">Imitation</hi> +might be attached to paragraphs of Seneca—<q>of bearing with +the faults of others</q>; <q>of inordinate affections</q>; <q>of the +love of solitude and silence</q>; <q>of meditation on death</q>; <q>of +humble submission</q>; <q>that to despise the world and serve +God is sweet</q>; <q>of the acknowledgment of our own infirmities, +and the remembrance of God’s benefits</q>; <q>of the contempt of +temporal honour and vain secular knowledge</q>; <q>of the day of +eternity and this life’s straitness.</q> In truth, the great spirits +of all ages who have had a genius for religion, after due allowance +for difference of association and difference of phrase, are +strangely akin and harmonious. And Seneca had one great +superiority over other equally religious souls of his time, which +enables him to approach mediaeval and modern religious thought—he +had broken absolutely with paganism. He started with +belief in the God of the Stoic creed; he never mentions the +Stoic theology which attempted to reconcile Him with the +gods of the Pantheon. In spite of all his rhetoric, he tries to +see the facts of human life and the relation of the human spirit +to the Divine in the light of reason, with no intervening veil +of legend. God is to Seneca the great Reality, however halting +human speech may describe Him, as Fate, or Law, or Eternal +Reason, or watchful loving Providence. God is within us, +in whatever mysterious way, inspiring good resolves, giving +strength in temptation, with all-seeing eye watching the issue +of the struggle. God is without us, loading us with kindness +<pb n="332"/><anchor id="Pg332"/>even when we offend, chastising us in mercy, the goal of all +speculation, He from whom we proceed, to whom we go at death. +The true worship of Him is not in formal prayer and sacrifice, +but in striving to know and imitate His infinite goodness. +We mortal men in our brief life on earth may be citizens of +two commonwealths, one the Rome or Corinth of our birth, +the other that great city of gods and men, in which all are +equally united, male and <anchor id="corr332"/><corr sic="female">female,</corr> bond and free, as children +of a common Father. In this ideal citizenship, in obedience +to the law of the spiritual city, the eternal law which makes +for righteousness, man attains his true freedom and final +beatitude in communion with kindred souls. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, as in mediaeval and puritan religious theory, there is +in Seneca a strange conflict between pessimism and idealism. +To the doomed philosophic statesman of the reign of Nero, the +days of man’s life are few and evil. Life is but a moment in +the tract of infinite age, and so darkened by manifold sins and +sorrows that it seems, as it did to Sophocles, a sinister gift.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ad Polyb.</hi> iv.</note> +On the other hand, its shortness is a matter of no importance; +the shortest life may be full and glad if it be dignified by +effort and resignation and conformity to the great law of the +universe. The wise and pious man, ever conscious of his brief +time of probation, may brighten each passing day into a +festival and lengthen it into a life. The shortness of a life is +only an illusion, for long or short have no meaning when +measured by the days of eternity. And the philosopher may +unite many lives in one brief span. He may join himself to +a company of sages who add their years to his, who counsel +without bitterness, and praise without flattery; he may be +adopted into a family whose wealth increases the more it is +divided; in him all the ages may be combined in a single life.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Brev. Vit.</hi> xv. § 3 sq.</note> +To such a spirit death loses all its terrors. The eternal mystery +indeed can be pierced only by imaginative hope. Death, we +may be sure, however, can only be a change. It may be a +passage into calm unconsciousness, as before our birth, which +will release us from all the griefs and tumults of the life here +below. It may, on the other hand, prove to be the morning +of an eternal day, the entrance to a radiant and untroubled +world of infinite possibilities. In any case, the spirit which +<pb n="333"/><anchor id="Pg333"/>has trained itself in obedience to eternal law, will not tremble +at a fate which is surely reserved for the universe, by fire +or flood or other cataclysmal change. The future in store for +the soul is either to dwell for ever among things divine, or +to sink back again into the general soul, and God shall be +all in all. +</p> + +</div><div type="chapter" n="2" rend="page-break-before: always"> +<pb n="334"/><anchor id="Pg334"/> +<index index="toc" level1="II. The philosophic missionary"/><index index="pdf" level1="II. The philosophic missionary"/> +<head>CHAPTER II</head> + +<head type="sub">THE PHILOSOPHIC MISSIONARY</head> + +<p> +The gospel of philosophy expounded by Seneca was rather an +esoteric or aristocratic creed. With all his liberal sentiment, +his cosmopolitanism, his clear conception of human equality +and brotherhood, Seneca always remains the director of souls +like his own, enervated by wealth, tortured with the ennui of +jaded sensibility, haunted by the terror of the Caesars.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 77, § 6, cogita quamdiu +jam idem facias: cibus, somnus, libido; +per hunc circulum curritur; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 24, +§ 25, quosdam subit eadem faciendi +videndique satietas; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 89, § 21; 95, +§ 20; 13, § 4; 24, §§ 11-14; 91, § 5, 6; +<hi rend="italic">De Tranq.</hi> ii. § 13; x. § 5, 6.</note> Indeed +Stoicism was always rather a creed for the cultivated upper +class than for the crowd. In its prime, its apparatus of +logical formulae, its elaborate physics and metaphysics, its +essentially intellectual solution of the problems both of the +universe and human life, necessarily disabled it from ever +developing into a popular system. And in the later days +of the Republic, theory became more important than practice, +and logic passed into casuistry.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, pp. +46, 47; cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 88, § 20; 117, § 20.</note> But in the first century, +Stoicism came to be much more a religion than a philosophy, +or even a theology. Its main business, as conceived by +men like Seneca, is to save souls from the universal shipwreck +of character<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 48, § 8, omnes undique ad +te manus tendunt, etc.</note> caused by the capricious excesses of +luxury, the idolatry of the world and the flesh, which +sprang from a riotous pride in the material advantages of +imperial power, without a sobering sense of duty or a moral +ideal. But, in the nature of things, this wreck of character +was most glaringly seen among the men who were in close +contact with the half insane masters of the world in the first +century, and who possessed the resources to exhaust the +possi<pb n="335"/><anchor id="Pg335"/>bilities of pleasure or the capacities of the senses to enjoy. +It is to people of this class, who still retained some lingering +instincts of goodness, weary with indulgence, bewildered and +tortured by the conflict of the lower nature with the weak, +but still disturbing, protests of the higher, that Seneca +addresses his counsels. +</p> + +<p> +But what of the great masses lying outside the circle of +cultivated and exhausted self-indulgence, that plebeian world +of which we have seen the picture in their municipalities and +colleges? It is clear from the records of their daily life, their +ambitions, their tasks and amusements, that, although perhaps +not generally tainted with such deep corruption as the nobles +of the Neronian age, their moral tone and aspirations hardly +correspond to the material splendour of the Empire. Even +apart from the glimpses of low life in Petronius, Martial, +and Apuleius, apart from the revelations of Pompeii, and the +ghastly traditions which haunt the ruins of countless theatres +and amphitheatres, the warnings of preachers of that age, +such as Dion Chrysostom, and the reflections of the infinitely +charitable M. Aurelius, leave no very favourable impression of +the moral condition of the masses.<note place="foot">M. Aurel. ix. 34; v. 33, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">γυμνὰ νόμιζε βλέπειν τὰ ψυχάρια αὐτῶν. ὅτε δοκοῦσι βλάπτειν ψέγοντες ἢ ὠφελεῖν + ἐξυμνοῦντες, ὅση οἴησις; ... καὶ κυνίδια διακναιόμενα καὶ παιδία φιλόνεικα, + γελῶντα, εἶτα εὐθὺς κλαίοντα. Πίστις δὲ καὶ αἰδὼς καὶ δίκη καὶ ἀλήθεια + πρὸς Ὄλυμπον ἀπὸ χθονὸς εὐρυοδείης.</foreign> Petron. +<hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 88; Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 8; D. Chrys. +xiii. § 13, 33; vii. 133.</note> How could it be otherwise? +The old paganism of Rome did indeed foster certain +ancestral pieties which were the salt of the Roman character. +But it unfortunately also gave its sanction to scenes of lust +and cruelty which went far to counteract in later times any +good it did. Nor had the old religion any means for edification +and the culture of character. It had no organisation for +the care and direction of souls in moral doubt and peril. If +its oracles might, from a few old-world examples, seem to +supply such a spiritual want, the appearance is delusive even +according to pagan testimony. Poets and moralists alike +thundered against the shameless impiety which often begged +the sanction of a prophetic shrine for some meditated sin,<note place="foot">Pers. ii. 4 sqq.; cf. Herod. vi. 86; +Luc. <hi rend="italic">Icaromen.</hi> 25.</note> +and the charge has been confirmed by the resurrection of these +old profanities from the ruins of Dodona.<note place="foot">Bernays, <hi rend="italic">Lucian und die Kyniker</hi>, +p. 34.</note> But even without +<pb n="336"/><anchor id="Pg336"/>direct testimony, we might fairly conclude that the Antonine +Age was, by reason of its material development, in special +need of spiritual teaching and evangelism. The whole stress +of public and private effort was towards the provision of +comfort or splendour or amusement for the masses. And, +within the range of its ambition, it succeeded marvellously. +Nor should an impartial inquirer refuse to admit that such an +immense energy has its good moral side. The rich were +rigorously taught their duty to society, and they improved +upon the lesson. The masses responded to their generous +public spirit with gratitude and affection; and the universal +kindliness and fraternity diffused through all ranks on days of +high religious festival or civic interest, afforded a very wholesome +and gratifying spectacle.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> <ref target="Pg231">p. 231</ref> of this work. Yet cf. +Luc. <hi rend="italic">Somn. seu Gallus</hi>, 22, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οἱ δὲ πλούσιοι φρίττουσι καὶ διανομαῖς ἱλάσκονταί σε κτλ.</foreign></note> There was an undoubted +softening of the Roman character. And the labours of the +great Stoic lawyers were giving expression to cultivated moral +feeling, in a more liberal recognition of the natural rights of +the weak and oppressed, of women and of slaves. Yet a +society may be humane and kindly while it is also worldly +and materialised. To us at least, the forces of the Antonine +age seem to have expended themselves chiefly on the popular +pleasures and external adornments of life, or a revival, often in +the grossest and most absurd forms, as we shall see in a later +chapter, of the superstitions of the past. With all its humanitarian +sentiment and all its material glories, the Roman world +had entered on that fatal incline, which, by an unperceived yet +irresistible movement, led on to the sterilisation of the higher +intellect, and the petrifaction of Roman society which ended in +the catastrophe of the fifth century. +</p> + +<p> +The triumphs and splendour of corporate life in the age of +the Antonines are certainly a dazzling spectacle. Yet to the +student who is more occupied with the painful moral education +of the race, the interest lies in a different direction. It was +a worldly age, but it was also an age ennobled by a powerful +protest against worldliness. And in this chapter we shall +study a great movement, which, under the name of philosophy +or culture, called the masses of men to a higher standard of +life. This movement, like all others of the same kind, had its +<pb n="337"/><anchor id="Pg337"/>impostors who disgraced it. Yet the man who has pursued +them with such mordant ridicule and pitiless scorn, the man +who was utterly sceptical as to the value of all philosophic +effort, in the last resort approaches very near to the view of +human life which was preached by the men whom he derides.<note place="foot">Croiset, <hi rend="italic">Lucien</hi>, p. 164, il a subi +fortement leur influence en écrivant les +<hi rend="italic">Dialogues des morts</hi>.</note> +Lucian belonged to no philosophic school; he would himself +have repudiated adhesion to any system. The advice of +Teiresias to Menippus, when he sought him in the shades, +would certainly have been Lucian’s to any young disciple who +consulted him. Have done with all these verbal subtleties and +chimeras; swear allegiance to no sect; make the best of the +present; and take things generally with a smile.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Menip.</hi> c. 21.</note> Yet who +can read the <hi rend="italic">Dialogues of the Dead</hi> without feeling that there +is a deeper and more serious vein in Lucian than he would +confess? Although he poured his contempt upon the Cynic +street preachers, although in the <hi rend="italic">Auction of Lives</hi> the Cynic’s +sells for the most paltry price, the Cynic alone is allowed to +carry with him across the river of death his characteristic +qualities, his boldness and freedom of speech, his bitter +laughter at the follies and illusions of mankind.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Auct.</hi> 11; <hi rend="italic">Traj.</hi> 24; +<hi rend="italic">Dial. Mort.</hi> x. 9.</note> There +are many indications in these dialogues that, if Lucian had +turned Cynic preacher, he would have waged the same war on +the pleasures and illusory ambitions of man, he would have +outdone the Cynics in brutal frankness of exposure and denunciation, +as he would have surpassed them in rhetorical and +imaginative charm of style.<note place="foot">Cf. Luc. <hi rend="italic">Char.</hi> 15, 20; <hi rend="italic">Dial. Mort.</hi> +i. 3; <hi rend="italic">Somn.</hi> 21.</note> He has a vivid and awful conception +of Death, the great leveller, and sees all earthly wealth +and glory in the grey light of the land where all things are +forgotten. Rank and riches, beauty and strength, the lust of +the eye and the pride of life, are all left behind on the borders +of the realm of <q>sapless heads.</q><note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Traj.</hi> 15; <hi rend="italic">Necyom.</hi> 12.</note> If Lucian has any gospel it +is that the kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor. He is as +ready as some of the Christian Fathers to condemn the rich +eternally.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Traj.</hi> 19; <hi rend="italic">Cyn.</hi> 7; <hi rend="italic">Menip.</hi> 11, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">χωρὶς δὲ οἵ τε πλούσιοι προσῄεσαν ὠχροί κτλ.</foreign> Cf. <hi rend="italic">Somn.</hi> 14, 15, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οἱ δὲ (πλούσιοι) εὖ ἴσθι πολὺ ὑμῶν ἀθλιώτερον τὸν βίον βιοῦσι</foreign>, cf. 22.</note> And therefore we are not surprised that Lucian +has little eye for the splendour of his age, unless indeed in +<pb n="338"/><anchor id="Pg338"/>the phrase, <q>Great cities die as well as men.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Char.</hi> 23, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀποθνήσκουσι γάρ, ὦ πορθμεῦ, καὶ πόλεις ὥσπερ ἄνθρωποι</foreign>.</note> He seems to +have little appreciation for its real services to humanity. Its +vain, pretentious philosophy, its selfishness of wealth, its vices +hidden under the guise of virtue, drew down his hatred and +scorn. Yet one cannot help feeling, in reading some of Lucian’s +pieces, that, man of genius as he was, a man of no age, or a +man of all ages, he is looking at human life from far above, +with no limitations of time, and passing a judgment which +may be repeated in the thirtieth century.<note place="foot">As in <hi rend="italic">Icaromen.</hi> 15; <hi rend="italic">Char.</hi> 17.</note> +</p> + +<p> +This lofty or airy detachment in regarding the toils and +ambitions of men is perhaps best seen in the <hi rend="italic">Charon</hi>. In this +piece Lucian shows us the ideal spectator taking an outlook +over the scene of human life. The ferryman of the dead, +who has heard so many laments from his passengers for the +joys they have lost, wishes to have a glance at this upper +world which it seems so hard to leave behind. He joins +the company of Hermes, and, by an old-world miracle, they +gain an observatory on high-piled Thessalian mountains from +which to watch for a while the comedy or the tragedy of +human life.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Char.</hi> 3; cf. a saying of Plato, +quoted in M. Aurel. vii. 48, <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καὶ δὴ περὶ ἀνθρώπων τοὺς λόγους ποιούμενον ἐπισκοπεῖν δεῖ καὶ +<anchor id="corr338"/><corr sic="τά">τὰ</corr> ἐπίγεια, ὥσπερ ποθὲν ἄνωθεν, κατὰ ἀγέλας ... + γάμους, γενέσεις, θανάτους, δικαστηρίων θόρυβον, ἑορτάς, θρήνους, κτλ.</foreign></note> A magic verse of Homer gives the spectral +visitor the power to observe the scene so far below. And +what a sight it is! It is a confused spectacle of various effort +and passion—men sailing, fighting, ploughing, lending at usury, +suing in the law-courts. It is also a human swarm stinging +and being stung. And over all the scene flits a confused cloud +of hopes and fears and follies and hatreds, the love of pleasure +and the love of gold. Higher still, you may see the eternal +Fates spinning for each one of the motley crowd his several +thread. One man, raised high for the moment, has a resounding +fall; another, mounting but a little way, sinks unperceived. +And amidst all the tumult and excitement of their hopes and +alarms, death kindly snatches them away by one of his many +messengers. Yet they weep and lament, forgetting that they +have been mere sojourners for a brief space upon earth and +are only losing the pleasures of a dream.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Char.</hi> 17, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀπίασιν ὥσπερ ἐξ ὀνείρατος πάντα ὑπὲρ γῆς ἀφέντες</foreign>.</note> To Charon the +bubbles in a fountain are the truest image of their phantom +<pb n="339"/><anchor id="Pg339"/>life—some forming and bursting speedily, others swelling out +for a little longer and more showy life, but all bursting at the +last. Charon is so moved by the pathos of it all, that, from +his mountain peaks, he would fain preach a sermon to the silly +crowd and warn them of the doom which is in store for all. +But the wiser or more cynical Hermes tells him that all +except a few have their ears more closely stopped than the +crew of Odysseus when they passed the Siren isles. +</p> + +<p> +This view of human life, half-contemptuous, half-pathetic, +which the great iconoclast of all the dreams of religion or +philosophy in his time has sketched with his own graphic +power, was the view of the very philosophy which he derided. +Philosophy had a second time turned from heaven to earth. +The effort to solve the riddle of the universe by a single +formula, or by the fine-drawn subtleties of dialectic, has been +abandoned. In Lucian’s <hi rend="italic">Auction of Lives</hi>, in which the merits +of the various schools are balanced and estimated in terms +of cash, it is significant that only a slight and perfunctory +reference is made to the great cosmic or metaphysical theories +of Elea or Ionia, to the Pythagorean doctrine of numbers, to +the Ephesian doctrine of the eternal flow, or the ideal system +of Plato.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Auct.</hi> 3, 13, 16.</note> We have seen that, although Seneca has a certain +interest in the logic and physics of the older Stoicism, he +makes all purely speculative inquiry ancillary to moral progress. +The same diversion of interest from the field of speculation to +that of conduct is seen even more decidedly in Epictetus and +M. Aurelius.<note place="foot">Epict. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> iv. i. 138, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">Ἆρον ἐκεῖνα τὰ τῶν σχολαστικῶν καὶ τῶν μωρῶν κτλ.</foreign> M. Aurel. vii. 67; cf. Zeller, +<hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 2, p. 203; Hatch, +<hi rend="italic">Hibbert Lec.</hi> p. 142.</note> The philosophic Emperor had, of course, studied +the great cosmic systems of Heraclitus and Epicurus, Plato +and Aristotle.<note place="foot">M. Aurel. vi. 15; vii. 19; vi. 24, 42, +47; viii 6; xi. 20; viii. 3; vii. 67.</note> They furnish a scenery or background, sometimes, +especially that of Heraclitus, a dimly-seen foundation, +for his theory of conduct. But, in spite of his sad, weary view +of the pettiness and sameness of the brief space of consciousness +between <q>the two eternities,</q> the whole thought of M. +Aurelius is concentrated on the manner in which that brief +moment may be worthily spent. So, Epictetus asks, What do +I care whether all things are composed of atoms or similar +parts or of fire or earth? Is it not enough to know the +<pb n="340"/><anchor id="Pg340"/>nature of good and evil?<note place="foot">Epict. <hi rend="italic">Fr.</hi> 175; cf. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> iii. 21, +§ 23, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀλλά, εἴ σε ψυχαγωγεῖ τὰ θεωρήματα, καθήμενος αὐτὰ στρέφε +αὐτὸς ἐπὶ σεαυτοῦ· φιλόσοφον δὲ μηδέποτ’ εἴπῃς σεαυτόν</foreign>: +cf. M. Aurel. ii. 17, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τοῦ ἀνθρωπίνου βίου ὁ μὲν χρόνος στιγμή ... τί οὖν τὸ παραπέμψαι +δυνάμενον; ἓν καὶ μόνον, φιλοσοφία</foreign>.</note> Just as in the days of Socrates +the whole stress of philosophy is directed towards the discovery +of a rule of life, a source of moral clearness and guidance, +with a view to the formation or reformation of character. +</p> + +<p> +Seneca and Epictetus and Lucian and M. Aurelius all alike +give a gloomy picture of the moral condition of the masses. +And we may well believe that, in spite of the splendour of +that age, in spite of a great moral movement which was stirring +among the leaders of society, the mass of men, as in every age, +had little taste for idealist views of life. Yet Seneca, notwithstanding +his pessimism, speaks of the multitudes who were +stretching out their hands for moral help. There must have +been some demand for that popular moral teaching which is a +striking feature of the time. Men might jeer at the philosophic +missionary, but they seem to have crowded to listen to him—on +the temple steps of Rome or Ephesus, in the great squares +of Alexandria,<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> v. 26; D. +Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xxxii.</note> or in the colonnades at Olympia, or under the +half-ruined walls of an old Milesian colony on the Euxine.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iv. 41; iv. +24; D. Chrys. xxxvi, § 17.</note> +The rush of the porters and smiths and carpenters to join the +ranks of the Cynic friars, which moved the scorn of Lucian,<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Fug.</hi> c. 12.</note> must +have corresponded to some general demand, even if the motive +of the vagrant missionary was not of the purest kind. There +must have been many an example of moral earnestness like +that of Hermotimus, who had laboured hard for twenty years +to find the true way of life, and had only obtained a distant +glimpse of the celestial city.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Hermot.</hi> c. 2, 25.</note> After Dion’s conversion, as we +may fairly call it, he deems it a sacred duty to call men to the +way of wisdom by persuasion or reproach, and to appeal even +to the turbulent masses.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> lxxviii.; Martha, +<hi rend="italic">Mor. sous L’Emp. rom.</hi> p. 300.</note> We shall see how well he fulfilled +the duty. For nearly a century at Athens, the gentle Demonax +embodied the ideal which his friend Epictetus had +formed of the Cynic father of all men in God; and his immense +ascendency testifies at least to a widespread respect and +admiration for such teaching and example.<note place="foot">Luc. (?) <hi rend="italic">Dem.</hi> c. 7, 8.</note> It is not necessary +<pb n="341"/><anchor id="Pg341"/>to suppose that the people who thought it an honour if +Demonax invited himself to their tables, the magistrates who +rose up to do him reverence as he passed, or the riotous +assembly which was awed into stillness by his mere presence, +were people generally who had caught his moral enthusiasm.<note place="foot">Luc. (?) <hi rend="italic">Dem.</hi> c. 63.</note> +They were at the very time eager to have gladiatorial shows +established under the shadow of the Acropolis. But it is something +when men begin to revere a character inspired by moral +forces of which they have only a dim conjecture. And amid all +the material splendour and apparent content of the Antonine age, +there were signs that men were becoming conscious of a great +spiritual need, which they often tried to satisfy by accumulated +superstitions. The ancient routine was broken up; the forms +of ancestral piety no longer satisfied even the vulgar; the forms +of ancient scholastic speculation had become stale and frigid +to the cultivated; the old philosophies had left men bewildered. +Henceforth, philosophy must make itself a religion; the philosopher +must become an <q>ambassador of God.</q> +</p> + +<p> +<q>There is no philosophy without virtue; there is no virtue +without philosophy,</q> said Seneca,<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 89, § 6; cf. A. Gell. xvii. +19, 4.</note> and herein he expressed truly +the most earnest thought of his own age and the next. Lucian, +in the dialogue which is perhaps his most powerful exposure of +the failure of philosophy, bears testimony to the boundless expectations +which it aroused in its votaries. Hermotimus, the +elderly enthusiast, whom the mocker meets hurrying with his +books to the philosophic school, has been an ardent student for +twenty years; he has grown pale and withered with eager +thought. Yet he admits that he has only taken a single step on +the steep upward road. Few and faint and weary are they who +ever reach the summit.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Hermot.</hi> c. 5.</note> Yet Hermotimus is content if, at the +close of the efforts of a lifetime, he should, if but for a moment, +breathe the air of the far-off heights and look down on the +human ant-hill below. Such spirits dream of an apotheosis like +that which crowned the hero on Mount Oeta, when the soul +shall be purged of its earthly passions as by fire, and hardly a +memory of the illusions of the past will remain.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 7, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καὶ οὗτοι δὴ ὑπὸ φιλοσοφίας ὥσπερ ὑπό τινος πυρὸς ἅπαντα ταῦτα +περιαιρεθέντες κτλ.</foreign></note> Lycinus, his +friend, has once himself had a vision of a celestial city, from +<pb n="342"/><anchor id="Pg342"/>which ambition and the greed of gold are banished, where there +is no discord or strife, but the citizens live in a deep peace of +sober virtue. He had once heard from an aged man how any +one might share its citizenship, rich or poor, bond or free, Greek +or barbarian, if only he had the passion for nobleness and were +not overcome by the hardness of the journey. And the sceptic +avows that long since he would have enrolled himself among +its citizens, but the city is far off, and only dimly visible. +The paths which are said to lead to it run in the most various +directions, through soft meadows and cool shaded slopes, or +mounting over bare rough crags under a pitiless blaze. And +at the entrance to each avenue there is a clamorous crowd of +guides, each vaunting his peculiar skill, abusing his rivals, and +pointing to the one sure access of which he alone has the +secret key. A similar scene, equally illustrative of the moral +ferment of the time, is sketched in another charming piece.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Bis Acc.</hi> c. 11.</note> +It is that in which the rustic Pan, with his memories of the +shepherd’s pipe and the peace of Arcadian pastures, describes +the strange turmoil of contending sects which rings around his +cave on the edge of the Acropolis. There, in the Agora below, +rival teachers, with dripping brow and distended veins, are +shouting one another down before an admiring crowd. And +the simple old deity, to whom the language of their dialectic +is strange, seems to think that the victory rests with the loudest +voice and the most blatant self-assertion. +</p> + +<p> +The sly ridicule of Lucian, so often crossed by a touch +of pathos, is perhaps the best testimony to the overpowering +interest which his age felt in the philosophy of conduct. And +it was no longer the pursuit merely of an intellectual aristocracy. +Common, ignorant folk have caught the passion for apostleship. +Everywhere might be met the familiar figure, with long +cloak and staff and scrip, haranguing in the squares or lanes to +unlettered crowds.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 6, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἁπανταχοῦ πώγων βαθὺς καὶ βιβλίον ἐν <sic>τῃ ἀριστερᾳ</sic> καὶ πάντες ὑπὲρ +σοῦ φιλοσοφοῦσι κτλ.</foreign></note> And the preacher is often as unlearned as +they, having left the forge or the carpenter’s bench or the slave +prison,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Fug.</hi> c. 12; <hi rend="italic">Vit. Auct.</hi> c. 10; D. +Chrys. xxxii. 9; xxxiv. 3.</note> to proclaim his simple gospel of renunciation, with +more or less sincerity. Lucian makes sport of the quarrels +and contradictions of the schools. And it is true that the old +<pb n="343"/><anchor id="Pg343"/>names still marked men off in different camps, or rather +churches. But their quarrels in Lucian and in Philostratus<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> v. 37.</note> +seem to be personal, the offspring of very unphilosophic +ambition and jealousy, or greed or petty vanity, rather than the +wholesome and stimulating collision of earnest minds contending +for what they think a great system of truth. The rival +Sophists under the Acropolis were quarrelling for an audience +and not for a dogma. Scientific interest in philosophy was to +a great extent dead. For centuries no great original thinker +had arisen to rekindle it. And in the purely moral sphere +to which philosophy was now confined, the natural tendency of +the different schools, not even excluding the Epicurean, was +to assimilation and eclecticism.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, p. +483. Renan, <hi rend="italic">Les Év.</hi> p. 384, les différences +des écoles étaient à peu près +effacées. Un éclecticisme superficie +était à la mode.</note> They were all impartially +endowed at the university of Athens, and a youth of enthusiasm +would attend the professors of all the schools. Apollonius, +although he finally adopted the Pythagorean discipline, pursued +his studies at Aegae under Platonists and Stoics,<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> i. 7.</note> and even under +Epicureans. Seneca came under Pythagorean influences in his +youth, and he constantly rounds off a letter to Lucilius with +a quotation from Epicurus. Among the tutors of M. Aurelius +were the Peripatetic Claudius Severus, and Sextus the Platonist +of Chaeronea.<note place="foot">Capitol. <hi rend="italic">M. Ant.</hi> c. 3.</note> Hence, although a man in the second century +might be labelled Platonist or Stoic, Cynic or Pythagorean, it +would often be difficult from his moral teaching to discover +his philosophic ancestry and affinities. And, just as in modern +Christendom, although sectarian landmarks and designations are +kept up, the popular preaching of nearly all the sects tends to a +certain uniformity of emphasis on a limited number of momentous +moral truths, so the preaching of pagan philosophy dwells, almost +to weariness, on the same eternal principles of true gain and loss, +of the illusions of passion, of freedom through renunciation. +</p> + +<p> +The moral teaching or preaching of the Antonine age +naturally adapted its tone to the tastes of its audience; there +was the discourse of the lecture-room, and the ruder and +more boisterous appeal to the crowd. Both passed under the +name of philosophy, and both often degraded that great name +by an affectation and insincerity which cast discredit on a +<pb n="344"/><anchor id="Pg344"/>great and beneficent movement of reform. The philosophic +lecturer who has a serious moral purpose is in theory distinguished +from the rhetorical sophist, who trades in startling +effects, who rejoices in displaying his skill on any subject +however trivial or grotesque, who will expatiate on the gnat or +the parrot, or debate the propriety of a Vestal’s marriage.<note place="foot">Martha, <hi rend="italic">Moralistes sous l’Emp.</hi> p. +275; Capes, <hi rend="italic">Univ. Life</hi>, p. 58 sqq.</note> The +exercises of the rhetorical school had gone on for five hundred +years, and, with momentous effects on Roman culture, they +were destined to continue with little change till the Goths +were masters of Rome.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Roman Society in the Last Century +of the Western Empire</hi> (1st ed.), p. 355.</note> The greed, the frivolity, and the +overweening vanity of these intellectual acrobats are a +commonplace of literary history.<note place="foot">Capes, <hi rend="italic">Univ. Life</hi>, p. 69.</note> The sophist and the +lecturing philosopher were theoretically distinct. But unfortunately +a mass of evidence goes to show that in many +cases the lecturing philosopher became a mere showy rhetorician. +A similar desecration of a serious mission is not +unknown in modern times. The fault is often not with the +preacher, but with his audience. If people come not to be +made better, but to be amused, to have their ears soothed by +flowing declamation, to have a shallow intellectual curiosity +titillated by cheap displays of verbal subtlety or novelty, +the unfortunate preacher will often descend to the level of +his audience. And in that ancient world, according to the +testimony of Seneca, Musonius, Plutarch, and Epictetus, the +philosophic preacher too often was tempted to win a vulgar +applause by vulgar rhetorical arts.<note place="foot">Epict. ii. 19; iii. 23; Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Recta +Rat. Aud.</hi> vii. viii.; A. Gell. v. i.; +Zeller, iii. 1, p. 657.</note> He was sometimes a +man of no very serious purpose, with little real science or +originality. He had been trained in the school of rhetoric, +which abhorred all serious thought, and deified the master of +luscious periods and ingenious turns of phrase. He was, +besides, too often a mere vain and mercenary adventurer, trading +on an attenuated stock of philosophic tradition, and a boundless +command of a versatile rhetoric, cultivating intellectual +insolence as a fine art, yet with a servile craving for the +applause of his audience.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph.</hi> i. 3.</note> Many a scene in the now faded +history of their failures or futile triumphs comes down to us +<pb n="345"/><anchor id="Pg345"/>from Plutarch and Epictetus and Philostratus.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph.</hi> i. iv. + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἔθελγε τῇ τε ἠχῇ τοῦ φθέγματος καὶ τῷ ῥυθμῷ τῆς γλώττης</foreign>. A. Gell. v. 1, 3; Sen. +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 108, § 6, non id agunt ut aliqua illo +vitia deponant sed ut oblectamento +aurium perfruantur. Cf. Philostr. +<hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph.</hi> i. 7.</note> Sometimes +the gaps upon the benches, the listless, inattentive air, the +slow feeble applause, sent the vain preacher home with gloomy +fears for his popularity. On other days, he was lifted to the +seventh heaven by an enthusiastic genteel mob, who followed +every deft turn of expression with shouts and gestures of delight, +and far-fetched preciosities of approbation. At the close, the +philosophic performer goes about among his admirers to +receive their renewed tribute. <q>Well, what did you think of +me?</q>—<q>Quite marvellous, I swear by all that is dear to me.</q>—<q>But +how did you like the passage about Pan and the +nymphs?</q>—<q>Oh, superlative!</q> It is thus that a real winner +of souls describes the impostor.<note place="foot">Epict. iii. 23, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀλλ’ ἐπαίνεσόν με· εἰπέ μοι Ούᾶ καὶ Θαυμαστῶς</foreign>. Plut. +<hi rend="italic">De Recta Rat. Aud.</hi> c. viii.; cf. Hatch, +<hi rend="italic">Hibbert Lec.</hi> p. 95.</note> Even estimable teachers did +not disdain to add to the effect of their lectures by carefully +polished eloquence, an exquisite toilet, and a cultivated dignity. +Such a courtly philosopher was Euphrates, the Syrian Stoic, +whose acquaintance Pliny had made during his term of service in +the East. Euphrates was stately and handsome, with flowing +hair and beard, and a demeanour which excited reverence without +overawing the hearer.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 10.</note> Irreproachable in his own life, he +condemned sin, but was merciful to the sinner. Pliny, the +amiable man of the world, who had no serious vices to reform, +found Euphrates a charming lecturer, with a subtle and ornate +style which was entirely to his taste. He treats Euphrates as +a rhetorician rather than as a philosopher with a solemn +message to deliver. To serious moralists like Seneca, Musonius, +Plutarch, and Epictetus the showy professor of the art of +arts was an offence. With their lofty conception of the task +of practical philosophy, they could only feel contempt or +indignation for the polished exquisite who trimmed or inflated +his periods to please the ears of fashionable audiences. They all +condemn such performances in almost identical terms. The +mission of true philosophy is to make men examine themselves, +to excite shame and pain and penitence, to reveal a law of life +and moral freedom which may lead to amendment and peace.<note place="foot">Epict. iii. 21; ii. 1; ii. 23; Sen. +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 108, § 6.</note> +<pb n="346"/><anchor id="Pg346"/><q>There is no good in a bath or in a discourse which does not +cleanse.</q> The true disciple and the true teacher will be too +much absorbed in the gravity of the business to think of the +pleasure of mere style. To make aesthetic effect the object of +such discourses, when the fate of character is at stake, is to +turn the school into a theatre or a music-hall, the philosopher +into a flute-player.<note place="foot">A. Gell. v. 1, 2, tum scias neque +illi philosophum loqui sed tibicinem +canere. Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph.</hi> iii. 3, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ῥυθμούς τε ποικιλωτέρους αὐλοῦ καὶ λύρου ἐσηγάγετο ἐς τὸν λόγον</foreign>. D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> +xxxv. §§ 7, 8.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The volume and unanimity of these criticisms of the rhetorical +philosopher show that such men abounded; but they also +show that there must have been a great mass of serious teachers +whom they travestied. It has perhaps been too little recognised +that in the first and second centuries there was a great propaganda +of pagan morality running parallel to the evangelism +of the Church.<note place="foot">For a comparative estimate see +Capes, <hi rend="italic">Univ. Life in Ancient Athens</hi>, +p. 90; Hatch, <hi rend="italic">Hibbert Lec.</hi> p. 105.</note> The preaching was of very different kinds, +according to the character of the audiences. The preachers, +as we have said, belonged to all the different schools, Stoic or +Platonist, Cynic or Pythagorean; sometimes, like Dion, they +owed little academic allegiance at all. Sometimes the preaching +approached to modern conceptions of its office;<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iv. 3; iv. 42; +D. Chrys. xxxiii. § 28; xxxiv. § 4; xl. +§ 31.</note> at others, it +dealt with subjects and used a style unknown to our pulpits.<note place="foot">Cf. A. Gell. xii. 1, nihil, inquit, +dubito quin filium lacte suo nutritura +sit.</note> +The life of Apollonius of Tyana may be a romance; it +certainly contains many narratives of miracles and wonders +which cast a suspicion upon its historical value. Yet even +a romance must have real facts behind to give it probability, +and the preaching, at least, of Apollonius seems to belong to +the world of reality. Apollonius was probably much nearer +to the true ecclesiastic and priest of modern times than any +ancient preacher. He had been trained in all the philosophies; +he had drunk inspiration from the fountain of all spiritual +religion, the East. He was both a mystic and a ritualist. He +rejoiced in converse with the Brahmans, and he occupied +himself with the revival or reform of the ritual in countless +Greek and Italian temples.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iii. 41 sqq.; +iv. 24; iv. 18, 20; i. 11; i. 31.</note> He had an immense and curious +faith in ancient legend.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 13, 16, 19, 20, 33; vi. 40.</note> The man who could busy himself +<pb n="347"/><anchor id="Pg347"/>with the restoration of the true antique form of an obsolete +rite at Eleusis or Athens or Dodona, also held conceptions of +prayer and sacrifice and mystic communion with God, which +might seem irreconcilable with any rigidly formal worship.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> v. 25, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τὸ δὲ τῶν ταύρων αἷμα καὶ ὁπόσα ἐθύετο, οὐκ +ἐπῄνει τὰ τοιάδε, κτλ.</foreign></note> +The ritualist was also the preacher of a higher morality. From +the steps of the temples he used to address great audiences on +their conspicuous faults, as Dion did after him. In the parable +of the sparrow who by his twitter called his brethren to a heap +of spilt grain, he taught the people of Ephesus the duty of +brotherly helpfulness.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 3.</note> He found Smyrna torn by factious +strife, and he preached a rivalry of public spirit.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 8.</note> Even at +Olympia, before a crowd intent on the strife of racers and +boxers and athletes, he discoursed on wisdom and courage +and temperance.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 31.</note> At Rome, under the tyranny of Nero, he +moved from temple to temple exciting a religious revival by +his preaching.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 41.</note> One text, perhaps, contains a truth for all +generations—<q>My prayer before the altars is—Grant me, ye +Gods, what is my due.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 11; iv. 40, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὦδε εὔχομαι, ὦ θεοὶ δοίητέ μοι τὰ ὀφειλόμενα</foreign>.</note> What effect on the masses such +preaching had we cannot tell—who can tell at any time? But +there are well-attested cases of individual conversion under +pagan preaching. Polemon, the son of a rich Athenian, was +a very dissolute youth who squandered his wealth on low +pleasure. Once, coming from some revel, he burst with his +companions into the lecture room of Xenocrates, who happened +to be discoursing on temperance. Xenocrates calmly continued +his remarks. The tipsy youth listened for a while, +then flung away his garland, and with it also his evil ways;<note place="foot">Diog. Laert. iv. 3, 1, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καί ποτε ... μεθύων καὶ ἐστεφανωμένος εἰς τὴν Ξενοκράτους ᾖξε σχολήν κτλ.</foreign>: Epict. +iii. 1, § 14; Hor. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> ii. 3, 253, quaero, +faciasne, quod olim Mutatus Polemon? +Cf. the conversion of Isaeus, Philostr. +<hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph.</hi> i. 217.</note> +he became the head of the Academy. A similar change was +wrought by the teaching of Apollonius on a debauched youth +of Corcyra, which we need not doubt although it was accompanied +by a miracle.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iv. 20; cf. +i. 13.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Musonius, another preacher, was a younger contemporary +of Apollonius. His fame as an apostle of the philosophic life +aroused the suspicions of Nero, and he was exiled to Gyarus.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 16; cf. Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xv. 71; +D. Cass. lxii. 27.</note> +<pb n="348"/><anchor id="Pg348"/>The suspicion may have been confirmed by his intimacy +with Rubellius Plautus and great Stoics like Thrasea.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xv. 71; xiv. 59; Epict. +i. 1, 27. The Rufus is Musonius Rufus.</note> He +met with gentler treatment under the Flavians,<note place="foot">D. Cass. lxvi. 13, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">πάντας τοὺς φιλοσόφους ὁ Οὐεσπασιανὸς πλὴν τοῦ Μουσωνίου +ἐκ τῆς Ῥώμης ἐξέβαλε</foreign>.</note> and he probably +saw the reign of Trajan. He is not known to have written +anything. The fragments of his teaching in Stobaeus are +probably drawn from notes of his lectures, as the teaching of +Epictetus has been preserved by Arrian. Musonius is not a +speculative philosopher but a physician of souls. Philosophy +is the way to goodness: goodness is the goal of philosophy. +And philosophy is not the monopoly of an intellectual caste; +it is a matter of precept and practice, not of theory. The true +moral teacher, working on the germ of virtue which there +is in each human soul, thinking only of reforming his disciples, +and nothing of applause, may win them to his ideal. Musonius +fortified the austere Stoic and Cynic precepts by the ascetic +discipline of the Pythagorean school. He taught the forgiveness +of injuries and gentleness to wrongdoers. He is one of the few +in the ancient world who have a glimpse of a remote ideal +of sexual virtue. While his ascetic principles do not lead him +to look askance at honourable marriage, he denounces all +unchastity, and demands equal virtue in man and woman.<note place="foot">Zeller. <hi rend="italic">Phil. der + <anchor id="corr348"/><corr sic="Greich.">Griech.</corr></hi> iii. 1, +pp. 651-658.</note> +He was, according to Epictetus, a searching preacher. He spoke +to the conscience, so that each hearer felt as if his own faults +were set before his eyes. His name will go down for ever in the +pages of Tacitus. When the troops of Vespasian and Vitellius +were fighting in the lanes and gardens under the walls of Rome, +Musonius joined the envoys of the Senate, and at the risk of +his life harangued the infuriated soldiery on the blessings of +peace and the horrors of civil war.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iii. 81.</note> Many of the moral +treatises of Plutarch are probably redacted from notes of +lectures delivered in Rome. As we shall see in a later chapter, +Plutarch is rather a moral director and theologian than a +preacher. But his wide knowledge of human nature, his keen +analysis of character and motive and human weakness, his +spiritual discernment in discovering remedies and sources of +strength, above all his lofty moral ideal, would have made him +a powerful preacher in any age of the world. But it is in +<pb n="349"/><anchor id="Pg349"/>the discourses of Maximus of Tyre that we have perhaps the +nearest approach in antiquity to our conception of the sermon. +Probably if any of us were asked to explain that conception, +he might say that a sermon was founded on some definite idea +of the relation of man to the Infinite Spirit, that its object +was, on the one hand, to bring man into communion with God, +and, on the other, to teach him his duty to his fellowmen and +to himself. The discourses of Maximus have all these +characteristics. Maximus of Tyre is little known now, and +although to the historian of thought and moral life he is +attractive, he has not the strength of a great personality. Yet, +along with Plutarch, he shows us paganism at its best, striving +to reform itself, groping after new sources of spiritual strength, +trying to wed new and purer spiritual ideals to the worn-out +mythology of the past. Maximus is very much in the position +of one of our divines who finds himself bound in duty to edify +the spiritual life of his flock, without disowning the religious +traditions of the past, and without refusing to accept the ever-broadening +revelation of God. Some of his discourses may +seem to us frigid and scholastic, with a literary rather than +a religious interest. But in others, there is a combination of a +systematic theology with a mystic fervour and a moral purpose, +which seems hardly to belong to the ancient world.<note place="foot">Max. Tyr. v. viii. §§ 3, 10; xi.; +xiv. § 8; xvii. For the little known +of him, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. +2. p. 182, n. 3.</note> +</p> + +<p> +In his oration to the Alexandrians,<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xxxii. § 9, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οὗτοι δὲ (οἱ Κυνικοὶ) ἔν τε τριόδοις καὶ στενωποῖς καὶ πυλῶσιν ἱερῶν +ἀγείρουσι καὶ ἀπατῶσι παιδάρια καὶ ναύτας, κτλ.</foreign></note> Dion Chrysostom speaks +with unwonted asperity of the Cynics, haranguing with coarse +buffoonery a gaping crowd in the squares and alleys or in the +porches of the temples. He thinks that these men are doing +no good, but rather bringing the name of philosophy into +contempt. It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that +this view of the Cynic profession was very general in that age. +The vulgar Cynic, with his unkempt beard, his mantle, wallet, +and staff, his filth and rudeness and obscenity, insulting every +passer-by with insolent questions, exchanging coarse jests and +jeers with the vagabond mob which gathers at his approach, +is the commonest figure in Greek and Roman literature of the +time. The <q>mendicant monks</q> of paganism have been painted +with all the vices of the dog and ape by Martial and Petronius +<pb n="350"/><anchor id="Pg350"/>and Seneca, by Dion and Athenaeus and Alciphron and +Epictetus, above all by Lucian.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 5, § 1; 29, § 1; Mart. iv. +53, cum baculo peraque senem ... cui +dat latratos obvia turba cibos; Epict. +iii. 22; D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xxxiv. § 2; +Athen. iii. 113; Petron. 14; Aleiphr. +iii. 55; Caspari, <hi rend="italic">De Cynicis</hi>, p. 10.</note> The great foe of all extravagance +or enthusiasm in religion and philosophy fastened on +the later followers of Diogenes with peculiar bitterness. His +hostility, we may surmise, is directed not against their tenets, +but their want of decent culture. In the <hi rend="italic">Banquet</hi>, the Cynic +Alcidamas is drawn with a coarse vigour of touch which is +intended to match the coarseness of the subject. He bursts +into the dinner-party of Aristaenetus uninvited, to the terror +of the company, ranges about the room, snatching tit-bits +from the dishes as they pass him, and finally sinks down +upon the floor beside a mighty flagon of strong wine. He +drinks to the bride in no elegant fashion, challenges the +jester to fight, and, when the lamp is extinguished in the +obscene tumult, is finally found trying to embrace the +dancing girl.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Conviv.</hi> c. 16, 35, etc.</note> But Lucian’s bitterest attack on the class is +perhaps delivered in the dialogue entitled the <hi rend="italic">Fugitives</hi>. +Philosophy, in the form of a woman bathed in tears, appears +before the Father of the gods. That kindly potentate is +affected by her grief, and inquires the cause of it. Philosophy, +who had been commissioned by Zeus to bring healing and +peace to human life in all its confusion and ignorance and +violence, then unfolds the tale of her wrongs.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Fug.</hi> c. 5, 15.</note> It is a +picture of vulgar pretence, by which her fair name has been +besmirched and disgraced. Observing the love and reverence +which her true servants may win from men, a base crew of +ignorant fellows, trained in the lowest handicrafts, have forsaken +them, to assume the garb and name of her real followers.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 12, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">κατεῖδον τὴν αἰδῶ ὅση παρὰ τῶν πολλῶν ἐστι τοῖς ἑταίροις τοῖς ἐμοῖς, ... + ταῦτα πάντα τυραννίδα οὐ μικρὰν ἡγοῦντο εἶναι</foreign>.</note> +It is a pleasant change from a life of toil and danger and +hardship, to an easy vagabond existence, nor is the transformation +difficult. A cloak and a club, a loud voice and a +brazen face and a copious vocabulary of scurrilous abuse, +these are all the necessary equipment. Impudent assurance +has its usual success with the crowd, who are unable to see +through the disguise. If any one attempts to challenge the +<pb n="351"/><anchor id="Pg351"/>claims of the impostors, he is answered with a blow or a taunt. +And thus by terrorism or deceit, they usurp the respect which +is due to the real philosopher, and manage to live in plenty and +even in luxury. Nor is this the worst. For these pretended +ascetics, who profess to scorn delights, and to endure all +manner of hardness, are really coarse common sensualists, +who go about corrupting and seducing. Many of them heap +up a fortune in their wanderings, and then bid farewell to scrip +and cloak and the tub of Diogenes. And so plain unlearned +men come to regard the very name of philosophy with hatred +and contempt, and all her work is undone, like another +Penelope’s web.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Fug.</hi> c. 17-21, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οἱ ἰδιῶται δὲ ταῦτα ὁρῶντες καταπτύουσιν ἤδη φιλοσοφίας, κτλ.</foreign></note> +</p> + +<p> +Even the stoutest defender of the Cynic movement, as a +whole, feels constrained to admit that the charges against the +Cynics were, perhaps, in many cases, true.<note place="foot">Bernays, <hi rend="italic">Die Kyniker</hi>, p. 39<sic>.</sic> +Roheit und arbeitsscheues Vagabundenthum ... mussten die Kynische +Lebensweise sehr bequem finden.</note> It was a movement +peculiarly attractive to the lawless, restless hangers-on +of society, who found in an open defiance of social restraints +and a wandering existence, a field of licence and a chance of +gain. Some of the great Cynics, indeed, were interested in +physical speculation, and were widely cultivated men.<note place="foot">Plut. (?) <hi rend="italic">De Plac. Phil.</hi> ii. 8; iv. 5; +Luc. (?) <hi rend="italic">Demon.</hi> 4, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ποιηταῖς σύντροφος ἐγένετο ... καὶ τὰς ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ προαιρέσεις ... + ἠπίστατο</foreign>: cf. Caspari, +<hi rend="italic">De Cyn.</hi> p. 6; Zeller, iii. 1, p. 685.</note> But +the Cynic movement, as a whole, rested on no scientific tradition, +and the most serious and effective preacher of its doctrine +needed only a firm hold of a few simple truths, with a command +of seizing and incisive phrase.<note place="foot">Cf. Luc. (?) <hi rend="italic">Dem.</hi> 14 sqq.; Caspari, +p. 6.</note> There was no professional +barrier to exclude the ignorant and corrupt pretender. +For the Cynics, from the very nature of their mission and +their aims, never formed an organised school or society. +Each went his own way in complete detachment. To the +superficial observer, the only common bond and characteristic +were the purely external marks of dress and rough +bearing and ostentatious contempt for the most ordinary +comforts and decencies of life, which could easily be assumed +by the knave and the libertine. Hence, as time went on, +although good Cynics, like Demonax or Demetrius, acquired +a deserved influence, yet the greed, licentiousness, and brutal +<pb n="352"/><anchor id="Pg352"/>violence of others brought great discredit on the name. +Epictetus, who had a lofty ideal of the Cynic preacher +as an ambassador of God, lays bare the coarse vices of the +pretender to that high service with an unsparing hand.<note place="foot">Epict. iii. 22, § 80, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">εἰς τοὺς νῦν ἀποβλέπομεν τοὺς τραπεζῆας πυλαωροὺς κτλ.</foreign>, + Luc. <hi rend="italic">Fug.</hi> 14, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καὶ οὐ πολλῆς πραγματείας δεῖ τριβώνιον περιβαλέσθαι</foreign>.</note> It is +evident, however, that certain of the gravest imputations, +which had been developed by prurient imaginations, were, by +an unwholesome tradition, levelled at even the greatest and best +of the Cynics.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Ver. Hist.</hi> ii. 18; Athen. iv. +158; xiii. 588.</note> And S. Augustine, in referring to these foul +charges, affirms, with an honourable candour, that they could +not be truly made against the Cynics of his own day.<note place="foot">S. Aug. <hi rend="italic">Civ. D.</hi> xiv. 20, nemo +tamen eorum audet hoc facere.</note> Moreover, +the Roman nature never took very kindly, even in some +of the cultivated circles, to anything under the name of +philosophy.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> lxxii. 2; Pers. v. +189; Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 71; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Agr.</hi> 4; +<hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iv. 5; Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 22; Quintil. +xi. 1, 35; xii. 2, 6.</note> Even M. Aurelius could not altogether disarm +the suspicion with which it was regarded. And the revolt of +Avidius Cassius was to some extent an outburst of impatience +with the doctrinaire spirit of the <hi rend="italic">philosopha anicula</hi>, as Cassius +dared to call him.<note place="foot">Capitol. <hi rend="italic">Avid. Cass.</hi> 1, § 8, in a +letter of Verus, te philosopham aniculam, +me luxuriosum morionem +vocat: cf. c. 14.</note> And there were many things in the Cynic +movement which specially tended to provoke the ordinary +man. It threw down the gauntlet to a materialised age. It +preached absolute renunciation of all social ties and duties, and +of all the pleasures and refinements with which that society +had surrounded itself. In an age which, even on its tomb-stones, +bears the stamp of a starched conventionality and +adherence to use and wont, the Cynic was a defiant rebel +against all social restraints. In an age which was becoming +ever more superstitious, he did not shrink from attacking the +faith in the gods, the efficacy of the mysteries, the credit of +the most ancient oracles.<note place="foot">Bernays, <hi rend="italic">Die Kyniker</hi>, p. 31, sie +sind die am reinsten deistische Sect, +welche das hellenisch-römische Alterthum +hervorgebracht hat.</note> And, finally, while philosophy in +general after Domitian found support and patronage at the +imperial court, no emperor gave his countenance to the Cynics +till the Syrian dynasty of the third century.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 30; cf. D. Cass. lxxvii. 19, +for the favours showered on the Cynic +Antiochus by Severus.</note> We have here +surely a sufficient accumulation of reasons for hesitating to +<pb n="353"/><anchor id="Pg353"/>accept the wholesale condemnation of a class of men who, +instead of disarming opposition, rather plumed themselves on +provoking it. +</p> + +<p> +A good example of the merciless, and not altogether +scrupulous fashion in which the Cynics were handled by contemporaries +is to be found in Lucian’s piece on the death of +Peregrinus.<note place="foot">On Lucian’s <hi rend="italic">Peregrinus</hi>, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Caspari, +<hi rend="italic">De Cyn.</hi> p. 24 sq.; Bernays, p. 42 sqq.</note> Peregrinus was a native of Parium on the Propontis, +and a man of fortune. He loved to call himself +Proteus, and, indeed, the strange vicissitudes of his career +justified his assumption of the name.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">De Morte Peregr.</hi> c. 5, 10 sq.</note> On reaching manhood, +he wandered from land to land, and in Palestine he joined a +Christian brotherhood, in which he rose to a commanding +influence, which drew down the suspicion of the government, +and he was thrown for a time into prison.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 11, 12.</note> His persecution +called forth, as Lucian ungrudgingly admits, all the fearless +love and charity of the worshippers of <q>the crucified Sophist.</q> +Released by a philosophic governor of the type of Gallio, he +gave up the remnant of his paternal property, amounting to +fifteen talents, to his native city.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 14.</note> Peregrinus had already +assumed the peculiar dress of the Cynic, and set out on fresh +wanderings, having, from some difference on a point of ritual, +severed his connection with the Christian brotherhood. He +then came under the influence of an Egyptian ascetic and of +the mysticism of the East. In a visit to Italy he acquired +celebrity by his fierce invectives, which did not spare even +the blameless and gentle Antoninus Pius.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 17, 18; cf. the rudeness of +Demetrius to Vespasian, Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> +xiii.; D. Cass. lxvi. 13.</note> The Emperor himself +paid little heed to him, but the prefect of the city thought +that Rome could well spare such a philosopher, and Peregrinus +was obliged to return to the East. Henceforth Greece, and +especially Elis, was the scene of his labours. He abated +none of his energy, dealing out his denunciations impartially, +and not sparing even the philosophic millionaire Herodes +Atticus for providing the visitors to Olympia with the luxury +of pure water.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">De Morte Peregr.</hi> c. 19, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">κακῶς ἠγόρευεν ὡς καταθηλύναντα τοὺς Ἕλληνας</foreign>.</note> He even tried to stir up Greece to armed +revolt. His fame and power among the Cynic brotherhood +were at their height, or perhaps beginning to wane, when +<pb n="354"/><anchor id="Pg354"/>he conceived the idea of electrifying the world and giving a +demonstration of the triumph of philosophy even over death +by a self-immolation at Olympia. There, before the eyes of +men gathered from all quarters, like Heracles, the great Cynic +exemplar, on Mount Oeta, he resolved to depart in the blaze +and glory of the funeral pyre kindled by his own hand. And +perhaps some rare lettered Cynic brother set afloat a Sibylline +verse, such as abounded in those days, bidding men prepare to +revere another hero, soon to be enthroned along with Heracles +in the broad Olympus. +</p> + +<p> +Such a career, ambiguous, perhaps, on the most charitable +construction, attracted the eye of the man who sincerely +believed, under all his persiflage, that both the religion and the +philosophy of the past were worn out, and were now being +merely exploited by coarse adventurers for gain or ambition. +Moreover, the Philoctetes of the Cynic Heracles, his pupil +Theagenes, was attracting great audiences in the Gymnasium +of Trajan at Rome.<note place="foot">Caspari, <hi rend="italic">De Cyn.</hi> p. 16; Bernays, <hi rend="italic">Luc. u. die Kyniker</hi>, p. 16.</note> The self-martyrdom of their chief +had given a fresh inspiration to the Cynic brotherhood. +Who knows but a legend may gather round his name, altars +may be raised to him, and the ancient glamour of the +<q>flashing Olympus</q> will lend itself to glorify the uncultivated +crew who profane the name of philosophy, and are an +offence to culture? +</p> + +<p> +There is no mistaking the cold merciless spirit in which +Lucian, by his own avowal, addressed himself to the task of +exposing what he genuinely believed to be a feigned enthusiasm. +Even the lover of Lucian receives a kind of shock from +the occasional tone of almost cruel hardness in his treatment of +the Cynic apostle. When Lucian’s narrative of the youthful +enormities of Peregrinus is analysed, it is perceived that the +accuser is anonymous, and that other names and particulars +are carefully suppressed.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 54.</note> For the gravest charges of youthful +depravity no proof or authority is given; they seem to be the +offspring of that prurient gossip which can assail any character. +They are the charges which were freely bandied about in the +age of Pericles and M. Aurelius, in the age of Erasmus and the +age of Milton. There must have been something at least +<pb n="355"/><anchor id="Pg355"/>remarkable and fascinating, although marred by extravagance,<note place="foot">This offended Demonax, cf. Luc. (?) +<hi rend="italic">Dem.</hi> c. 21, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">Περεγρῖνε οὐκ ἀνθρώπιζεις</foreign>.</note> +about the man who became a great leader and prophet among +the Christians of Palestine, and who was almost worshipped +as a god. When he was thrown into jail, their widows and +orphans watched by the gates; his jailers were bribed to admit +some of the brethren to console his solitude; large sums were +collected from the cities of Asia for his support and defence.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">De Morte Peregr.</hi> c. 13.</note> +The surrender of his paternal property to his native city, an +act of generosity which had many parallels in that age, is +attributed to no higher motive than the wish to hush up a +rumour that Peregrinus had murdered his father. The charge +apparently rested on nothing more substantial than malignant +gossip.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 10, 14, 37; Bernays, p. 54.</note> The migration of Peregrinus from the Christian to +the Cynic brotherhood was not so startling in that age as it +may appear to us. Transitions to and fro were not uncommon +between societies which had the common bond of asceticism +and contempt for the world.<note place="foot">Cf. Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xlvi. (Dind. vol. ii. +p. 402), +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τοῖς ἐν τῇ Παλαιστίνῃ δυσσεβέσι παραπλήσιοι τοὺς τρόπους</foreign>. Bernays, p. +36, Übertritte aus dem einen in das +andere Lager vorkamen; Hatch, <hi rend="italic">Hib. +Lec.</hi> p. 166; cf. Caspari, <hi rend="italic">De Cyn.</hi> p. 25; +Jul. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> vii. 224. C. + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τὰ δὲ ἄλλα γε πάντα ἐστὶν ὑμῖν τε κἀκείνοις</foreign> + (<hi rend="italic">i.e.</hi> <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">Χριστιανοῖς</foreign>) +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">παραπλήσια. καταλελοίπατε τὴν πατρίδα ὥσπερ ἐκεῖνοι</foreign>.</note> Moreover, Lucian, with all his +delicate genius, had little power of understanding the force +of religious enthusiasm. It is pretty clear that Peregrinus +was not an ordinary Cynic; he had felt the spell of Oriental +and Pythagorean mysticism. His Cynicism was probably +tinctured with a religion of the same type as that of Apollonius +of Tyana.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">De Morte Peregr.</hi> c. 36, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἐς τὴν μεσημβρίαν ἀποβλέπων</foreign>: c. 25, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὅπως τὴν καρτηρίαν ἐπιδείξηται ὥσπερ οἱ Βραχμᾶνες, + ἐκείνοις γὰρ αὐτὸν ἠχίου Θεαγένης εἰκάζειν</foreign>.</note> And it is his failure to appreciate the fervour of +this mystical elation in Peregrinus and his disciples which +misled Lucian, and makes his narrative misleading. +</p> + +<p> +Lucian suggests that, when he visited Olympia for the +fourth time, he found that the influence of Peregrinus was +on the wane.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 2.</note> Yet even from Lucian’s own narrative it is +clear that Peregrinus and his doings were attracting almost as +much attention as the games. On Lucian’s arrival, the first thing +he heard was a rumour that the great Cynic had resolved to +die upon a flaming pyre, like the hero who was the mythic +patron of the school. Peregrinus professed that by his +self-<pb n="356"/><anchor id="Pg356"/>immolation he was going to teach men, in the most impressive +way, to make light of death. And many a Cynic sermon was +evidently delivered on the subject, the greatest preacher being +Theagenes, for whom Lucian displays a particular aversion. +There were, of course, many sceptics like Lucian himself. And +it is in the mouth of one of these enemies of the sect, in reply +to Theagenes, that Lucian has put the defamatory version of +the life of Peregrinus,<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">De Morte Peregr.</hi> c. 7 sqq.</note> to which we have referred. +</p> + +<p> +Lucian assumes from the first that the self-martyrdom of +Peregrinus was prompted by mere vulgar love of notoriety.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 4, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">εἰς κενοδοξίαν τινὲς τοῦτο ἀναφέρουσι</foreign>.</note> +Yet it is quite possible that this is an unfair judgment. The +Stoic school, with which the Cynics had such a close affinity, +allowed that, in certain circumstances, suicide might be not +only a permissible, but a meritorious, nay, even a glorious act +of self-liberation.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 58, § 36; 70, § 8; <hi rend="italic">De +Prov.</hi> ii. 10; vi. § 7; <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, iii. 15; +<hi rend="italic">De V. Beat.</hi> 19; Epict. i. 24. Cf. Plin. +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 12; i. 22; iii. 7; iii. 9; vi. +24; Boissier, <hi rend="italic">L’Opp.</hi> p. 212 sqq.</note> Seneca had often looked gladly to it as +the ever open door of escape from ignominy or torture. The +brilliant Stoic Euphrates, the darling of Roman society, weary +of age and disease, sought and obtained the permission of +Hadrian to drink the hemlock.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lxix. 8, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καὶ ὁ Εὐφράτης ὁ φιλόσοφος ἀπέθανεν ἐθελοντής, ἐπιτρέψαντος αὐτῷ + καὶ τοῦ Ἁδριανοῦ κωνεῖον διὰ τὸ γῆρας καὶ διὰ τὴν νόσον πιεῖν</foreign>.</note> And that emperor himself, +in his last sickness, begged the drug from his physician who +killed himself to escape compliance.<note place="foot">Ael. Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> c. 24.</note> Diogenes had handed +the dagger to his favourite pupil, Antisthenes, when tortured +by disease.<note place="foot">Diog. Laert. vi. 18; cf. vi. 77, for +the death of Diogenes himself.</note> The burden of the Cynic preaching was the +nothingness of the things of sense and contempt for death. +Is it not possible that what Lucian heard from the lips of +Peregrinus himself was true, and that he wished, it may be +with mingled motives, by his own act to show men how to +treat with indifference the last terror of humanity? +</p> + +<p> +That the end of Peregrinus was surrounded by superstition +and magnified by grandiose effects is more than probable. +Such things belonged to the spirit of the age. And the calm, +critical good sense of Lucian, which had no sympathy with +these weaknesses, saw nothing in the scene but calculating +imposture. Already oracles were circulating in which +Pere<pb n="357"/><anchor id="Pg357"/>grinus appears as the phœnix, rising unscathed and rejuvenescent +from the pyre, predicting that he is to be a guardian spirit +of the night, that altars will rise in his honour, and that he +will perform miracles of healing. Theagenes blazed abroad a +Sibylline verse which bade men, <q>when the greatest of the +Cynics has come to lofty Olympus, to honour the night-roaming +hero who is enthroned beside Hephaestus and the +princely Hector.</q><note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">De Morte Peregr.</hi> c. 29.</note> Lucian found himself wedged in a dense +crowd who came to hear the last apology of the Cynic +apostle. Some were applauding, and some denouncing him +as an impostor. Lucian could hear little in the melée. But +now and then, above the roar, he could hear the pale, +tremulous old man tell the surging crowd that, having lived +like Heracles, he must die like Heracles, and mingle with the +ether, <q>bringing a golden life to a golden close.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 33.</note> Lucian +thought his paleness was due to terror at the nearness of his +self-imposed death. It was more probably the result of +ascetic fervour and overstrained excitement. The spectacle +sent Lucian away in a fit of rather cruel laughter.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 34, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἐγὼ δέ, εἰκάζεις, οἶμαι, πῶς ἐγέλων</foreign>. <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Baur’s view of this +piece (<hi rend="italic">Ch. Hist.</hi> ii. 170). He thinks +the self-immolation of Peregrinus pure +fiction, and that Lucian’s object throughout +was to discredit Christianity.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The closing scene, which took place two or three miles +from Olympia, was ordered with solemn religious effect. It +evidently impressed even the sceptic’s imagination. A high +pyre had been prepared, with torches and faggots ready. As +the moon rose, the voluntary victim appeared in the garb of +his sect, surrounded by his leading disciples. He then disrobed +himself, flung incense on the flame, and, turning to the +south, cried aloud—<q>Daemons of my father and my mother +graciously receive me.</q> After these words, he leapt into the +blaze which at once enveloped him, and he was seen no more.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">De Morte Peregr.</hi> c. 36.</note> +The Cynic brothers stood long gazing into the pyre in silent +grief, until Lucian aroused their anger by some jeers, not, perhaps, +in the best taste. On his way back to Olympia, he pondered +on the follies of men, and the craving for empty fame.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 38.</note> To +Lucian there was nothing more in the tragic scene than that. +And he amused himself by the way with the creation of a +myth, and watching how it would grow. To some who met +<pb n="358"/><anchor id="Pg358"/>him on the road, too late for the spectacle, he told how, as +the pyre burst into flame, there was a great earthquake accompanied +by subterranean thunder, and a vulture rose from the +fire, proclaiming in a high human voice, as it winged its way +heavenwards, <q>I have left earth behind, and I go to Olympus.</q><note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">De Morte Peregr.</hi> c. 39.</note> +The poor fools, on whose credulity Lucian was rather heartlessly +playing, with a shudder of awe fell to questioning him +whether the bird flew to the east or the west. And, on his +return to Olympia, he was rewarded in the way he liked best, +by finding the tale which he had cradled already full grown. +A venerable man, whom he encountered, related that with his +own eyes he had seen the vulture rising from the pyre, and +added that he had just met Peregrinus himself walking in the +<q>seven-voiced cloister,</q> clothed in white raiment, and with a +chaplet of olive on his head.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 40.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Lucian’s picture of the death of Peregrinus, whatever we +may think of its fairness and discernment, is immensely +valuable for many things besides the light which it casts on +Lucian’s attitude to all forms of extravagance and superstition. +In spite of his contempt for them, he himself reveals that the +Cynics were a great popular force. We see also that Cynicism +was, in spite of its generally deistic spirit, sometimes leagued +with real or affected religious sentiment. As to the real +character of Peregrinus, there is reason to believe that Lucian +did not read it aright. The impression which the Cynic made +on Aulus Gellius was very different. When Gellius was at +Athens in his student days, he used often to visit Peregrinus, +who was then living in a little hut in the suburbs, and he found +the Cynic’s discourses profitable and high-toned. In particular, +Peregrinus used to tell his hearers that the chance of apparent +evasion or concealment would never tempt the wise man to sin. +Concealment was really impossible, for, in the words of +Sophocles, <q>Time, the all-seeing, the all-hearing, lays bare all +secrets.</q> Evidently Peregrinus had other admirers besides the +Cynic brethren who hailed his apotheosis at Olympia.<note place="foot">A. Gell. xii. 11, virum gravem +atque constantem vidimus ... deversantem +in quodam tugurio extra +urbem.</note> Who +can draw the line, in such an age, between the fanatic and +the impostor? +</p> + +<p> +The bitterness with which Lucian assails the Cynics +<pb n="359"/><anchor id="Pg359"/>of his day, while it was justified by the scandalous morals +of a certain number, is also a testimony to the world-wide +influence of the sect. The ranks of these rude field-preachers +would not have attracted so many impostors if the +profession had not commanded great power and influence over +the masses. The older Cynicism, which sprang from the +simpler and more popular aspect of the Socratic teaching, had +long disappeared. Its place was taken by the Stoic system, +which gave a broad and highly elaborated scientific basis to the +doctrine of the freedom and independence of the virtuous will. +The rules of conduct were deduced from a well-articulated theory +of the universe and human nature, and they were expounded +with all the dexterity of a finished dialectic. The later +Stoicism, as we have seen, like the other schools, tended to +neglect theory, in the effort to form the virtuous character—a +tendency which is seen at its height in Musonius and +Epictetus. But, as Stoicism became less scientific, it inclined +to return more and more to the spirit and method of the +older Cynicism. The true, earnest Cynic seems to be almost +the philosophic ideal of Epictetus. Thus it was that, in the +first century after Christ, Cynicism emerged from its long +obscurity to take up the part of a rather one-sided popular +Stoicism. It was really pointed or sensational preaching of a +few great moral truths, common to all the schools, which the +condition of society urgently called for.<note place="foot">Zeller, + <hi rend="italic"><anchor id="corr359"/><corr sic="Phil der.">Phil. der</corr> Griech.</hi> iii. 1, p. +685; Bernays, <hi rend="italic">Luc. u. die Kyniker</hi>, p. +27 sq.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The ideal of the Cynic life has been painted with gentle +enthusiasm by Epictetus.<note place="foot">Epict. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> iii. 22, § 23, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀλλ’ εἰδέναι δεῖ ὅτι ἄγγελος ἀπὸ Διὸς ἀπέσταλται πρὸς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, + περὶ ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν ὑποδείξων αὐτοῖς ὅτι πεπλάνηται καὶ ἀλλαχοῦ + ζητοῦσι τὴν οὐσίαν τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ὅπου οὐκ ἔστιν, ὅπου δ’ ἔστιν οὐκ ἐνθυμοῦνται κτλ.</foreign></note> The true Cynic is a messenger from +Zeus, to tell men that they have wandered far from the right +way, that they are seeking happiness in regions where +happiness is not to be found. It is not to be found in the +glory of consulships, or in the Golden House of Nero.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 22, §§ 28-30.</note> It +lies close to us, yet in the last place where we ever seek it, +in ourselves, in the clear vision of the ruling faculty, in +freedom from the bondage to imagined good, to the things of +sense.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 38, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὅπου οὐ δοκεῖτε οὐδὲ θέλετε ζητῆσαι αὐτό. εἰ γὰρ ἠθέλετε, + εὕρετε ἂν ἐν ὑμῖν ὄν κτλ.</foreign></note> This preaching was also to be preaching by example. +<pb n="360"/><anchor id="Pg360"/>The gospel of renunciation has been discredited from age to age +when it has come from the lips of a man lapped in downy +comfort, who never gave up anything in his life, and who indolently +points his flock to the steep road which he never means +to tread with his own feet. But the Cynic of Epictetus, with +a true vocation, could point to himself, without home or wife +or children, without a city, without possessions, having forsaken +all for moral freedom.<note place="foot">Epict. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> iii. 22, § 47, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἴδετέ με, ὅτι ἄπολίς εἰμι, ἄοικος, ἀκτήμων, ἄδουλος</foreign>.</note> He has done it at the call of God, +not from mere caprice, or a fancy to wander lawlessly on the +outskirts of society.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 56, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">Κυνικῷ δὲ Καῖσαρ τίς ἐστιν ἢ ὁ καταπεπομφὼς αὐτὸν καὶ + ᾧ λατρεύει, ὁ Ζεύς</foreign>.</note> He has done it because the condition of +the world demands such stern self-restraint in the chief who +would save the discipline of an army engaged in desperate +battle. It is a combat like the Olympian strife which he has +to face, and woe to him who enters the lists untrained and +unprepared.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 52.</note> The care of wife and children is not for one who +has laid upon him the care of the family of man, who has to +console and admonish, and guide them into the right way.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 67.</note> +All worldly loves and entanglements must be put aside by one +who claims to be the <q>spy and herald of God.</q> The Cynic is +the father of all men; the men are his sons, the women his +daughters.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 81, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">πάντας ἀνθρώπους πεπαιδοποίηται, τοὺς ἄνδρας υἱοὺς ἔχει, + τὰς γυναῖκας θυγατέρας</foreign>.</note> When he rebukes them, it is as a father in God, +a minister of Zeus. Nor may he take a part in the government +of any earthly state, which is a petty affair in comparison +with the ministry with which he is charged. How should he +meddle with the administration of Athens or Corinth, who has +to deal with the moral fortunes of the whole commonwealth of +man.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 84.</note> Possessing in himself the secret of happiness and woe, +he never descends into the vulgar contest, where he may be +overcome by the vilest and poorest spirits, for objects which +he has trained himself to regard as absolutely indifferent or +worthless. And so, he is proof against the spitefulness of +fortune and the baseness or violence of man. He will calmly +suffer blows or insults as sent by Zeus, just as Heracles bore +cheerfully and triumphantly the toils which were laid on him +by Eurystheus. The true Cynic will even love those who +buffet and insult him.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 100.</note> He will also resemble his patron hero +<pb n="361"/><anchor id="Pg361"/>in the fresh comely strength of his body, which is the gift of +temperance and long days passed under the open sky.<note place="foot">Epict. iii. 22, §§ 86, 87.</note> Above +all, he will have a conscience clearer than the sun, so that, at +peace with himself and having assurance of the friendship of the +gods, he may be able to speak with all boldness to his brothers +and his children.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 93, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">πρὸ πάντων δὲ τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν αὐτοῦ δεῖ καθαρώτερον + εἶναι τοῦ ἡλίου</foreign>.</note> This was the kind of moral ministry which +was needed by the age, and, in spite of both undeserved calumny, +and the real shame of many corrupt impostors in its ranks, the +missionary movement of Cynicism was one of undoubted power +and range. The resemblance, in many points, of the Cynics to +the early Christian monks and ascetics has been often noticed, +and men sometimes passed from the one camp to the other +without any violent wrench.<note place="foot">Bernays, <hi rend="italic">Luc. u. die Kyniker</hi>, pp. +36-38.</note> The rhetor Aristides, in a +fierce attack on the Cynic sect, makes it a reproach that they +have much in common with <q>the impious in Palestine.</q> Tatian, +and others of the Gnostic ascetics, were in close connection +with leading Cynics.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 99.</note> How easily they were absorbed into +the bosom of the Church we can see from the tale of +Maximus, an Egyptian Cynic of the fourth century, who +continued to wear the distinctive marks of the philosophic +brotherhood, till he was installed as bishop of Constantinople.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 37; Caspari, <hi rend="italic">De Cyn.</hi> p. 25.</note> +And the contemporary eulogies of Cynic virtue by John +Chrysostom and Themistius testify at once to the importance of +a movement the strength of which was not spent till after the +fall of the Western Empire, and to its affinities for the kindred +movement of Christian asceticism. +</p> + +<p> +These <q>ambassadors of God,</q> as they claimed to be, cared +little, like S. Paul, for <q>the wisdom of the world,</q> or for the +figments of the poets, and those great cosmic theories which +enabled Seneca to sustain or rekindle his moral faith. With +rare exceptions, such as Oenomaus of Gadara, they seldom +committed their ideas to writing.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 5.</note> For the serried dialectic +of the Stoics they substituted the sharp biting epigram and +lively repartee, in which even the gentle Demonax indulged.<note place="foot">Luc. (?) <hi rend="italic">Dem.</hi> c. 16-21.</note> +Demetrius, who saw the reigns of both Caligula and Domitian,<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ben.</hi> vii. 11; Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. +T.</hi> vii. 42.</note> +was a man of real power and distinction. He was revered by +<pb n="362"/><anchor id="Pg362"/>Seneca as a moral teacher of remarkable influence, <q>a great man +even if compared with the greatest,</q><note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ben.</hi> vii. i. 3, vir meo judicio +magnus etiamsi maximis comparetur; +vii. 8, 2.</note> who lived up to the +severest counsels which he addressed to others. He would bear +cold and nakedness and hard lodging with cheerful fortitude, +he was a man whom not even the age of Nero could corrupt. +His poverty was genuine, and he would never beg.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 20, 9; <hi rend="italic">Vit. B.</hi> xviii. 3.</note> He +set little store by philosophical theory, in comparison with +diligent application of a few tried and well-conned precepts.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> vii. 1, § 3, egregia hoc +dicere solet, Plus prodesse, si pauca +praecepta sapientiae teneas, sed illa in +promptu tibi sint, etc.</note> +Yet he had the brand of culture, and once, when his taste was +offended by a bad, tactless reader, who was ruining a passage +in the <hi rend="italic">Bacchae</hi>, he snatched the book from his hands and tore +it in pieces.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Adv. Indoct.</hi> 19.</note> Although he disdained the trimmed, artificial +eloquence of the schools, he had the fire and impetus of the +true orator.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> vii. 8, 2.</note> With little taste for abstract musings, he consoled +the last hours of Thrasea in prison with a discourse on +the nature of the soul and the mystery of its severance from +the body at death.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xvi. 34.</note> He formed a close alliance for a time with +that roaming hierophant of philosophy, Apollonius of Tyana, +the bond between them being probably a common asceticism +and a common hatred of the imperial tyranny.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iv. 25, 42; +vi. 13; viii. 10; vii. 42.</note> For Demetrius, +if not a revolutionary, was a leader of the philosophic opposition, +which assailed the emperors, not so much in their political +capacity, as because they too often represented and stimulated +the moral lawlessness and materialism of the age. Our +sympathies must be with Demetrius when he boldly faced the +dangerous scowl of Nero with the <hi rend="italic">mot</hi>, <q>You threaten me with +death, but nature threatens you.</q><note place="foot">Epict. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> i. 25, § 22, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀπειλεῖς μοι θάνατον σοὶ δ’ ἡ φύσις</foreign>.</note> But our sympathies will +be rather with Vespasian, the plain old soldier, who, when +Demetrius openly insulted him, treated the <q>Cynic bark</q> with +quiet contempt.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> xiii. philosophorum +contumaciam lenissime tulit; <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> x.; +D. Cass. lxvi. 13.</note> In truth, the Flavian emperors, till the expulsion +of the philosophers by Domitian, seem to have been on +the whole indulgent to the outspoken freedom of the Cynics.<note place="foot">Bernays, <hi rend="italic">Luc. u. die Kyniker</hi>, p. 29.</note> +Occasionally, however, the daring censor had, in the interests of +<pb n="363"/><anchor id="Pg363"/>authority, to be restrained. Once, when Titus was in the +theatre, with the Jewess Berenice by his side, a Cynic, bearing +the name of the founder of the sect, gave voice in a long +bitter oration to popular feeling against what was regarded as +a shameful union. This Cynic John the Baptist, got off with +a scourging.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lxvi. 15.</note> A comrade named Heros, however, repeated the +offensive expostulation, and lost his head. Peregrinus, for a +similar attack on Antoninus Pius, was quietly warned by the +prefect to leave the precincts of Rome. In the third century +there was a great change in the political fortunes and attitude +of the sect; Cynics are even found basking in imperial +favour, and lending their support to the imperial power.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">De Morte Peregr.</hi> c. 19; the +attempt of Peregrinus in Greece is probably +referred to in Jul. Capitol. <hi rend="italic">Ant. +P.</hi> 5, § 5; cf. Bernays, p. 30; Caspari, +<hi rend="italic">De Cyn.</hi> p. 15.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The Cynics, from the days of Antisthenes, had poured +contempt on the popular religion and the worship of material +images of the Divine. They were probably the purest +monotheists that classical antiquity produced.<note place="foot">Bernays, p. 31.</note> Demetrius +is almost Epicurean in his belief in eternal Fate, and his contempt +for the wavering wills and caprices which mythological +fancy ascribed to the Olympian gods.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Prov.</hi> 5, §§ 5-7.</note> Demonax, the +mildest and most humane member of the school in imperial +times, refused to offer sacrifices or even to seek initiation +in the Mysteries of Eleusis.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Dem.</hi> c. 11; Oenom. <hi rend="italic">Fr.</hi> 13, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οὐκ ἀθάνατοι, ἀλλὰ λίθινοι καὶ ξύλινοι δεσπόται ἀνθρώπων</foreign>, 14; cf. Julian, <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> +vii. 204, <hi rend="italic">a</hi>.</note> When he was impeached for +impiety before the Athenian courts, he replied that, as for +sacrifices, the Deity had no need of them, and that touching +the Mysteries, he was in this dilemma: if they contained +a revelation of what was good for men, he must in duty +publish it; if they were bad and worthless, he would feel +equally bound to warn the people against the deception. +But the most fearless and trenchant assailant of the popular +theology among the Cynics was Oenomaus of Gadara, in the +reign of Hadrian.<note place="foot">Caspari, <hi rend="italic">De Cyn.</hi> p. 12; Bernays, p. +35; Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, p. 690.</note> Oenomaus rejected, with the frankest scorn, +the anthropomorphic fables of heathenism. In particular, he +directed his fiercest attacks against the revival of that faith +in oracles and divination which was a marked characteristic +of the Antonine age. Plutarch, in a charming walk +<pb n="364"/><anchor id="Pg364"/>round the sights of Delphi, in which he acts as cicerone, +describes a Cynic named Didymus as assailing the influence +of oracles on human character.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Def. Or.</hi> vii.</note> But Oenomaus, as we know +him from Eusebius, was a far more formidable and more +pitiless iconoclast than Didymus. He constructed an elaborate +historical demonstration to show that the oracles were inspired +neither by the gods nor by daemons, but were a very human +contrivance to dupe the credulous. And in connection with +the subject of oracles, he dealt with the question of free-will, +and asserted man’s inalienable liberty, and the responsibility +for all his actions which is the necessary concomitant of +freedom. Oenomaus treated Dodona and Delphi with such +jaunty disrespect that, at the distance of a century and a +half, his memory aroused the anger of Julian to such a degree, +that the imperial champion of paganism could hardly find +words strong enough to express his feelings.<note place="foot">Julian, <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> vii. 209.</note> Oenomaus is +a wretch who is cutting at the roots, not only of all reverence +for divine things, but of all those moral instincts implanted +in our souls by God, which are the foundation of all right +conduct and justice. For such fellows no punishment could +be too severe; they are worse than brigands and wreckers.<note place="foot">Jul. vii. 209, 210, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">διαφέρουσι γὰρ οὗτοί τι τῶν ἐπ’ ἐρημίας λῃστευόντων καὶ κατειληφότων + τὰς ἀκτὰς ἐπὶ τῷ λυμαίνεσθαι τοῖς καταπλέουσι</foreign>.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The resolute rejection of the forms of popular worship, and +of the claims of divination, is hardly less marked in the mild +and tolerant Demonax.<note place="foot">Bernays, <hi rend="italic">Luc. u. die Kyniker</hi>, p. 104, +agrees with Bekker that the <hi rend="italic">Demonax</hi> +can hardly be a genuine work of Lucian. +But its author was a contemporary and +friend of Demonax (c. i. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἐπὶ μήκιστον συνεγενόμην</foreign>).</note> Demonax, whose life extended probably +from 50 to 150 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>,<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, p. +691, n. 6.</note> sprang from a family in Cyprus of +some wealth and distinction, and had a finished literary culture.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Dem.</hi> c. 3 sqq.</note> +But he had conceived from childhood a passion for the philosophic +life, according to the ideal of that age. His teachers +were Cynics or Stoics, but in speculative opinion he was +broadly Eclectic. In his long life he had associated with Demetrius +and Epictetus, Apollonius and Herodes Atticus.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 3, 24, 31.</note> When +asked once who was his favourite philosopher, he replied that +he reverenced Socrates, admired Diogenes, and loved Aristippus.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 62.</note> +His tone had perhaps the greatest affinity for the simplicity of +<pb n="365"/><anchor id="Pg365"/>the Socratic teaching. But he did not adopt the irony of the +master, which, if it was a potent arm of dialectic, often left the +subject of it in an irritated and humiliated mood. Demonax +was a true Cynic in his contempt for ordinary objects of greed +and ambition,<note place="foot">Luc. (?) <hi rend="italic">Dem.</hi> c. 5, 6.</note> in the simple, austere fashion of his daily life, +and in the keen epigrammatic point, often, to our taste, verging +on rudeness, with which he would expose pretence and rebuke +any kind of extravagance.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 14.</note> But although he cultivated a +severe bodily discipline, so as to limit to the utmost his external +wants, he carefully avoided any ostentatious singularity of +manner to win a vulgar notoriety. He had an infinite charity +for all sorts of men, excepting only those who seemed beyond +the hope of amendment.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 7.</note> His counsels were given with an Attic +grace and brightness which sent people away from his company +cheered and improved, and hopeful for the future. Treating +error as a disease incident to human nature, he attacked the +sin, but was gentle to the sinner.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 6.</note> He made it his task to +compose the feuds of cities and to stimulate unselfish patriotism; +he reconciled the quarrels of kinsmen; he would, on occasion, +chasten the prosperous, and comfort the failing and unfortunate, +by reminding both alike of the brief span allotted to either joy +or sorrow, and the long repose of oblivion which would soon set +a term to all the agitations of sorrow or of joy.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 9, 10.</note> +</p> + +<p> +But there was another side to his teaching. Demonax was +no supple, easy-going conformist to usages which his reason +rejected. Early in his career, as has been said, he had to face +a prosecution before the tribunals of Athens, because he was +never seen to sacrifice to the gods, and declined initiation at +Eleusis. In each case, he defended his nonconformity in the +boldest tone.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 11, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τραχύτερον ἢ κατὰ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ προαίρεσιν ἀπελογήσατο</foreign>.</note> To a prophet whom he saw plying his trade +for hire, he put the dilemma: <q>If you can alter the course of +destiny, why do you not demand higher fees? If everything +happens by the decree of God, where is the value of your art?</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 37.</note> +When asked if he believed the soul to be immortal, he answered, +<q>It is as immortal as everything else.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 32.</note> He derided, in almost +brutal style, the effeminacy of the sophist Favorinus, and the +extravagant grief of Herodes Atticus for his son.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 12, 24.</note> He + ruth<pb n="366"/><anchor id="Pg366"/>lessly exposed the pretences of sham philosophy wherever he +met it. When a youthful Eclectic professed his readiness to +obey any philosophic call, from the Academy, the Porch, or +the Pythagorean discipline of silence, Demonax cried out, +<q>Pythagoras calls you.</q><note place="foot">Luc. (?) <hi rend="italic">Dem.</hi> c. 14, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οὗτος, ἔφη, προσειπὼν τὸ ὄνομα, καλεῖ σε Πυθαγόρας</foreign>.</note> He rebuked the pedantic archaism +of his day by telling an affected stylist that he spoke in the +fashion of Agamemnon’s time.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 26, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">σὺ δὲ μοι ὡς ἐπ’ Ἀγαμέμνονος ἀποκρίνῃ</foreign>.</note> When Epictetus advised him to +marry and become the father of a line of philosophers, he asked +the celibate preacher to give him one of his daughters.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 55.</note> The +Athenians, from a vulgar jealousy of Corinth, proposed to +defile their ancient memories by establishing gladiatorial shows +under the shadow of the Acropolis. Demonax, in the true spirit +of Athens from the time of Theseus, advised them first to sweep +away the altar of Pity.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 57.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Demonax lived to nearly a hundred years. He is said +never to have had an enemy. He was the object of universal +deference whenever he appeared in public. In his old age he +might enter any Athenian house uninvited, and they welcomed +him as their good genius. The children brought him their +little presents of fruit and called him father, and as he passed +through the market, the baker-women contended for the +honour of giving him their loaves. He died a voluntary +death, and wished for no tomb save what nature would give +him. But the Athenians were aware that they had seen in +him a rare apparition of goodness; they honoured him with +a splendid and imposing burial and mourned long for him. +And the bench on which he used to sit when he was weary +they deemed a sacred stone, and decked it with garlands long +after his death.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 63 sqq.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Demonax, by a strange personal charm, attained to an +extraordinary popularity and reverence. But the great mass +of philosophic preachers had to face a great deal of obloquy +and vulgar contempt. Apart from the coarseness, arrogance, +and inconsistency of many of them, which gave just offence, +their very profession was an irritating challenge to a pleasure-loving +and worldly age. Men who gloried in the splendour +of their civic life, and were completely absorbed in it, who +<pb n="367"/><anchor id="Pg367"/>were flattered and cajoled by their magistrates and popular +leaders, could hardly like to be told by the vagrant, homeless +teacher, in beggar’s garb, that they were ignorant and perverted +and lost in a maze of deception. They would hardly +be pleased to hear that their civilisation was an empty show, +without a solid core of character, that their hopes of happiness +from a round of games and festivals, from the splendour of art +in temples and statues, were the merest mirage. The message +<hi rend="italic">Beati pauperes spiritu—Beati qui lugent</hi>, will never be a +popular one. That was the message to his age of the itinerant +Cynic preacher, and his unkempt beard and ragged cloak and +the fashion of his life made him the mark of cheap and +abundant ridicule. Sometimes the contempt was deserved; +no great movement for the elevation of humanity has been +free from impostors. Yet the severe judgment of the Cynic +missionaries on their age is that of the polished orator, who +had as great a scorn as Lucian for the sensual or mercenary +Cynic, and yet took up the scrip and staff himself, to propagate +the same gospel as the Cynics.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xxxiv. § 2; lxxii. § 2.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Dion Chrysostom was certainly not a Cynic in the academic +sense, but he belonged to the same great movement. He +sprang from a good family at Prusa in Bithynia.<note place="foot">Cf. Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph.</hi> i. 7. For +other authorities <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der +Griech.</hi> iii. 1, p. 729, n. 1. Martha, +<hi rend="italic">Moralistes sous l’Emp. rom.</hi> 294, gives +a good sketch of Dion’s career.</note> He was +trained in all the arts of rhetoric, and taught and practised +them in the early part of his life. A suspected friendship led +to his banishment in the reign of Domitian, and in his exile, +with the <hi rend="italic">Phaedo</hi> and the <hi rend="italic">De Falsa Legatione</hi> as his companions, +he wandered over many lands, supporting himself +often by menial service.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xiii. § 1.</note> He at last found himself in his +wanderings in regions where wild tribes of the Getae for a +century and a half had been harrying the distant outposts of +Hellenic civilisation on the northern shores of the Euxine.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph.</hi> i. 7.</note> +The news of the death of Domitian reached a camp on the +Danube when Dion was there. The soldiery, faithful to their +emperor, were excited and indignant, but, under the spell of +Dion’s eloquence, they were brought to acquiesce in the +accession of the blameless Nerva. Dion at length returned +to Rome, and rose to high favour at court. Trajan often +<pb n="368"/><anchor id="Pg368"/>invited him to his table, and used to take him as companion +in his state carriage, although the honest soldier did not +pretend to appreciate Dion’s rhetoric.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph.</hi> i. 2; + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἔλεγε θαμὰ ἐπιστρεφόμενος ἐς τὸν Δίωνα “τί μὲν λέγεις, + οὐκ οἶδα, φιλῶ δέ σε ὡς ἐμαυτόν.”</foreign></note> +</p> + +<p> +During his exile, as he tells us, Dion had been converted +to more serious views of life. The triumphs of conventional +declamation before fashionable audiences lost their glamour. +Dion became conscious of a loftier mission to the dim masses +of that far-spreading empire through whose cities and +wildernesses he was wandering.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xiii. § 6, 9, 10, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">στολήν τε ταπεινὴν ἀναλαβὼν καὶ τἆλλα κολάσας ἐμαυτὸν +ἠλώμην πανταχοῦ</foreign>.</note> As to the eyes of Seneca, +men seemed to Dion, amid all their fair, cheerful life, to +be holding out their hands for help. Wherever he went, he +found that, in his beggar’s dress, he was surrounded by crowds +of people eager to hear any word of comfort or counsel +in the doubts and troubles of their lives. They assumed that +the poor wanderer was a philosopher. They plied him with +questions on the great problem, How to live; and the elegant +sophist was thus compelled to find an answer for them and +for himself.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 12, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">πολλοὶ γὰρ ἠρώτων προσιόντες, ὅ τι μοι φαίνοιτο ἀγαθὸν ἢ κακόν. + ὥστε ἠναγκαζόμην φροντίζειν ὑπὲρ τούτων ἵνα ἔχοιμι +ἀποκρίνεσθαι τοὶς ἐρωτώσιν</foreign>. +With the conversion of Dion cf. of that +of Isaeus and Polemon, etc., Philostr. +<hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph.</hi> i. p. 218; <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> i. +13; iv. 20; Epict. iii. 1; Diog. Laert. +iv. 3, § 1.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Dion never quite shook off the traditions and tone of the +rhetorical school. The ambition to say things in the most +elegant and attractive style, the love of amplifying, in leisurely +and elaborate development, a commonplace and hackneyed theme +still clings to him. His eighty orations are many of them +rather essays than popular harangues. They range over all sorts +of subjects, literary, mythological, and artistic, political and +social, as well as purely ethical or religious. But, after all, Dion is +unmistakably the preacher of a great moral revival and reform. +He cannot be classed definitely with any particular school of +philosophy. He is the apostle of Greek culture, yet he admires +Diogenes, the founder of the Cynics.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xxxvii. § 25; iv. § 1; +vi.</note> If he had any philosophic +ancestry, he would probably have traced himself to the +Xenophontic Socrates.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> liv.; xiii. § 13, 14, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἐνίοτε ὑπὸ ἀπορίας ᾖα ἐπί τινα λόγον ἀρχαῖον λεγόμενον ὑπό τινος +Σωκράτους κτλ.</foreign>: cf. +xviii. § 14, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">πάντων ἄριστος ἐμοὶ καὶ λυσιτελέστατος πρὸς ταῦτα πάντα Ξενοφῶν</foreign>.</note> But he is really the rhetorical apostle +<pb n="369"/><anchor id="Pg369"/>of the few great moral principles which were in the air, the +common stock of Platonist, Stoic, Cynic, even the Epicurean. +Philosophy to him is really a religion, the science of right +living in conformity to the will of the Heavenly Power. But +it is also the practice of right living. No Christian preacher +has probably ever insisted more strongly on the gulf which +separates the commonplace life of the senses from the life +devoted to a moral ideal.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> lxx. § 1, 7; +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καθόλου βίος ἄλλος μὲν τοῦ φιλοσοφοῦντος, ἄλλος δὲ τῶν πολλῶν ἀνθρώπων</foreign>; cf. xiii. § 33.</note> The only philosophy worth the +name is the earnest quest of the path to true nobility and +virtue, in obedience to the good genius, the unerring monitor +within the breast of each of us, in whose counsels lies the +secret of happiness properly so called.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xiii. § 28; xxiii. § 7, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οὐκοῦν τὸν τυχόντα ἀγαθοῦ δαίμονος ἡγῇ δικαίως ζῆν καὶ +φρονίμως καὶ σωφρόνως</foreign>; cf. Epict. +i. § 14, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἐπίτροπον ἑκάστῳ παρέστησε, τὸν ἑκάστου δαίμονα κτλ.</foreign> M. Aurel. v. 27.</note> Hence Dion speaks +with the utmost scorn alike of the coarse Cynic impostor, who +disgraces his calling by buffoonery and debauchery,<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xxxii. § 9; xxxv. § 2, +3; xxxiv. § 2.</note> and the +philosophic exquisite who tickles the ears of a fashionable +audience with delicacies of phrase, but never thinks of trying +to make them better men. He feels a sincere indignation at this +dilettante trifling, in view of a world which is in urgent need +of practical guidance.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xvi. § 2, 3; xxxv. § 8; cf. xiii. +§ 11, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οἱ μὲν γὰρ πολλοὶ τῶν καλουμένων φιλοσόφων αὐτοὺς +ἀνακηρύττουσιν κτλ.</foreign></note> For Dion, after all his wanderings +through the Roman world, has no illusions as to its moral +condition. He is almost as great a pessimist as Seneca or +Juvenal. In spite of all its splendour and outward prosperity, +society in the reign of Trajan seemed to Dion to be in a perilous +state. Along with his own conversion came the revelation of +the hopeless bewilderment of men in the search for happiness. +Dimly conscious of their evil plight, they are yet utterly +ignorant of the way to escape from it. They are swept hither +and thither in a vortex of confused passions and longings for +material pleasures.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xiii. § 13, 34, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἐδόκουν δέ μοι πάντες ἄφρονες, φερόμενοι τάντες ἐν ταὐτῷ καὶ +περὶ τὰ αὐτά, περί τε χρήματα καὶ δόξας καὶ σωμάτων τινὰς ἡδονάς κτλ.</foreign></note> Material civilisation, without any accompanying +moral discipline, has produced the familiar and inevitable +result, in an ever-increasing appetite for wealth and +enjoyment and showy distinction, which ends in perpetual disillusionment. +Dion warns the people of Tarsus that they are all +<pb n="370"/><anchor id="Pg370"/>sunk in a deep sensual slumber, and living in a world of mere +dreams, in which the reality of things is absolutely inverted. +Their famous river, their stately buildings, their wealth, even +their religious festivals, on which they plume themselves, are +the merest show of happiness.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xxxiii. § 17, 23, 32; cf. the +ghastly exposure in <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> vii. § 133.</note> Its real secret, which lies in +temperance, justice, and true piety, is quite hidden from their +eyes. When that secret is learnt, their buildings may be less +stately, gold and silver will perhaps not be so abundant, there +will be less soft and delicate living, there may be even fewer +costly sacrifices as piety increases; but there will be a clearer +perception of the true values of things, and a chastened +temperance of spirit, which are the only security for the +permanence of society. And the moralist points his audience +to the splendid civilisations of the past that have perished +because they were without a soul. Assyria and Lydia, the +great cities of Magna Graecia which lived in a dream of luxury, +what are they now? And, latest example of all, Macedon, +who pushed her conquests to the gates of India, and came +into possession of the hoarded treasures of the great Eastern +Empires, is gone, and royal Pella, the home of the race, is now +a heap of bricks.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xxxiii. §§ 24-28, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">εἴ τις διέρχοιτο Πέλλαν οὐδὲ σημεῖον ὄψεται πόλεως, +οὐδὲν δίχα τοῦ πολὺν κέραμον εἶναι συντετριμμένον ἐν τῷ τόπῳ</foreign>. Cf. xiii. §§ 33, 34.</note> +</p> + +<p> +It needed a courage springing from enthusiasm and conviction +to preach such unpalatable truths to an age which +gloried in its material splendour. Dion is often conscious +of the difficulty of his task; and he exerts all his trained +dexterity to appease opposition, and gain a hearing for his +message.<note place="foot">A good example is the opening of +<hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xxxii.</note> As regards the reform of character, Dion has no +new message to deliver. His is the old gospel of renunciation +for the sake of freedom, the doctrine of a right estimate of competing +objects of desire and of the true ends of life. Dion, like +nearly all Greek moralists from Socrates downwards, treats moral +error and reform as rather a matter of the intellect than of +emotional impulse. Vice is the condition of a besotted mind, +which has lost the power of seeing things as they really are;<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xiv. § 2; xiii. § 13, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἐδόκουν δέ μοι πάντες ἄφρονες, κτλ.</foreign>: cf. Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. +der Gr.</hi> iii. 1, p. 730, er zeigt mit den +Stoikern, dass die wahre Freiheit mit +der Vernünftigkeit, die Sklaverei mit +der Unvernunft zusammenfalle; cf. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> +xvi. § 4.</note> +<pb n="371"/><anchor id="Pg371"/>conversion must be effected, not by appeals to the feelings, but +by clarifying the mental vision. There is but little reference +to religion as a means of reform, although Dion speaks of the +love of God as a support of the virtuous character. As an +experienced moral director, Dion knew well the necessity of +constant iteration of the old truths. Just as the sick man +will violate his doctor’s orders, well knowing that he does so +to his hurt, so the moral patient may long refuse to follow a +principle of life which his reason has accepted.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xvii. 2, 3.</note> And so the +preacher, instead of apologising for repeating himself, will regard +it as a duty and a necessity to do so. +</p> + +<p> +But Dion did not aim at the formation of any cloistered +virtue, concentrated on personal salvation. He has a fine +passage in which he shows that retreat, (<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀναχώρησις</foreign>) detachment +of spirit, is quite possible without withdrawing from the +noises of the world.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xx. § 8, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">μὴ οὖν βελτίστη καὶ λυσιτελεστάτη πασῶν ἡ εἰς αὐτὸν +ἀναχώρησις κτλ.</foreign> Hatch, <hi rend="italic">Hib. Lec.</hi> p. 150.</note> And he felt himself charged with a +mission to bring the higher principles of conduct into the civic +life of the time. We know from Pliny’s correspondence with +Trajan, that the great cities of Bithynia, and not least Dion’s +birthplace,<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> x. 17, 23, 24, 58; Bury, +<hi rend="italic">Rom. Emp.</hi> p. 439.</note> were then suffering from unskilful administration +and wasteful finance. Dion completes the picture by showing +us their miserable bickerings and jealousies about the most +trivial things. He denounces the unscrupulous flattery of the +masses by men whose only object was the transient distinction +of municipal office, the passion for place and power, without any +sober wish to serve or elevate the community. He also exposes +the caprice, the lazy selfishness, and the petulant ingratitude of +the crowd.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xxxiv. § 10, 14, 48; +xxxviii. § 11; xxxiv. § 16, 19, 29, 31.</note> Dion, it is true, is an idealist, and his ideals of society +are perhaps not much nearer realisation in some of our great cities +than they were then. He often delivered his message to the +most unpromising audiences. Some of his finest conceptions +of social reorganisation were expounded before rude gatherings +on the very verge of civilisation.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xxxvi.</note> Once, in his wanderings, he +found himself under the walls of a half-ruined Greek town, +which had been attacked, the day before, by a horde of Scythian +barbarians. There, on the steps of the temple of Zeus, he +<pb n="372"/><anchor id="Pg372"/>expounded to an eager throng of mean Greek traders, with +all the worst vices, and only some faded traces of the culture +of their race, the true meaning of city life.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xxxvi. § 15, 8, 9, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">πάντες οἱ Βορυσθενῖται περὶ τὸν ποιητὴν ἐσπουδάκασιν κτλ.</foreign> Cf. § 20, 23.</note> It is a society of +men under the kingship of law, from which all greed, intemperance, +and violence have been banished; a little world which, +in its peaceful order and linked harmonies, should be modelled +on the more majestic order of the great city of the universe, +the city of gods and men. +</p> + +<p> +How far from their ideal were the cities of his native land, +Dion saw only too well. The urban life of Asia, as the result +of the Greek conquests, has perhaps never been surpassed in +external splendour and prosperity, and even in a diffusion of +intellectual culture. The palmy days of the glorious spring-time +of Hellenic vigour and genius in Miletus, Phocaea, and +Rhodes, seemed to be reproduced even in inland places, which +for 1500 years have returned to waste.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">Rom. Prov.</hi> i. pp. 326, 354; +cf. Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xiv. xv. 223-230 (Dind.).</note> Agriculture and +trade combined to produce an extraordinary and prosperous +activity. Education was endowed and organised, and literary +culture became almost universal.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">Rom. Prov.</hi> i. p. 362; cf. +Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> i. 7; <hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph.</hi> +i. p. 220, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καὶ προβήσεσθαι ἐπὶ μέγα τὰς Κλαζομενὰς ἡγουμένων εἰ τοιοῦτος δὴ ἀνὲρ +ἐμπαιδεύσοι σφισίν κτλ.</foreign></note> Nowhere did the wandering +sophist find more eager audiences, and no part of the Roman +world in that age contributed so great a number of teachers, +physicians, and philosophers. The single province of Bithynia, +within half a century, could boast of such names as Arrian, Dion +Cassius, and Dion Chrysostom himself. But moral and political +improvement did not keep pace with an immense material +and intellectual progress. The life of the cities indeed was very +intense; but, in the absence of the wider interests of the great +days of freedom, they wasted their energies in futile contests +for visionary distinctions and advantages. A continual struggle +was going on for the <q>primacy</q> of the province, and the name +of metropolis. Ephesus, the real capital, was challenged by +Smyrna, which on its coins describes itself as <q>first in greatness +and beauty.</q><note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">Rom. Prov.</hi> i. pp. 329, 330; +cf. Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xv.; Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. +Tyan.</hi> iv. 7, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">φρονεῖν ἐκέλευεν ἐφ’ ἑαυτοῖς μᾶλλον ἢ τῷ τῆς πόλεως εἴδει.</foreign> D. +Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xxxiv. 48; Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sitteng.</hi> +iii. p. 111.</note> The feuds between Nicomedia and its near +neighbour Nicaea caused Dion particular anxiety, and his speech +<pb n="373"/><anchor id="Pg373"/>to the people of Nicomedia is the best picture of the evils +which we are describing.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xxxviii. § 7, 31, 36.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The two cities have much in common. Their families have +intermarried; they are constantly meeting in their markets +and great religious festivals. They are bound together by +innumerable ties of private friendship.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xl. § 27, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἡ δὲ τῶν ἐγγὺς οὕτως καὶ ὀμόρων διαφορὰ καὶ τὸ μῖσος οὐδὲν +ἄλλο ἔοικεν ἢ στάσει μιᾶς πόλεως ὅπου καὶ γάμων κοινωνία, κτλ.</foreign></note> The primacy for which +they contend is the merest figment; there are no material +advantages at stake. Rather, these dissensions give a corrupt +Roman governor, who trades upon them, the power to injure +both the rival claimants.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xxxviii. §§ 26-31.</note> The same is true of other cities. +Tarsus is engaged in bitter contention with Mallus for a mere +line of sandhills on their frontiers.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xxxiv. §§ 44-48, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">αἱ μὲν οὖν θῖνες καὶ τὸ πρὸς τῇ λίμνῃ χωρίον οὐδενὸς ἄξια</foreign>.</note> Dion’s native Prusa has +an exasperated quarrel with Apamea for no solid reason whatever, +although the two towns are closely linked by nature to +one another, and mutually dependent through their trade and +manufactures. All this miserable and foolish jealousy Dion +exposes with excellent skill and sense; and he employs an +abundant wealth of illustration in painting the happiness which +attends harmony and good-will. It is the law of the universe, +from the tiny gregarious insect whose life is but for a day, to +the eternal procession of the starry spheres. The ant, in the +common industry of the Lilliputian commonwealth, yields to +his brother toiler, or helps him on his way.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xl. § 35.</note> The primal +elements of the Cosmos are tempered to a due observance of +their several bounds and laws. The sun himself hides his +splendour each night to give place to the lesser radiance of +the stars. This is rhetoric, of course, but it is rhetoric with a +moral burden. And it is impossible not to admire the lofty +tone of this heathen sophist, preaching the duty of forgiveness, +of mutual love and deference, the blessing of the quiet spirit +<q>which seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh +no evil.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xxxviii. §§ 42-46.</note> There is a certain pathos in remembering that, +within the very walls where these elevated orations were +delivered, there were shy companies of men and women meeting +in the early dawn to sing hymns to One who, three +generations before in Galilee, had taught a similar gospel of love +<pb n="374"/><anchor id="Pg374"/>and self-suppression, but with a strange mystic charm, denied +to the pagan eloquence, and that Dion seems never to have +known those with whom he had so close a kindred.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> x. 96, § 7.</note> +</p> + +<p> +In many another oration Dion strove to raise the moral +tone of his age. His speech to the Alexandrians is probably +his most gallant protest against the besetting sins of a great +population. Alexandria was a congeries of many races, in +which probably the Hellenic type of the Ptolemies had succumbed +to the enduring Egyptian <hi rend="italic">morale</hi>.<note place="foot">Mahaffy, <hi rend="italic">Greek World under +Roman Sway</hi>, p. 242; Merivale, viii. +p. 239; Momms. <hi rend="italic">Rom. Prov.</hi> ii. p. 264.</note> It was a populace at once +sensual and superstitious, passionately devoted to all excitement, +whether of games or orgiastic religious festival, with a +jeering irreverent vein, which did not spare even the greatest +Emperors. It was a curious medley—the seat of the most +renowned university of the ancient world, the gathering-place +and seed-ground of ideas which united the immemorial +mysticism of the East with the clear, cold reason of Hellas—and +yet a seething hot-bed of obscenity, which infected the +Roman world, a mob who gave way to lunatic excitement over +the triumph of an actor, or a singer, or the victor in a chariot-race.<note place="foot">Momms. ii. p. 263; D. Chrys. xxxii.; +Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iv. 81; Ael. Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> c. +12, 14; D. Cass. lxix. 11; Petron. 31, 68.</note> +It required no ordinary courage to address such a crowd, +and to charge them with their glaring faults. The people of +Alexandria are literally intoxicated with a song. The music +which, according to old Greek theory, should regulate the passions, +here only maddens them.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xxxii. § 57, 41, 51, +55; Pl. <hi rend="italic">Rep.</hi> iii. 399; Arist. <hi rend="italic">Pol.</hi> viii. 5.</note> And in the races all human +dignity seems to be utterly lost in the futile excitement of the +spectators over some low fellow contending for a prize in solid +cash.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xxxii. § 75.</note> Such a mob earns only the contempt of its rulers, and +men say that the Alexandrians care for nothing but the <q>big +loaf</q> and the sight of a race.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 31, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οἷς μόνον δεῖ παραβάλλειν τὸν πολὺν ἄρτον</foreign>.</note> All the dignity which should +surround a great people is forgotten in the theatre. It is +useless to boast of the majestic and bounteous river, the +harbours and markets crowded with the merchandise of +Western or Indian seas, of the visitors from every land, from +Italy, Greece, and Syria, from the Borysthenes, the Oxus, and +the Ganges.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 40.</note> They come to witness the shame of the second +<pb n="375"/><anchor id="Pg375"/>city in the world, which, in the wantonness of prosperity, has +lost the temperate dignity and orderly calm that are the real +glory of a great people. +</p> + +<p> +As a foil to the feverish life of luxury, quarrelsome rivalry, +and vulgar excitement which prevailed in the great towns, +Dion has left a prose idyll to idealise the simple pleasures and +virtues of the country.<note place="foot">See an excellent analysis of this +piece (vii.) in Mahaffy’s <hi rend="italic">Greek World +under Roman Sway</hi>, pp. 277-288.</note> It is also a dirge over the decay +of Greece, when crops were being reaped in the agora of historic +cities, and the tall grasses grew around the statues of gods and +heroes of the olden time.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> vii. § 34 sqq.</note> A traveller, cast ashore in the wreck +of his vessel on the dreaded Hollows of Euboea, was sheltered, in +a rude, warm-hearted fashion, by some peasants. Their fathers +had been turned adrift in the confiscation of the estate of a +great noble in some trouble with the emperor, and they had +made themselves a lonely home on a pastoral slope, close to a +stream, with the neighbouring shade of trees. They had taken +into tillage a few fields around their huts; they drove their +cattle to the high mountain pastures in summer time, and in +the winter they turned to hunting the game along the snowy +tracks. Of city life they know hardly anything. One of them, +indeed, had been twice in the neighbouring town, and he tells +what he saw there in a lively way. It is all a mere shadow +or caricature of the old civic life of Greece. There are the +rival orators, patriot or demagogue, the frivolous and capricious +crowd, the vote of the privilege of dining in the town-hall. The +serious purpose of the piece, however, is to idealise the simple +virtue and happiness of the country folk, and to discuss the +disheartening problem of the poor in great cities.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> §§ 105-108.</note> It is in +the main the problem of our modern urban life, and Dion had +evidently thought deeply about it, and was an acute observer +of the social misery which is the same from age to age. +Fortified by the divine Homer and ordinary experience, he +points out that the poor are more generous and helpful to the +needy than are the rich out of their ample store. Too often +the seeming bounty of the wealthy benefactor is of the nature +of a loan, which is to be returned with due interest.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> §§ 82-89, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">αἱ γὰρ δὴ φιλοφρονήσεις καὶ χάριτες, ἐὰν σκοπῇ τις ὀρθῶς, οὐδὲν διαφέρουσιν +ἐράνων καὶ δανείων</foreign>.</note> The +struggles and temptations of the poor in great cities suggest a +<pb n="376"/><anchor id="Pg376"/>discussion of the perpetual problem of prostitution, which +probably no ancient writer ever faced so boldly. The double +degradation of humanity, which it involved in the ancient world, +is powerfully painted;<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> vii. § 133; Musonius, +Stob. <hi rend="italic">Flor.</hi> vi. 61; cf. on this +subject Denis, <hi rend="italic">Idées Morales</hi>, etc. ii. p. +134.</note> and the plea that the indulgence in venal +immorality is the only alternative to insidious attacks on family +virtue is discussed with singular firmness and yet delicacy of +touch.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> vii. § 139.</note> The same detachment from contemporary prejudice is +shown in Dion’s treatment of slavery. He sees its fell effects +on the masters, in producing sensuality, languor, and helpless +dependence on others for the slightest services. He points +out that there is no criterion afforded by nature to distinguish +slave and free. The so-called free man of the highest rank +may be the offspring of a servile amour, and the so-called slave +may be ingenuous in every sense, condemned to bondage by an +accident of fortune.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> x. § 13; xv. § 5; 6, 31; cf. +Juv. xiv. 16; Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ben.</hi> iii. 21; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +47; cf. Denis, ii. 152; Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. +Rom.</hi> ii. p. 354.</note> Just as external freedom does not imply +moral worth, so legal enslavement does not imply moral degradation.<note place="foot">Cf. Newman’s <hi rend="italic">Politics of Aristotle</hi>, +Introd. p. 144.</note> +If moral justice always fixed the position of men +in society by their deserts, master and slave would often have +to change places.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xv. § 31.</note> In Dion’s judgment as to the enervating +effects of slavery on the slave-owning class, and the absence of +any moral or mental distinction to justify the institution, he +is in singular harmony with Seneca. +</p> + +<p> +The similarity of tone between Seneca and Dion is perhaps +even more marked in their treatment of monarchy. Inherited, +like so much else, from the great Greek thinkers of the fifth +and fourth centuries <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, the ideal of a beneficent and unselfish +prince, the true <q>shepherd of the people,</q> the antithesis of +the lawless and sensual tyrant, had become, partly, no +doubt, through the influence of the schools of rhetoric, a +common possession of cultivated minds. Vespasian gave it +a certain reality, if his son Domitian showed how easily the +king might pass into the tyrant. The dream of an earthly +providence, presiding over the Roman world, dawned in more +durable splendour with the accession of Trajan, and Pliny, +his panegyrist, has left us a sketch of the patriot prince, +<pb n="377"/><anchor id="Pg377"/>which is almost identical with the lines of Dion’s ideal.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> i. § 13; ii. §§ 75-77; +iii. § 39, 62, 107; iv. § 63; cf. Plin. +<hi rend="italic">Paneg.</hi> 72, 80, 67; Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Clem.</hi> i. 13, +§ 4; i. 19, § 2.</note> +Both Dion and Pliny were favourites of Trajan, and some of +Dion’s orations were delivered before his court. As a court +preacher, he justly boasts that he is no mere flatterer, although +we may suspect that his picture of the ideal monarch might +have been interpreted as drawn from the character of Trajan, +just as his picture of the tyrant was probably suggested by +Domitian.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> i. § 79; cf. iii. §§ 5, 6.</note> Still, we may well believe the orator when he +says that the man who had bearded the one at the cost of +long exile and penury, was not likely to flatter the other for +the gold or honours which he despised. And in these +discourses, Dion seems full of the sense of a divine mission. +Once, on his wanderings, he lost his way somewhere on the +boundaries of Arcadia, and, ascending a knoll to recover the +track, he found himself before a rude, ruined shrine of +Heracles, hung with votive offerings of the chase.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. § 52.</note> An aged +woman sat by them who told him that she had a spirit of +divination from the gods. The shepherds and peasants used +to come to her with questions about the fate of their flocks +and crops. And she now entrusted Dion with a message to +the great ruler of many men whom she prophesied Dion was +soon to meet.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 56.</note> It was a tale of Heracles, the great benefactor +of men from the rising to the setting sun, who, by his simple +strength, crushed all lawless monsters and gave the world +an ordered peace. His father inspired him with noble +impulse for his task by oracle and omen, and sent Hermes +once, when Heracles was still a boy at Thebes, to show him +the vision of the Two Peaks, and strengthen him in his virtue.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 66.</note> +They rose from the same rocky roots, amid precipitous crags +and deep ravines, and the noise of many waters. At first they +seemed to be one mountain mass, but they soon parted wide +asunder, the one being sacred to Zeus, the other to the lawless +Typhon. On the one crest, rising into the cloudless ether, +Kingship sits enthroned, in the likeness of a fair, stately +woman, clad in robes of glistening white, and wielding a +sceptre of brighter and purer metal than any silver or gold. +Under her steady gaze of radiant dignity, the good felt a +<pb n="378"/><anchor id="Pg378"/>cheerful confidence, the bad quailed and shrank away. She +was surrounded by handmaidens of a beauty like her own, +Justice and Peace and Order. The paths to the other peak +were many and secret, and skirted an abyss, streaming with +blood or choked with corpses. Its top was wrapped in mist +and cloud, and there sat Tyranny on a far higher and more +pompous throne, adorned with gold and ivory and many a +gorgeous colour, but a throne rocking and unstable. She +strove to make herself like to Kingship, but it was all mere +hollow pretence. Instead of the gracious smile, there was a +servile, hypocritical leer; instead of the glance of dignity, +there was a savage scowl. And around her sat a throng +bearing ill-omened names, Cruelty and Lust, Lawlessness and +Flattery and Sedition. On a question from Hermes, the +youthful Heracles made his choice, and his father gave him +his commission to be the saviour of men. +</p> + +<p> +In this fashion Dion, like Aeschylus, recasts old myth to +make it the vehicle of moral instruction, just as he finds in +Homer the true teacher of kings.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> iv. § 39.</note> The theory of ideal monarchy +is developed at such length as may have somewhat wearied +the emperor. But it really is based on a few great principles. +True kings, in Homer’s phrase, are sons of Zeus, and they are +shepherds of the people. All genuine political power rests on +virtue, and ultimately on the favour of Heaven. A king is +appointed by God to work the good of his subjects. And, as +his authority is divine, an image on earth of the sovereignty of +Zeus, the monarch will be a scrupulously religious man in the +highest sense,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. §§ 51, 62, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τὸ ἄρχειν οὐδαμῶς ῥᾴθυμον ἀλλ’ ἐπίπονον κτλ.</foreign></note> not merely by offering costly sacrifices, but by +righteousness, diligence, and self-sacrifice in performing the duties +of his solemn charge. The many titles addressed to Father Zeus +represent so many aspects of royal activity and virtue. The +true prince will be the father of his people, surrounded and +guarded by a loving reverence, which never degenerates into +fear. His only aim will be their good. He will keep sleepless +watch over the weak, the careless, those who are heedless for +themselves. Commanding infinite resources, he will know less +of mere pleasure than any man within his realm. With such +immense responsibilities, he will be the most laborious of all. +His only advantage over the private citizen is in his boundless +<pb n="379"/><anchor id="Pg379"/>command of friendship; for all men must be well-wishers to +one wielding such a beneficent power, with whom, from his +conception of his mission, they must feel an absolute identity +of interest. And the king’s greatest need is friendship, to +provide him with myriads of hands and eyes in the vast work +of government.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> iii. §§ 38, 88, 107.</note> Herein lies the sharpest contrast between the +true king and the tyrant, a contrast which was a commonplace +in antiquity, but which was stamped afresh by the juxtaposition +of the reign of Domitian and the reign of Trajan. The universal +hatred which pursued a bad Caesar even beyond the grave, +which erased his name from monuments and closed its eyes +even to intervals of serious purpose for the general weal, was a +terrible illustration of the lonely friendlessness of selfish power.<note place="foot">Sueton. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> xxxiii.; <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> lx. +abolendam Caesarum memoriam ac diruenda +templa censuerunt; cf. <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> +698, 699, 767, where the names of +Caligula and Domitian have been +erased.</note> +Instead of loyal and grateful friendship, the despot was mocked +by a venal flattery which was only its mimicry. The good +monarch will treat flatterers as false coiners who cause the +genuine currency to be suspected. This counsel and others of +Dion were often little regarded by succeeding emperors. Yet +even the last shadowy princes of the fifth century professed +themselves the guardians of the human race, and are oppressed +by an ideal of universal beneficence which they are impotent +to realise.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Nov. Valent.</hi> tit. viii.; <hi rend="italic">Leg. Anthem.</hi> +tit. i.; <hi rend="italic">Nov. Mart.</hi> ii.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Hitherto we have been occupied with the preaching of +Dion on personal conduct, the reform of civic life, or the +duties of imperial power. It cannot be said that he discusses +these subjects without reference to religious beliefs and +aspirations.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> vii. § 135, where the +gods of pure wedlock are appealed to +against vagrant vice.</note> But religion is rather in the background; the +reverence for the Heavenly Powers is rather assumed as a +necessary basis for human life rightly ordered. There is one +oration, however, of supreme interest to the modern mind, in +which Dion goes to the root of all religion, and examines the +sources of belief in God and the justification of anthropomorphic +imagery in representing Him. This utterance was +called forth by a visit to Olympia when Dion was advanced +in years.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xii. § 20.</note> The games of Olympia were a dazzling and +<pb n="380"/><anchor id="Pg380"/>inspiring spectacle, and the multitude which gathered there +from all parts of the world was a splendid audience. But, +with the sound of the sacred trumpet, and the herald’s voice, +proclaiming the victor, in his ears, Dion turns away from all +the glory of youthful strength and grace, even from the +legendary splendour of the great festival,<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xii. § 26.</note> to the majestic +figure of the Olympian Zeus, which had been graved by the +hand of Pheidias more than 500 years before, and to the +thoughts of the divine world which it suggested. That +greatest triumph of idealism in plastic art, inspired by +famous lines in the <hi rend="italic">Iliad</hi>, was, by the consent of all antiquity, +the masterpiece of Pheidias. Ancient writers of many ages +are lost in admiration of the mingled majesty and benignity +which the divine effigy expressed. To the eyes of Lucian it +seemed <q>the very son of Kronos brought down to earth, and +set to watch over the lonely plain of Elis.</q><note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">De Sacrif.</hi> 11, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οἴονται ὁρᾶν ... αὐτὸν τὸν Κρόνου καὶ Ῥέας εἰς τὴν γῆν +ὑπὸ Φειδίου μετῳκισμένον καὶ τὴν Πισαίων ἐρημίαν ἐπισκοπεῖν +κεκελευσμένον</foreign>.</note> There it sat +watching for more than 800 years, till it was swept away in +the fierce, final effort to dethrone the religion of the past. +Yet the majestic image, which attracted the fury of the +iconoclasts of the reign of Theodosius, inspired Dion with +thoughts of the Divine nature which travelled far beyond the +paganism either of poetry or of the crowd. It was not merely +the masterpiece of artistic and constructive skill which had +fascinated the gaze, and borne the vicissitudes, of so many +centuries, that moved his admiration; it was also, and more, +the moral effect of that miracle of art on the spectator. The +wildest and fiercest of the brute creation might be calmed and +softened by the air of majestic peace and kindness which +floated around the gold and ivory. <q>Whosoever among +mortal men is most utterly toil-worn in spirit, having drunk +the cup of many sorrows and calamities, when he stands before +this image, methinks, must utterly forget all the terrors and +woes of this mortal life.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xii. § 51, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">άνθρώπων δέ, ὃς ἂν ῃ παντελῶς ἐπίπονὰς τὴν ψυχήν, +πολλὰς ἀπαντλήσας ξυμφορὰς καὶ λύπας ἐν τῷ βίῳ ... +καὶ ὃς δοκεῖ μοι κατεναντίον στὰς τῆσδε τῆς εἰκόνος ἐκλαθέσθαι +πάντων ὅσα ἐν ἀνθρωπίνῳ βίῳ δεινὰ καὶ χαλεπὰ +γίγνεται παθεῖν.</foreign></note> +</p> + +<p> +But the thoughts of Dion, in presence of the majestic +figure at Olympia, take a wider range. His theme is nothing +<pb n="381"/><anchor id="Pg381"/>less than the sources of our idea of God, and the place of art in +religion. He pours his scorn upon hedonistic atheism. Our +conception of God is innate, original, universal among all the +races of men.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xii. §§ 27, 28, 33, 42; cf. Sen. +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 117, § 6, omnibus insita de dis +opinio est.</note> It is the product of the higher reason, contemplating +the majestic order, minute adaptation, and beneficent +provision for human wants in the natural world. In +that great temple, with its alternations of gloom and splendour, +its many voices of joy or of terror, man is being perpetually +initiated in the Great Mysteries, on a grander scale than at +Eleusis, with God Himself to preside over the rites. The +belief in God depends in the first instance on no human +teaching, any more than does the love of child to parent. +But this original intuition and belief in divine powers finds +expression through the genius of inspired poets; it is reinforced +by the imperative prescriptions of the founders and lawgivers +of states; it takes external form in bronze or gold and ivory +or marble, under the cunning hand of the great artist; it is +developed and expounded by philosophy.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xii. §§ 42, 43.</note> Like all the +deepest thinkers of his time, Dion is persuaded of the certainty +of God’s existence, but he is equally conscious of the remoteness +of the Infinite Spirit, and of the weakness of all human +effort to approach, or to picture it to the mind of man. We +are to Dion like <q>children crying in the night, and with no +language but a cry.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 61, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὥσπερ νήπιοι παῖδες πατρὸς ἢ μητρὸς ἀπεσπασμένοι ... +ὀρέγουσι χεῖρας οὐ παροῦσι πολλάκις ὀνειρώττοντες κτλ.</foreign></note> Yet the child will strive to image +forth the face of the Father, although it is hidden behind a +veil which will never be withdrawn in this world. The +genius of poetry, commanding the most versatile power of +giving utterance to the religious imagination, is first in order +and in power. Law and institution follow in its wake. The +plastic arts, under cramping limitations, come later still to +body forth the divine dreams of the elder bards. Dion had +thought much on the relative power of poetry and the +sculptor’s art to give expression to the thoughts and feelings +of man about the Divine nature. The boundless power or +licence of language to find a symbol for every thought or +image on the phantasy is seen at its height in Homer, who +<pb n="382"/><anchor id="Pg382"/>riots in an almost lawless exercise of his gifts.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xii. § 62.</note> But the chief +importance of the discussion lies in an arraignment of Pheidias +for attempting to image in visible form the great Soul and +Ruler of the universe, Whom mortal eye has never seen and +can never see. His defence is very interesting, both as a +clear statement of the limitations of the plastic arts, and as a +justification of material images of the Divine. +</p> + +<p> +Pheidias pleads in his defence that the artist could not, if +he would, desert the ancient religious tradition, which was +consecrated in popular imagination by the romance of poetry;<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 56.</note> +that is fixed for ever. Granted that the Divine nature is far +removed from us, and far beyond our ken; yet, as little +children separated from their parents, feel a strong yearning +for them and stretch out their hands vainly in their dreams, +so the race of man, from love and kindred, longs ever to draw +nigh to the unseen God by prayer and sacrifice and visible +symbol. The ruder races will image their god in trees or shapeless +stones, or may seek a strange symbol in some of the lower +forms of animal life.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 61; cf. Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is. et Osir.</hi> +lxxi., lxxii., lxxvi.; Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. +Tyan.</hi> vi. 19; Max. Tyr. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> viii. +§ 5.</note> The higher may find sublime expression +of His essence in the sun and starry spheres. For the pure +and infinite mind which has engendered and which sustains the +universe of life, no sculptor or painter of Hellas has ever found, +or can ever find, full and adequate expression.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xii. § 59, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">νοῦν γὰρ καὶ φρόνησιν αὐτὴν καθ’ αὑτὴν οὔτε τις πλάστης +οὔτε τις γραφεὺς εἰκάσαι δυνατὸς ἔσται</foreign>: Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is.</hi> lxxix.</note> Hence men +take refuge in the vehicle and receptacle of the noblest spirit +known to them, the form of man. And the Infinite Spirit, of +which the human is an effluence, may perhaps best be embodied +in the form of His child.<note place="foot">Cf. Max. Tyr. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> viii. § 3, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τὸ μὲν Ἑλληνικὸν τιμᾶν τοὺς θεοὺς ἐνομίσε τῶν ἐν γῇ καλλίστοις, +ὕλῃ μὲν καθαρᾷμορφῇ δὲ ἀνθρωπίνῃ τέχνῃ δὲ ἀκριβεῖ</foreign>.</note> But no effort or ecstasy of artistic +fancy, in form or colour, can ever follow the track of the Homeric +imagination in its majesty and infinite variety of expression. +The sculptor and painter have fixed limits set to their skill, +beyond which they cannot pass. They can appeal only to the +eye; their material has not the infinite ductility and elasticity +of the poetic dialect of many tribes and many generations. +They can seize only a single moment of action or passion, and +fix it for ever in bronze or stone. Yet Pheidias, with a certain +<pb n="383"/><anchor id="Pg383"/>modest self-assertion, pleads that his conception of the Olympian +Zeus, although less various and seductive than Homer’s, although +he cannot present to the gazer the crashing thunderbolt or the +baleful star, or the heaving of Olympus, is perhaps more elevating +and inspiring.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xii. § 78.</note> The Zeus of Pheidias is the peace-loving +and gentle providence of an undisturbed and harmonious +Greece, the august giver of all good gifts, the father and +saviour and guardian of men. The many names by which +men call him may each find some answering trait in the +laborious work of the chisel. In the lines of that majestic +and benign image are shadowed forth the mild king and father, +the hearer of prayer, the guardian of civic order and family +love, the protector of the stranger, and the power who gives +fertile increase to flock and field. The Zeus of Pheidias and +of Dion is a God of mercy and peace, with no memory of the +wars of the Giants.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> §§ 74, 75.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Dion is a popular teacher of morality, not a thinker or +theologian. But this excursion into the field of theology +shows him at his best. And it prepares us for the study of +some more formal efforts to find a theology in the poetry +of legend. +</p> + +</div><div type="chapter" n="3" rend="page-break-before: always"> +<pb n="384"/><anchor id="Pg384"/> +<index index="toc" level1="III. The philosophic theologian"/><index index="pdf" level1="III. The philosophic theologian"/> +<head>CHAPTER III</head> + +<head type="sub">THE PHILOSOPHIC THEOLOGIAN</head> + +<p> +The times were ripe for a theodicy. Religion of every mood +and tone, of every age and clime, was in the air, and philosophy +had abandoned speculation and turned to the direction of conduct +and spiritual life. The mission of philosophy is to find +the one in the many, and never did the religious life of men +offer a more bewildering multiplicity and variety, not to say +chaos, to the ordering power of philosophy. The scepticism +of the Neronian age had almost disappeared. The only +rationalists of any distinction in the second century were +Lucian and Galen.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> iii. pp. 430, 435; cf. Thiersch, <hi rend="italic">Politik u. Phil. in ihrem +Verhältn. zur Religion</hi>, p. 9.</note> It was an age of imperious spiritual +cravings, alike among the cultivated and the vulgar. But +the thin abstractions of the old Latin faith and the brilliant +anthropomorphism of Greece had ceased to satisfy even the +crowd. It was an age with a longing for a religious system +less formal and coldly external, for a religion more satisfying +to the deeper emotions, a religion which should offer divine +help to human need and misery, divine guidance amid the +darkness of time; above all, a divine light in the mystery of +death. The glory of classic art had mysteriously closed. It +was an age rather of material splendour, and, at first sight, an +age of bourgeois ideals of parochial fame and mere enjoyment +of the hour. Yet the Antonine age has some claim to spiritual +distinction. In the dim, sub-conscious feelings of the masses, +as well as in the definite spiritual effort of the higher minds, +there was really a great movement towards a ruling principle +of conduct and a spiritual vision. Men often, indeed, followed +<pb n="385"/><anchor id="Pg385"/>the marsh-light through strange devious paths into wildernesses +peopled with the spectres of old-world superstition. But the +light of the Holy Grail had at last flashed on the eyes of some +loftier minds. From the early years of the second century we +can trace that great combined movement of the new Platonism +and the revived paganism,<note place="foot">Thiersch, <hi rend="italic">Politik und Philosophie +in ihrem Verhältniss zur Religion</hi>, pp. +14, 15.</note> which so long retarded the triumph +of the Church, and yet, in the Divinely-guided evolution, was +destined to prepare men for it. +</p> + +<p> +The old religion had not lost all hold on men’s minds, as it is +sometimes said to have done, in rather too sweeping language. +The punctilious ritual with which, in the stately narrative of +Tacitus, the Capitol was restored by Vespasian, the pious care +with which the young Aurelius recited the Salian litany in +words no longer understood, the countless victims which he +offered to the guardian gods of Rome in evil days of pestilence +and doubtful war, these things reveal the strength of the +religion of Numa. Two centuries after M. Aurelius was in his +grave, the deities which had cradled the Roman state, and +watched over its career, were still objects of reverence to the +conservative circle of Symmachus. A religion which was +intertwined with the whole fabric of government and society, +which gave its sanction or benediction to every act and +incident in the individual life, which was omnipresent in game +and festival, in temple and votive monument, was placed far +beyond the influence of changing fashions of devotion. It +was a powerful stay of patriotism, a powerful bond of civic +and family life; it threw a charm of awe and old-world sanctity +around everything it touched. But for the deeper spiritual +wants and emotions it furnished little nutriment. To find +relief and cleansing from the sense of guilt, cheer and glad +exaltation of pious emotion, consolation in the common miseries +of life, and hope in the shadow of death, men had to betake +themselves to other systems. The oriental religions were pouring +in like a flood, and spreading over all the West. One +Antonine built a shrine of Mithra,<note place="foot">Réville, <hi rend="italic">Rel. unter den Sev.</hi> p. 81.</note> another took the tonsure +of Isis.<note place="foot">Lamprid. <hi rend="italic">Commodus</hi>, c. 9.</note> The priests and acolytes of the Egyptian goddess +were everywhere, chanting their litanies in solemn processions +<pb n="386"/><anchor id="Pg386"/>along the streets, instructing and baptizing their catechumens, +and, in the alternating gloom and splendour of their mysteries, +bearing the entranced soul to the boundaries of life and death.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. c. 11, 22.</note> +Mithra, <q>the Unconquered,</q> was justifying his name. In +every district from the Euxine to the Solway he brought a +new message to heathendom. Pure from all grossness of +myth, the Persian god of light came as the mediator and +comforter, to soothe the poor and broken-hearted, and give the +cleansing of the mystic blood. His hierarchy of the initiated, +his soothing symbolic sacraments, his gorgeous ritual, and his +promise of immortality to those who drank the mystic Haoma, +gratified and stimulated religious longings which were to find +their full satisfaction in the ministry of the Church. +</p> + +<p> +But the religious imagination was not satisfied with historic +and accredited systems. Travel and conquest were adding to +the spiritual wealth or burden of the Roman race. In lonely +Alpine passes, in the deserts of Africa, or the Yorkshire dales, +in every ancient wood or secret spring which he passed in his +wanderings or campaigns, the Roman found hosts of new +divinities, possible helpers or possible enemies, whose favour +it was expedient to win.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 186, 193, 228 sqq., 275, +1637, 1580, 5873, 5879, 5887, 1993.</note> And, where he knew not their +strange outlandish names, he would try to propitiate them all +together under no name, or any name that pleased them.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 110, 111.</note> +And, as if this vague multitude of ghostly powers were not +large enough for devotion, the fecundity of imagination created +a host of genii, of haunting or guarding spirits, attached to +every place or scene, to every group or corporation of men +which had a place in Roman life. There were genii of the +secret spring or grove, of the camp, the legion, the cohort, of +the Roman people, above all, there was the genius of the +emperor.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6628 (fontis), 4922 +(castrorum), 1704 (legionis), 1812 +(Neronis), 3953 (Hadriani).</note> Apotheosis went on apace—apotheosis not merely +of the emperors, but of a theurgic philosopher like Apollonius, +of a minion like Antinous, of a mere impostor like Alexander +of Abonoteichos.<note place="foot">Lamprid. <hi rend="italic">Alex. Sev.</hi> c. 29; Spart. +<hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> 14, § 5; Luc. <hi rend="italic">Peregr.</hi> c. 29; +Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> iii. pp. 454-456. +Thiersch, <hi rend="italic">Pol. u. Phil. in Verhältn. +zur Rel.</hi> p. 10.</note> Old oracles, which had been suppressed or +decadent in the reign of Nero, sprang into fresh life and +popularity in the reign of Trajan. New sources of oracular +<pb n="387"/><anchor id="Pg387"/>inspiration were opened, some of them challenging for the +time the ancient fame of Delphi or Dodona.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Alex.</hi> 19; Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sitteng.</hi> +iii. p. 470; Thiersch, p. 19.</note> According to +Lucian, oracles were pealing from every rock and every altar.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Deor. Conc.</hi> 12, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀλλὰ ἤδη πᾶς λίθος καὶ πᾶς βωμὸς ... χρησμῳδεῖ</foreign>.</note> +Every form of revelation or divination, every avenue of access +to the Divine, was eagerly sought for, or welcomed with pious +credulity. The study of omens and dreams was reduced to the +form of a pseudo-science by a host of writers like Artemidorus. +The sacred art of healing through visions of the night found a +home in those charming temples of Asclepius, which rose +beside so many hallowed springs, with fair prospect and genial +air, where the god revealed his remedy in dreams, and a lore +half hieratic, half medical, was applied to relieve the sufferer.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sitteng.</hi> iii. pp 474-478; +Wolff, <hi rend="italic">De Nov. Orac. Aetate</hi>, p. 29 sq.</note> +Miracles and special providences, the most marvellous or the +most grotesque, were chronicled with unquestioning faith, not +only by fanatics like Aelian, but by learned historians like +Tacitus and Suetonius. Tales of witchcraft and weird sorcery +are as eagerly believed at Trimalchio’s dinner-table<note place="foot">Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 61, 62.</note> as in +lonely villages of Thessaly. On the higher level of the new +Pythagorean faith, everything is possible to the pure spirit. +To such a soul God will reveal Himself by many voices to +which gross human clay is deaf; the future lays bare its secrets; +nature yields up her hidden powers. Spiritual detachment +triumphs over matter and time; and the Pythagorean apostle +predicts a plague at Ephesus, casts out demons, raises the +dead, vanishes like a phantom from the clutches of Domitian.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> v. 12; iv. +5; iv. 10; vii. 5.</note> +</p> + +<p> +At a superficial glance, a state of religion such as has been +sketched might seem to be a mere bewildering chaos of infinitely +divided spiritual interest. Men seem to have adopted the +mythologies of every race, and to have superadded a new +mythology of positively boundless fecundity. A single votive +tablet will contain the names of the great gods of Latium and +Greece, of Persia, Commagene, and Egypt, and beside them, +strange names of British or Swiss, Celtic, Spanish, or Moorish +gods, and the vaguely-designated spirits who now seemed +to float in myriads around the scenes of human life.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> xii. 3070, 4316; viii. 9195; +viii. 4578, Jovi, Junoni, Minervae, Soli +Mithrae, Herculi, Marti, Genio loci, +Diis, Deabusque omnibus; cf. viii. +4578; vi. 504.</note> Yet, +<pb n="388"/><anchor id="Pg388"/>unperceived by the ordinary devotee, amid all this confused +ferment, a certain principle of unity or comprehension was +asserting its power. Although the old gods in Lucian’s piece +might comically complain that they were being crowded out +of Olympus by Mithra and Anubis and their barbarous company,<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Jup. Trag.</hi> 8, 9; <hi rend="italic">Deor. Conc.</hi> +8 sqq.</note> +there was really little jealousy or repulsion among the +pagan cults. Ancient ritual was losing its precision of outline; +the venerable deities of classical myth were putting off +the decided individuality which had so long distinguished them +in the popular imagination.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. T.</hi> vi. 40; Baumgart, +<hi rend="italic">Aristides als Repräsentant der +Soph. Rhet.</hi> pp. 62, 84; cf. Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> +xi. c. 5; Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> i. 17.</note> The provinces and attributes +of kindred deities melted into one another and were finally +identified; syncretism was in the air. Without the unifying +aid of philosophy, ordinary piety was effecting unconsciously +a vast process of simplification which tended to ideal unity. +In the Sacred Orations of Aristides, Poseidon, Athene, Serapis, +Asclepius, are dropping the peculiar powers by which they +were so long known, and rising, without any danger of collision, +to all-embracing sway. So, the Isis of Apuleius, the <q>goddess +of myriad names,</q> in her vision to Lucius, boldly claims +to be <q>Queen of the world of shades, first of the inhabitants +of Heaven, in whom all gods find their unchanging type.</q><note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. cc. 3-6.</note> +Of course, to the very end, the common superstitious devotion +of the masses was probably little influenced by the great +spiritual movement which, in the higher strata, was moulding +heathen faith into an approach to monotheism. The simple +peasant still clung to his favourite deity, as his Catholic +descendant has to-day his favourite saint. But it is in the +higher minds that the onward sweep of great spiritual movements +can really be discerned. The initiation of Apuleius in +all the mysteries, the reverent visits of Apollonius to every +temple and oracle from the Ganges to the Guadalquivir, the +matins of Alexander Severus in a chapel which enshrined the +images of Abraham and Orpheus, of Apollonius and Christ;<note place="foot">Lamprid. <hi rend="italic">Alex. Sev.</hi> c. 29.</note> +these, and many other instances of all-embracing devotion, +point forward to the goal of that Platonist théodicée which it +is the purpose of this chapter to expound. +</p> + +<p> +The spectacle of an immense efflorescence of pure paganism, +<pb n="389"/><anchor id="Pg389"/>most of it born of very mundane fears and hopes and desires, +to men like Lucian was a sight which might, according to the +mood, move to tears or laughter. But the same great impulse +which drove the multitude into such wild curiosity of superstition, +was awaking loftier conceptions of the Divine, and +feelings of purer devotion in the educated. And sometimes +the very highest and the very lowest developments of the +protean religious instinct may be seen in a single mind. Was +there ever such a combination of the sensualist imagination +with the ideal of ascetic purity, of the terrors and dark arts +of anile superstition with the mystic vision of God, as in the +soul of Apuleius? The painter of the foulest scenes in ancient +literature seems to have cherished the faith in a heavenly King, +First Cause of all nature, Father of all living things,<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Apol.</hi> c. 64 (536), totius +naturae causa et ratio, summus animi +genitor, aeternus animantum sospitator +... neque tempore neque loco neque +vice ulla comprehensus, nemini effabilis; +cf. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. c. 25; Denis, <hi rend="italic">Hist. +des Idées Morales</hi>, ii. p. 264.</note> Saviour of +spirits, beyond the range of time and change, remote, ineffable. +The prayer of thanksgiving to Isis might, <hi rend="italic">mutatis mutandis</hi>, be +almost offered in a Christian church. The conception of the +unity and purity of the Divine One was the priceless conquest +of Greek philosophy, and pre-eminently of Plato. It had +been brought home to the Roman world by the teaching of +Stoicism. But there is a new note in the monotheism of +the first and second centuries of the Empire. God is no +longer a mere intellectual postulate, the necessary crown +and lord of a great cosmic system. He has become a moral +necessity. His existence is demanded by the heart as well as +by the intellect. Men craved no longer for a God to explain +the universe, but to resolve the enigma of their own lives; not +a blind force, moving on majestically and mercilessly to <q>some +far-off event,</q> but an Infinite Father guiding in wisdom, +cherishing in mercy, and finally receiving His children to +Himself. This is the conception of God which, from Seneca +to M. Aurelius, is mastering the best minds, both Stoic and +Platonist.<note place="foot">Thiersch, <hi rend="italic">Pol. u. Phil. in ihrem +Verhältn. zur Rel.</hi> p. 21, man nennt den +Marcus einen Stoiker.... Aber +seine Dogmatik und seine ganze Seelenbestimmung +gehört schon weit mehr +dem Neoplatonismus an. Cf. Bussell, +<hi rend="italic">School of Plato</hi>, pp. 278-290.</note> Seneca, as we have seen in a former chapter, often +speaks in the hard tones of the older Stoicism. Sometimes +<pb n="390"/><anchor id="Pg390"/>God, Nature, Fate, Jupiter, are identical terms<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> iv. 7.</note>. But the +cold, materialistic conception of God is irreconcilable with +many passages in his writings. Like Epictetus and M. Aurelius, +Seneca is often far more emotional, we may say, far more +modern, than his professed creed. The materialistic <hi rend="italic">Anima +Mundi</hi>, interfused with the universe and the nature of man, +becomes the infinitely benign Creator, Providence, and Guardian, +the Father, and almost the Friend of men. He is the Author +of all good, never of evil: He is gentle and pitiful, and to +attribute to Him storm or pestilence or earthquake or the +various plagues of human life is an impiety. These things are +the result of physical law. To such a God boundless gratitude +is due for His goodness, resignation in the wise chastenings of +His hand. He chastises whom he loves. In bereavement, He +takes only what He has given. He is our ready helper in +every moral effort; no goodness is possible without His succour. +In return for all His benefits, He asks for no costly material +offerings, no blood of victims, no steaming incense, no adulation +in prayer. Faith in God is the true worship of Him. If you +wish to propitiate Him, imitate His goodness. And for the +elect soul the day of death is a birthday of eternity, when the +load of corporeal things is shaken off, and the infinite splendour +of the immortal life spreads out with no troubling shadow.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, p. 649. +Cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 10, § 5; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 73, § 16; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +41, § 2; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 63, § 7; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 83, § 1; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +95, § 50; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 102, § 28, nulla serenum +umbra turbabit; <hi rend="italic">De Prov.</hi> iv. 7; <hi rend="italic">De +Ira</hi>, ii. 27; <hi rend="italic">De Clem.</hi> i. 7; <hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> 1. +29.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Hardly less striking is the warmth of devout feeling which +suffuses the moral teaching of Epictetus and M. Aurelius. +They have not indeed abandoned the old Stoic principle that +man’s final good depends on the rectitude of the will. But +the Stoic sage is no longer a solitary athlete, conquering by +his proud unaided strength, and in his victory rising almost +superior to Zeus. Growing moral experience had taught +humility, and inspired the sense of dependence on a Higher +Power in sympathy with man.<note place="foot">Epict. i. 9, § 7, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τὸ δὲ τὸν θεὸν ποιητὴν ἔχειν καὶ πατέρα καὶ κηδεμόνα, +οὐκέτι ἡμᾶς ἐξαιρήσεται λυπῶν καὶ φόβων</foreign>: cf. i. 3, § 3; Denis, <hi rend="italic">Hist. des +Idées Morales</hi>, ii. p. 241.</note> No true Stoic, of course, +could ever forget the Divine element within each human soul +which linked it with the cosmic soul, and through which man +might bring himself into harmony with the great polity of +<pb n="391"/><anchor id="Pg391"/>gods and men. But, somehow, the Divine Power immanent in +the world, from a dim, cold, impalpable law or fate or impersonal +force, slowly rounds itself off into a Being, if not +apart from man, at any rate his superior, his Creator and +Guardian, nay, in the end, his Father, from whom he comes, +to whom he returns at death. Some may think this a decline +from the lofty plane of the older school. The answer is that the +earlier effort to find salvation through pure reason in obedience +to the law of the whole, although it may have been magnificent, +was not a working religion for man as he is constituted. The +eternal involution of spirit and matter in the old Stoic creed, +the cold, impersonal, unknowable power, which, under whatever +name, Law, Reason, Fate, Necessity, permeates the universe, +necessarily exclude the idea of design, of providence, of moral +care for humanity. The unknown Power which claims an +absolute obedience, has no aid or recognition for his worshipper. +The monism of the old Stoics breaks down. The human +spirit, in striving to realise its unity with the Universal Spirit, +realises with more and more intensity the perpetual opposition +of matter and spirit, while it receives no aid in the conflict from +the power which ordains it; it <q>finds itself alone in an alien +world.</q> The true Stoic has no real object of worship. If he +addresses the impassive centre and soul of his universe, sometimes +in the rapturous tones of loving devotion, it is only a +pathetic illusion born of the faiths of the past, or inspired by a +dim forecast of the faiths of the coming time. How could the +complex of blind forces arouse any devotion? It demanded +implicit submission and self-sacrifice, but it gave no help, +save the name of a Divine element in the human soul; it +furnished no inspiring example to the sage in the conflicts of +passion, under obloquy, obstruction, and persecution. Meanwhile, +in this forlorn struggle, the human character was through +stress and storm developing new powers and virtues, lofty +courage in the face of lawless power, pious resignation to the +blows of fortune, gentle consideration and mercy even for +slaves and the outcasts of society, ideals of purity unknown to +the ancient world in its prime. The sage might, according to +orthodox theory, rest in a placid content of rounded perfection. +But human nature is not so constituted. In proportion to +spiritual progress is the force of spiritual longings; <hi rend="italic">beati +<pb n="392"/><anchor id="Pg392"/>mundo corde, ipsi Deum videbunt</hi>. The fruitful part of +Stoicism as a religion was the doctrine that the human reason +is a part of the soul of the world, a spark of the Divine mind. +At first this was only conceived in the fashion of a materialistic +pantheism.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, pp. +179, 184.</note> The kindred between the individual and the +general soul was little more than a physical doctrine. But it +developed in minds like Epictetus and Seneca a profound +spiritual meaning; it tapped the source of all real religion. +Pure reason can never solve the religious problem. The +history of religions shows that a conception of God which is +to act effectually on composite human nature is never reached +by the speculative intellect. What reason cannot do is effected +by the <q>sub-conscious self,</q><note place="foot">James, <hi rend="italic">Varieties of Religious Belief</hi>, +pp. 511, 512.</note> which is the dim seat of the +deeper intuitions, haunted by vague memories, hereditary +pieties, and emotional associations, the spring of strange +genius, of heroic sacrifice, of infinite aspiration. There throbs +the tide <q>which drew from out the boundless deep.</q> Thus +the Stoic of the later time became a mystic, in the sense +that <q>by love and emotion he solved the dualism of +the world.</q><note place="foot">Bussell, <hi rend="italic">School of Plato</hi>, p. 296.</note> God is no longer a mere physical law or +force, however subtilised, sweeping on in pitiless impetus or +monotony of cyclic change. God is within the human soul, +not as a spark of empyreal fire, but as the voice of conscience, +the spiritual monitor and comforter, the <q>Holy Spirit,</q><note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 41, § 2, sacer intra nos +spiritus sedet.</note> +prompting, guarding, consoling in life and death. God is no +longer found so much in the ordered movement of the +spheres and the recurring processes or the cataclysms of the +material universe. He is heard in the still small voice. +It is thus that the later Stoicism melts into the revived +Platonism. +</p> + +<p> +Probably Seneca and Epictetus, had they been interrogated, +would have loyally resolved their most rapturous and devout +language into the cold terms of Stoic orthodoxy. But the +emotional tone is a really new element in their teaching, and +the language of spiritual abandonment, joyful resignation to a +Higher Will, free and cheerful obedience to it in the confidence +of love, would be absurdly incongruous if addressed to an +<pb n="393"/><anchor id="Pg393"/>abstract law or physical necessity.<note place="foot">Yet cf. Zeller, iii. 1, p. 649, der göttliche +Beistand, welchen er verlangt, ist +kein übernatürlicher. Seneca had +broken away unconsciously from the +old Stoic idea of God, more than Zeller +will admit, or his words have no +meaning.</note> The fatherhood of God +and the kinship of all men as His sons is the fundamental +principle of the new creed, binding us to do nothing unworthy +of such an ancestry.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 95, §§ 51, 52.</note> At other times we are soldiers of God +in a war with evil, bound to military obedience, awaiting calmly +the last signal to retreat from the scene of struggle.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 107, § 9; Epict. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> iii. 24.</note> The +infinite benevolence of God is asserted in the face of all appearances +to the contrary. This of course is all the easier to one +trained in the doctrine that the external fortune of life has +nothing to do with man’s real happiness. The fear of God is +banished by the sense of His perfect love. The all-seeing eye, +the all-embracing providence, leave no room for care or foreboding. +The Stoic optimism is now grounded on a personal +trust in a loving and righteous will: <q>I am Thine, do with me +what Thou wilt.</q> <q>For all things work together for good to +them who love Him.</q> The external sufferings and apparent +wrongs of the obedient sons of God are no stumbling-blocks to +faith.<note place="foot">Epict. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> iii. 20, § 11, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">κακὸς γείτων; Αὑτῷ· ἀλλ’ ἐμοὶ ἀγαθός· γυμνάζει μου τὸ εὔγνωμον, + τὸ ἐπιεικές</foreign>: iv. +1, § 89; M. Aurel. vi. 44.</note> The great heroic example, Heracles, the son of Zeus, +was sorely tried by superhuman tasks, and won his crown of +immortality through toil and battle. <q>Whom He loves He +chastens.</q> Even apparent injustice is only an education through +suffering. These things are <q>only light afflictions</q> to him who +sees the due proportions of things and knows Zeus as his father. +Even to the poor, the lame, the blind, if they have the divine +love, the universe is a great temple, full of mystery and joy, +and each passing day a festival. In the common things of life, +in ploughing, digging, eating, we should sing hymns to God. +<q>What else can I do,</q> says Epictetus, <q>a lame old man, than sing +His praise, and exhort all men to join in the same song?</q><note place="foot"><anchor id="Note393-5"/>Epict. i. 16, § 20, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τί γὰρ ἄλλο δύναμαι γέρων χωλὸς εἰ μὴ ὑμνεῖν τὸν θεόν; κτλ.</foreign></note> +Who shall say what depth of religious emotion, veiled under old-world +phrase, there was in that outburst of M. Aurelius: <q>All +harmonises with me which is in harmony with thee, O Universe. +Nothing for me is too early nor too late which is in due season +for thee.... For thee are all things, in thee are all things, +<pb n="394"/><anchor id="Pg394"/>to thee all things return. The poet says, Dear City of Cecrops; +and wilt not thou say, Dear City of Zeus?</q><note place="foot">M. Aurel. iv. 23.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The attitude of such souls to external worship in every +age may be easily divined without the evidence of their words. +If God is good and wishes only the good of His creatures, +then to seek to appease His wrath and avert His capricious +judgments becomes an impiety. If men’s final good lies in +the moral sphere, in justice, gentleness, temperance, obedience +to the higher order, then prayer for external goods, for mere +indulgences of sense or ambition, shows a hopeless misconception +as to the nature of God and the supreme destiny of +man.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ix. 40; Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 10, § 5.</note> On the other hand, without giving up the doctrine +that the highest good depends on the virtuous will, the later +Stoics and Platonists have begun to feel that man needs +support and inspiration in his moral struggles from a higher +Power, a Power without him and beyond him, yet who is allied +to him in nature and sympathy. Prayer is no longer a means +of winning temporal good things <q>for which the worthy need +not pray, and which the unworthy will not obtain.</q> It is a +fortifying communion with the Highest, an act of thanksgiving +for blessings already received, an inspiration for a fuller and +diviner life.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iv. 40, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὦδε εὔχομαι, ὦ θεοί, δοίετέ μοι τὰ ὀφειλόμενα</foreign>. +Max. Tyr. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> xi. 8, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀλλὰ σὺ μὲν ἠγεῖ τὴν τοῦ φιλοσόφου εὐχὴν αἴτησιν εἶναι τῶν οὐ παρόντων· + ἐγὼ δὲ ὁμιλίαν καὶ διάλεκτον πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς περὶ τῶν παρόντων + καὶ ἐπίδειξιν τῆς ἀρητῆς</foreign>.</note> It is an effort of gratitude and adoration to draw +from the Divine source of all moral strength. +</p> + +<p> +It must always remain to moderns an enigma how souls +living in such a spiritual world refused to break with heathen +idolatry. Seneca, indeed, poured contempt on the grossness +of myth in a lost treatise on superstition;<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Frag.</hi> preserved in S. Aug. <hi rend="italic">De Civ. +Dei</hi>, vi. 10.</note> and he had no +liking for the external rites of worship. But in some +strange way M. Aurelius reconciled punctilious devotion to +the popular gods with an austere pantheism or monotheism. +It is in Platonists such as Dion or Maximus of Tyre that +we meet with an attempted apology for anthropomorphic +symbolism of the Divine.<note place="foot">D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xii. § 24 (412 R); +Max. Tyr. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> viii. 10.</note> The justification lies in the vast +gulf which separates the remote, ineffable, and inconceivable +purity of God from the feebleness and grossness of man. Few +<pb n="395"/><anchor id="Pg395"/>are they who can gaze in unaided thought on the Divine +splendour unveiled. Images, rites, and sacred myth have +been invented by the wisdom of the past, to aid the memory +and the imagination of weak ordinary souls. The symbols +have varied with the endless variety of races. Animals or +trees, mountain or river, rude unhewn stones, or the miracles of +Pheidias in gold and ivory, are simply the sign or picture by +which the soul is pointed to the Infinite Essence which has +never been seen by mortal eye or imaged in human phantasy. +The symbol which appeals to one race may be poor and contemptible +in the eyes of another. The animal worship of +Egypt gave a shock to minds which were lifted heavenwards by +the winning majesty of the Virgin Goddess or of the Zeus of +Olympia. The human form, as the chosen tabernacle of an +effluence of the Divine Spirit, might well seem to Dion and +Maximus the noblest and most fitting symbol of religious +worship. Yet, in the end, they are all ready to tolerate any +aberration of religious fancy which is justified by its use.<note place="foot">Max. Tyr. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> viii. §§ 5-10; +Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> vi. 19.</note> +The most perfect symbol is only a faint adumbration of <q>the +Father and Creator of all, Who is older than the sun and +heavens, stronger than time and the ages and the fleeting +world of change, unnamed by any lawgiver, Whom tongue +cannot express nor eye see. Helpless to grasp His real +essence, we seek a stay in names or images, in beast or +plant, in river or mountain, in lustrous forms of gold and +silver and ivory. Whatever we have of fairest we call by His +name. And for love of Him, we cling, as lovers are wont, to +anything which recalls Him. I quarrel not with divers +imagery, if we seek to know, to love, to remember Him.</q><note place="foot">Max. Tyr. viii. 10, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οὐ νεμεσῶ τῆς διαφωνίας, ἴστωσαν μόνον, ἐράτωσαν μόνον, + μνημονευέτωσαν μόνον</foreign>.</note> +This is the outburst of a tolerant and eclectic Platonism, ready +to condone everything in the crudest religious imagery. But +a more conscientious scrutiny even of Grecian legend demanded, +as we shall see, a deeper solution to account for dark rites and +legends which cast a shadow on the Infinite Purity. +</p> + +<p> +The Stoic theology, which resolved the gods of legend into +thin abstractions, various potencies of the Infinite Spirit +interfused with the universe,<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, p. +299 sqq.; S. Aug. <hi rend="italic">De Civ. Dei</hi>, vi. 5.</note> was in some respects congenial +<pb n="396"/><anchor id="Pg396"/>to the Roman mind, and reflected the spirit of old Roman +religion. That religion of arid abstractions, to which no myth, +no haunting charm of poetic imagination attached,<note place="foot">Mommsen, <hi rend="italic">Hist. of Rome</hi>, i. p. 183 +(Tr.); Preller, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Myth.</hi> p. 2.</note> easily lent +itself to a system which explained the gods by allegory or +physical rationalism. That was not an eirenicon for the +second century, at least among thoughtful, pious men. The +philosophic effort of so many centuries had ended in an +eclecticism for purely moral culture, and a profound scepticism +as to the attainment of higher truth by unaided reason.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, pp. +18-20.</note> Mere +intellectual curiosity, the desire of knowledge for its own sake, +and the hope of attaining it, are strangely absent from the +loftiest minds, from Seneca, Epictetus, and M. Aurelius.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 117, §§ 19-30; Epict. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> +i. 17; M. Aurel. vii. 67. But cf. viii. +13; xii. 14; viii. 3.</note> Men +like Lucian, sometimes in half melancholy, half scornful derision, +amused themselves with ridiculing the chaotic results of the +intellectual ambition of the past.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Hermot.</hi> c. 25, 34, 37 sqq.</note> They equally recognised +the immense force of that spiritual movement which was +trying every avenue of accredited religious system or novel +superstition, that might perchance lead the devotee to some +glimpse of the divine world. And side by side with the +recrudescence of old-world superstitions, there were spreading, +from whatever source, loftier and more ethical conceptions of +God, a dim sense of sin and human weakness, a need of +cleansing and support from a Divine hand. Stoicism, with all +its austere grandeur, had failed in its interpretation both of +man and of God. Popular theology, however soothing to old +associations and unregenerate feelings, often gave a shock to +the quickened moral sense and the higher spiritual intuitions. +Yet the venerable charm of time-honoured ritual, glad or +stately, the emotional effects and dim promise of revelation in +the mysteries of many shrines, the seductive allurements of new +cults, with a strange blending of the sensuous and the mystic, +all wove around the human soul such an enchanted maze of +spiritual fascination that escape was impossible, even if it were +desired. But it was no longer desired even by the highest +intellects. The efforts of pure reason to solve the mystery of +God and of man’s destiny had failed. Yet men were ever +<q>feeling after God, if haply they might find Him.</q> And the +<pb n="397"/><anchor id="Pg397"/>God whom they sought for was one on whom they might hang, +in whom they might have rest. Where was the revelation to +come from? Where was the mediator to be sought to reconcile +the ancient faiths or fables with a purified conception of the +Deity and the aspiration for a higher moral life? +</p> + +<p> +The revived Pythagorean and Platonist philosophy which +girded itself to attempt the solution was really part of a great +spiritual movement, with its focus at Alexandria.<note place="foot">Überweg, <hi rend="italic">Hist. Phil.</hi> i. p. 232; +Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 2, p. 83; +Thiersch, <hi rend="italic">Politik u. Phil.</hi> etc., pp. 15, 16.</note> In that +meeting-point of the East and West, of all systems of thought +and worship, syncretism blended all faiths. Hadrian, in his +letter to Servianus, cynically observes that the same men were +ready to worship impartially Serapis or Christ.<note place="foot">Flav. Vop. <hi rend="italic">Vit. + <anchor id="corr397"/><corr sic="Saturn,">Saturn.</corr></hi> c. 8, § 2, +illic qui Serapem colunt Christiani +sunt, et devoti sunt Serapi, qui se +Christi episcopos dicunt, etc.</note> Philosophy +became more and more a religion; its first and highest aim +is a right knowledge of God. And philosophy, having failed +to find help in the life according to nature, or the divine +element in individual consciousness, had now to seek support +in a God transcending nature and consciousness, a God such as +the mysticism of the East or the systems of Pythagoras and +Plato had foreshadowed. But such a God, transcending nature +and consciousness, remote, ineffable, only, in some rare moment +of supreme exaltation, dimly apprehensible by the human +spirit,<note place="foot">Max. Tyr. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> xiv. 8, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἦ γὰρ ἂν τῷ διὰ μέσου πολλῷ τὸ θνητὸν πρὸς τὸ ἀθάνατον + διετειχίσθη τῆς οὐρανίου ἐπόψεώς τε καὶ ὁμιλίας ὅτι + μὴ τῆς δαιμονίου ταύτης φύσεως, κτλ.</foreign> Cf. xvi. 9.</note> could not call forth fully the loving trust and fervent +reverence which men longed to offer. Heaven being so far from +earth, and earth so darkened by the mists of sense, any gleam +of revelation must be welcomed from whatever quarter it +might break. And thus an all-embracing syncretism, while it +gratified ancestral piety, and the natural instinct of all religion +to root itself in the past, offered the hope of illumination from +converging lights. Or rather, any religion which has won the +reverence of men may transmit a ray from the central Sun. +The believer in God, who longs for communion with Him, for +help at His hands, might by reverent selection win from all +religions something to satisfy his needs. A revelation was the +imperious demand. Where should men be so likely to find it +as in the reverent study of great historic efforts of humanity +to pierce the veil? +</p> + +<pb n="398"/><anchor id="Pg398"/> + +<p> +The philosophy which was to attempt the revival of +paganism in the second century, and which was to fight its +last battles in the fourth and fifth, traced itself to Pythagoras +and Plato. Plato’s affinity with the older mystic is well known. +And the reader of the <hi rend="italic">Phaedo</hi> or the <hi rend="italic">Republic</hi> will not be surprised +to find the followers of the two masters of Greek thought +who believed most in a spiritual vision and in an ordered +moral life, united in an effort which extended to the close of the +Western Empire,<note place="foot">Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Som. Scip.</hi> i. 8; ii. 17.</note> to combine a lofty mysticism with ancestral +faith. The two systems had much in common, and yet each +contributed a peculiar element to the great movement. Pythagoreanism, +although its origin is veiled in mystery, was always +full of the mysticism of the East. Platonism was essentially +the philosophy of Greek culture. The movement in which +their forces were combined was one in which the new Hellenism of +Hadrian’s reign reinforced itself for the reconstruction of western +paganism with those purer and loftier ideas of God of which the +East is the original home. The effort of paganism to rehabilitate +itself in the second century drew no small part of its inspiration +from the regions which were the cradle of the Christian faith.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 2, pp. 57-62.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Seneca seems to regard Pythagoreanism as extinct.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Nat. Q.</hi> vii. 32, 2, Pythagorica +illa invidiosa turbae schola praeceptorem +non invenit.</note> Yet +one of his own teachers, Sotion, practised its asceticism,<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 49, § 2; 108, § 17.</note> +and in the first century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, the traces of at least ninety +treatises by members of the school have been recovered by +antiquarian care, many of them forgeries foisted on ancient +names.<note place="foot">Zeller, iii. 2, p. 85.</note> As a didactic system, indeed, the school had long +disappeared, but the Pythagorean <hi rend="italic">askesis</hi> seems never to have +lost its continuity. It drew down the ridicule of the New +Comedy. It may have had a share in forming the Essene +and Therapeutic discipline.<note place="foot">Überweg, <hi rend="italic">Hist. Phil.</hi> i. p. 228; cf. +Hatch, <hi rend="italic">Hibbert Lec.</hi> p. 148.</note> In the first century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> it had a +distinguished adherent in P. Nigidius Figulus, and a learned +expositor in Alexander Polyhistor. Its enduring power as a +spiritual creed congenial to paganism is shown by the fact that +Iamblichus, one of the latest Neo-Platonists, and one of the +ardent devotees of superstition, expounded the Pythagorean +system in many treatises and composed an imaginative biography +<pb n="399"/><anchor id="Pg399"/>of the great founder.<note place="foot">Überweg, <hi rend="italic">Hist. Phil.</hi> i. p. 252; cf. +Eunapius, <hi rend="italic">Vit. Iambl.</hi></note> To the modern it is best known +through the romantic life of Apollonius of Tyana, by Philostratus, +which was composed at the instance of Julia Domna, +the wife of Septimius Severus, who combined with a doubtful +virtue a love for the mysticism of her native East.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> i. 3, 1; cf. +Ael. Spart. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Sev.</hi> 18.</note> Apollonius +is surrounded by his biographer with an atmosphere of mystery +and miracle. But although the critical historian must reject +much of the narrative, the faith of the Pythagorean missionary +of the reign of Domitian stands out in clear outline. +Apollonius is a true representative of the new spiritual +movement. His mother had a vision before his birth. His +early training at Aegae was eclectic, like the spirit of the age, +and he heard the teaching of doctors of all the schools, not +even excluding the Epicurean.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> i. 7.</note> But he early devoted himself +to the severe asceticism of the Pythagorean sect, wore pure +linen, abstained from wine and flesh, observed the five years +of silence, and made the temple his home. The worship of +Asclepius, which was then gaining an extraordinary vogue, had +a special attraction for him, with its atmosphere of serenity +and ritual purity and its dream oracles of beneficent healing. +Apollonius combines in a strange fashion, like Plutarch and +the eclectic Platonists, a decided monotheism with a conservative +devotion to the ancient gods. He looks to the East, to +the sages of the Ganges, for the highest inspiration. He +worships the sun every day.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ii. 38.</note> Yet he has a profound interest +in the popular religion of the many lands through which he +travelled. He frequented the temples of all the gods, discoursed +with the priests on the ancient lore of their shrines, +and corrected or restored, with an authority which seems to +have never been challenged, their ritual where it had been +forgotten or mutilated in the lapse of ages.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 11, § 16; i. 31; iv. 19, 20; +iv. 41.</note> He sought initiation +in all the mysteries. He wrote a book on Sacrifices which +dealt with the most minute details of worship.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 41.</note> He had a +profound interest in ancient legend, and the fame of the great +Hellenic heroes, and, having spent a weird night with the +shade of Achilles in the Troad, he constrained the Thessalians +<pb n="400"/><anchor id="Pg400"/>to restore his fallen honours.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iv. 13; iv. +16.</note> The temples recognised in him +at once a champion and a reformer. The oracular seats of +Ionia showed an unenvious admiration of his gift of prophecy, +and hailed him as a true son of Apollo.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 1, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">λόγοι τε περὶ αὐτοῦ ἐφοίτων οἱ μὲν ἐκ τοῦ Κολοφῶνι +μαντείου κοινωνὸν τῆς ἑαυτοῦ σοφίας καὶ ἀτεχνῶς +σοφὸν τὸν ἄνδρα ᾄδοντες, οἱ δὲ ἐκ Διδύμων</foreign>.</note> His visit to Rome +in the darkest hour of the Neronian terror seems to have +aroused a strange religious fervour; the temples were thronged +with worshippers; it was a heathen revival.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 41.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Yet this strange missionary held principles which ought to +have been fatal to heathen worship. He drew his central +principle from Eastern pantheism, which might seem irreconcilable +with the anthropomorphism of the West. It is true +that under the Infinite Spirit, as in the Platonist théodicée, the +gods of heathen devotion find a place as His ministers and +viceroys.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 35, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τὴν δὲ (ἔδραν ἀποδοτέον) ἐπ’ ἐκείνῃ θεοῖς, + οἱ τὰ μέρη αὐτοῦ κυβερνῶσι</foreign>: +cf. Max. Tyr. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> xiv. § 6 sqq.</note> But the eternal antithesis of spirit and matter, and +the contempt for the body as a degrading prison of the divine +element in man,<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> ii. 37; vi. +11; vii. 26; Max. Tyr. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> xiii. § 5.</note> the ascetic theory that by crucifying the +flesh and attenuating its powers, the spirit might lay itself open +to heavenly influences, these are doctrines which might appear +utterly hostile to a gross materialist ritual. And as a matter +of fact, Apollonius to some extent obeyed his principles. He +scorned the popular conception of divination and magic.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> vi. 10; iv. +40; v. 12; iv. 18; iv. 44.</note> The +only legitimate power of foreseeing the future or influencing +the material world is given to the soul which is pure from all +fleshly taint and therefore near to God. He feels profoundly +that the myths propagated by the poets have lowered the ideal +of God and the character of man, and he greatly prefers the +fables of Aesop, which use the falsehoods of the fancy for a +definite moral end.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 13; iii. 25.</note> The mutilation of a father, the storming +of Olympus by the Giants, incest and adultery among the gods, +must be reprobated, however they have been glorified by poetry. +Apollonius poured contempt on the animal worship of Egypt, +even when defended by the dialectic subtlety of Greece.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vi. 19.</note> He +was repelled by the grossness of bloody sacrifices, however consecrated +by immemorial use. For the nobler symbolism of +<pb n="401"/><anchor id="Pg401"/>Hellenic art he had a certain sympathy, like Dion, but only as +symbolism. Any sensible image of the Supreme, which does +not carry the soul beyond the bounds of sense, defeats its +purpose and is degrading to pure religion. Pictured or +sculptured forms are only aids to that mystic imagination +through which alone we can see God. Finally, his idea of +prayer is intensely spiritual or ethical. <q>Grant me, ye gods, +what is my due</q> is the highest prayer of Apollonius.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iv. 40.</note> Yet, as +we have already seen, the religion of Apollonius is thoroughly +practical. He was a great preacher. He addressed vast +crowds from the temple steps at Ephesus or Olympia, rebuking +their luxury and effeminacy, their feuds and mean civic ambition, +their love of frivolous sports or the bloody strife of the arena.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 22; iv. 41; v. 26.</note> +Next to the knowledge of God, he preached the importance of +self-knowledge, and of lending an attentive ear to the voice of +conscience. He crowned his life by asserting fearlessly the cause +of righteousness in the awful presence-chamber of Domitian. +</p> + +<p> +About the very time when Apollonius was bearding the last +of the Flavians, and preaching a pagan revival in the porticoes +of the Roman temples, it is probable that Plutarch, in some +respects a kindred spirit, was making his appearance as a lecturer +at Rome.<note place="foot">Gréard, <hi rend="italic">De la Morale de Plutarch</hi>, +p. 32; Volkmann, <hi rend="italic">Leben</hi>, etc. p. 37.</note> The greatest of biographers has had no authentic +biography himself.<note place="foot">For the apocryphal accounts, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> +Gréard, p. 3 sqq.</note> The few certain facts about his life must +be gleaned from his own writings. He was the descendant of +an ancient family of Chaeronea, famous as the scene of three +historic battles, <q>the War-God’s dancing-place,</q> and his great-grandfather +had tales of the great conflict at Actium.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Vit. Anton.</hi> c. 68, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὁ γοῦν πρόπαππος ἡμῶν Νίκαρχος διηγεῖτο κτλ.</foreign>: Volkmann, +p. 21.</note> In the +year 66 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, when Nero was distinguishing or disgracing himself +as a competitor at the Greek festivals, Plutarch was a +young student at the university of Athens, under Ammonius,<note place="foot">Plut. + <hi rend="italic">De <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ΕΙ</foreign> ap. Delph.</hi> c. 1; cf. 17; +<hi rend="italic">Vit. Themist.</hi> c. 32; <hi rend="italic">Sympos.</hi> iii. 1, +§ 1; ix. 14, § 2; ix. 14, § 7; i. 9; +Eunap. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph. Prooem.</hi> 5, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἐν οἷς Ἀμμώνιός τε ἦν Πλουτάρχου τοῦ θειοτάτου γεγονὼς διδάσκαλος</foreign>.</note> +who, if he inspired him with admiration for Plato, also taught +him to draw freely from all the treasures of Greek thought. +Plutarch, before he finally settled down at Chaeronea, saw +something of the great Roman world. He had visited +Alex<pb n="402"/><anchor id="Pg402"/>andria and some part of Asia Minor.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Sympos.</hi> v. 5, § 1, <hi rend="italic">Vit. Agesil.</hi> c. +19; Volkmann, pp. 34, 63.</note> He was at an early age +employed to represent his native town on public business,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Praec. Ger. Reipub.</hi> c. 20.</note> and +he had thus visited Rome, probably in the reign of Vespasian, +and again, in the reign of +Domitian.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Sympos.</hi> viii. 7, § 1, + <hi rend="italic">Vit. Dem.</hi> c. +2. In this passage he says, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οὐ σχολῆς οὔσης γυμάζεσθαι περὶ τὴν Ῥωμαικὴν διάλεκτον ὑπὸ χρειῶν πολιτικῶν ... +ὀψέ ποτε καὶ πόρρω τῆς ἡλικίας ἠρξάμεθα Ῥωμαικοῖς γράμμασιν ἐντυγχάνειν</foreign>. Cf. +<hi rend="italic">Frat. Am.</hi> 4.</note> It was a time when +original genius in Roman literature was showing signs of failure, +but when minute antiquarian learning was becoming a passion.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> c. xx.; Spart. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Hadr.</hi> +c. 16, § 5, Aul. Gell. xii. 2; Luc. +<hi rend="italic">Lexiph.</hi> c. 20; Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> iii. +p. 278; Macé, <hi rend="italic">Suétone</hi>, p. 96; Gréard, +<hi rend="italic">Morale de Plut.</hi> p. 33; cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +114, § 13, multi ex alieno seculo petunt +verba: duodecim tabulas loquuntur.</note> +It was also the age of the new sophist. Hellenism was in the air, +and the lecture theatres were thronged to hear the philosophic +orator or the professional artist in words.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> iii. p. 360.</note> Although Plutarch is +never mentioned beside men like Euphrates, in Pliny’s letters, +he found an audience at Rome, and the famous Arulenus Rusticus +was once among his hearers.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Curios.</hi> c. 15, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἐμοῦ ποτε ἐν Ῥώμῃ διαλεγομένου Ῥούστικος ἐκεῖνος ὃν +ἀπέκτεινε Δομιτιανὸς ... ἠκροᾶτο κτλ.</foreign></note> While he was ransacking the +imperial libraries, he also formed the acquaintance, at pleasant +social parties, of many men of academic and official fame, some +of whom belonged to the circle of Pliny and Tacitus.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Tranq.</hi> c. 1; + <hi rend="italic">Sympos.</hi> i. +9; v. 7, § 10; viii. 1; <hi rend="italic">De Cohib. Ira</hi>, +c. 1; <hi rend="italic">Sympos.</hi> ii. 3; i. 5; cf. Plin. +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 9; iv. 5; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> i. 13; iv. 4; +Tac. <hi rend="italic">Agr.</hi> c. 2; cf. Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> c. xxii.</note> +</p> + +<p> +But his native Greece, with its great memories, and his +native Chaeronea, to which he was linked by ancestral piety, +had for a man like Plutarch far stronger charms than the +capital of the world. With our love of excitement and +personal prominence, it is hard to conceive how a man of +immense culture and brilliant literary power could endure the +monotony of bourgeois society in depopulated and decaying +Greece.<note place="foot">For a description of this society, +see Mahaffy’s <hi rend="italic">Greek World under Rom. +Sway</hi>, c. xliv.</note> Yet Plutarch seems to have found it easy, and even +pleasant. He was too great to allow his own scheme of life +to be crossed and disturbed by vulgar opinion or ephemeral +ambition. His family relations were sweet and happy. His +married life realised the highest ideals of happy wedlock.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Consol. ad Ux.</hi> c. iv. x.; +<hi rend="italic">Conj. Praec.</hi> c. xliv.</note> He +had the respectful affection of his brothers and older kinsmen. +The petty magistracies, in which he made it a duty to serve +<pb n="403"/><anchor id="Pg403"/>his native town, were dignified in his eyes by the thought +that Epameinondas had once been charged with the cleansing of +the streets of Thebes.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Praec. Ger. Reipub.</hi> c. 15; +cf. <hi rend="italic">Sympos.</hi> vi. 8, § 1.</note> His priesthood of Apollo at Delphi +was probably far more attractive than the imperial honours +which, according to legend, were offered to him by Trajan and +Hadrian.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">An Seni Sit Ger. Resp.</hi> c. 17, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οἶσθά με τῷ Πυθίῳ λειτουργοῦντα πολλὰς πυθιάδας</foreign>. + Suidas, <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">Πλούταρχος</foreign>: cf. +Volkmann, p. 91.</note> To his historic and religious imagination the +ancient shrine which looked down on the gulf from the foot +of the <q>Shining Rocks,</q> was sacred as no other spot on earth. +Although in Plutarch’s day Delphi had declined in splendour +and fame,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Def. Orac.</hi> c. v. viii.</note> it was still surrounded with the glamour of +immemorial sanctity and power. It was still the spot from +which divine voices of warning or counsel had issued to the +kings of Lydia, to chiefs of wild hordes upon the Strymon, +to the envoys of the Roman Tarquins, to every city of +Hellenic name from the Euxine to the Atlantic. We can +still almost make the round of its antiquarian treasures under +his genial guidance. Probably Plutarch’s happiest hours were +spent in accompanying a party of visitors,—a professor on his +way home from Britain to Tarsus, a Spartan traveller just returned +from far Indian seas,—around those sacred scenes; we +can hear the debate on the doubtful quality of Delphic verse or +the sources of its inspiration: we can watch them pause to +recall the story of mouldering bronze or marble, and wake the +echoes of a thousand years.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. ii.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Plutarch must have been a swift and indefatigable worker, +for his production is almost on the scale of Varro, Cicero, or +the elder Pliny. Yet he found time for pleasant visits to +every part of Greece which had tales or treasures for the +antiquary. He enjoyed the friendship of the brightest intellects +of the day, of Herodes Atticus, the millionaire rhetorician,<note place="foot">Trench, <hi rend="italic">Plutarch</hi>, p. 22; Volkmann, +p. 58.</note> +of Favorinus, the great sophist of Gaul, the intimate friend +of Herodes and the counsellor of the Emperor Hadrian, of +Ammonius, who was Plutarch’s tutor; of many others, noted +in their time, but who are mere shadows to us. They met +in a convivial way in many places, at Chaeronea, at Hyampolis, +at Eleusis after the Mysteries, at Patrae, at Corinth during +<pb n="404"/><anchor id="Pg404"/>the Isthmian games, at Thermopylae, and Athens in the +house of Ammonius, or at Aedepsus, the Baden of Euboea, +where in the springtime people found pleasant lodgings and +brisk intercourse to relieve the monotony of attendance at the +baths.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Sympos.</hi> ii. 2, § 1 (Eleusis); +v. 8, § 1 (Athens); i. 10, § 1; ii. 1, +§ 1 (Patrae); iii. 1, § 1; iv. 4, § 1 +(Aedepsus), +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">χωρίον κατεσκευασμένον οἰκήσεσι ... μάλιστα δ’ ἀνθεῖ τὸ χωρίον +ἀκμάζοντος ἔαρος. πολλοὶ γὰρ άφικνοῦνται τὴν ὥραν αὐτόθι, +καὶ συνουσίας ποιοῦνται μετ’ ἀλλήλων ἐν ἀφθόνοις πᾶσι, +καὶ πλείστας περὶ λόγους ὑπὸ σχολῆς διατριβὰς ἔχουσι</foreign>: cf. Volkmann, +p. 57.</note> Plutarch had a large circle of relatives,—his grandfather +Lamprias, who had tales from an actual witness of the revels +of Antony at Alexandria;<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Vit. Anton.</hi> c. 28, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">διηγεῖτο γοῦν ἡμῶν τῷ πάππῳ Λαμπρίᾳ Φιλώτας +ὁ Ἀμφισσεὺς ἰατρὸς εἶναι μὲν ἐν Ἀλεξανδρεῖᾳ τότε μανθάνων τὴν τέχνην, κτλ.</foreign></note> Lamprias his elder brother, a true +Boeotian in his love of good fare, a war-dance, and a jest;<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Sympos.</hi> ii. 2, § 1; ix. 15, § 1; +viii. 6, § 5.</note> his +younger brother Timon, to whom Plutarch was devotedly +attached.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Fr. Am.</hi> c. 16.</note> His ordinary society, not very distinguished +socially, was composed of grammarians, rhetoricians, country +doctors, the best that the district could afford.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Sympos.</hi> iv. 1, 1; iv. 4, 1; v. 10, +1; v. 5, 1.</note> The talk is +often on the most trivial or absurd subjects, though not more +absurdly trivial than those on which the polished sophist displayed +his graces in the lecture-hall.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ix. 4, § 1; Mahaffy, <hi rend="italic">Greek +World</hi>, <hi rend="italic">etc.</hi> p. 338.</note> Yet graver and more +serious themes are not excluded,<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Sympos.</hi> viii. 2; viii. 7.</note> and the table-talk of Greece +in the end of the first century is invaluable to the student of +society. In such scenes Plutarch not only cultivated friendship, +the great art of life, not only watched the play of intellect +and character; he also found relief from the austere labours +which have made his fame. It is surely not the least of his +titles to greatness that, in an environment which to most men +of talent would have been infinitely depressing, with the +irrepressible vitality of genius he contrived to idealise the +society of decaying Greece by linking it with the past. +</p> + +<p> +And, with such a power of reviving the past, even the +dulness of the little Boeotian town was easily tolerable. We +can imagine Plutarch looking down the quiet street in the +still vacant noontide, as he sat trying to revive the ancient +glories of his race, and to match them with their conquerors, +while he reminded the lords of the world, who, in Plutarch’s +<pb n="405"/><anchor id="Pg405"/>early youth, seemed to be wildly squandering their heritage, of +the stern, simple virtue by which it had been won. For in the +Lives of great Greeks and Romans, the moral interest is the +most prominent. It is biography, not history, which Plutarch +is writing.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Vit. Alex.</hi> c. 1, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οὔτε γὰρ ἱστορίας γράφομεν ἀλλὰ βίους οὔτε ταῖς ἐπιφανεστάταις + πράξεσι πάντως ἔνεστι δήλωσις ἀρετῆς ἢ κακίας</foreign>. + So <hi rend="italic">Vit. Nic.</hi> c. 1, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οὐ τὴν ἄχρηστον ἀθροίζων ἱστορίαν ἀλλὰ τὴν πρὸς κατανόησιν +ἤθους καὶ τρόπου παραδιδούς</foreign><anchor id="corr405"/><corr sic="missing">.</corr></note> Setting and scenery of course there must be; but +Plutarch’s chief object is to paint the character of the great +actors on the stage. Hence he may slur over or omit historic +facts of wider interest, while he records apparently trivial +incidents or sayings which light up a character. But Plutarch +has a fine eye both for lively social scenes and the great +crises of history. The description of the feverish activity of +swarming industry in the great days of Pheidias at Athens, once +read, can never be forgotten.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Vit. Pericl.</hi> c. 12.</note> Equally indelible are the pictures +of the younger Cato’s last morning, as he finished the <hi rend="italic">Phaedo</hi>, +and the birds began to twitter,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Vit. Cat. Min.</hi> c. 70.</note> of the flight and murder of +Pompey, of the suicide of Otho on the ghastly field of Bedriacum, +which seemed to atone for an evil life. Nor can we +forget his description of one of the saddest of all scenes in Greek +history, which moved even Thucydides to a restrained pathos,—the +retreat of the Athenians from the walls of Syracuse. +</p> + +<p> +Plutarch was before all else a moralist, with a genius for +religion. His ethical treatises deserve to be thoroughly explored, +and as sympathetically expounded, for the light which they +throw on the moral aspirations of the age, as Dr. Mahaffy has +skilfully used them for pictures of its social life. He must +be a very unimaginative person who cannot feel the charm of +their revelation. But the man of purely speculative interest +will probably be disappointed. Plutarch is not an original +thinker in morals or religion. He has no new gospel to expound. +He does not go to the roots of conduct or faith. Possessing +a very wide knowledge of past speculation, he might have +written an invaluable history of ancient philosophy. But he +has not done it. And, as a man of genius, with a strong +practical purpose to do moral good to his fellows, his choice of +his vocation must be accepted without cavil. He was the +greatest Hellenist of his day, when Hellenism was capturing +<pb n="406"/><anchor id="Pg406"/>the Roman world. He was also a man of high moral ideals, +sincere piety, and absorbing interest in the fate of human +character. With all that wealth of learning, philosophic or +historical, with all that knowledge of human nature, what +nobler task could a man set himself than to attempt to give +some practical guidance to a generation conscious of moral +weakness, and distracted between new spiritual ideals and the +mythologies of the past? The urgent need for moral culture and +reform of character, for a guiding force in conduct, was profoundly +felt by all the great serious minds of the Flavian age, by +Pliny and Tacitus, by Juvenal and Quintilian. But Plutarch +probably felt it more acutely than any, and took endless pains +to satisfy it. It was an age when the philosophic director and +the philosophic preacher were, as we have seen, to be met with +everywhere. And Plutarch took his full share in the movement, +and influenced a wide circle.<note place="foot">Gréard, <hi rend="italic">Morale de Plut.</hi> pp. 36, +52, 67.</note> If he did not elaborate an +original ethical system, he had studied closely the art of +moral reform, and Christian homilists, from Basil to Jeremy +Taylor, have drawn freely from the storehouse of his precept +and observation. In many tracts he has analysed prevailing +vices and faults of his time,—flattery, vain curiosity, irritable +temper, or false modesty,—and given rules for curing or avoiding +them. In these homilies, the fundamental principle is that of +Musonius, perhaps adapted from an oracle to the people of +Cirrha <q>to wage war with vice day and night, and never to +relax your guard.</q><note place="foot">Cf. A. Gell. xviii. 2.</note> The call to reform sounded all the louder +in Plutarch’s ears because of the high ideal which he had conceived +of what life might be made if, no longer left to the play of +passion and random influences, character were moulded from +early youth to a temperate harmony. To such a soul each +passing day might be a glad festival, the universe an august +temple full of its Maker’s glories, and life an initiation into the +joy of its holy mysteries.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Tranq.</hi> c. xx. + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀνὴρ δὲ ἀγαθὸς οὐ πᾶσαν ἡμέραν ἑορτὴν ἡγεῖται; κτλ.</foreign> +</note> +</p> + +<p> +In the work of moral and religious reconstruction Plutarch +and his contemporaries could only rely on philosophy as their +guide. Philosophy to Plutarch, Apollonius, or M. Aurelius, +had a very different meaning from what it bore to the great +<pb n="407"/><anchor id="Pg407"/>thinkers of Ionia and Magna Graecia. Not only had it +deserted the field of metaphysical speculation; it had lost +interest even in the mere theory of morals. It had become +the art rather than the science of life. The teacher of an art +cannot indeed entirely divorce it from all scientific theory. +The relative importance of practical precept and ethical theory +was often debated in that age. But the tendency was +undoubtedly to subordinate dogma to edification.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 88, ad virtutem nihil +conferunt liberalia studia; cf. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 94, +95, § 41.</note> And where +dogma was needed for practical effect, it might be drawn from +the most opposite quarters. Seneca delights in rounding off a +letter by a quotation from Epicurus. M. Aurelius appeals +both to the example of Epicurus and the teaching of Plato.<note place="foot">M. Aurel. vii. 35; ix. 41; Epict. +<hi rend="italic">Frag.</hi> lii.</note> +Man might toy with cosmic speculation; the Timaeus had +many commentators in the first and second centuries.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Gr.</hi> iii. 1, p. 720 n.</note> But, +for Plutarch and his contemporaries, the great task of philosophy +was to bring some sort of order into the moral and +religious chaos. It was not original thought or discovery +which was needed, but the application of reason, cultivated by +the study of the past, to the moral and religious problems of +the present. The philosopher sometimes, to our eyes, seems to +trifle with the smallest details of exterior deportment or idiom +or dress; he gives precepts about the rearing of children; he +occupies himself with curious questions of ritual and antiquarian +interest.<note place="foot">A. Gell. i. 10; ii. 26; vii. 13; xii. +1; Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iv. 20; v. +16.</note> These seeming degradations of a great mission, after +all, only emphasise the fact that philosophy was now concerned +with human life rather than with the problems of speculation. +It had in fact become an all-embracing religion. It supplied the +medicine for moral disease; it furnished the rational criterion +by which all myth and ritual must be judged or explained.<note place="foot">Oakesmith, + <hi rend="italic">Rel. of Plutarch</hi>, p. <anchor id="corr407"/><corr sic="64">64.</corr></note> +</p> + +<p> +Plutarch was an eclectic in the sense that, knowing all the +moral systems of the past, he was ready to borrow from any +of these principles which might give support to character. +Whether, if he had been born four or five hundred years +earlier, he might have created or developed an original theory +himself, is a question which may be variously answered. One +may reasonably hesitate to assent to the common opinion that +<pb n="408"/><anchor id="Pg408"/>Plutarch had no genius for original speculation. Had he come +under the influence of Socrates, it is not so certain that he +might not have composed dialogues with a certain charm of +fresh dialectic and picturesque dramatic power. It is a little +unhistorical to decry a man of genius as wanting in speculative +originality, who was born into an age when speculation had run +dry, and thought was only subsidiary to conduct. When the +dissonant schools forsook the heights of metaphysic and cosmology +to devote themselves to moral culture, an inevitable tendency +to eclecticism, to a harmony of moral theory, set in. The +practical interest prevailed over the infinitely divisive forces +of the speculative reason. Antiochus, the teacher of Cicero,<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Cic.</hi> c. 4.</note> +while he strove to re-establish Platonism, maintained the +essential agreement of the great schools on the all-important +questions, and freely adopted the doctrines of Zeno and +Aristotle.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Gr.</hi> iii. 1, p. 534, +in der Hauptsache die bedeutendsten +Philosophenschulen übereinstimmen, +etc.</note> Panaetius, the chief representative of Roman +Stoicism in the second century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, had a warm admiration +for Plato and Aristotle, and in some essential points forsook +the older teaching of the Porch.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 503.</note> Seneca, as we have seen, +often seems to cling to the most hard and repellent tenets of +the ancient creed. Yet a sense of practical difficulties has led +him to soften and modify many of them—the identity of +reason and passion, the indifference of so-called <q>goods,</q> the +necessity of instantaneous conversion, the unapproachable and +unassailable perfection of the wise man. Plutarch’s own +ethical system, so far as he has a system, is a compound of +Platonic and Aristotelian ideas, with a certain tincture of +Stoicism.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 2, pp. 144, 145.</note> Platonism, which had shaken off its sceptical +tendencies in the first century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, had few adherents at +Rome in the first century of the Empire.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Nat. Qu.</hi> vii. 32, 2; Academici +et veteres et minores nullum antistitem +reliquerunt.</note> The Stoic and +Epicurean systems divided the allegiance of thinking people +till the energetic revival of Hellenism set in. Epictetus +indeed speaks of women who were attracted by the supposed +freedom of sexual relations in Plato’s Utopia.<note place="foot">Epict. <hi rend="italic">Fr.</hi> liii.</note> Seneca often +refers to Plato, and was undoubtedly influenced by his spirit. +<pb n="409"/><anchor id="Pg409"/>But in the second century, the sympathetic union of Platonic +and Pythagorean ideas with a vigorous religious revival became +a real power, with momentous effects on the future of +philosophy and religion for three centuries. Plutarch’s reverence +for the founder of the Academy, even in little things, was +unbounded.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Sympos.</hi> vii. 1; <hi rend="italic">Consol. ad Apoll.</hi> +xxxvi.</note> It became with him almost a kind of cult. And +he paid the most sincere reverence to his idol by imitating, in +some of his treatises, the mythical colouring by which the +author of the <hi rend="italic">Phaedo</hi> and the <hi rend="italic">Republic</hi> had sought to give body +and reality to the unseen world.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">e.g.</hi> + <hi rend="italic">De Gen. Socr.</hi> xxii. sqq.; <hi rend="italic">De +Ser. Num. Vind.</hi> xxii.</note> Plutarch condemned in very +strong language the coarse and sophistical modes of controversy +with which the rival schools assailed one another’s tenets.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Non posse Suav. vivi sec. Epic.</hi> c. +ii. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τὰ γὰρ αἴσχιστα ῥήματα, βωμολοχίας, ληκυθισμούς, ἀλαζονείας, +ἡεταιρήσεις, ἀνδροφονίας ... συνάγοντες Ἀριστοτέλους +καὶ Σωκράτους καὶ Πυθαγόρου καὶ τίνος γὰρ οὐχὶ τῶν ἐπιφανῶν, +κατεσκέδασαν</foreign>: +<hi rend="italic">Adv. Col.</hi> c. ii.</note> +Yet he can hardly be acquitted of some harshness in his +polemic against the Stoics and Epicureans. Archbishop Trench, +in his fascinating and sympathetic treatment of Plutarch, +laments that he did not give a more generous recognition to +that noblest and most truly Roman school which was the last +refuge and citadel of freedom.<note place="foot">Trench, <hi rend="italic">Plut.</hi> p. 93.</note> We may join the archbishop +in wishing that Plutarch, without compromising principle, had +been more tolerant to a system with which he had so much in +common, and which, in his day, had put off much of its old +hardness. But he was essentially a practical man, with a +definite moral aim. He took from any quarter principles +which seemed to him to be true to human nature, and which +furnished a hopeful basis for the efforts of the moral teacher. +But he felt equally bound to reject a system which absorbed +and annihilated the emotional nature in the reason,<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Virt. Mor.</hi> c. vii. sqq.</note> which cut +at the roots of moral freedom, which recognised no degrees in +virtue or in vice, which discouraged and contemned the first +faint struggles of weak humanity after a higher life, and froze +it into hopeless impotence by the remote ideal of a cold, flawless +perfection, suddenly and miraculously raised to a divine +independence of all the minor blessings and helps to virtue.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Adv. Stoicos</hi>, c. x. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀλλὰ ὥσπερ ὁ πηχύν ἀπέχων ἐν θαλάσσῃ ἐπιφανείας +οὐδὲν ἥττον πνίγεται τοῦ καταδεδυκότος ὀργυιὰς πεντακοσίας, κτλ.</foreign> +Cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> +66, § 10; Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der. Griech.</hi> iii. +1, p. 230.</note> +<pb n="410"/><anchor id="Pg410"/>Such an ideal may be magnificent, but it is not life. For man, +constituted as he is, and placed in such an environment, it is +a dangerous mental habit to train the soul to regard all things +as a fleeting and monotonous show, to cultivate the <hi rend="italic">taedium +vitae</hi>, or a calm resignation to the littleness of man placed for +a brief space between the two eternities.<note place="foot">M. Aurel. ix. 32; xii. 32; ix. 14; +xi. 1; vii. 1; vi. 46; ix. 14.</note> The philosophic +sufferer may brace himself to endure the round of human +duties, and to live for the commonwealth of man; he may he +generous to the ungrateful and tolerant to the vulgar and the +frivolous; he may make his life a perpetual sacrifice to duty +and the higher law, but it is all the while really a pathetic +protest against the pitiless Power which has made man so little +and so great, doomed to the life of the leaves and the insects, +yet tortured with the longing for an infinite future. +</p> + +<p> +On some great central truths, such as the inwardness of +happiness and the brotherhood of man, Plutarch and the Stoics +were at one. And the general tone of his moral teaching +bears many marks of Stoic influence.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Tranq.</hi> c. iii., iv., xiv., xvii.; +<hi rend="italic">De Cup. Div.</hi> iii., iv.; <hi rend="italic">De Exil.</hi> v.; <hi rend="italic">De +Alex. Virt.</hi> c. vi.; ad init.; Zeller, iii. +1. p. 281.</note> But the Stoic psychology, +the Stoic fatalism and pantheism aroused all the controversial +vehemence of Plutarch.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Gr.</hi> iii. 1, p. 208; +cf. iii. 2, p. 163; Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Virt. Mor.</hi> c. +viii.</note> The Stoic held the essential unity +of the soul, that reason and passion are not two distinct +principles, but that passion is reason depraved and diverted to +wrong objects. It is the same simple, indivisible power which +shifts and changes and submits itself to opposing influences. +Passion, in fact, is an impetuous and erring motion of the +reason, and vice, in the old Socratic phrase, is an error of judgment, +a fit of ignorance of the true ends of action. But as, +according to Stoic theory, the human reason is a portion of +the Divine, depravity becomes thus a corruption of the Divine +element, and the guarantee for any hope of reform is lost. +For himself, Plutarch adopts the Platonic division of the soul +into the rational, spirited, and concupiscent elements, with some +Aristotelian modifications.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Virt. Mor.</hi> l.c.</note> The great fact of man’s moral +nature is the natural opposition between the passions and the +rational element of the soul; it corresponds to a similar +division in the mundane soul.<note place="foot">Zeller. iii. 2, p. 154.</note> All experience attests a + con<pb n="411"/><anchor id="Pg411"/>stant, natural, and sustained rebellion of the lower against the +higher. Principles so alien and disparate cannot be identified, +any more than you can identify the hunter and his quarry.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Virt. Mor.</hi> vii.</note> +But, although in the unregulated character, they are in violent +opposition, they may, by proper culture, be brought at last +into a harmony. The function of the higher element is not +to extinguish the lower, but to guide and control and elevate +it.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. sq.; <hi rend="italic">De Cur.</hi> i.</note> Passion is a force which may be wasted in vagrant, wild +excess, but which may also be used to give force and energy +to virtue. To avoid drunkenness, a man need not spill the +wine; he may temper its strength. A controlled anger is +the spur of courage. Passion in effect is the raw material +which is moulded by reason into the forms of practical virtue, +and the guiding principle in the process is the law of the +mean between excess and defect of passion.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Virt. Mor.</hi> vi.; Gréard, p. +78.</note> This is, of +course, borrowed from Aristotle, and along with it the theory of +education by habit, which to Plato had seemed a popular and +inferior conception of the formation of the virtuous character.<note place="foot">Pl. <hi rend="italic">Phaed.</hi> 82 <hi rend="small">B</hi>; cf. Archer-Hind, +App. i. to <hi rend="italic">Phaed.</hi></note> +By the strong pressure of an enlightened will, the wild insurgent +forces of the lower nature are brought into conformity to a +higher law. It is a slow, laborious process, demanding infinite +patience, daily and hourly watchfulness, self-examination, frank +confession of faults to some friend or wise director of souls.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Cohib. Ira</hi>, i. ii.; <hi rend="italic">De +Prof. in Virt.</hi> xiii. xi. iii.</note> +It needs the minutest attention to the details of conduct and +circumstance, and a steady front against discouragement from +the backsliding of the wavering will.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Prof.</hi> iv.; <hi rend="italic">De Cohib. Ira</hi>, ii.</note> In such a system the +hope of reform lies not in any sudden revolution. Plutarch has +no faith in instant conversion, reversing in a moment the ingrained +tendencies of years, and setting a man on a lofty height +of perfection, with no fear of falling away. That vain dream +of the older Stoicism, which recognised no degrees in virtuous +progress, made virtue an unapproachable ideal, and paralysed +struggling effort. It was not for an age stricken or blest with +a growing sense of moral weakness, and clutching eagerly at +any spiritual stay. Plutarch loves rather to think of character +under the image of a holy and royal building whose +founda<pb n="412"/><anchor id="Pg412"/>tions are laid in gold, and each stone has to be chosen and +carefully fitted to the line of reason.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Prof.</hi> xvii. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀλλ’ οἵ γε προκόπτοντες, οἷς ἤδη καθάπερ ἱεροῦ τινος +οἰκοδομήματος καὶ βασιλικοῦ τοῦ βίου κεκρότηται +χρυσέα κρηπὶς οὐδὲν εἰκῆ προσίενται τῶν γινομένων, κτλ.</foreign> +</note> +</p> + +<p> +Plutarch also accepted from the Peripatetic school the +principle, which Seneca was in the end compelled to admit, +that the finest paragon of wisdom and virtue is not quite +self-sufficing, that virtuous activity needs material to work +upon,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Adv. St.</hi> iv. vii.</note> and that the good things of the world, in their proper +place, are as necessary to the moral musician as the flute to +the flute-player. Above all, Plutarch, with such a theory of +character, was bound to assert the cardinal doctrine of human +freedom. He had a profound faith in a threefold Providence, +exercised by the remote Supreme Deity, by the inferior +heavenly powers, and by the daemons.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Fato</hi>, c. ix. (572). (Plut.?)</note> But Providence is a +beneficent influence, not a crushing force of necessity. To +Plutarch fatalism is the blight of moral effort. Foreknowledge +and Fate are not conterminous and coextensive. Although +everything is foreseen by heavenly powers, not everything +is foreordained.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. iv. v. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οὐ πάντα καθαρῶς οὐδὲ διαρρήδην ἡ εἱμαρμένη περιέχει, +ἀλλ’ ὅσα καθόλου</foreign>.</note> The law of Fate, like the laws of +earthly jurisprudence, deals with the universal, and only +consequentially with the particular case. Certain consequences +follow necessarily from certain acts, but the acts are not +inevitably determined.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. iv. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οὕτω καὶ ὁ τῆς φύσεως νόμος τὰ μὲν καθόλου συμπεριλαμβάνει +προηγουμένως, τὰ δὲ καθ’ ἕκαστα ἐπομένως</foreign>.</note> Man, by nature the most helpless +and defenceless of animals, becomes lord of creation by +his superior reason, and appropriates all its forces and its +wealth by his laborious arts.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Fort.</hi> c. iii. iv.</note> And the art of arts, the art +of life, neither trusting to chance nor cowed by any fancied +omnipotence of destiny, uses the will and reason to master +the materials out of which happiness is forged. Thus the +hope of a noble life is securely fenced in the fortress of the +autonomous will. To the Stoic the vicious man was a +fool, whose reason was hopelessly besotted. The Platonist +cherished the better hope, that reason, though darkened for a +time and vanquished by the forces of sense, could never +assent to sin, that there still remained in every human +soul a witness to the eternal law of conduct. +</p> + +<pb n="413"/><anchor id="Pg413"/> + +<p> +With such a faith as this, an earnest man like Plutarch +was bound to become a preacher of righteousness and a +spiritual director. Many of his moral treatises are the +expanded record of private counsel or the more formal +instruction of the lecture-hall. He had disciples all over the +Roman world, at Rome, Chaeronea, Ephesus, and Athens.<note place="foot">Gréard, p. 68 sq.</note> His +conception of the philosophic gathering, in which these +serious things were discussed, is perhaps the nearest approach +which a heathen ever made to the conception of the Christian +church.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Rect. Rat. Aud.</hi> c. vi. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">διὸ δεῖ ἀκροάσθαι τοῦ λέγοντος ἴλεων καὶ πρᾷων ὥσπερ ἐφ’ ἑστίασιν +ἱερὰν καὶ θυσίας ἀπαρχὴν παρειλημμένον κτλ.</foreign>: cf. +viii. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀλλ’ εἰς διδασκαλεῖον ἀφῖκται τῷ λόγῳ τὸν βίον ἐπανορθωσόμενος</foreign>: c. xii.</note> In theory, the philosopher’s discourse on high moral +themes was a more solemn affair than the showy declamation +of the sophist, whose chief object was to dazzle and astonish +his audience by a display of rhetorical legerdemain on the +most trivial or out-worn themes. But the moral preacher in +those days, it is to be feared, often forgot the seriousness of +his mission, and degraded it by personal vanity and a tinsel +rhetoric to win a cheap applause.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. vii. viii.; cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 108, +§ 6, magnam hanc auditorum partem +videbis cui philosophi schola diversorium +otii sit, etc.; Epict. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> ii. 23.</note> The sophist and the +philosopher were in fact too often undistinguishable, and the +philosophic class-room often resounded with new-fangled +expressions of admiration. For all this Plutarch has an +indignant contempt. It is the prostitution of a noble mission. +It is turning the school into a theatre, and the reformer of +souls into a flatterer of the ear. To ask rhetoric from the +true philosopher is as if one should require a medicine +to be served in the finest Attic ware.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Rect. Rat. Aud.</hi> c. ix. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὅμοιός ἐστι μὴ βουλομένῳ πιεῖν ἀντίδοτον ἂν μὴ τὸ +ἀγγεῖον ἐκ τῆς Ἀττικῆς κωλιάδος ᾖ κεκεραμευένον</foreign>.</note> The profession of +philosophy becomes in Plutarch’s eyes a real priesthood for +the salvation of souls. He disapproves of the habit, which +prevailed in the sophist’s lecture theatre, of proposing subtle +or frivolous questions to the lecturer in order to make a display +of cleverness. But he would have those in moral difficulty to +remain after the sermon, for such it was, and lay bare their +faults and spiritual troubles.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. xii.</note> He watched the moral progress +of his disciples, as when Fundanus is congratulated on his +growing mildness of temper.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Cohib. Ira</hi>, c. i. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τὸ δὲ σφοδρὸν ἐκεῖνο καὶ διάπυρον πρὸς ὀργὴν ὁρῶντί μοι +πρᾷον οὕτω καὶ χειρόηθες τῷ λογισμῷ γεγενημένον ἐπέρχεται +πρὸς τὸν θυμὸν εἰπεῖν κτλ.</foreign> +</note> The philosopher was in those +<pb n="414"/><anchor id="Pg414"/>days, and often too truly, charged with gross inconsistency in his +private conduct. Plutarch believed emphatically in teaching by +example. The preacher of the higher life should inspire such +respect that his frown or smile shall at once affect the disciple.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Rect. Rat. Aud.</hi> c. xii.; cf. <hi rend="italic">De +Prof.</hi> c. xv. + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τίθεσθαι πρὸ ὀφθαλμῶν τοὺς ὄντας ἀγαθοὺς ἢ γεγενημένους καὶ + διανοεῖσθαι τί δ’ ἂν ἔπραξεν ἐν τούτῳ Πλάτων κτλ.</foreign></note> +Plutarch evidently practised his remedies on himself. His +great gallery of the heroes of the past was primarily intended +to profit others. But he found, as the work went on, that he +was himself <q>much profited by looking into these histories, as +if he looked into a glass, to frame and fashion his life to the +mould and pattern of these virtuous noblemen.</q><note place="foot">Trench, <hi rend="italic">Plut.</hi> p. 33.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Plutarch, as we have seen, waged determined war with the +older Stoic and Epicurean systems; yet his practical teaching +is coloured by the spirit of both. This is perhaps best seen in +the tract on Tranquillity, which might almost have been written +by Seneca. Although Plutarch elsewhere holds the Peripatetic +doctrine that the full life of virtue cannot dispense with the +external gifts of fortune, he asserts as powerfully as any Stoic +that life takes its predominant colour from the character, that +<q>the kingdom of Heaven is within,</q> that no change of external +fortune can calm the tumults of the soul. You seem to be +listening to a Stoic doctor when you hear that most calamities +draw their weight and bitterness from imagination, that excessive +desire for a thing engenders the fear of losing it, and +makes enjoyment feeble and uncertain, that men, by forgetting +the past in the vanishing present, lose the continuity of their +lives.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Tranq.</hi> c. xvi. xvii. xiv. xv.</note> Is it Plutarch himself, or some Christian preacher, who +tells us that seeming calamity may be the greatest blessing, +that the greatest folly is unthankfulness and discontent with +the daily lot, that no wealth or rank can give such enchanted +calm of spirit as a conscience unstained by evil deed or thought, +and the power of facing fortune with steady open eye?<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. xix. + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀγνοουντες ὅσον ἐστὶ πρὸς ἀλυπίαν ἀγαθὸν τὸ μελετᾶν + καὶ δύνασθαι πρὸς τὴν τύχην ἀνεῳγόσι τοῖς ὄμμασιν ἀντιβλέπειν</foreign>.</note> It is +surely the greatest literary genius of his age, buried in a dull +Boeotian town, who bids us think of the good things we have, +instead of envying a life whose inner griefs we know not, who +ever looks on the brighter side of things and dignifies an obscure +<pb n="415"/><anchor id="Pg415"/>lot by grateful content, who is not vexed by another’s splendid +fortune, because he knows that seeming success is often +a miserable failure, and that each one has within him the +springs of happiness or misery.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Tranq.</hi> c. xi. xiii. xiv. + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὅτι ἕκαστος ἐν ἑαυτῷ τὰ τῆς εὐθυμίας καὶ τῆς δυσθυμίας + ἔχει ταμεῖα</foreign>.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The discipline by which this wise mood, which contains the +wisdom of all the ages, is to be attained is expounded by Plutarch +in many tracts, which are the record of much spiritual counsel. +The great secret is a lover’s passion for the ideal and a scorn for +the vulgar objects of desire.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Prof.</hi> c. xiv. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">δήμωμα δὲ αὐτοῦ πρῶτα μὲν ὁ πρὸς τὰ ἐπαινούμενα ζῆλος +καὶ τὸ ποιεῖν εἴναι προθύμους, ἃ θαυμάζομεν, κτλ.</foreign></note> Yet moral growth must be slow, +though steady and unpausing, not the rush of feverish excitement, +which may be soon spent and exhausted.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. i.-iv.</note> The true +aspirant to moral perfection will not allow himself to be cast +down by the obstacles that meet him at the entrance to the +narrow way, nor will he be beguiled by pomp of style or +subtlety of rhetoric to forget the true inwardness of philosophy. +He will not ask for any witness of his good deeds or his +growth in virtue; he will shrink from the arrogance of the +mere pretender. Rather will he be humble and modest, +harsh to his own faults, gentle to those of others. Like the +neophyte in the mysteries, he will be awed into reverent +silence, when the light bursts from the inner shrine.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. x. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὁ δὲ ἐτὸς γενομένος καὶ φῶς μέγα ἰδὼν οἷον ἀνακτόρων +ἀνοιγομένων, ὥσπερ θεῷ τῷ λόγῳ ταπεινὸς συνέπεται κτλ.</foreign></note> This +humility will be cultivated by daily self-scrutiny, and in +this self-examination no sins will seem little, and no addition +to the growing moral wealth, however slight, will be despised.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. xvii.</note> +To stimulate effort, we must set the great historic examples of +achievement or self-conquest before our eyes, and in doubt or +difficulty, we must ask what would Plato or Socrates have done +in such a case?<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. + <anchor id="corr415"/><corr sic="xv;">xv.;</corr> cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 11, § 8; +aliquis vir bonus nobis eligendus est +... ut sic tanquam illo spectante +vivamus, et omnia tanquam illo +vidente faciamus.</note> Where they have suffered, we shall love +and honour them all the more. Their memory will work as a +sacred spell. +</p> + +<p> +Plutarch expounded the gospel of a cheerful and contented +life, and he evidently practised what he preached. Yet, like +all finely strung spirits, he had his hours when the pathos of +<pb n="416"/><anchor id="Pg416"/>life was heavy upon him, and death seemed the sovereign +remedy for it all. Any one who shares the vulgar notion +that the Greeks, even of the great age, were a race living in +perpetual sunshine and careless enjoyment of the hour, should +read the Consolation to Apollonius on the death of his son. He +will there find all the great poets, from Homer downwards, cited +in support of the most pessimist view of human life.<note place="foot">Plut. (?) <hi rend="italic">Consol. ad Apoll.</hi> c. vi. vii. +sqq.</note> In the field +of philosophy, it finds the most withering expression in the +doctrine of Heraclitus, which did so much to mould the thought +of Plutarch’s great master, and which coloured so many of the +meditations of M. Aurelius.<note place="foot">M. Aurel. vii. 1; vii. 19; vi. 15; + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἐν δὴ τούτῳ τῷ ποταμῷ τί ἄν τις τούτων παραθεόντων + ἐκτιμήσειεν ἐφ’ οὗ στῆναι οὐκ ἔξεστιν</foreign>: ix. 32; cf. <hi rend="italic">Consol. ad Apoll.</hi> +c. x. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καὶ ᾗ φησιν Ἡράκλειτος, ταὐτό τ’ ἔνι ζῶν καὶ τεθνηκός</foreign>.</note> Our life is but in miniature a +counterpart of the universal flux, and each moment is the meeting +place of life and death. Years, many or few, are but a point, +a moment in the tract of infinite age.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Consol. ad Apoll.</hi> c. xvii. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τό τε πολὺ δήπυθεν ἢ μικρὸν οὐδὲν διαφέρειν δοκεῖ +πρὸς τὸν ἄπειρον ἀφορῶσιν αἰῶνα</foreign>.</note> The noble fulness of a +life must be sought not in a sum of years, but in a rounded +completeness of virtue. When we look at the chance and +change and sorrow of life, death seems really the great deliverer, +and in certain moments, it may be hailed as Heaven’s last, best +gift.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. xiv.</note> Whether it be an unawaking sleep or the entrance to +another scene of being, it cannot be an evil; it may perchance +be a blessing. If there is nothing after it, we only return to +our calm antenatal unconsciousness.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. xv.; cf. Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 99, § 30; +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 36; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 24.</note> Or if there be another +life, then for the good and noble there is a place assuredly +prepared in some happy island of the West, or other mystic +region, which we may picture to ourselves, if we please, in the +Orphic visions glorified by Pindar.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Consol. ad Apoll.</hi> c. xxxiv. xxxv. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καὶ χῶρός τις ἀποτεταγμένος ἐν ᾧ διατρίβουσιν αἱ τούτων ψυχαί</foreign>: Pind. <hi rend="italic">Ol.</hi> ii. 106 sqq.</note> +</p> + +<p> +We are now on the threshold of another world, from which +many voices were coming to the age of Plutarch. After +philosophy has done its utmost to mould the life of sixty or +seventy years into a moral harmony, with its music in itself,<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Virt. Mor.</hi> c. vi.</note> +the effort ends in a melancholy doubt. The precept of Seneca +and Plutarch, that you should live under the tutelary eye of +some patron sage of the past, revealed a need of exterior help +<pb n="417"/><anchor id="Pg417"/>for the virtuous will. The passion for continued existence was +sobered by the sense of continued moral responsibility and the +shadow of a judgment to come. Vistas of a supernatural world +opened above the struggling human life on earth and in far +mysterious distances beyond. When philosophy had done its +utmost to heal the diseases of humanity, it was confronted with +another task, to give man a true knowledge of God and assurance +of His help in this world and the next. Philosophy had +for ages held before the eyes of men a dim vision of Him, sublime, +remote, ineffable. But it was a vision for the few, not for the +many. It was rather metaphysical than moral and spiritual. +It paid little heed to the myths and mysteries by which +humanity had been seeking to solve its spiritual enigmas. +This long travail of humanity could not be ignored by a true +religious philosophy. Some means must be found to reconcile +ancient religious imagination with the best conception of the +Divine. +</p> + +<p> +The problem indeed was not a new one, except in the sense +that an intense revival of religious faith or superstition +demanded a fresh théodicée. As early as the sixth century +<hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, the simple faith in legend had been shaken among the +higher minds in a great philosophic movement which extended +over many ages. Some had rejected the myths with scorn. +Others had proceeded by the method of more or less critical +selection. Others, again, strove to find in them a historical +kernel, or an esoteric meaning veiled in allegory. The same +methods reappeared in the age of Varro and Scaevola,<note place="foot">S. Aug. <hi rend="italic">De Civ. Dei</hi>, iv. 27; vi. +2.</note> and, +five centuries later, in the theology of Macrobius.<note place="foot">Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> i. c. 17; cf. <hi rend="italic">Roman +Society in the Last Century of the W. +Empire</hi>, p. 77 (1st ed.).</note> The effort, +however, of the Platonists of the second century has a peculiar +interest, because some fresh elements have been added to the +great problem since the days of Xenophanes and Euhemerus +and Varro. +</p> + +<p> +To Plutarch, theology is the crown of all philosophy.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Def. Or.</hi> c. 2.</note> To +form true and worthy conceptions of the Divine Being is not +less important than to pay Him pious worship. Plutarch’s +lofty conception of the Infinite and Supreme, like that of +Maximus of Tyre, dominates all his system. In a curious +<pb n="418"/><anchor id="Pg418"/>treatise on Isis and Osiris, he reviews many a device of scholastic +subtlety, many a crude guess of embryonic science, many a dream +of Pythagorean mysticism, to find an inner meaning in the +Egyptian myth. Yet it embalms, in all this frigid scholasticism, +the highest and purest expression of Plutarch’s idea of the +Supreme. In the end he breaks away from all lower mundane +conceptions of the Divine, and reveals a glimpse of the beatific +vision. <q>While we are here below,</q> he says, <q>encumbered by +bodily affections, we can have no intercourse with God, save as +in philosophic thought we may faintly touch Him, as in a dream. +But when our souls are released, and have passed into the region +of the pure, invisible, and changeless, this God will be their +guide and king who depend on Him and gaze with insatiable +longing on the beauty which may not be spoken of by the lips of +man.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Is. et Osir.</hi> c. lxxix.</note> To Plutarch God is the One, Supreme, Eternal Being, +removed to an infinite distance from the mutable and mortal—the +Being of whom we can only predicate that <q>He is,</q> who lives +in an everlasting <q>now,</q> of whom it would be irrational and +impious to speak in the terms of the future or the past.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ΕΙ</foreign> ap. Delph.</hi> c. xix. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὅθεν οὐδ’ ὅσιόν ἐστιν οὐδὲν τοῦ ὄντος λέγειν ὡς ἦν ἢ ἔσται</foreign>.</note> He +is the One, the Absolute of Eleatic or Pythagorean philosophy, +the Demiurgus of Plato, the primal motive power of Aristotle, +the World-Soul of the Stoics. Yet Plutarch is as far removed +from the Epicureanism which banishes God from the universe +as he is from the pantheism of east or west, which interfuses +the world and God.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Is. et Osir.</hi> c. 54, 78; + <hi rend="italic">De <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ΕΙ</foreign> ap. Delph.</hi> c. 20; <hi rend="italic">Def. Or.</hi> c. 9, <hi rend="italic">ad fin.</hi>; +Oakesmith, <hi rend="italic">Rel. of Plut.</hi> p. 88; Zeller, +<hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 2, p. 148; <hi rend="italic">De Is. +et Osir.</hi> c. 40, 66; <hi rend="italic">non p. Suav.</hi> c. 22, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">βοηθεῖν πέφυκεν, ὀργίζεσθαι δὲ καὶ κακῶς ποιεῖν οὐ πέφυκεν</foreign>: <hi rend="italic">De Ser. Num. Vind.</hi> +c. iv. v. xviii.; Nitsch, <hi rend="italic">De Plut. Theologo</hi>, +p. 8; Gréard, <hi rend="italic">Morale de Plut.</hi> p. +263; cf. Burgmann, <hi rend="italic">Seneca’s Theologie</hi>, +pp. 14-20.</note> Plutarch never abandons the Divine +personality, in whatever sense he may hold it. God is the +highest perfection of goodness and intelligence, the Creator, the +watchful and benevolent Providence of the world, the Author +of all good. His power, indeed, is not unlimited. There is a +power of evil in the world which must be recognised. And, +as good cannot be the author of evil, the origin of evil must +be sought in a separate and original principle, distinct from, +but not co-equal with, God: a principle recognised in many a +theology and philosophy of east and west, and called by many +<pb n="419"/><anchor id="Pg419"/>names—Ahriman or Hades, the <q>dyad</q> of Pythagoras, the +<q>strife</q> of Empedocles, the <q>other</q> of Plato.<note place="foot">Zeller, iii. 2, p. 152; <hi rend="italic">De Is.</hi> c. 45-49; +<hi rend="italic">De St. Rep.</hi> c. 33.</note> Its seat is the +World-Soul, which has a place alongside of God and Matter, +causing all that is deadly in nature, all moral disorder in the +soul of man. Matter is the seat both of evil and good.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De An. Procr.</hi> c. 6.</note> In +its lower regions it may seem to be wholly mastered by the +evil principle; yet in its essence it is really struggling towards +the good, and, as a female principle, susceptible to the formative +influence of the Divine, as well as exposed to the incursions of +evil. Plutarch’s theory of creation is, in the main, that of +the Timaeus, with mingled elements of Stoic cosmogony. +Through number and harmony the Divine Mind introduces +order into the mass of lawless chaos. But while God stands +outside the cosmos as its creator, He is not merely the divine +craftsman, but a penetrating power. For from Him proceeds +the soul which is interfused with the world and which sustains +it. Through the World-Soul, God is in touch with all powers +and provinces of the universe. Yet throughout the universe, +as in the human soul, there are always present the two elements +side by side, the principles of reason and unreason, of evil and +of good.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 2, +p. 155; Plat. <hi rend="italic">Tim.</hi> 29, 30.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The vision of the one eternal, passionless Spirit, far removed +from the world of chance and change and earthly soilure, was +the conquest of Greek philosophy, travailing for 800 years. +But it was a vision far withdrawn; it was separated by an +apparently impassable gulf alike from the dreams of Hellenic +legend and from the struggling life of humanity. The poets, +and even the poet of divinest inspiration, had bequeathed a mass +of legend, often shocking to the later moral sense, yet always +seductive by its imaginative charm. How to reconcile the +fictions of poetry, which had so long enthralled all imaginations, +with higher spiritual intuitions, that was the problem. It was +not indeed a new problem. It had driven Xenophanes into open +revolt, it had exercised the mind of the reverent Pindar and +the sceptical Euripides. It had suggested to Plato the necessity +of recasting myth in the light of the Divine purity.<note place="foot">Diog. Laert. ix. § 18, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">γέγραφε δὲ καὶ [Ξενοφάνης] ἰάμβους καθ’ Ἡσιόδου καὶ Ὁμήρου +ἐπισκώπτων αὐτῶν τὰ περὶ θεῶν εἰρημένα</foreign>: <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> extracts in Ritter +and Preller, <hi rend="italic">Hist. Phil.</hi> p. 82; Plat. +<hi rend="italic">Rep.</hi> ii. pp. 378-380.</note> But the +<pb n="420"/><anchor id="Pg420"/>new Hellenism of the second century was a great literary, even +more than a theological or philosophic, movement; and the +glory of Greek literature was inseparably linked with the glory +and the shame of Greek mythology. To discard and repudiate +the myths was to give the lie to the divine poets. To explain +them away by physical allegory, in the fashion of the +Stoic theology, or to lower the <q>blessed ones</q> of Olympus +to the stature of earthly kings and warriors, after the manner +of Euhemerus, was to break the charm of poetic legend, and +violate the instincts of ancestral piety.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is.</hi> c. xxiii. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὃς (Εὐήμερος) ... πᾶσαν αθεότητα κατασκεδάννυσι τῆς οἰκουμένης</foreign>.</note> And there were many +other claimants for devotion beside the ancient gods of Rome +and Greece. Persia and Phrygia, Commagene and Egypt, every +region from the Sahara to Cumberland, were adding to the +pantheon. Soldiers and travellers were bringing their tales of +genii and daemons from islands in the British seas and the +shores of the Indian Ocean.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Def. Or.</hi> c. 18, 21.</note> How could a man trained in the +mystic monotheism of 800 years reconcile himself to this +immense accretion of alien superstition? +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, from whatever quarter, a new spiritual +vision had opened, strange to the ancient world. It is not merely +that the conception of God has become more pure and lofty; +the whole attitude of the higher minds to the Eternal had altered. +A great spiritual revolution had concurred with a great political +revolution. The vision of the divine world which satisfied men +in the age of Pericles or in the Punic wars, when religion, +politics, and morality were linked in unbroken harmony, when, +if spiritual vision was bounded, spiritual needs were less +clamorous, and the moral life less troubled and self-conscious, +could no longer appease the yearnings of the higher minds. Both +morality and religion had become less formal and external, more +penetrating and exigent. Prayer was no longer a formal litany +for worldly blessings or sinful indulgence, but a colloquy with +God, in a moment of spiritual exaltation.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 10, § 5; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 41, § 1; Pers. +ii. 73; Max. Tyr. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> xi. § 8, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">σὺ μὲν ἡγεῖ τὴν τοῦ φιλοσόφου εὐχὴν αἴτησιν τῶν οὐ παρόντων· + ἐγὼ δὲ ὁμιλίαν καὶ διάλεκτον πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς περὶ τῶν παρόντων, κτλ.</foreign>: Martha, <hi rend="italic">Moralistes sous +l’Emp.</hi> p. 163; Denis, <hi rend="italic">Idées Morales</hi>, +ii. p. 245 sqq.</note> The true sacrifice +was no longer <q>the blood of bulls,</q> but a quiet spirit. Along +with a sense of frailty and bewilderment, men felt the need of +<pb n="421"/><anchor id="Pg421"/>purification and spiritual support. The old mysteries and the +new cults from the East had fostered a longing for sacramental +peace and assurance of another life, in which the crooked should +be made straight and the perverted be restored. +</p> + +<p> +In Maximus of Tyre,<note place="foot">Of the life of Maximus of Tyre little +is known. He began his career as a +teacher probably about 155 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> Like +other philosophers of his time, he had +travelled widely. See the references to +Arabia and Phrygia in <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> viii., <hi rend="italic">e.g.</hi> +§ 8, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">Ἀράβιοι μὲν σέβουσι μὲν ὅντινα δὲ οὐκ οἶδα· τὸ δὲ ἄγαλμα εἶδον, +λίθος ἦν τετράγωνος</foreign>. Cf. Zeller, iii. 2, p. 183 n.</note> although he has no claim to the reputation +of a strong and original thinker, we see this new religious +spirit of the second century perhaps in its purest form. Man +is an enigma, a contradiction, a being placed on the confines of +two worlds. A beast in his fleshly nature, he is akin to God +in his higher part, nay, the son of God.<note place="foot">Max. Tyr. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> iv. § 7.</note> Even the noblest +spirits here below live in a sort of twilight, or in a heady excitement, +an intoxication of the senses. Yet, cramped as it is in +the prison of the flesh, the soul may raise itself above the misty +region of perpetual change towards the light of the Eternal. For, +in the slumber of this mortal life, the pure spirit is sometimes +visited by visions coming through the gate of horn,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xvi. § 1, § 8.</note> visions +of another world seen in some former time. And, following +them, the moral hero, like Heracles, the model of strenuous +virtue, through toil and tribulation may gain the crown. +On this stormy sea of time, philosophy gives us the veil of +Leucothea to charm the troubled waters. It is true that only +when release comes at death, does the soul attain to the full vision +of God. For the Highest is separated from us by a great gulf. +Yet the analysis of the soul which Maximus partly borrows from +Aristotle, discovers His seat in us, the highest reason, that power +of intuitive, all-embracing, instantaneous vision, which is distinct +from the slower and tentative operations of the understanding. +It is by this higher faculty that God is seen, so far as He may +be, in this mixed and imperfect state.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xvii. § 8.</note> For the vision of God +can only in any degree be won by abstraction from sense and +passion and everything earthly, in a struggle ever upwards, +beyond the paths of the heavenly orbs, to the region of eternal +calm <q>where falls not rain or hail or any snow, but a white +cloudless radiance spreads over all.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 10.</note> And when may we see +God? <q>Thou shalt see Him fully,</q> Maximus says, <q>only when +<pb n="422"/><anchor id="Pg422"/>He calls thee, in age or death, but meantime glimpses of the +Beauty which eye hath not seen nor can tongue speak of, may +be won, if the veils and wrappings which hide His splendour +be torn away.<note place="foot">Max. Tyr. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> xvii. § 11.</note> But do not thou profane Him by offering vain +prayers for earthly things which belong to the world of chance +or which may be obtained by human effort, things for which the +worthy need not pray, and which the unworthy will not obtain. +The only prayer which is answered, is the prayer for goodness, +peace, and hope in death.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xi. § 2, § 7.</note> +</p> + +<p> +How could a Platonist of the second century, we may ask, +holding such a spiritual creed, reconcile himself to Greek +mythology, nay, to all the mythologies, with all the selfish grossness +of their ritual? Plutarch and Maximus of Tyre answer +the question by a piously ingenious interpretation of ancient +legend, and partly by a system of daemons, of mediating and +ministering spirits, who fill the interval between the changeless +Infinite and the region of sin and change. +</p> + +<p> +In religion, they say, in effect, we must take human nature +as we find it. We are not legislating for a young race, just +springing from the earth, but for races with conceptions of +the Divine which run back through countless ages. There may +be, here and there, an elect few who can raise their minds, in +rare moments, to the pure vision of the Eternal. But heaven is so +far from earth, and earth is so darkened by the mists of sense, +that temple and image and sacred litany, and the myths created +by the genius of poets, or imposed by lawgivers, are needed to +sustain and give expression to the vague impotent yearnings of +the mass of men.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> viii. § 2, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀλλ’ ἀσθενὲς ὃν κομιδῇ τὸ ἀνθρωπεῖον καὶ διεστὸς τοῦ θείου +ὅσον οὐρανοῦ γῆ, σημεῖα ταῦτα ἐμηχανήσατο</foreign>.</note> The higher intuitions of religion must be +translated into material symbolism; <q>here we see, as through +a glass darkly.</q> And the symbols of sacred truth are as various +as the many tribes of men. Some, like the Egyptian worship +of animals, are of a degraded type. The Greek anthropomorphism, +although falling far short of the grandeur and purity of +the Infinite, yet furnishes its noblest image, because it has glorified +by artistic genius the human body, which has been chosen as +the earthly home of the rational soul.<note place="foot">Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xii. § 59 (404 R).</note> And the cause of myth +and plastic art are really one; nay, there is no opposition or +con<pb n="423"/><anchor id="Pg423"/>trast, in fact, between poetic mythology and religious philosophy. +They are different methods of teaching religious truth, adapted +to different stages of intellectual development. Myth is the +poetic philosophy of a simple age, for whose ears the mystic +truth must be sweetened by music, an age whose eyes cannot +bear to gaze on the Divine splendour unveiled.<note place="foot">Max. Tyr. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> x. § 3, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἡ ψυχὴ ... ἐδεῖτο φιλοσοφίας μουσικῆς τινος κτλ.</foreign> Cf. +§ 5, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">πάντα μεστὰ αἰνιγμάτων καὶ παρὰ ποιηταῖς καὶ παρὰ φιλοσόφοις</foreign>.</note> Philosophic +theology is for an age of rationalism and inquiry; it would have +been unintelligible to the simple imaginative childhood of the +race. Maximus has the same faith as Plutarch that the +mythopoeic age possessed, along with an enthralling artistic +skill, all the speculative depth and subtlety of later ages. It +is almost a profanity to imagine that Homer or Hesiod or +Pindar were less of philosophers than Aristotle or Chrysippus.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> x. § 3.</note> +It was assumed that the early myth-makers and lawgivers +possessed a sacred lore of immense value and undoubted truth, +which they dimly shadowed forth in symbolism of fanciful +tale or allegory.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is.</hi> lxviii.; xx.; Max. Tyr. +x. §§ 5-7; cf. Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Som. Scip.</hi> i. 2, +7-19; Hatch, <hi rend="italic">Hibbert Lec.</hi> p. 55 sq.</note> The myth at once hides and reveals the +mystery of the Divine. If a man comes to its interpretation +with the proper discipline and acumen, the kernel of spiritual +or physical meaning which is reverently veiled from the profane +eye will disclose itself. And thus the later philosophic +theologian is not reading his own higher thoughts of God into +the grotesque fancies of a remote antiquity; he is evolving +and interpreting a wisdom more original than his own. In +this process of rediscovering a lost tradition, he pushes aside +the mass of erroneous interpretations which have perverted +the original doctrine, by literal acceptance of what is really +figurative, by abuse of names and neglect of realities, by +stopping at the symbol instead of rising to the divine fact.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is.</hi> lxvi. <hi rend="italic">ad fin.</hi></note> +</p> + +<p> +The treatise of Plutarch on Isis and Osiris is the best +illustration of this attitude to myth. Plutarch’s theology, +though primarily Hellenic, does not confine its gaze to the +Greek Olympus; it is intended to be the science of human +religion in general. It gives formal expression to the growing +tendency to syncretism. The central truth of it is, that as +the sun and moon, under many different names, shed their +<pb n="424"/><anchor id="Pg424"/>light on all, so the gods are variously invoked and honoured +by various tribes of men.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is.</hi> c. lxvii. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὥσπερ ἥλιος καὶ σελήνη καὶ οὐρανὸς καὶ γῆ κοινὰ πᾶσιν, +ὀνομάζεται δ’ ἄλλος ὑπ’ ἄλλων, οὕτως ἑνὸς λόγου τοῦ ταῦτα κοσμοῦντος +καὶ μιᾶς προνοίας ἐπιτροπευούσης, καὶ δυνάμεων ὑπουργῶν +ἐπὶ πάντας τεταγμένων, ἕτεραι παρ’ ἑτέροις κατὰ νόμους +γεγόνασι τιμαὶ καὶ προσηγορίαι, κτλ.</foreign></note> But there is one supreme Ruler +and Providence common to all. And the lower deities of +different countries may often be identified by the theologian, +under all varieties of title and attribute. So, to Plutarch as +to Herodotus, the immemorial worships of Egypt were the +prototypes or the counterparts of the cults of Greece.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. lxi.; xxxv.; cf. Herodot. ii. +c. 50.</note> There +was a temple of Osiris at Delphi, and Clea, to whom Plutarch’s +treatise is addressed, was not only a hereditary priestess of the +Egyptian god, but held a leading place among the female +ministers of Dionysus.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is.</hi> c. xxxv.</note> It was fitting that a person so +catholic in her sympathies should have dedicated to her the +treatise in which Plutarch expounds his all-embracing theology. +</p> + +<p> +In this treatise we see the new theology wrestling in a +hopeless struggle to unite the thought of Pythagoras and +Plato with the grossness of Egyptian myth. It is a striking, +but not a solitary, example of the misapplication of dialectic +skill and learning, to find the thoughts of the present in the +fancies of the past, and from a mistaken piety, to ignore the +onward march of humanity. Arbitrary interpretations of +myth, alike unhistorical and unscientific, make us wonder how +they could ever have occurred to men of intellect and learning. +Yet the explanation is not far to seek. More elevated conceptions +of God, the purged and clarified religious intuition, +do not readily find a substitute for the old symbolism to +express their visions. Religion, beyond any other institution, +depends for its power on antiquity, on the charm of ancestral +pieties. A religious symbol is doubly sacred when it has ministered +to the devotion of many generations. +</p> + +<p> +In interpreting the powerful cult of Isis, which was spreading +rapidly over the western world, Plutarch had two objects +in view. By reverent explanation of its legends and ritual, he +desired to counteract its immoral and superstitious tendencies;<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. xx.</note> +he also wished, in discussing a worship so multiform as that +of Isis, to develop his attitude to myth in general. We +<pb n="425"/><anchor id="Pg425"/>cannot follow him minutely in his survey of the various +attempts of philosophy to find the basis of truth in Egyptian +legend. Some of these explanations, such as the Euhemerist, +he would dismiss at once as atheistic.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is.</hi> c. xxiii. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">πᾶσαν ἀθεότητα κατασκεδάννυσι τῆς οἰκουμένης</foreign>.</note> On others, which +founded themselves on physical allegory, he would not be +so dogmatic, although he might reject as impious any tendency +to identify the gods with natural powers and products.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. lxvi.</note> As +a positive contribution to religious philosophy, the treatise is +chiefly valuable for its theory of Evil and of daemonic powers, +and above all for the doctrine of the unity of God, the central +truth of all religions. +</p> + +<p> +The daemonology of the Platonists of the second century +had its roots deep in the Hellenic past, as it was destined to +have a long future. But it was specially evoked by the needs +of the pagan revival of the Antonine age. The doctrine had +assumed many forms in previous Greek thought from the days +of Hesiod, and it has various aspects, and serves various +purposes, in the hands of Plutarch, Apuleius, and Maximus of +Tyre. It was in the first place an apologetic for heathenism +in an age distracted between a lofty conception of one infinite +Father and legends of many lands and many ages, which were +consecrated by long tradition, yet often shocking to the spiritual +sense. As the conception of God became purer and seemed to +withdraw into remoter distances, souls like Apuleius, wedded +to the ancient rites, found in the daemons, ranging between +earth and ether, the means of conveying answers to prayer, of +inspiring dreams and prophecy, of ordering all the machinery +of divination.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">De Deo Socr.</hi> c. vi. (133).</note> To others, such as Maximus of Tyre, the +doctrine seemed to discover a spiritual support for human +frailty, guardians in temptation and the crises of life, mediators +between the human spirit, immured for a time in the prison +of the flesh, and the remote purity of the Supreme.<note place="foot">Max. Tyr. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> xiv. §§ 7, 8.</note> To other +minds the daemon is no external power, but dwelling within +each soul, as its divine part, a kind of ideal personality,<note place="foot">Cf. Rohde, <hi rend="italic">Psyche</hi>, ii. 361, 1. M. +Aurel. v. 10, 27, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὅτι ἔξεστί μοι μηδὲν πρᾶττειν παρὰ τὸν ἐμὸν θεὸν καὶ δαίμονα</foreign>: +vii. 17; Epict. i. 14, § 12, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καὶ (ὁ θεὸς) ἐπίτροπον ἑκάστῳ παρέστησε, τὸν ἑκάστου δαίμονα, +καὶ παρέδωκε φυλάσσειν αὐτὸν αὐτῷ, κτλ.</foreign></note> in +following whose ghostly promptings lies the secret of happiness. +<pb n="426"/><anchor id="Pg426"/>Finally, the doctrine created an eschatology by which vistas +of moral perfection were opened before purer spirits in worlds +to come, and the infinite responsibilities of this life were +terribly enforced by threats of endless degradation.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Sera Num. Vind.</hi> c. +xxii.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The daemons who came to the aid of mythology +in the Antonine age, were composite beings, with a double +nature corresponding to the two worlds of the Divine and +human which they linked together. They are at once divine +in power and knowledge, and akin to humanity in feeling and +passion.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">De Deo Socr.</hi> c. xiii.; Max. +Tyr. xv. § 4; Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Def. Or.</hi> c. x.</note> They are even liable to mortality, as was proved by +the famous tale of the voice which floated to the Egyptian +pilot from the Echinad isles, announcing that the great Pan +was dead.<note place="foot">Plut <hi rend="italic">De Def. Or.</hi> c. xvii.</note> Their sphere is the middle space between the lofty +ether and the mists of earth. This spiritual mediation, as +Maximus points out, is not an exceptional principle. There is a +chain of being in the universe, as it had been developed in the +cosmic theory of Aristotle, by which the remote extremes are +linked in successive stages, and may be blended or reconciled, +in a mean or compound, as in a musical harmony. The +principle is seen operating in the relation of the great physical +elements. Thus, for example, fire and water are at opposite +poles: they cannot pass immediately into one another, but air +furnishes a medium between the two, and reconciles their +opposition by participating in the warmth of the one element +and in the moisture of the other.<note place="foot">Max. Tyr. xv. § 3.</note> The suggestions of cosmic +theory seemed to receive support from many tales which, in +that age of luxuriant superstition, were accepted even in +educated circles. Travellers, returning from Britain, told +weird stories of desolate islands in the northern seas which +were the haunts of genii.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Def. Or.</hi> c. xviii.</note> A Spartan visitor to Delphi related +how, on the shores of the Indian Ocean, he had met with a +hermit of a beautiful countenance and proof against all disease, +who spoke with many tongues, and derived his mystic powers +from intercourse with the spirits which haunted those distant +solitudes.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. xxi.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Plutarch also justifies his theory of daemons by an appeal +to the authority of Hesiod, of Pythagoras and Plato, Xenocrates +<pb n="427"/><anchor id="Pg427"/>and Chrysippus.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is.</hi> c. xxv.; <hi rend="italic">De Def. Or.</hi> +c. x.</note> He might have added others to the list. +For, indeed, the conception of these mediators between the +ethereal world and the world of sense has a long history—too +long to be developed within our present limits. Its earliest +appearance in Greece was in the <hi rend="italic">Works and Days</hi> of Hesiod, who +first definitely sketched a great scale of being—gods, heroes, +daemons, and mortal men. Hesiod’s daemons are the men of +the golden age, translated to a blissful and immortal life, yet +linked in sympathy with those still on earth—<q>Ministers of +good and guardians of men.</q><note place="foot">Hes. <hi rend="italic">Op. et D.</hi> 125; cf. Rohde, +<hi rend="italic">Psyche</hi>, i. p. 96.</note> The conception was introduced +at a time when new moral and spiritual forces were at work, +which were destined to have a profound and lasting influence +on paganism for a thousand years. The glamour of the radiant +Olympus and the glory of heroic battle were fading. Men were +settling down to humdrum toil, and becoming acutely conscious +of the troubles and sadness of life. With a craving for +support and comfort which the religion of Homer could not +give, the pessimist view of life, which colours Hesiod’s poetry, +sought consolation in a mysticism altogether strange to Homer, +and even to Hesiod. The feeling that humanity had declined +from a glorious prime and, in its weakness and terror at death, +needed some new consolations, was met by a system which, +although Orpheus may never have existed, will always be +called by his name.<note place="foot">For the spiritual influences at +work <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Lobeck, <hi rend="italic">Aglaoph.</hi> p. 312; +Grote, i. p. 23; Bury, <hi rend="italic">Hist. of Greece</hi>, +p. 312; Hardie, <hi rend="italic">Lectures</hi>, p. 57.</note> The Chthonian deities, Dionysus and +Demeter, sprang into a prominence which they had not in +Homer. The immortal life began to overshadow the present, +and in the mysteries men found some assurance of immortality, +and preparation for it by cleansing from the stains of time. +That idea, which was to have such profound influence upon +later thought, that there is a divine element in man, which is +emancipated from the prison of the flesh at death, became an +accepted doctrine. At the same time, the faith in helpers and +mediators, half human, half divine, lent itself to the support +of human weakness. The heroic soul who passed victoriously +through the ordeal of this life, might in another world become +the guardian and exemplar of those who were still on earth. +</p> + +<p> +In the Ionian and Eleatic schools the doctrine was held +<pb n="428"/><anchor id="Pg428"/>in some sense by all the great thinkers, by Thales, Anaximander, +Heraclitus, Xenophanes. To Thales the world was +full of daemons.<note place="foot">Diog. Laert. i. 27, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀρχὴν δὲ τῶν πάντων ὕδωρ ὑπεστήσατο, καὶ τὸν κόσμον +ἔμψυχον καὶ δαιμόνων πλήρη</foreign>.</note> In the mystic teaching of Heraclitus the +universe teems with such spirits, for in the perpetual flux and +change, the divine is constantly passing into the death of +mortal life and the mortal into the divine.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Heracl. Reliq.</hi> p. 26 Bywater, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">Ἀθάνατοι θνητοί, θνητοὶ ἀθάνατοι ζῶντες τὸν ἐκείνων θάνατον, +τὸν δὲ ἐκείνων βίον τεθνεῶντες. ὁ δὲ Ἡράκλειτός φησιν ὅτι +καὶ τὸ ζῆν καὶ τὸ ἀποθανεῖν καὶ ἐν τῷ ζῆν ἡμᾶς ἐστι +καὶ ἐν τῷ τεθνάναι, κτλ.</foreign> +Cf. <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀνὴρ νήπιος ἤκουσε πρὸς δαίμονος ὅπωσπερ παῖς πρὸς ἀνδρός</foreign>. Ritter and +Preller, <hi rend="italic">Hist. Phil.</hi> p. 23; Diog. +Laert. ix. 1, § 7.</note> Empedocles, in +conformity with his cosmic dualism, first made the distinction +between good and bad daemons, and followed Pythagoras in +connecting daemonic theory with the doctrine of a fall from +divine estate, and long exile and incarnation in animal forms.<note place="foot">Ritter and Preller, <hi rend="italic">Hist. Phil.</hi> pp. +126, 7; Hild, <hi rend="italic">Étude sur les Démons</hi>, +p. 228.</note> +It was in the dim system of Pythagoras that the doctrine +became a really religious tenet, as it was to the Platonists of +the Antonine age. Pythagoras was more priest and mystic +than philosopher. He had far more in common with the +Orphici, with Abaris and Epimenides, than with Thales or +Anaximander. His school, for we can hardly speak of himself, +connected the doctrine of daemons with the doctrines of metempsychosis +and purification and atonement in another world. +Souls released from the prison-house of the flesh are submitted +to a purgatorial cleansing of a thousand years. Some pass the +ordeal victoriously, and ascend to higher spheres. Others are +kept in chains by the Erinnyes. The beatified souls become +daemons or good spirits, ranging over the universe, and +manifesting themselves in dreams and omens and ghostly +monitions, sometimes becoming even visible to the eye.<note place="foot">Diog. Laert. viii. 1, § 30 sqq.</note> But +their highest function is to guide men in the path of virtue +during life, and after death to purify the disembodied spirit, +which may become a daemon in its turn. This is the theory, +which, with some modifications, was adopted by the later +Platonists. It was popularised by Pindar, <q>the Homer of the +Pythagorean school.</q> He was captivated by its doctrine of +the migrations of the soul, of its ordeal in a future life, and +its chastisement or elevation to lofty spiritual rank as daemon +or hero. In the second Olympian ode, the punishment of the +<pb n="429"/><anchor id="Pg429"/>wicked and the beatitude of noble spirits, in the company +of Peleus and Achilles in the happy isles, are painted in all +the glowing imagery of the Apocalypse.<note place="foot">Pind. <hi rend="italic">Ol.</hi> ii. 105 sqq. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἔνθα μακάρων νᾶσος ὠκεανίδες αὖραι περιπνέοισιν· +ἄνθεμα δὲ χρυσοῦ φλέγει τὰ μὲν χερσόθεν ἀπ’ ἀγλαῶν δενδρέων, +ὕδωρ δ’ ἄλλα φέρβει</foreign>.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The daemonology of Pythagoras, along with the doctrine +of metempsychosis in its moral aspect, was adopted by Plato, +whether as a serious theory or as a philosophic myth. The +chief passages in Plato where the daemons are mentioned are +suffused with such mythic colour that it would perhaps be rash +to extract from them any sharp dogmatic theory.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Sympos.</hi> 202 <hi rend="small">E</hi>; <hi rend="italic">Polit.</hi> 271 <hi rend="small">D</hi>; +<hi rend="italic">Phaed.</hi> 107 <hi rend="small">D</hi>, 108 <hi rend="small">B</hi>; <hi rend="italic">Tim.</hi> 90 <hi rend="small">A</hi>.</note> But Plato, +holding firmly the remote purity of God, strove to fill the +interval between the mortal and the Infinite by a graded scheme +of superhuman beings. The daemon is a compound of the +mortal and the divine, spanning the chasm between them. This +is the power which conveys to God the prayers and sacrifices of +men, and brings to men the commands and rewards of the gods, +which operates in prophecy, sacrifice, and mystery. And again +the daemon is a power which is assigned to each soul at birth, +and which at death conducts it to the eternal world, to receive +judgment for its deeds, and perhaps to be condemned to return +once more to earth. The reason in man, his truly divine part, +is also called his daemon, his good genius. It is the power +whose kindred is with the world of the unseen, which is immortal, +and capable of a lofty destiny. +</p> + +<p> +Like his master Plato, Maximus of Tyre seems to know +nothing of the evil daemons, who, as we shall presently see, +were used by Plutarch to account for the immorality of myth. +To Maximus the daemons are rather angelic ministers, sent +forth to advise and succour weak mortal men.<note place="foot">Max. Tyr. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> xiv. § 8.</note> They are +the necessary mediators between the one Supreme and our +frail mortal life. Dwelling in a region between earth and ether, +they are of mingled mortal and divine nature, weaker than the +gods, stronger than men, servants of God and overseers of men, +by kinship with either linking the weakness of the mortal with +the Divine. Great is the multitude of this heavenly host, +interpreters between God and man: <q>thrice ten thousand are +they upon the fruitful earth, immortal, ministers of Zeus,</q> +healers of the sick, revealers of what is dark, aiding the +<pb n="430"/><anchor id="Pg430"/>craftsman, companions of the wayfarer. On land and sea, in +the city and the field, they are ever with us. They inspired a +Socrates, a Pythagoras, a Diogenes, or a Zeno; they are present +in all human spirits. Only the lost and hopeless soul is +without the guardianship of such an unearthly friend. +</p> + +<p> +The earlier Platonist or Pythagorean daemonology was not +employed to explain or rehabilitate polytheism. Although +Plato would not banish myth from his Utopia, he placed his +ban on the mythopoeic poets who had lent their authority to +tales and crimes and passions of the gods. Myth could only +be tolerated in the education of the young if it conformed +to the standard of Divine perfection.<note place="foot">Plat. <hi rend="italic">Rep.</hi> ii. 377-380.</note> God cannot be the +author of evil, evil is the offspring of matter; it is a +limitation or an incident of the fleeting world of sense. It is +only relative and transitory, and can never penetrate the realm +of the ideal. But to Plutarch evil was an ultimate principle +in the universe, ever present along with the good, although +not perhaps of equal range and power.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is.</hi> c. xlv. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">αἰτίαν δὲ κακοῦ τἀγαθὸν οὐκ ἂν παράσχοι, δεῖ γένεσιν +ἰδίαν καὶ ἀρχήν, ὥσπερ ἀγαθοῦ καὶ κακοῦ, τὴν φύσιν ἔχειν</foreign>: cf. Hatch, <hi rend="italic">Hibbert +Lec.</hi> p. 218.</note> And Plutarch would +not banish and disown the poets for attributing to the gods +passions and crimes which would have been dishonouring to +humanity. He would not abandon the ancient ritual because +it contained elements of gloom and impurity which shocked +a refined moral sense. Mythology and ritual, as they had been +moulded by poets or imposed by lawgivers, were intertwined +with the whole life of the people and formed an essential +element in the glory of Hellenic genius. The piety and +aesthetic feeling of the priest of Delphi still clung to ancient +ritual and legend, even when the lofty morality of the Platonist +was offended by the grossness which mingled with their artistic +charm. Might it not be possible to moralise the pagan system +without discrediting its authors, to reconcile the claims of +reason and conservative religious feeling? Might it not be +possible to save at once the purity and majesty of God and the +inspiration of the poets? +</p> + +<p> +To Plutarch the doctrine of daemons seemed to furnish an +answer to this question; it also satisfied other spiritual cravings +which were equally urgent. The need of some mixed nature +<pb n="431"/><anchor id="Pg431"/>to mediate between the ethereal world and the region of +sense became all the more imperious as the philosophic conception +of God receded into a more remote and majestic purity. +The gradation of spiritual powers, which had been accepted by +so many great minds from the time of Hesiod, at once guarded +the aloofness of the Supreme and satisfied the craving of the +religious instinct for some means of contact with it, for divine +help in the trials of time. These mediating spirits were also +made in Plutarch’s theology to furnish an explanation of +oracles and all forms of prophecy, of the inspired enthusiasm +of artist, sage, and poet. Finally, the theory, with the aid of +mythic fancy, cast a light on the fate of souls beyond the +grave, and vindicated the Divine justice by a vision of a judgment +to come. +</p> + +<p> +Plutarch’s daemonology, as he admits himself, is an inheritance +from the past. The daemons are beings half divine, half +human; they are godlike in power and intelligence, they +are human in liability to the passions engendered by the flesh. +This host of spirits dwell in the borderland below the moon, +between the pure changeless region of the celestial powers and +the region of the mutable and the mortal. Linking the two +worlds together by their composite nature, the daemons differ in +degrees of virtue; some are more akin to the Divine perfection, +others more tainted by the evil of the lower world.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Is.</hi> c. xxvi. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὡς τῶν δαιμόνων μικτὴν καὶ ἀνώμαλον φύσιν ἐχόντων καὶ προαίρεσον</foreign>: <hi rend="italic">De Def. Or.</hi> c. x., c. xvi.</note> The good +spirits, as they are described by Maximus of Tyre, are true +servants of God and faithful guardians of human virtue. But +the bad daemons assume a special prominence in the theology +of Plutarch. Nor was the development unnatural. His +conception of immortality, and the necessity of purification in +another world, raised the question as to the destiny of souls +whose stains were indelible. If purified souls are charged as +daemons with offices of mercy, may not the impure prolong their +guilt in plaguing and corrupting mankind? May not the existence +of such sombre spirits account for the evil in the world, the +existence of which cannot be blinked? Although there are traces +of this moral dualism long before Plutarch’s time, both in Greek +poetry and speculation, it was Xenocrates who first formulated +the doctrine of evil daemons in relation to mythology.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Is.</hi> c. xxv.</note> <q>It +can<pb n="432"/><anchor id="Pg432"/>not be,</q> he taught, <q>that unlucky days and festivals, conducted +with scourgings and fasts, lamentations and lacerations and +impure words and deeds, are celebrated in honour of the blessed +gods or good daemons. They are rather offered to those +powerful and terrible spirits of evil in the air whose sombre +character is propitiated by such gloomy rites.</q> These +sinister spirits assert their vast power, and display their +malevolence, not only in plague, pestilence, and dearth, and all +the desolating convulsions of the physical world, but in the +moral perversion and deception of the human race. They are +accountable for all that shocks the moral sense in the impure +or ghastly tales which the poets have told of the gods, +and in the gloomy or obscene rites which are celebrated +in their honour. The poets and early myth-makers have not +invented the evil in myth and rite; they have been deceived +as to the authors of the evil. Each of the blessed gods has +attached to him a daemon who is in some respects his counterpart, +wielding his power, but who may perpetrate every kind of +moral enormity in his name, and who demands to be honoured +and propitiated after his own evil nature. The bad daemons, +in fact, masquerade as gods and bring disgrace upon them. It +was not the Blessed Ones who mutilated a father, who raised +rebellion in Olympus and were driven into exile, who stooped to +be the lovers of mortal women. These are the works of spirits +of evil, using their fiendish cunning to deceive a simple +age. Its poetry was seduced to cast a magical charm over +their lusts and crimes; its superstition was terrified into +appeasing the fiends by shameful orgies or dark bloody rites. +Poets and founders of ritual have been faithful to supernatural +fact, but they did not see that in the supernatural order there are +evil powers as well as good. They are sound in their record +but wrong in their interpretation. In this fashion Plutarch +and his school strove to reconcile a rational faith with the +grossness of superstition, to save the holiness of God and the +glory of Homer. +</p> + +<p> +But the bad daemons who were called in to save the +ancient cults proved dangerous allies in the end. Few who +really know him will be inclined to question the sincere monotheistic +piety of Plutarch. And a sympathetic critic will even +not withhold from him a certain respect for his old-world +<pb n="433"/><anchor id="Pg433"/>attachment to the forms of his ancestral worship. He knew +no other avenue of approaching the Divine. Yet only the +imperious religious cravings and the spiritual contradictions of +that age could excuse or account for a system which was +disastrous both to paganism and philosophy. The union of +gross superstition with ingenious theology, the licence of +subtlety applied to the ancient legends, demanded too much +credulity from the cultivated and too much subtlety from +the vulgar. It undermined the already crumbling polytheism; +it made philosophy the apostle of a belief in a baleful +daemonic agency. If a malign genius was seated beside every +god to account for the evil in nature or myth, might not a day +come when both friends and enemies would confound the +daemon and the god?<note place="foot">Mr. Oakesmith thinks that Plutarch +tended to identify them, <hi rend="italic">Rel. of Plut.</hi> +p. 127.</note> Might not philosophy be led on in a +disastrous decline to the justification of magic, incantations, +and all theurgic extravagance? That day did come in the +fourth century when Platonism and polytheism in close league +were making a last stand against the victorious Church. Even +then indeed a purer Platonism still survived, as well as a purer +paganism sustained by the mysteries of Mithra or Demeter. +But the paganism which the Christian empire found it hardest +to conquer, and which propagated itself far into the Christian +ages, was the belief in magic and occult powers founded on +the doctrine of daemons. And the Christian controversialist, +with as firm a faith in daemons as the pagan, turned that +doctrine against the faith which it was invented to support. +The distinction of good and bad daemons, first drawn by +Xenocrates and Chrysippus, and developed by Plutarch, was +eagerly seized upon by Tatian and S. Clement of Alexandria, by +Minucius Felix and S. Cyprian.<note place="foot">Tatian, <hi rend="italic">Adv. Gr.</hi> 20; Clem. Alex. +<hi rend="italic">Ad Gent.</hi> 26; Cypr. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 75, 10; Min. +Felix, c. 26, 27, isti igitur impuri +spiritus daemones, ... sub statuis et +imaginibus delitescunt, et adflatu suo +auctoritatem quasi praesentis numinis +consequuntur, dum inspirant interim +vates, dum fanis immorantur ... +sortes regunt, oracula efficiunt, falsis +pluribus involuta, etc. Cf. Tertull. +<hi rend="italic">Apol.</hi> c. xxii. operatio eorum est +hominis eversio.... Itaque corporibus +quidem et valitudines infligunt et aliquos +casus acerbos, etc. Cf. <hi rend="italic">De Idol.</hi> +c. ix; Maury, <hi rend="italic">La Magie</hi>, p. 99 sqq.</note> But the good became the +heavenly host of Christ and His angels; the bad were identified +with the pagan gods. What would have been the anguish of +Plutarch could he have foreseen that his theology, elaborated +<pb n="434"/><anchor id="Pg434"/>with such pious subtlety and care, would one day be used +against the gracious powers of Olympus, and that the spirits +he had conjured up to defend them would be exorcised +as maleficent fiends by the triumphant dialectic of S. +Augustine.<note place="foot">Aug. <hi rend="italic">De Civ. Dei</hi>, viii. 14-22.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The daemonology of Plutarch also furnished a theory of +prophetic powers, and especially of the inspiration of Delphi. +It was in the porticoes of the shrine of Apollo, or among the +monuments of ancient glory and devotion, that the most interesting +of Plutarch’s religious essays were inspired. He probably +bore the honours of the Delphic priesthood down to the last days +of his long life. But in the years when Plutarch was ordering +a sacrifice or a procession, or discussing antiquarian and philosophic +questions with travellers from Britain or the eastern +seas, Delphi had lost much of its ancient power and renown. +Great political and great economic changes had reduced the +functions of the oracle to a comparatively humble sphere. It +was no longer consulted on affairs of state by great potentates +of the East and West. The farmers of Boeotia or the Arcadian +shepherds now came to seek the causes of failure in their +crops or of a murrain among their herds, to ask advice about +the purchase of a piece of land or the marriage of a child. So +far back as the days of Cicero the faith in oracles had been +greatly shaken,<note place="foot">Cic. <hi rend="italic">De Div.</hi> ii. 57, 117, cur isto +modo jam oracula Delphis non eduntur +... ut nihil possit esse contemptius? +Strab. vii. 7, 9, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἐκλέλοιπε δέ πως καὶ τὸ μαντεῖον τὸ ἐν Δωδώνῃ καθάπερ τἆλλα</foreign>.</note> and even the most venerable shrines were no +longer resorted to as of old. Powerful philosophic schools, +the Cynic and the Epicurean, poured contempt on all the arts +of divination. Many of the ancient oracles had long been +silent. In Boeotia, where, in the days of Herodotus, the air +was full of inspiration,<note place="foot">Herodot. viii. 134.</note> the ancient magic only lingered around +Lebadea. Sheep grazed around the fanes of Tegyra and the +Ptoan Apollo. While in old days at Delphi, the services of +two, and even three, Pythian priestesses were demanded by the +concourse of votaries, in Plutarch’s time one priestess sufficed.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Def. Or.</hi> c. v. viii.</note> +But the second century brought, along with a general religious +revival, a restoration of the ancient faith in oracles. The +voice of Delphi had been silenced for a time by Nero, and +the sacred chasm had been choked with corpses because the +<pb n="435"/><anchor id="Pg435"/>priestess had branded the emperor as another Orestes.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lxiii. 14, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καὶ τὸ μαντεῖον κατέλυσεν, ἀνθρώπους ἐς τὸ στόμιον, +ἐξ οὗ τὸ ἱερὸν πνεῦμα ἀνῄει, σφάξας</foreign>.</note> But the +oracle, although shorn of much of its glory, recovered some of +its popularity in the second century. It received offerings +once more from wealthy votaries. The emperor Hadrian +characteristically tested its omniscience by a question as to +the birthplace of Homer. Curious travellers from distant +lands, even philosophers of the Cynic and Epicurean schools, +came to visit the ancient shrine, to make the round of its +antiquarian treasures, and to discuss the secret of its inspiration.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Def. Or.</hi> c. ii.</note> +A new town sprang up at the gates of the sanctuary; +sumptuous temples, baths, and halls of assembly replaced the +solitude and ruins of many generations. The god himself +seemed to the pious Plutarch to have returned in power to his +ancient seat.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Pyth. Or.</hi> c. xxix.; <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Gréard, +p. 252.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The revival of Delphi gladdened the heart of Plutarch as +a sign of reviving religion and Hellenism. And although the +oracle no longer wielded an oecumenical primacy, its antiquities +and its claims to inspiration evidently attracted many curious +inquirers. We are admitted to their conversations in the +Delphic treatises of Plutarch. His characters bear the names +of the old-world schools, but there is a strangely modern tone +in their discussions. Sometimes we might fancy ourselves +listening to a debate on the inspiration of Scripture between +an agnostic, a Catholic, and an accommodating broad Churchman. +Plutarch himself, or his representative, generally holds +the balance between the extreme views, and tries to reconcile +the claims of reason and of faith. It is clear that even in +that age of religious revival there was no lack of a scepticism +like that of Lucian. Even in the sacred courts of Delphi the +Epicurean might be heard suggesting that, because, among a +thousand random prophecies of natural events, one here and +there may seem to tally with the fact, it does not follow that +the prediction was sure and true at the moment of deliverance;<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Pyth. Or.</hi> c. x. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τοῦτό γε μᾶλλον ῥίψαι καὶ διασπεῖραι λόγους ... +οἷς πλανωμένοις ἀπῄντῃσε πολλάκις ἡ τύχη, κτλ.</foreign></note> +the wandering word may sometimes hit the mark. The +fulfilment is a mere coincidence, a happy chance. Boethus, the +sceptic, is easily refuted by the orthodox Serapion, who makes an +<pb n="436"/><anchor id="Pg436"/>appeal to well-known oracles which have been actually fulfilled, +not merely in a loose, apparent fashion, but down to the +minutest details of time, place, and manner.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Pyth. Or.</hi> c. xi.</note> In these discussions, +although the caviller is heard with a tolerant courtesy, +it is clear that faith is always in the ascendant. Yet even +faith has to face and account for an apparent degeneracy +which might well cause some uneasiness. For instance, is it +not startling that, in the name of the god of music, many oracles +should be delivered in trivial, badly-fashioned verses?<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. v. xvii.</note> Can +it be that Apollo is a meaner artist than Hesiod or Homer? +On the other side, it may be said that the god is too lofty to +care to deck his utterances in the graces of literary form, or, +by a more probable theory, he inspires the vision but not the +verse. But what of the oracles of later days, which are +delivered in the baldest prose? Is this not a disturbing sign +of degeneracy? Can this be worthy of the god? The defender +of the faith has no difficulty in quieting the suspicion. Even +in the great ages we know that oracles were sometimes +delivered in prose,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. xix.</note> and in ancient times excited feeling ran +naturally into verse.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. xxiii.</note> The stately hexameter was the +appropriate form of utterance when the oracle had to deal with +great events affecting the fate of cities and of nations. +Inspiration is not independent of surrounding circumstances, +and the functions of the oracle have changed since the days of +Croesus and Themistocles. The whole style of human life and +the taste of men are less imposing and stately. The change +in the style of the oracle is only part of a general movement.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. xxiv.</note> +For ages simple prose has taken the place of artistic rhythm in +other departments besides the sphere of prophecy. We do +not despise the philosophy of Socrates and Plato, because it +does not come to us clothed in verse, like the speculations of +Thales, Parmenides, and Empedocles. And who can expect the +simple peasant girl, who now occupies the tripod, to speak in +the tones of Homer?<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xxii. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τραφεῖσα ἐν οἰκίᾳ γεωργῶν πενήτων κτλ.</foreign></note> The dim grandeur of the old poetic +oracles had indeed some advantages, in aiding the memory by +the use of measured and musical expression, and in veiling the +full meaning of the God from irreverent or hostile eyes. But +<pb n="437"/><anchor id="Pg437"/>their pompous ambiguity, providing apparently so many loopholes +for evasion, brought discredit on the sacred art, and +encouraged the imitative ingenuity of a host of venal +impostors who, around the great temples, cheated the ears of +slaves and silly women with a mockery of the mysterious +solemnity of the Pythian verse.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Pyth. Or.</hi> c. xxv. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">πλείστης μέντοι ποιητικὴν ἐνέπλησεν ἀδοξίας τὸ ἀγυρτικὸν +καὶ ἀγοραῖον καὶ περὶ τὰ μητρῷα καὶ σεράπεια +βωμολόχον καὶ πλανώμενον γένος κτλ.</foreign></note> +</p> + +<p> +The more serious question as to the cause of the extinction +of oracles brings the discussion nearer to the great problem of +the sources of inspiration. It is true that the fact may be +accounted for to some extent by natural causes. Oracles have +never ceased, but the number has been diminished. God +measures His help to men by their needs, and as they grow +more enlightened they feel less need for supernatural guidance. +This, however, is evidently dangerous ground. But surely the +poverty and depopulation of Greece are enough to account for +the disappearance of oracles. A country which can hardly +put three thousand hoplites in the field—as many as Megara +alone sent forth to fight at Plataea—cannot need the many +shrines which flourished when Greece was in its glory.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Def. Or.</hi> c. viii.</note> But +it may be admitted that oracles can and do disappear. And +this is in no way derogatory to the power of God. For it is +not the great God Himself who utters the warning or the +prophecy by the voice of the priestess. Such a doctrine is +lowering to His greatness and majesty. In prophecy and +divination, as in other fields, God operates, through instruments +and agents, on a given matter, and in concurrence with physical +causes. The matter in this case is the human soul, which, in +greater or less degrees, can be acted on by supernatural influences.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. ix. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">εὐηθές γὰρ κομιδῇ τὸ οἴσεθαι τὸν θεὸν αὐτὸν ... ἐνδυόμενον +εἰς τὰ σώματα τὼν προφητὼν ὑποφθέγγεσθαι</foreign>; +c. xlviii.; <hi rend="italic">De Pyth. Or.</hi> c. xxi.</note> +The exciting cause of the <q>enthusiasm</q> or inspiration, +applying a sudden stimulus to the soul, may be some vapour +or exhalation from the earth, such as that which rose from the +cleft beneath the Delphic tripod.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Def. Or.</hi> xlii. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ψυχῆς τὸ μαντικὸν ὥσπερ ὄμμα δεῖται τοῦ συνεξάπτοντος +οἰκείου καὶ συνεπιθήγοντος</foreign>.</note> Lastly, there is the daemon, +a supernatural being, who, by his composite nature, as we have +seen, is the channel of sympathy between the human and the +Divine.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. x. xii. + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">φύσεις εἰσί τινες ἐν μεθορίῳ θεῶν καὶ ἀνθρώπων, +δεχόμεναι πάθη θνητά, οὗς δαίμονας ὀρθῶς ἔχει κατὰ νόμον +πατέρων σέβεσθαι</foreign>: cf. Plat. +<hi rend="italic">Sympos.</hi> 202 <hi rend="small">E</hi>; Apul. <hi rend="italic">De Deo Socr.</hi> +c. vi.; Max. Tyr. <hi rend="italic"><anchor id="corr437"/><corr sic="Diss">Diss.</corr></hi> xiv. §§ 2-8.</note> But among the causes of afflatus or inspiration, +<pb n="438"/><anchor id="Pg438"/>some may, in cases, disappear and cease to operate. The +intoxicating fume or vapour is a force of varying intensity +and may exhaust itself and be spent, as a spring may fail, or +a mine may be worked out.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Def. Or.</hi> c. xliii. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τῶν δὲ περὶ αὐτὴν (τὴν γῆν) δυνάμεων πῆ μὲν ἐκλείψεις πῆ δὲ γενέσεις ... +εἰκὸς ἐστι συμβαίνειν, κτλ.</foreign></note> The daemon may migrate from +one place to another, and with its disappearance, the oracle +will become silent, as that of Teiresias at Orchomenus has +long been, just as the lyre becomes silent when the musician +ceases to strike the strings.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. xxxviii.; Maury, p. 149.</note> +</p> + +<p> +In all this theory Plutarch is careful to guard himself against a +purely materialistic theory of the facts of inspiration.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Def. Or.</hi> c. xlvi.</note> Physical +causes may assist and predispose, but physical causes alone will +not account for the facts of inspiration. The daemon is a +necessary mediator between the human soul and God, a messenger +of the divine purpose. But the real problem of inspiration +is in the soul of man himself, in the possibility of contact +between the soul and a supernatural power. This question +is illuminated in Apuleius and Plutarch and Maximus of Tyre +by a discussion of the daemon of Socrates. It was by a natural +instinct that the Antonine Platonists went back to the great +teacher of Plato for support of the system which was to link +religion with philosophy by the daemonic theory. In Plutarch’s +dialogue on the Genius of Socrates, the various theories of that +mysterious influence current in antiquity are discussed at length. +The language in which Socrates or his disciples spoke of its monitions +lent itself to different interpretations. Was his daemon +an external sign, as in augury, an audible voice, or an inner, +perhaps supernatural light, a voice of reason, speaking to the +soul’s highest faculty, through no uttered word or symbol?<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Gen. Socr.</hi> c. xi. xx.; cf. +Hild, <hi rend="italic">Étude sur les Démons</hi>, p. 263 +sqq.</note> +The grosser conceptions of it may be dismissed at once. The +daemon of Socrates does not belong to the crude materialism +of divination, although the philosopher could forecast the +disaster of Syracuse.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Gen. Socr.</hi> c. xi. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀκούω δὲ καὶ τὴν ἐν Σικελίᾳ τῆς Ἀθηναίων δυνάμεως φθορὰν +προειπεῖν αὐτόν κτλ.</foreign></note> Nor was it any ordinary faculty of keen +intellectual shrewdness, strengthened and sharpened by the +cultivation of experience. Still less was it any hallucination, +<pb n="439"/><anchor id="Pg439"/>bordering on insanity, which is merely a perversion of the +senses and reason. It was rather a spiritual intuition, an +immediate vision, not darkened or weakened by passing through +any symbolic medium of the senses, a flash of sudden insight +such as is vouchsafed only to the select order of pure and +lofty spirits, in whom from the beginning the higher portion of +the soul has always risen high above the turbid and darkening +influence of the senses.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Gen. Socr.</hi> c. xx.</note> That such a faculty exists is certain to +the Platonist and the Pythagorean. But in the mass of men it is +struggling against fleshly powers, sometimes defeated, sometimes +victorious, inspiring ideals, or stinging with remorse, until +perchance, late and slowly, after chastisement and struggle, it +emerges into a certain calm. Pythagoreans, such as Apollonius, +taught that the diviner, the mantic, faculty in man was more +open to higher influences when emancipated from the body +in sleep, and that it could be set free in waking hours by +abstinence and ascetic discipline.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. T.</hi> vi. 11.</note> Plutarch laid stress on the +latter part of this theory, but ridiculed the notion that the soul +could be most clear and receptive when its powers were relaxed. +But the capacity of the higher reason in the loftier souls is +almost without limit. The reason, which is the daemon in +each, when unimpeded by bodily obstruction, is open to the +lightest, most ethereal touch. Spirit can act directly by +immediate influence upon spirit, without any sensuous aid of +word or sign.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Gen. Socr.</hi> c. xx. + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">αἱ δὲ τῶν δαιμόνων φέγγος ἔχουσαι τοῖς δυναμένοις ἐλλάμπουσιν, + οὐ δεόμεναι ῥημάτων οὐδ’ ὀνομάτων κτλ. + οὕτως οἱ τῶν δαιμόνων λόγοι διὰ πάντων φερόμενοι μόνοις + ἐνηχούσι τοῖς ἀθόρυβον ἦτος καὶ νήμενον ἔχουσι τὴν ψυχήν· +οὓς δὲ καὶ ἱεροὺς καὶ δαιμονίους ἀνθρώπους καλοῦμεν</foreign>; cf. <hi rend="italic">De +Def. Or.</hi> c. xxxvii.</note> The influence is a <q>wind blowing where it +listeth,</q> or a strange sudden illumination, revealing truth as by +a flash. The disembodied spirit, cleansed and freed from the +servitude of the body, and now a real daemon, possesses all +these powers and receptivities in the fullest measure. But it +gains no new power when it quits the body, although its +spiritual faculties may have been dulled and obstructed by +the flesh. The sun does not lose its native radiance when +for a moment it is obscured by clouds.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Def. Or.</hi> c. xxxix.</note> And thus a Socrates +may even here below have a spiritual vision denied to us; a +Pythia may be inspired by the daemon of the shrine to read +the future of a campaign. Nor is there anything more +<pb n="440"/><anchor id="Pg440"/>wonderful in prediction than in memory.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Def. Or.</hi> c. xxxix.</note> In this unresting +flux of existence, the present of brief sensation is a mere +moment between the past which has ceased to be and the +future which is to be born. If we can still grasp the one, may +we not anticipate the other? +</p> + +<p> +It is thus that, by a far-reaching theory of inspiration, +Plutarch strove to rehabilitate the faith in oracular lore. The +loftier philosophic conception of the Supreme is saved from +contamination with anything earthly by the doctrine of daemons +themselves released from the body, yet, through the higher +faculty in all souls, able to act directly upon those still in the +flesh. The influence is direct and immediate, yet not independent +of purely physical causes or temperament. <q>The +treasure is in earthen vessels.</q> But the full vision is only +reserved for the spirit unpolluted and untroubled by sense +and passion. Plutarch is preparing the way for the <q>ecstasy</q> +of later Neo-Platonism. All this speculation of course lent +itself to a revival of heathen superstition. Yet it is interesting +to see how, in many a flash of insight, Plutarch reveals a truth +for all generations. We, in our time, are perhaps too much +inclined to limit the powers of the human spirit to the field of +sense and observation. The slackening hold on faith in a +spiritual world and a higher intuition may well be visited by +the proper Nemesis, in the darkening of the divine vision, +whether as religious faith or artistic inspiration. The dream +of an earthly paradise enriched with every sensuous gratification +by a science working in bondage to mere utility may have +serious results for the spiritual future of humanity. It may +need a bitter experience to dispel the gross illusion; yet men +may once more come to believe with Plutarch that, as it were, +at the back of every soul there is an opening to the divine +world from which yet may come, as of old, the touch of an +unseen hand. +</p> + +</div></div><div type="book" n="4" rend="page-break-before: right"> +<index index="toc" level1="Book IV. Adscedentibus di manum porrigunt"/><index index="pdf" level1="Book IV. Adscedentibus di manum porrigunt"/> +<pb n="441"/><anchor id="Pg441"/> + +<head>BOOK IV.</head> + +<head type="sub"><hi rend="italic">ADSCENDENTIBUS DI MANUM PORRIGUNT</hi></head> + +<pb n="442"/><anchor id="Pg442"/> + +<div type="chapter" n="3" rend="page-break-before: always"> +<index index="toc" level1="I. Superstition"/><index index="pdf" level1="I. Superstition"/> +<pb n="443"/><anchor id="Pg443"/> + +<head>CHAPTER I</head> + +<head type="sub">SUPERSTITION</head> + +<p> +Superstition in all ages is a term of unstable meaning. Men +even of the same time will apply it or deny its application to +the same belief. The devout beliefs of one period may become +mere superstitions to the next. And, conversely, what for a +time may be regarded as alien superstition, may in course of +time become an accepted portion of the native creed. This was +the history of those Eastern cults which will be described in +coming chapters. At first, they fell under Cicero’s definition +of superstition, viz. any religious belief or practice going beyond +the prescription of ancestral usage.<note place="foot">Cic. <hi rend="italic">De Nat. Deor.</hi> i. 17, 42, § +117; ii. 28, § 70; <hi rend="italic">De Div.</hi> ii. 72; Sen. +<hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 123; Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> i. 23.</note> But a day came when +they were the most popular worships of the Roman world, +when great nobles, and even the prince himself, were enthusiastic +votaries of them.<note place="foot">Lamprid. <hi rend="italic">Com.</hi> c. 9.</note> The religion of Mithra, when it was confined +to an obscure circle of slaves or freedmen at Ostia, was a +superstition to the pontifical college. It took its place with +the cult of the Roman Trinity when Aurelian built his temple +to the Sun and endowed his priesthood.<note place="foot">Vop. <hi rend="italic">Aurelian.</hi> c. 35, § 3.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Plutarch devoted a treatise to the subject of superstition. +And his conception of it is more like our own, less formal and +external, than that of Cicero. He develops his view of the +degradation of the religious sense by contrasting it with +atheism. Atheism is a great calamity, a blindness of the +reason to the goodness and love which govern the universe. +It is the extinction of a faculty rather than the perversion of +one.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Superst.</hi> c. 5, 6, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἡ μὲν ἀθεόθης ἀπάθεια πρὸς τὸ θεῖόν ἐστι ... ἡ δὲ δεισιδαιμονία + πολυπάθεια κακὸν τὸ ἀγαθὸν ὑπονοοῦσα</foreign>.</note> +<pb n="444"/><anchor id="Pg444"/>But superstition both believes and trembles. It acknowledges +the existence of supernatural powers, but they are to +it powers of evil who are ready to afflict and injure, to be +approached only in terror and with servile prostration. This +craven fear of God fills the whole universe with spectres. It +leaves no refuge whither the devil-worshipper can escape from +the horrors which haunt him night and day. Whither can he +flee from that awful presence? Sleep, which should give a +respite from the cares of life, to his fevered mind, swarms +with ghostly terrors.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Superst.</hi> c. 3, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">μόνη γὰρ οὐ σπένδεται πρὸς τὸν ὕπνον ... εἴδωλα φρικώδη +καὶ τεράστια φάσματα καὶ ποινάς τινας ἐγείρουσα καὶ στροβοῦσα +τὴν ἀθλίαν ψυχήν</foreign>.</note> And death, the last sleep, which +should put a term to the ills of life, only unrolls before the +superstitious votary an awful scene of rivers of fire and blackness +of darkness, and sounds of punishment and unutterable +woe.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 4, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">συνάπτουσα τῷ θανάτῳ κακῶν ἐπίνοιαν ἀθανάτων</foreign>.</note> To such a soul the festivals of ancestral religion lose +all their solemn gladness and cheering comfort. The shrines +which should offer a refuge to the troubled heart, even to the +hunted criminal, become to him places of torture. And the +believer in a God of malignant cruelty betakes himself in +despair to dark rites from foreign lands, and spends his +substance on impostors who trade upon his fears. Better, +says the pious Plutarch, not believe in God at all, than +cringe before a God worse than the worst of men. Unbelief, +calamity though it be, at least does not dishonour a Deity +whose existence it denies. The true impiety is to believe that +God can be wantonly faithless and revengeful, fickle and +cruel.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 6, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">φοβοῦνται τοὺς θεοὺς καὶ καταφεύγουσιν ἐπὶ τοὺς θεούς, + κολακεύουσι καὶ λοιδοροῦσιν</foreign>. Cf. Bacon’s <hi rend="italic">Essays, Of +Superstition</hi>, <q>It were better to have +no opinion of God at all, than such an +opinion as is unworthy of Him.</q></note> +</p> + +<p> +The earnestness, and even bitterness, with which Plutarch +assails the degrading fear of the supernal Powers have caused +some rather shallow critics to imagine that he had a sympathy +with scepticism.<note place="foot">Gréard, p. 269.</note> How such an idea could arise in the mind +of any one who had read his treatise on the Genius of Socrates +or on Isis and Osiris, or on the Delays of Divine Justice, it is +difficult to imagine. Plutarch’s hatred of superstition is that +of a genuinely pious man, with a lofty conception of the Divine +love and pity, who is revolted by the travesty of pure religion, +<pb n="445"/><anchor id="Pg445"/>which is repeated from age to age. It is the feeling of a man +to whom religion is one of the most elevating joys of life, when +he sees it turned into an instrument of torture. But the +force of the protest shows how rampant was the evil in that +age. Lucretius felt with the intensity of genius all the misery +which perverted conceptions of the Divine nature had inflicted +on human life.<note place="foot">Luc. i. 65; iii. 991; cf. Cic. <hi rend="italic">De +Div.</hi> ii. 72.</note> But the force of Roman superstition had +endlessly multiplied since the days of Lucretius. It was +no longer the exaggeration of Roman awe at the lightning, +the flight of birds, the entrails of a sacrificial victim, or anxious +observance of the solemn words of ancestral formulae, every +syllable of which had to be guarded from mutilation or omission. +All the lands which had fallen to her sword were, in Plutarch’s +day, adding to the spiritual burden of Rome. If in some cases +they enriched her rather slender spiritual heritage, they +also multiplied the sources of supernatural terror. If in the +mysteries of Isis and Mithra they exalted the soul in +spiritual reverie and gave a promise of a coming life,<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. c. 24.</note> they +sent the Roman matron to bathe in the freezing Tiber at early +dawn and crawl on bleeding knees over the Campus Martius, +or purchase the interpretation of a dream from some diviner of +Palestine or a horoscope from some trader in astral lore.<note place="foot">Juv. vi. 523, 547; Mart. vii. 54; +Luc. <hi rend="italic">Philops.</hi> c. 7-13.</note> +The Platonist, nourished on the pure theism of the <hi rend="italic">Phaedo</hi> +and the <hi rend="italic">Republic</hi>, and the priest of that cheerful shrine, which +the young Ion had each bright morning swept with myrtle +boughs and sprinkled with the water of the Castalian spring,<note place="foot">Eurip. <hi rend="italic">Ion</hi>, 104.</note> +whose holy ministry gladdened even the years of boyhood—a +man with such experience had a natural horror of the dark +terrors which threatened to obscure the radiant visions of +Delphi and Olympus. +</p> + +<p> +Livy complained of the neglect in his day of signs and +omens which formerly were deemed worthy of historical +record.<note place="foot">Liv. xliii. 13.</note> The contempt for augury in the time of Cicero was +hardly concealed among the cultivated.<note place="foot">Cic. <hi rend="italic">De Div.</hi> ii. 24.</note> The details of parts +of the ancient bird-lore eluded the researches of the elder +Pliny. The emperor Claudius, lamenting the neglect of the +ancient science, demanded a decree of the Senate to restore it +<pb n="446"/><anchor id="Pg446"/>to its former efficiency.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xi. 15, rettulit deinde +ad senatum super collegio haruspicum, +ne vetustissima Italiae disciplina per +desidiam exolesceret.</note> These are some signs of that general +decay of old Roman religion in the last century of the +Republic, which was partly due to philosophic enlightenment +partly to the confusion and demoralisation of civil strife, but +perhaps even more to the dangerous seductions of foreign +superstitions.<note place="foot">Warde Fowler, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Festivals</hi>, +p. 343.</note> Among the counsels of Maecenas to Augustus +none is more earnest and weighty than the warning against +these occult arts.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lii. 36, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τοὺς δὲ ξενίζοντάς τι περὶ τὸ θεῖον καὶ μίσει καὶ κόλαζε</foreign>.</note> Augustus is advised to observe, and enforce +the observance of the time-honoured ancestral forms, but he +must banish sorcerers and diviners, who may sow the seeds of +conspiracy against the prince. The advice was acted on. +While the emperor rebuilt the fallen temples and revived the +ancient Latin rites, 2000 books of unlicensed divination were +in one day given to the flames.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> xxxi.</note> The old religion, which had +absorbed so much from the augural lore of Etruria,<note place="foot">Cic. <hi rend="italic">De Leg.</hi> ii. 9; Fowler, <hi rend="italic">Rom. +Fest.</hi> p. 233.</note> was itself +certainly not free from superstition. The wrath of the +Lemures,<note place="foot">Ov. <hi rend="italic">Fast.</hi> iii. 285; Lucr. i. 131; +Liv. i. 20.</note> the darkness of the inner forest, the flash of +lightning, the flight of birds, the entrails of a sacrifice, excited +many a fear, and might cause a man to suspend a journey, or +break up an assembly of the people. But the Romans had, +in the early ages, after their orderly legal fashion, reduced the +force of these terrors by an elaborate art which provided a +convenient resource of statecraft, and a means of soothing the +alarms of the crowd. +</p> + +<p> +But foreign and unregulated superstitions, from the second +century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, were pouring in from the East to put a fresh load +on the human spirit or to replace the waning faith in Italian +augury. In 139 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> Cornelius Scipio Hispalus vainly strove +by an edict to stop the inroads of the star readers.<note place="foot">Val. Max. i. 3, 3; cf. Cic. <hi rend="italic">De +Div.</hi> ii. 43.</note> But +treatises on this pretended science were in vogue in Varro’s +time, and are quoted by the great savant with approval.<note place="foot">Aul. Gell. iii. 10.</note> +These impostors were swarming in Rome at the time of +Catiline’s conspiracy,<note place="foot">Cic. <hi rend="italic">In Catil.</hi> iii. 4; cf. Plut. <hi rend="italic">Vit. +Cic.</hi> c. 17.</note> inflating the hopes of the plotters. +<pb n="447"/><anchor id="Pg447"/>Suetonius has surpassed himself in the collection, from many +sources, of the signs and wonders which foreshadowed the +great destiny, and also the death of Augustus. And it is +noteworthy that, among these predictions, are some founded on +astrology.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> xciv. xcvii.</note> On the day of the emperor’s birth, P. Nigidius, +a learned astrologer, found that the position of the stars +foretold a coming master of the world. Augustus himself +received a similar forecast from Theagenes, a star-reader of +Apollonia. He had his horoscope drawn out, and a silver coin +was struck with the stamp of Capricorn. +</p> + +<p> +This fatalist superstition infected nearly all the successors +of Augustus in the first and second centuries. Astrology is +essentially a fatalist creed, and the heir to the great prize of +the principate, with the absolute control of the civilised world, +was generally designated by that blind impersonal power +whose decrees might be read in the positions of the eternal +spheres, or by signs and omens upon earth. Suetonius, Tacitus, +Dion Cassius, have chronicled, with apparent faith, the +predictions of future power which gathered round the popular +candidate for the succession, or the dark warnings of coming +disaster which excited the prince’s fears and gave courage +to enemies and rivals. It is not hard to see why the +emperors at once believed in these black arts and profoundly +distrusted their professors. They wished to keep a monopoly +of that awful lore, lest it might excite dangerous hopes in +possible pretenders.<note place="foot">Cf. D. Cass. lxvi. 9, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τούς τε ἀστρολόγους ἐκ τῆς Ῥώμης ἐξώρισεν (Οὐεσπασιανὸς) + καίτοι πᾶσι τοῖς ἀρίστοις χρώμενος</foreign>.</note> To consult a Chaldaean seer on the fate +of the prince, or to possess his horoscope, was always suspicious, +and might often be fatal.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> x. interemit Met. +Pompeianum quod habere imperatoriam +genesin vulgo ferebatur.</note> The astonishing thing is, that men +had such implicit faith in the skill of these Eastern impostors, +along with such distrust of their honesty. They were banished +again and again in the first century, but persecution only +increased their power, and they always returned to exercise +greater influence than ever.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xii. 52; ii. 32, 75; D. +Cass. xlix. 43; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vitell.</hi> xiv.</note> Never was there a clearer proof +of the impotence of government in the face of a deep-seated +popular belief. +</p> + +<p> +Tiberius, who had probably no real religious faith, was, +<pb n="448"/><anchor id="Pg448"/>from his youth, the slave of astrology.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> lxix., circa deos negligentior +quippe addictus mathematicae, +etc.</note> An adept had, at his +birth, predicted his lofty destiny.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xiv. Yet cf. his love of mythical +<hi rend="italic">nugae</hi>, <hi rend="italic">ib.</hi> lxx.</note> He had in his train one +Thrasyllus, a noted professor of the science, who had often to +read the stars in the face of death, and he was surrounded in +his gloomy retirement at Capreae by a <q>Chaldaean herd.</q><note place="foot">Juv. x. 94. See the remarkable +chapters in Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> vi. 21-22.</note> +Claudius was pedantic and antiquarian in his religious tastes, +and, while he tried to revive old Roman augury, he banished +the astrologers.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xii. 52.</note> A great noble who had the temerity to +consult them as to the time of the emperor’s death shared +the same fate. Nero, who despised all regular religion, except +that of the Syrian goddess, was the prey of superstitious terror. +The Furies of the murdered Agrippina, as in Aeschylean +tragedy, haunted him in dreams, and he used the aid of magic +to evoke and propitiate the awful shade.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Ner.</hi> lx.; xxxiv., facto per +magos sacro evocare manes et exorare +tentavit.</note> When, towards +the end of his reign, his prospects grew more threatening, the +appearance of a comet drove him to consult Balbillus, his +astrologer, who advised that the portended danger should be +diverted from the emperor by the destruction of the great +nobles. Some of the craft had predicted that Nero should +one day be deserted and betrayed, while others consoled +him with the promise of a great monarchy of the East with +its seat at Jerusalem.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xl.</note> The terrible year which followed +Nero’s death was crowded with portents, and all the rivals +for the succession were equally slaves of the adepts, who +exploited their ambitions or their fears. The end of Galba +was foreshadowed, from the opening of his reign, by ominous +dreams and signs.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Galb.</hi> xviii.</note> The hopes of Otho had long been inflamed +by the diviner Seleucus,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Otho</hi>, iv.</note> and by Ptolemaeus, who +was his companion during his command in Spain.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 22.</note> When +he had won the dangerous prize, Otho was tortured by +nightly visions of the spirit of Galba, which he used every +art to lay. Yet this same man set out for the conflict +on the Po in defiant disregard of omens warranted by +the ancient religion.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Otho</hi>, vii. viii.</note> His end, which, by a certain calm +<pb n="449"/><anchor id="Pg449"/>nobility, seemed to redeem his life, was portended by a sign +which Tacitus records as a fact. At the very hour when Otho +was falling on his dagger, a bird of strange form settled in +a much frequented grove, and sat there undisturbed by the +passers-by, or by the flocks of other fowls around.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. 50.</note> The horoscope +of Otho’s rival Vitellius had been cast by the astrologers, +and their reading of his fate gave his parents acute anxiety. +He used to follow the monitions of a German sorceress. Yet, +like so many of his class in that age, he had but scant respect +for accredited beliefs. It was noted with alarm that he +entered on his pontificate on the black day of the Allia.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vitell.</hi> iii. xi. xiv.</note> +The astrologers he probably found more dangerous than helpful, +and he ordered them to be expelled from Italy.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. 62.</note> But it is +a curious sign of their conscious power and their audacity, that +a mocking counter edict to that of Vitellius was immediately +published by unknown hands, ordaining the death of the persecutor +within a certain day.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lxv. 1, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀντιπαρήγγειλαν ἀπαλλαγῆναι ἐκ τοῦ βίου ἐντὸς τῆς ἡμέρας κτλ.</foreign></note> +</p> + +<p> +The emperors of the Flavian dynasty, although their power +was stable and the world was settling down, were not less +devoted to Eastern superstitions than any of their predecessors. +Vespasian indeed once more exiled the astrologers, but he +still kept the best of them in his train.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> lxvi. 9, 10.</note> He had consulted +the oracle on Mount Carmel, and obeyed the vision vouchsafed +in the temple of Serapis.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. 78.</note> His son Titus, who may have had +romantic dreams of an Eastern monarchy, consulted foreign +oracles, worshipped in Egyptian temples, and was a firm +believer in the science of the stars.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Titus</hi>, v. viii. ix.</note> Domitian was perhaps +the most superstitious of all his race. The rebuilder of +Roman temples and the restorer of Roman orthodoxy had +also a firm faith in planetary lore. He lived in perpetual +fear of his sudden end, the precise hour and manner of which +the Chaldaeans had foretold in his early youth.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> xiv. xv.</note> Among +the many reasons for his savage proscription of the leading +nobles, one of the most deadly was the possession of an +imperial horoscope. On his side too, the haunted tyrant +diligently studied the birth-hour of suspected or possible +<pb n="450"/><anchor id="Pg450"/>pretenders to the throne. In the last months of his reign +his terror became more and more and more intense; never +in the same space of time had the lightning been so busy. +The Capitol, the temple of the Flavians, the palace, even +Domitian’s own sleeping chamber, were all struck from heaven. +In a dream, the haunted emperor beheld Minerva, the +goddess whom he specially adored, quitting her chapel, with +a warning that she could no longer save him from his doom. +On the day before his death, the emperor predicted that, on +the next, the moon would appear blood red in the sign of +Aquarius. On his last morning, a seer, who had been +summoned from Germany to interpret the menacing omens +and who had foretold a coming change, was condemned to +death.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> x. xiv. xv. xvi.; D. +Cass. lxvii. 15, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">πάντως γὰρ καὶ ὁ Δομιτιανὸς τῶν πρώτων τάς τε ἡμέρας +καὶ τὰς ὥρας ἐν αἷς ἐγεγένητο διασκοπῶν ... προανήλισκε</foreign>.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Hadrian, that lover of the exotic and the curious, was +particularly fascinated by the East. He had probably no +settled faith of any kind, but he dabbled in astrology, as he +dabbled in all other arts.<note place="foot">Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> c. 16; cf. Renan, +<hi rend="italic">L’Égl. Chrét.</hi> c. 2.</note> It was a study which had been cultivated +in his family. His great-uncle, Aelius Hadrianus, was an +adept in the science of the stars, and had read the prediction +of his nephew’s future greatness.<note place="foot">Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> c. 2, § 4.</note> When the future emperor +was a young military tribune in lower Moesia, he found the +forecast confirmed by a local astrologer. He consulted the +<hi rend="italic">sortes Virgilianae</hi> about his prospects, with not less hopeful +results. He practised with intense curiosity other dark +magical arts, and the mysterious death of Antinous on the +Nile was by many believed to have been an immolation for the +Emperor’s safety.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lxix. 11, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">μαντείαις μαγγανείαις τε παντοδαπαῖς ἐχρῆτο κτλ.</foreign></note> Hadrian was glad to think that the spirit +of his minion had passed into a new star which had then for +the first time appeared. On every 1st of January, Hadrian +predicted, with perfect assurance, the events of the year, down +to his own last hour.<note place="foot">Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> c. 16, § 7.</note> Even the last great imperial figure +in our period is not free from the suspicion of having +tampered with the dark arts. Julius Capitolinus reports a +rumour that M. Aurelius consulted the Chaldaeans about +the infatuated passion of Faustina for a gladiator.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">M. Anton.</hi> c. 19.</note> In his +<pb n="451"/><anchor id="Pg451"/>account of the famous rainfall that miraculously refreshed the +Roman troops in the Marcomannic war, D. Cassius ascribes +the miracle to the magic arts of an Egyptian sorcerer whom M. +Aurelius kept in his train.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lxxi. 8.</note> Xiphilinus, however, who attributes +the marvel to the prayers of the Thundering Legion, expressly +denies that the emperor gave his countenance to these impostors. +Another suspicious incident comes to us on the authority of +Lucian. When the war on the Danube was at its height, +the new oracle of Alexander of Abonoteichos had, by mingled +audacity and skill, rapidly gained an extraordinary influence +even among the greatest nobles in Italy. Rutilianus, one of +the foremost among them, was its special patron and devotee, +and actually married the daughter of Alexander by an +amour with Selene! Probably through his influence, an +oracle, in verse of the old Delphic pattern, was despatched +to the headquarters of the emperor, ordering that a pair +of lions should be flung into the Danube, with costly sacrifices +and all the fragrant odours of the East.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Alex.</hi> c. 35, 47.</note> The oracle was +obeyed, but the rite was followed by an appalling disaster to +the Roman arms. The impostor was equal to the occasion, +and defended himself by the example of the ambiguity of +the Delphic oracle to Croesus, before the victory of Cyrus. +What part M. Aurelius had in this scene we cannot pretend +to tell, but the ceremony could hardly have been performed +without, at least, his connivance. Nor does his philosophic +attitude exclude the possibility of a certain faith in oracular +foresight and divination. He believed that everything in +our earthly lot was ordained from eternity, and, with the +Stoic fatalism, he may have held the almost universal Stoic +faith in the power to discover the decrees of fate.<note place="foot">M. Aurel. x. 5; ix. 27: on the +Stoic belief in divination, <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Cic. <hi rend="italic">De +Div.</hi> i. 38 (82); Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der +Griechen</hi>, iii. 1, p. 313 sqq.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Nearly all the writers from whom we derive our impressions +of that age were more or less tinged with its superstitions. +Even the elder Pliny, who rejected almost with scorn the +popular religion, was led by a dream to undertake his history +of the wars in Germany.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> iii. 5, § 4.</note> His nephew, although he rejoiced +at being raised to the augurate, and restored a temple of Ceres +on his lands, seems to have clung to the old religion rather +<pb n="452"/><anchor id="Pg452"/>as a matter of sentiment than from any real faith. But he +had a genuine belief in dreams and apparitions, and he sends his +friend Sura an elaborate account of the romance of a haunted +house at Athens.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vii. 27.</note> His friend Suetonius had been disturbed +by a dream as to the success of a cause in which he was to +appear. Pliny consoled him with the hackneyed interpretation +of dreams by contraries.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 18, v. 5, 5; cf. Mayor’s learned +note on iii. 5, 4; Gregorovius, <hi rend="italic">Hadrian</hi>, +p. 229 sqq.</note> The biographer of the Caesars may +contend with Dion Cassius for the honour of being probably +the most superstitious chronicler who ever dealt with great +events. Suetonius is shocked by the arrogance of Julius Caesar +when he treated with disdain the warning of a diviner from +the inspection of a victim’s entrails.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Jul. Caes.</hi> lxxvii.</note> He glorifies the pious +Augustus by a long catalogue of signs and celestial omens +which foretold the events of his career.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> xciii.</note> Suetonius must +have been as keen in collecting these old wives’ tales as the +more sober facts of history,<note place="foot">Cf. Macé, <hi rend="italic">Suétone</hi>, p. 59 sqq.</note> and, if we may believe him, the +palace of the Caesars for a hundred years was as full of +supernatural wonders and the terrors of magic and dark +prophecy as the Thessalian villages of Apuleius.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> iv. 27; i. 8; cf. Petron. +<hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 62, 63.</note> The superstitions +of the Claudian and Flavian Caesars could nowhere +have found a more sympathetic chronicler. +</p> + +<p> +Immensely superior in genius as Tacitus is to Suetonius, +even he is not emancipated from the superstition of the age. +But he wavers in his superstition, just as he wavers in his +conception of the Divine government of the world.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Fabian, <hi rend="italic">Quid Tac. de num. div. +judicaverit</hi>, pp. 7, 13, 16, 21, 24, 29; +Nipperdey, <hi rend="italic">Einleitung</hi>, xiv. xxvi.; +Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> v. 5; ii. 38; <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iii. 18; +vi. 22; xiv. 12; cf. Peter, <hi rend="italic">Die Gesch. +Litt.</hi> ii. p. 221.</note> Although +he occasionally mentions, and briefly discusses, the tenets of the +Epicurean and the Stoic schools, it does not seem probable that +Tacitus had much taste for philosophy. Full of the old senatorial +ideals, he considered such a study, if carried to any depth, +or pursued with absorbing earnestness, to be unbecoming the +gravity and dignity of a man of rank and affairs.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Agric.</hi> c. 2, 4; <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iv. 5; +<hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiv. 12.</note> Moreover, +his views of human destiny and the Divine government were +coloured and saddened by the Terror. Having lived himself +through the reign of Domitian, and seen all the horrors of its +<pb n="453"/><anchor id="Pg453"/>close, having witnessed, in humiliating silence, the excesses +of frenzied power and the servility of cringing compliance, +Tacitus had little faith either in Divine benevolence or in +tempted human virtue.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Agric.</hi> c. 45; <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 2; iii. 37; +<hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> i. 7.</note> Even the quiet and security of +Trajan’s reign seemed to him but a precarious interval, not to +be too eagerly or confidently enjoyed, between the terror of +the past and the probable dangers of a coming age.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> i. 1.</note> The +corruption of Roman virtue has justly earned the anger of +gods, who no longer visit to protect, but only to avenge.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 3 <hi rend="italic">ad fin.</hi></note> +And, in the chaos of human affairs, the Divine justice is +confused; the good suffer equally with the guilty.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xvi. 33, aequitate deum erga +bona malaque documenta.</note> Amid +obscure and guarded utterances, we can divine that, to Tacitus, +the ruling force in human fortunes is a destiny which is blind +to the deserts of those who are its sport.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vi. 22; cf. Mackail, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Lit.</hi> +p. 210.</note> He probably held +the widespread belief that the fate of each man was fixed +for him at his birth, and, although he has a profound scorn for +the venality and falsehood of the Chaldaean tribe, he probably +had a wavering faith in the efficacy of their lore.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 22, genus hominum +potentibus infidum sperantibus fallax, +quod in civitate nostra et vetabitur semper +et retinebitur; cf. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> v. 4; <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> +vi. 28; iv. 58; cf. Fabian, p. 19.</note> Nor did +he reject miracle and supernatural portent on any ground of a +scientific conception of the universe.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. 50.</note> His language on such +subjects is often perhaps studiously ambiguous. Sometimes he +appears to report the tale of a portent, as a mere piece of vulgar +superstition. But at other times, he records the marvel with +no expression of scepticism.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 81; cf. Nipperdey, <hi rend="italic">Einl.</hi> +xxvi.</note> And in his narrative of Otho’s +death and the miracles of Vespasian, the threats of heaven +which ushered in Galba’s brief reign in darkness broken by +lurid lightnings, the neglected signs of the coming doom of +Jerusalem, the glare of arms from contending armies in the +sky, the ghostly voices, as of gods departing from the Holy of +Holies, as in the tale of many another omen, dream, or oracle, +the historian gives an awe and grandeur to a superstition which +he does not explicitly reject.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. 50; iv. 81; i. 6; i. 18; +v. 13; <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> i. 65; ii. 14; <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iii. +56; iv. 83; cf. Fabian, <hi rend="italic">Quid Tac. de +num. div. judicaverit</hi>, p. 19.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Nor need we be superciliously surprised that the greatest +<pb n="454"/><anchor id="Pg454"/>master of historic tragedy, born into such an age, should have +had the balance of his faith disturbed. His infancy and boyhood +coincided with the last years of Nero.<note place="foot">Peter, <hi rend="italic">Gesch. Litt.</hi> ii. p. 42.</note> His youthful +imagination must have been disordered and inflamed by the +tales, circulating in grave old Senatorial houses, of wild excess +or mysterious crime on the Palatine, the daring caprice of +imperial harlots, the regal power and fabulous wealth and +luxury of the imperial freedmen, the lunacy of the great line +which had founded the Empire, and which seemed destined to +end it in shame and universal ruin. That the destinies of the +world should be at the mercy of a Pallas, a Caligula, or an +Agrippina was a cruel trial to any faith. The carnival of lust +and carnage in which the dynasty disappeared,<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iii. 83, simul cruor et +strues corporum, juxta scorta et scortis similes, etc.</note> the shock of +the fierce struggle on the Po, in which the legions of the East +and the West fought with demoniac force for the great prize, +deepened the horrors of the tragedy and the gloomy doubts of +its future historian. The dawn of a timorous hope, which broke +under the calm, strong rule of Vespasian, was overcast, during +the early manhood of Tacitus, by the old insanity of power which +seemed to revive in the last of the Flavians. Such an experience +and such an atmosphere were enough to disorder any imagination. +The wild Titanic ambition in the Claudian Caesars, a +strange mixture of vicious, hereditary insanity,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, c. iv. vi.</note> with a fevered +imagination which, intoxicated with almost superhuman power, +dreamt of unheard of conquests over nature, made the Julio-Claudian +emperors, in the eyes of men, a race half-fiend, half-god. +Men hated and loathed them, yet were ready to deify +them. It did not seem unnatural that Caligula should throw +a gigantic arch over the Forum, to link the imperial palace +with the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> xxi. xxii. xxix. xxxiv. +xxxvii.; cf. Mackail, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Lit.</hi> p. 213.</note> Men long refused +to believe in the death of Nero, and his reappearance was +expected for generations.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, lvii.</note> In spite of the Augustan revival, +the calm, if rather formal, sanity of old Roman religion had +lost its power over cultivated minds. The East, with its +fatalist superstitions, its apotheosis of lofty earthly sovereignty, +its enthronement of an evil power beside the good, was +completing the overthrow of the national faith. The air was +<pb n="455"/><anchor id="Pg455"/>full of the lawless and the supernatural. Science, in the +modern sense, was yet unborn; it was a mere rudimentary +mass of random guesses, with as little right to command the +reason as the legends which sprang from the same lawless +imagination. Philosophic speculation in any high sense had +almost disappeared. The most powerful system which still +lingered, resolved the gods into mere names for the various +potencies of that dim and awful Power which thrills through +the universe, which fixes from the beginning the destinies of +men and nations, and which deigns to shadow forth its +decrees in omen or oracle. Awestruck and helpless in the +face of a cruel and omnipresent despotism, with little light from +accredited systems of philosophy or religion, what wonder that +even the highest and most cultivated minds were darkened +and bewildered, and were even ready to lend an ear to the +sorcery of the mysterious East? The hesitating acceptance +of the popular belief in clairvoyance hardly surprises us in a +man like Tacitus, bewildered by the chaos of the Empire, and +possessing few reasoned convictions in religion or philosophy. +It is more surprising to find so detached a mind as Epictetus +recognising in some sort the power of divination. He admits +that men are driven to practise it by cowardice or selfish +greed.<note place="foot">Epict. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> ii. 7, § 10, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τί οὖν ἡμᾶς ἐπὶ τὸ συνεχῶς μαντεύεσθαι ἄγει; Ἡ δειλία, τὸ + φοβεῖσθαι τὰς ἐκβάσεις</foreign>.</note> He agrees that the diviner can only predict the +external changes of fortune, and that on their moral bearing, +on the question whether they are really good or evil, he can +throw no light. Yet even this preacher of a universal +Providence, of the doctrine that our true good and happiness +are in our own hands, will not altogether deny that the augur +can forecast the future. We should, indeed, Epictetus says, +come to consult him, without any selfish passion, as a wayfarer +asks of a man whom he meets which of two roads leads to +his journey’s end.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὡς ὁ ὁδοιπόρος πυνθάνεται ... ποτέρα τῶν ὁδῶν φέρει ... + οὕτως ἔδει καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν θεὸν ἔρχεσθαι, ὡς ὁδηγόν</foreign>. +Cf. <hi rend="italic">Ench.</hi> 32.</note> But the field for such guidance is limited, +Where the light of reason or conscience is a sufficient guide, +the diviner’s art is either useless or corrupting. Nor should +any ominous signs deter a man from sharing a friend’s peril, +even though the diviner may give warning of exile or death. +</p> + +<p> +Next to Aristides, there is probably no writer who reveals +<pb n="456"/><anchor id="Pg456"/>so strikingly the mingled pietism and superstition of the time +as Aelian. Although he preferred to compose his works in +Greek, he was a native of the Latian Praeneste, that cool +retreat of the wearied Roman, and the seat of the famous +shrine of Fortuna Primigenia.<note place="foot">Warde Fowler, <hi rend="italic">Roman Festivals</hi>, +p. 72; Preller, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Myth.</hi> (Tr.), p. 381.</note> It is a disputed point whether +Aelian belongs to the second century or the third. But the +more probable conclusion, favoured by the authority of Suidas, +is that he lived shortly after the time of Hadrian.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph.</hi> ii. p. 273, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἐθαύμαζε δὲ τὸν Ἡρώδην ὡς ποικιλώτατον ῥητόρων</foreign>: cf. <hi rend="italic">Praef. Jac. Perizonii +ed. Aeliana</hi>, Gronov.; Suid. + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καὶ ἐσοφίστευσεν ἐν Ῥώμῃ αὐτῇ ἐπὶ τῶν μετὰ Ἁδριανὸν χρόνων</foreign>.</note> His +historical Miscellanies are a good example of that uncritical +treatment of history and love of the sensational which were +held up to scorn by Lucian.<note place="foot">Ael. <hi rend="italic">Var. Hist.</hi> xi. 13.</note> But it is in the fragments of +his work on Providence, that we have the best illustration of +his religious attitude. The immediate interference of the +Heavenly Powers, to reward the pious believer, or to punish the +defiant sceptic, is triumphantly proclaimed. Miracles, oracles, +presages, and warning dreams startle the reader on every page. +Aelian wages war <hi rend="italic">à outrance</hi> with the effeminate and profane +crew of the Epicureans, whom he would certainly have handed +over pitilessly to the secular arm, if he had had the power.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> <hi rend="italic">Fragm. Ael. ap. Gronov.</hi> p. +1014.</note> +He records with delight the physical maladies which are said +to have afflicted Epicurus and his brothers, and the persecution +of their sect at Messene and in Crete.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 1022.</note> After the tale of some +specially impressive interference of Providence, he launches +ferocious anathemas at the most famous sceptics, Xenophanes, +Diagoras, and Epicurus.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 1024.</note> He pursues Epicurus even to the +tomb, and pours all his scorn on the unbelieving voluptuary’s +arrangements for biennial banquets to his shade.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 1023.</note> He exults +in the fate of one who, without initiation, tried to get a sight +of the holy spectacle at Eleusis, and perished by falling from +his secret point of observation.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 1011.</note> It is needless to say that +miraculous cures by Asclepius are related with the most +exuberant faith. Aristarchus the tragic poet, and Theopompus +the comedian, were restored from wasting and hopeless sickness +by the god.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 1030.</note> Another patient of the shrine had the vision, which +<pb n="457"/><anchor id="Pg457"/>was probably often a real fact, of a priest standing beside his +bed in the night, bringing counsels of healing.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Fragm. Ael.</hi> pp. 1009, 1034.</note> But the +climax of ludicrous credulity is reached in the tale of the +pious cock of Tanagra.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 1013.</note> This favoured bird, being maimed in +one leg, appeared before the shrine of Asclepius, holding out +the injured limb, and, taking his place in the choir that sung +the morning paean, begged the god for relief and healing. It +came before the evening, and the grateful bird, with crest +erect, with stately tread, and flapping wings, gave voice to his +deliverance in his own peculiar notes of praise! The Divine +vengeance is also displayed asserting itself in dreams. A +traveller, stopping for the night at Megara, had been murdered +for his purse of gold by the keeper of his inn, and his corpse, +hidden in a dung-cart, was carried through the gates before +dawn. At that very hour his wraith appeared to a citizen +of the place, and told him the tale of the tragedy. The +treacherous assassin was caught at the very point indicated +by the ghost.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 1049.</note> The last dream of Philemon is of a more +pleasing kind.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> + <anchor id="corr457"/><corr sic="(missing)">p.</corr> 1051.</note> The poet, being then in his full vigour, and +in possession of all his powers, once had a vision in his home +at Peiraeus. He thought he saw nine maidens leaving the +house, and heard them bidding him adieu. When he awoke, +he told the tale to his boy, and finished the play on which he +was at work; then, wrapping himself in his cloak, he lay down +to sleep, and when they came to wake him, he was dead. +Aelian challenges Epicurus to deny that the maidens of the +vision were the nine Muses, quitting an abode which was soon +to be polluted by death. +</p> + +<p> +Publius Aelius Aristides is one of the best representatives +of the union of high culture with the forces of the religious +revival. He saw the beginning and the end of the Antonine +age. He was born in 117 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> at Adriani, in Mysia, where his +family held a high position, his father being priest of Zeus. +He received the most complete rhetorical training, and had been +a pupil of Herodes Atticus. Travelling through Greece, Italy, +and Egypt, and giving exhibitions of his skill in the fashion +of the day,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Jebb’s <hi rend="italic">Aristides</hi>, <hi rend="italic">Collect. Hist.</hi> +§ vi.</note> Aristides won a splendid reputation, which swelled +<pb n="458"/><anchor id="Pg458"/>his vanity to proportions rare even in a class whose vanity +was proverbial. He won the restoration of the ruined Smyrna +from M. Aurelius, by an oration which moved the Emperor to +tears.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Soph.</hi> ii. p. 253.</note> With a naturally feeble constitution and epileptic +tendencies, the excitement of the sophist’s life brought on an +illness which lasted thirteen years. During that long ordeal, +he developed a mystic superstition which, along with an ever-growing +self-consciousness, inspired the <hi rend="italic">Sacred Orations</hi>, which +appeared in 177, long after his health had been restored. He +visited many seats of sacred healing—Smyrna, Pergamum, +Cyzicus, Epidaurus—and, often in a cataleptic state, between +sleep and waking, he had visitations of the Higher Powers in +dreams. They gave him prescriptions of the strangest remedies, +along with eulogies on his unrivalled talent, which he was +solemnly enjoined to devote to the celebration of his deliverance +by the Divine favour.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> iii. p. 440 sqq.; +Baumgart, <hi rend="italic">Ael. Aristides als Repräsentant +der Soph. Rhet.</hi> pp. 68, 96.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Aristides zealously obeyed the Divine command. But +whether his sole inspiration was simple gratitude and unsophisticated +piety, crossed by superstition, as has generally +been assumed, may well be doubted.<note place="foot">Baumgart rejects Welcker’s view of +the essentially religious character of +Aristides, pp. 112, 113.</note> The truth is, that in +Aristides met all the complex influences of his age, both +intellectual and spiritual. He was the most elaborate product +of the rhetorical school, with its cultivated mastery of phrase, +its exuberant pride in the power of words, its indifference to +truth, in comparison with rhetorical effect. The whole force of +revived Hellenism was concentrated in this declamatory skill.<note place="foot">Baumgart, pp. 62, 102, Bald ist in +der ganzen Heilungsgeschichte dies die +Hauptsache, dass nun sein Rhetorentum +die höchste Weihe erhalten habe.</note> +At the same time, the religious revival was very far from being +a return to the old religion, in its clear firm outlines and +simple wholeness.<note place="foot">Id. p. 62.</note> The Zeus and Athene and Poseidon of the +age of Aristides were not the divinities of the great age. +Many influences had been at work to blur the clean-cut outlines +of Hellenic imagination, and to sophisticate the ancestral +faith both of Greece and Rome. Men wished to believe in +the ancient gods, but they were no longer the gods of Homer +or of Aeschylus, the gods worshipped by the men who fought +<pb n="459"/><anchor id="Pg459"/>in the Samnite or the Punic wars. Greek philosophy for eight +centuries had been teaching a doctrine of one Divine force or +essence, transcending the powers and limitations of sense, or +immanent in the fleeting world of chance and change. Pagan +theology had elaborated a celestial hierarchy, in which the +Deity, removed to an infinite distance, was remotely linked to +humanity by a graduated scale of inferior spiritual beings, +daemons, and heroes.<note place="foot">Baumgart, pp. 60, 61.</note> Then came the religions of the East, +with their doctrines of expiation for sin and ascetic preparation +for communion, and visions of immortality. And, alongside +of all these developments, there was a portentous growth of +vulgar superstition, belief in dreams, omens, and oracles, in +any avenue to the <q>Great Mystery.</q> Sophistic rhetoric, from +its very nature and function, was bound to reflect the religious +spirit of the age, in all its confusion. The ancient myths, +indeed, were revived and decked out with rich poetic colouring. +Yet it is not the simple, naïve, old pagan faith which inspires +the rhetorical artist. The pantheistic or theosophist doctrines, +which were in the air, disturbed the antique character of the +<anchor id="corr459"/><corr sic="piece">piece.</corr><note place="foot">Id. p. 64.</note> But the sophist, if he occasionally catches the tone +of new mysticism, or even of rationalist interpretation, is +nothing if not orthodox on the whole, and he anathematises +the impiety of free-thinking philosophy, with the same energy +as Aelian. Above all, Aristides is in harmony with the infinite +faith in miracle and heavenly vision which was rife. +</p> + +<p> +From whatever cause, the worship of Asclepius had +attained an extraordinary popularity in the age of the Antonines.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> c. iii. of Pater’s <hi rend="italic">Marius the +Epicurean</hi>.</note> +The conditions of health and disease are so obscure, +the influences of will and imagination on our bodily states +are so marked, that, in all ages, the boundaries between the +natural and the unknowable are blurred and may be easily +crossed. The science of medicine, even down to the age of +Hippocrates, or the age of Galen, had not abandoned all faith +in the magical and mysterious.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iii. 44; D. +Cass. lxix. 22, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">Ἁδριανὸς δὲ μαγγανείαις μέν τισι καὶ γοητείαις ἐκενοῦτό ποτε +τοῦ ὑγροῦ</foreign>.</note> Incantations long held their +ground beside more scientific remedies. Health being the +most precious and the most precarious of earthly blessings, it +is not strange that, in an age of revived belief in the +super<pb n="460"/><anchor id="Pg460"/>natural, the god of health should attain a rank even on +level with the great Olympian gods. His temples rose in every +land where Greek or Roman culture prevailed. They were +generally built with an eye to beauty of scenery, or the virtues +of some clear, cold, ancient spring, or other health-giving +powers in the site, which might reinforce the more mysterious +influences of religion. And in every temple there was a +hierarchy of sacred servants, who guarded a tradition of +hieratic ceremonial and of medical science.<note place="foot">Caton, <hi rend="italic">Temples and Ritual of +Asklepios</hi>, p. 27.</note> There was the +chief priest, who may or may not have been a trained physician. +There were the <hi rend="italic">daduchi</hi> and <hi rend="italic">pyrophori</hi>, who attended to the +punctual service of the altars. There were the <hi rend="italic">neocori</hi>, +who were probably physicians, and who waited on the +patients, interpreting their visions, and often supplementing +them by other visions of their own.<note place="foot">Baumgart, p. 97; cf. Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> +p. 574 (Jebb’s Ed.), 531.</note> There were also, in a +lower rank, nurses, male and female, who, if we may judge +from Aristides, performed the sympathetic part of our own +hospital-nurses.<note place="foot">Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> p. 530 (Jebb).</note> The patients came from all parts of the +Graeco-Roman world. After certain offerings and rites, the +sufferer took his place in the long dormitory, which often contained +beds for 200 or 300, with windows open all night +long to the winds of the south. The sick man brought his +bed-coverings, and made his gift on the altar. The lamps were +lighted in the long gallery, a priest recited the vesper prayers. +At a later hour, the lights were extinguished, strict silence was +enjoined, and a hope for some soothing vision from above was +left as a parting gift or salutation by the minister as he +retired.<note place="foot">Caton, p. 29.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Divination by dreams was one of the most ancient and +universal of superstitions in the pagan world.<note place="foot">Maury, <hi rend="italic">La Magie</hi>, p. 231.</note> It was also one +of the most persistent to the last days of paganism in the West. +The god of Epidaurus was still visiting his votaries by night, +when S. Jerome was composing his commentary on Isaiah.<note place="foot">S. Hieron. in <hi rend="italic">Is.</hi> c. lv. p. 482.</note> +Nor is the superstition unnatural. Sleep, the most mysterious +of physical phenomena, gives birth to mental states which are +a constant surprise. Thoughts and powers which are latent +in the waking hours, then start into life with a strange +vivid<pb n="461"/><anchor id="Pg461"/>ness and energy. Memory and imagination operate with a +force which may well, in an age of faith, be taken for inspiration. +The illusion of a double personality, which results from +the helplessness of the mind to react on the impressions of +sense, also easily passes into the illusion of messages and +promptings from powers beyond ourselves. Religious hopes +and cravings may thus easily and honestly seem to be fulfilled. +</p> + +<p> +But external causes also reinforced in the ancient world +the deceptions of the inner spirit. The dream-oracle was +generally on a site where nature might touch the awe and +imagination of the votary. Few could have descended into the +gloom of the cave of Trophonius without having their fancy +prepared for visions.<note place="foot">Pausan. ix. 39, § 4; Max. Tyr. +<hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> xiv. 2.</note> Exhalations from secret chasms, as at +Delphi and Lebadea, aided by the weird spells of the Nymphs +who haunted such scenes, often produced a physical excitement +akin to madness. Opiates and potions administered by +the priests, with the effect of solemn religious rites, prepared +the votary for voices from another world.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Def. Or.</hi> c. 41-46; Philostr. +<hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> i. 8; cf. Maury, <hi rend="italic">La +Magie</hi>, p. 237.</note> Soul and body +were still further prepared for the touch of a Divine hand by +rigorous fasting, which was enjoined as a preparatory discipline +in so many mysteries of the renascent paganism.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. c. 22.</note> The +heavenly vision could only come to the clear spirit, purged as +far as might be from the grossness of the flesh.<note place="foot">Max. Tyr. xvi. i.; Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. +Tyan.</hi> ii. 37; vi. 11.</note> + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">Ἐγκοίμησις</foreign> +for the sake of healing became a great, and probably in the +main, a beneficent institution in the temples of many deities,<note place="foot">See a list in Tertullian, <hi rend="italic">De Anima</hi>, +c. 46.</note> pre-eminently +in those of Isis, Serapis, and Asclepius. The temple +of Serapis at Canopus in Strabo’s time was thronged by patients +of the noblest rank, and was famous for its miraculous cures.<note place="foot">Strab. xvii. 17 (1052).</note> +Among the many attributes of Queen Isis, none made a deeper +impression than her benignant power of healing even the most +desperate cases.<note place="foot">Diod. Sic. i. 25.</note> Her temples rose everywhere. Her dream +interpreters were famous from the days of Cicero.<note place="foot">Cic. <hi rend="italic">De Div.</hi> i. 58.</note> In her +shrine at Smyrna Aristides had many of his most startling +experiences. According to Diodorus, her priests could point +to numberless proofs of the power of the great goddess to cure +<pb n="462"/><anchor id="Pg462"/>the most inveterate disease. But the great healer was, of +course, Asclepius. The remains of his splendid shrine at +Epidaurus are a revelation at once of his fame and power, +and of the scenes and occupations in which the devout health-seekers +passed their days and nights. In his temple on the +island in the Tiber, dreams of healing were still sought in the +time of Iamblichus. His shrine at Pergamum, which was +the scene of so many of the strange visions of Aristides, in +his many years of struggle with disease, was one of the most +famous, and its inspired dreams were sought long afterwards +by the emperor Caracalla.<note place="foot">Wolff, <hi rend="italic">De Nov. Orac. Aet.</hi> p. 29.</note> +</p> + +<p> +It would be idle to speculate on the relative effects of +sound medical treatment and of superstition, stimulated by +more or less pious arts, upon the constitution of the sufferer. +The virtues of herb or mineral drug, of regulated food and +abstinence, of bathing in naturally medicated waters, above +all of a continual freshness in the air, must have become a +tradition in these sacred homes of the god of health. Physical +disease is often rooted in moral disorder, and for such troubled, +tainted souls, with hereditary poison in vein and nerve, the +bright cheerfulness, the orderly calm and confidence of the +ritual, which had such a charm for the soul of Plutarch, may +have exorcised, for the time, many an evil spirit, and wiped +out the memory of old sins. Soothed and relieved in mind +and body, the sufferer lay in the dimly lighted corridor, +sinking to sleep, with a confidence that the god would somehow +make his power felt in visions of the night.<note place="foot">Caton, p. 28.</note> Through +a sliding panel, hidden in the wall, a dim figure of gracious +aspect might glide to the side of his couch, and whisper +strange sweet words of comfort. But in many cases, there is +no need to assume the existence of sanctified imposture.<note place="foot">Diod. Sic. i. 25.</note> A +debilitated frame, nerves shattered by prolonged suffering, an +imagination excited by sacred litany, ghostly counsels and tales +of miracle, the all-pervading atmosphere of an immemorial +faith, may easily have engendered visions which seemed to +come from another world.<note place="foot">Wolff, <hi rend="italic">De Nov. Orac. Aet.</hi> p. 31, +Ejus sacerdotes fraudibus famosi opportune +Isidis templo Pompeiano culpae +convicti sunt; ubi ipse scalinam vidi +secretam, etc. Maury, <hi rend="italic">La Magie</hi>, pp. +237-8.</note> +</p> + +<pb n="463"/><anchor id="Pg463"/> + +<p> +But from whatever source the visions came, they had a +powerful effect on the imagination, and, through that, on the +bodily health. Some of the prescriptions indeed given by +these voices of the night may seem to us ludicrous or +positively dangerous.<note place="foot">Cf. Maury, p. 240.</note> But the tone and surroundings of +these shrines, and the sense of being encompassed by Divine +as well as human sympathy, probably counteracted any ill +effects of quackery. The calm, serene order, which the +hieratic spirit cultivates at its best, the cheerful routine of +the sacred service, blending indistinguishably with the ministry +to suffering, and consecrating and ennobling it, the confidence +inspired by the sedate cheerfulness of the priests and attendants, +reinforced by the countless cases of miraculous cures +recorded on the walls,<note place="foot">See a list in Caton, p. 36 sq.</note>—all this must have had a powerful +and beneficent influence. And the visitors were not all +invalids. The games and festivals drew together many merely +for society and amusement. The theatre at Epidaurus +must have provided constant entertainment for a far larger +concourse than the patients of the temple.<note place="foot">Caton, p. 28; Pausan. ii. 27, § 5; +cf. Strab. viii. 6, § 15.</note> A healthy +regimen, which is abundantly attested,<note place="foot">Caton, pp. 40, 38.</note> with the charms +of art and surrounding beauties of hill and woodland, tended +of themselves to restore peace and balance to disordered +nerves. And the social life, especially to Greeks, was +probably the most potent influence of all. We can see from +Aristides that troublesome cases were watched by a circle of +curious sympathisers.<note place="foot">Baumgart, p. 101.</note> In those marble seats, which can still +be seen on the site, many a group, through many generations, +must have sat listening to music or recitation, or discussing +high themes of life and death, or amused with the more trivial +gossip of all gatherings of men. +</p> + +<p> +Amid such scenes Aristides spent thirteen years of the +prime of his manhood. With all the egotism of the self-pitying +invalid, he has recorded the minutest details of his +ailments. He seems to have been disordered in every organ, +dropsical, asthmatic, dyspeptic, with a tumour of portentous +size, and agonising pains which reduced him to the extremity +of weakness.<note place="foot">Cf. Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 536-538 (Jebb, t. i.).</note> But the extraordinary toughness and vitality +<pb n="464"/><anchor id="Pg464"/>of the man is even more striking than his sufferings. Aristides +regarded health as the greatest of all blessings, the condition +on which the value of all other blessings depends. And he +acted on the belief. His hundred days journey to Rome is +a miracle of endurance.<note place="foot">Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 537, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">Ἕβρος πᾶς ἠπείρωτο ὑπὸ κριστάλλου, πεδία δὲ λιμνάζοντα</foreign>.</note> Racked with fever and asthma, +unable to take any food except milk, he struggled along, alternately +through plains turned into lakes, or across the frozen +Hebrus, amid storm or rain or freezing cold. +</p> + +<p> +The effects of this journey in aggravated suffering from +asthma, dropsy, nervous agony, are described with painful +vividness. They were dealt with by the Roman surgeons in a +fashion which makes one wonder how the patient survived such +laceration.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 538, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καὶ τέλος, οἱ ἰατροὶ κατέτεμνον ἐκ τοῦ στήθους ἀρξάμενοι πάντα + ἑξῆς ἄχρι πρὸς τὴν κύστιν κατω. κτλ.</foreign></note> The invalid hastened home to Asia by sea. The +voyage was long and weary, a very Odyssey of storm and +wandering. Aristides reached Smyrna in mid-winter, and all +the physicians were puzzled to find any alleviation for his +troubles.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 541, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οὔτε βοηθεῖν εἴχον οὔτε ἐγνώριζον τὴν ποικιλίαν τῆς νόσου. + τοσοῦτον δ’ οὖν συνέδοξεν εἰς τὰς πηγὰς τὰς θερμὰς κομίσαι.</foreign> Cf. 514, + <anchor id="corr464"/><corr sic="κτλ"><foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">κτλ.</foreign></corr>, and <hi rend="italic">Collect. +Hist. ad an.</hi> 160, in Jebb’s Ed.</note> Henceforth he passed, for thirteen years, from +one temple to another, at the bidding of the gods—from +Smyrna to Pergamum, or Chios, or Cyzicus, or Epidaurus—enduring +often frightful hardships by land or sea. The +description of his sufferings sometimes excites the suspicion +that a warm imagination and the vanity of the literary artist +have heightened the effect. A tumour of monstrous size,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 504.</note> +agonies of palpitation and breathlessness, the torture of +dyspepsia, vertigo, and neuralgia which doubled up his limbs, +and seemed to bend the spine outward like a bow<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 554, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τὸ δὲ στῆθος ἔξω παρεωθεῖτο καὶ τὸ νῶτον εἰς τοὔπισθεν ἀντεσπᾶτο +ἠρέμει δὲ οὐδὲν τοῦ σώματος, κτλ.</foreign></note>—these +are only a few of the morbid horrors which afflicted him. +</p> + +<p> +The divine prescriptions were often as astounding as the +malady was severe. Fresh air, exercise, bathing in the sacred +wells, fasting and abstinence, indeed, may often have been +sound treatment. But to these were added astonishing +prescriptions of food or drugs, purgings and blood-letting +which drained the body of its slight remaining strength, and +which horrified the attendant physicians.<note place="foot">Arist. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 501-3, 506, 531, 532.</note> But these were +<pb n="465"/><anchor id="Pg465"/>not the worst. Again and again, Aristides was enjoined, when +in a high fever, to bathe two or three times in an ice-cold +river running in full flood, and then race a mile at full speed +in the face of a northerly gale. He obeyed in spite of all +remonstrance, and the doctors and his anxious friends could +only follow him to await the result of such extraordinary +remedies. Strange to relate, their fears and forebodings +proved groundless. Religious excitement, combined with +immense vanity and a strange vitality, carried Aristides +victoriously through these ordeals,<note place="foot">Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 521.</note> and his friends received +him at their close, with an indescribable genial warmth spreading +through his whole body, and a lightness and cheerfulness +of spirit which more than rewarded him for these strange +hardships of superstition. +</p> + +<p> +The faith of Aristides must have been very robust. His +tortures lasted for nearly thirteen years, during which the +divine prescriptions only seemed to add to their poignancy. +But he was upheld by the belief that he was a special object +of the Divine favour, and he persistently followed Divine +recipes, which ordinary human skill and prudence would have +rejected. No doubts, such as troubled his attendants, ever crossed +his mind. How far his illness was prolonged by this obstinate +adherence to the illusions of sleep and superstition,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 504-5, 541-2.</note> in the +face of expert advice, is a matter on which it would be useless +to speculate. It is probable that the imagination and exuberant +vanity of Aristides made him a more difficult patient +than the ordinary people who frequented these shrines of +healing. It is also evident that there was a body of more or +less skilled medical opinion connected with the cult of Asclepius. +Practical physicians came to the temples,<note place="foot">Baumgart, p. 101; Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> p. +550 (Jebb, t. i.).</note> with the benevolence +and the curiosity of their craft in all ages, to observe and study, +or to advise a cautious interpretation of the revelations of the +night. Aristides has preserved the names of some—Theodotus, +Asclepiacus, and Satyrus. Long observation of the freaks of +individual temperament and constitution must have suggested +to thoughtful minds, with some instincts of scientific method, +that the supernatural vision should be interpreted in the light +of experience. An awful dream of Aristides that all his bones +<pb n="466"/><anchor id="Pg466"/>and sinews must be excised, turned, in the hands of a faithful +attendant, into a prediction of renewed vitality.<note place="foot">Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 553; Baumgart, p. 99.</note> And although +some of the nurses, to whom he is so grateful, confirmed his +visions by precisely similar revelations of their own,<note place="foot">Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 506, 515; cf. Baumgart, +p. 122.</note> others, of +the more skilled physicians, openly blamed his too confident +reliance on his dreams, and his unwillingness to try the effect +of more scientific treatment.<note place="foot">Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 505, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οἱ δὲ ἐνεκάλουν ὡς λίαν ἅπαντα ἐπὶ τοῖς ὀνείρασι ποιουμένῳ, κτλ.</foreign></note> Their proposals, however, were +sometimes so severe and heroic that we may excuse him for +preferring on the whole the more patient and gentle methods +of the god. The sufferer was sometimes favoured with +epiphanies of Athene, Apollo, Serapis, and other great +divinities, exalting him far above the rank of common votaries.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 529.</note> +And Asclepius himself, to whom his special devotion was +given, not only lightened his physical tortures, although after +long years, but endowed him with hitherto unknown powers +of rhetorical skill and readiness. The god became the patron +of his whole professional life.<note place="foot">Baumgart, p. 64, und dabei entwickelte +sich der Glaube, dass er dem +Asklepios alles verdanke, Leib, Leben, +und speciell die Gabe der Rede, etc.; cf. +p. 68, erhebt er ihn auch als den eigentlichen +Verleiher und Spender seiner +rednerischen Gaben, etc., p. 69, er dem +Gotte einen stärkeren und bleibenden +Einfluss auch auf die Gestaltung seines +inneren Lebens zuschreibt.</note> And Aristides regarded him +as the source of fresh inspiration, in the exercise of that wordcraft +of which he was the greatest master in his time. It is +not hard to discern the meaning of this self-deception. Before +Aristides began to visit the temples of the god, he was already +a finished rhetor, possessed of all the skill which the Greek +schools could impart.<note place="foot">Id. p. 69.</note> Prostrated by bodily suffering for years, +cut off from that life of brilliant display, which was so lavishly +rewarded by applauding crowds, the vain and ambitious +declaimer had lost not only his bodily health, but all the joy +and excitement of rhetorical triumph. Suddenly he found his +balance restored; the tide of energy returned to its old channels. +He could once more draw music from the almost forgotten +instrument. He had once more the full lecture-hall under his +spell. What wonder that he should feel his powers redoubled +when they were recovered, and that he should regard the god +who had healed his bodily ailments as the author of a fresh +literary inspiration? +</p> + +<pb n="467"/><anchor id="Pg467"/> + +<p> +The debt was repaid in these Sacred Orations.<note place="foot">Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 512, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">εὐθὺς ἐξ ἀρχῆς προεῖπεν ὁ θεὸς ἀπογράφειν τὰ ὀνείρατα</foreign>.</note> Some treat +them as the expression of a genuine mystical piety, others are +inclined to think that the incorrigible rhetorician is quite as +evident as the pious votary.<note place="foot">Baumgart, pp. 112, 123.</note> It would be an excess of +scepticism to doubt that Aristides believed in his visions, and +in the beneficent power of the god, for which he was full of +pious gratitude. Yet the rhetorical spirit of that age was an +influence of singular intensity. It mastered not only the faculty +of utterance, but the whole mind and life of the rhetorician. +The passion to produce a startling or seductive effect on the +audience had become a second nature. Truth was a secondary +matter, not from any moral obliquity, but from the influence +of prolonged training. And so, we may retain a belief in the +genuine piety or superstition of Aristides, while we may distrust +his narrative. The piety or the mystic superstition may not +have been less sincere, although it was mingled with egregious +vanity, and expressed itself in the carefully moulded and highly +coloured phrases of the schools. Nor should we doubt the +piety of Aristides because he deemed himself the special object +of Divine favour. On such a principle all prayer for personal +benefits would become profane egotism. And although Aristides +was profoundly conscious that he was the first of Greek +orators,<note place="foot">On his vanity <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Baumgart, p. 110. +The most glaring example is in <hi rend="italic">Or. Sac.</hi> +4, 591-2, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἐξεβόησα, εἶς, λέγων τὸν θεόν, καὶ ὅς ἔφη, σὺ εἶ</foreign>.</note> he was also profoundly grateful for the Divine grace +which had renewed his powers for the glory of God and the +delight and profit of mankind. Whether he would have been +content to enjoy his mystic raptures without publishing them +to the world, is a question which will be variously answered +according to the charity and spiritual experience of the inquirer. +</p> + +<p> +Many another less famous shrine than that of Epidaurus +offered this kind of revelation. The gods were liberal in their +prophetic gifts in that age, and dreams were as freely sent as +they were generally expected. There is no more striking +example of the superstition of the age than the treatise of +Artemidorus on the interpretation of dreams. Artemidorus +lived towards the end of the second century. He was a +native of Ephesus, but he called himself Daldianus, in order +to share his distinction with an obscure little town in Lydia, +<pb n="468"/><anchor id="Pg468"/>which was the birthplace of his mother.<note place="foot">Artemid. <hi rend="italic">Oneirocrit.</hi> iii. 66.</note> The treatise is in +five books, three of which are dedicated to Cassius Maximus, +a Roman of rank, who was an adept in this pretended +science; the others are inscribed to the son of the author. +In spite of absurd credulity, wild and perverted ingenuity +and a cold, quasi-scientific tolerance of some of the worst +moral enormities of antiquity, Artemidorus seems to have +been an earnest and industrious man, who wrote with the +mistaken object of doing a service both to his own age +and to posterity.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 1, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">διὰ τὴν εὐχρηστίαν οὐ μόνον τὴν ἡμῶν αὐτῶν ἀλλὰ καὶ + τῶν μετέπειτα ἐσωμένων ἀνθρώπων</foreign>.</note> Like other pious men of the time, he +was afflicted by the profane attitude of the sceptics,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> Cf. Tertullian, <hi rend="italic">De An.</hi> 46, 47.</note> and +determined to refute them by the solid proofs of a sifted +experience. He also wished to furnish guidance to the crowd, +who believed in their visions, but were bewildered from the +want of clear canons of interpretation. There was evidently +afloat a voluminous oneirocritic literature. But it was, according +to Artemidorus, frequently wanting in depth and system,<note place="foot">Artemid. <hi rend="italic">Oneirocrit.</hi> +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οὐ γὰρ ἀπὸ πείρας ἀλλ’ αὐτοσχεδιάζοντες ... οὕτως ἔγραφον</foreign>. Praef.</note> and +random guesses had too often been the substitute for minute, +exhaustive observation and a clear scientific method. Artemidorus +was inspired to supply the want by a vision from Apollo, +his ancestral patron.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ii. 70, <hi rend="italic">ad fin.</hi></note> He procured every known treatise on +dreams.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. Praef., + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οὐκ ἔστιν ὅ τι βιβλίον οὐκ ἐτησάμην ὀνειροκριτικόν</foreign>.</note> He travelled all over Asia, Greece, and Italy, and +the larger islands, visiting the great festivals and centres of +population, and consulting with all the seers and diviners, even +those of the lowest repute. He took the greatest pains to +ascertain the facts of the reported fulfilment of dreams, and to +compare and sift the facts of his own observation. No austere +scientific student of nature in our day ever took himself more +seriously than this collector of the wildest and foulest hallucinations +of pagan imagination. Artemidorus really believed that +he was founding an enduring science for the guidance of all +coming generations. +</p> + +<p> +Yet the foundation of it all is essentially unscientific. +To Artemidorus dreams are not the result of natural causes, +of physical states, or of the suggestions of memory and +<pb n="469"/><anchor id="Pg469"/>association. They are sent directly by some god, as a promise +or warning of the future. Nor should any apparent failure of +the prediction tempt us to impeach the truthfulness of the +Divine author. Artemidorus affirms as emphatically as Plato, +that the gods can never lie.<note place="foot">Artemid. <hi rend="italic">Oneirocrit.</hi> iv. 71.</note> But although they sometimes express +themselves plainly, they also frequently veil their meaning +in shadowy, enigmatic form, in order to test men’s faith and +patience.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀλλὰ ποτὲ μὲν ἁπλῶς λέγουσι, ποτὲ δὲ αἰνίσσονται ... + ἐπειδὴ καὶ σοφώτεροι ὄντες ἡμῶν αὐτῶν οὐδὲν ἡμᾶς +ἀβασανίστως βούλονται λαμβάνειν</foreign>.</note> Hence there is need of skilled interpretation, which +demands the widest observation, acute criticism combined with +reverent faith, and deference to ancient custom and traditional +lore. It is curious to see how this apostle of what, to our minds, +is a pestilent superstition, pours his scorn on the newer or lower +forms of divination.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ii. 69.</note> The Pythagorean dream-readers, the interpreters +from hand and face and form, the interpreters of sieve +and dish and dice, are all deceivers and charlatans. The old +formulated and accredited lore of birds and sacrificial entrails, +of dreams and stars and heavenly portents, should alone be +accepted by an orthodox faith. It is needless to say that +Artemidorus believed in astrology as he believed in oneiromancy. +Both beliefs go back to the infancy of the race, and +both extended their dominion far into the Middle Ages.<note place="foot">Maury, p. 241.</note> +</p> + +<p> +It would be impossible, in our space, to give any detailed +conception of the treatment of dreams by Artemidorus. Nor +would the attempt reward the pains; the curious specialist +must read the treatise for himself. He will find in it one +of the most astonishing efforts of besotted credulity to disguise +itself under the forms of scientific inquiry. He will find an +apparently genuine piety united with an unprotesting record +of the most revolting prurience of the lawless fancy. He will +find a subtlety and formalism of system and distinction worthy +of a finished schoolman of the fourteenth century, and all +employed to give order and meaning to the wildest vagaries +of vulgar fancy. The classification of dreams by Artemidorus +is a great effort, and is followed out in an exhaustive order. +Every possible subject, and many that seem to a modern +almost inconceivable, are catalogued, each in its proper place, +with the appropriate principles of explanation. The hierarchy +<pb n="470"/><anchor id="Pg470"/>of gods and heroes in their various grades, the orbs of the +sky, the various parts of the bodily frame, from the hair of +the head to the toes and nails, the various occupations and +multiform incidents in the life of man from the cradle to +the grave,<note place="foot">Artemid. <hi rend="italic">Oneirocrit.</hi> iv. Praef.</note> the whole list of animals, plants, and drugs which +serve his uses,—all these things, and many others which might +conceivably, or inconceivably, enter into the fabric of a +dream, are painfully collected and arranged for the guidance +of the future inquirer. And this demands not only an +effort of logical classification, but also an immense knowledge +of the customs and peculiarities of different races,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ii. 4.</note> +the special attributes of each of the gods, and a minute +acquaintance with the natural history of the time. For, +special circumstances and details cannot be safely neglected +in the interpretation of dreams. It may make the greatest +difference whether the same dream comes to a rich man or a +poor man,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 13, 17.</note> to a man or a woman, to a married woman or a +virgin, to old or young, to king or subject. To one it may +mean the greatest of blessings, to another calamity or death. +For instance, for a priest of Isis to dream of a shaven head is +of good omen; to any other person it is ominous of evil.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 22.</note> To +dream that you have the head of a lion or elephant is a +prediction of a rise above your natural estate; but to dream +that you have the horns of an ox portends violent death.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 37, 39.</note> To +dream of shoemaking and carpentry foretells happy marriage +and friendship, but the vision of a tanner’s yard, from its +connection with foul odours and death, may foreshadow disgrace +and disaster.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 51.</note> To dream of drinking cold water is a wholesome +sign; but a fancied draught of hot fluid, as being +unnatural, may forbode disease or failure.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> i. 66.</note> A man dreamt +that his mother was bearing him a second time; the issue +was that he returned from exile to his motherland, found his +mother ill, and inherited her property. Another had a vision +of an olive shooting from his head; he developed a vigour +and clearness of thought and language worthy of the goddess +to whom the olive is sacred.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> v. 18.</note> It would be wearisome, and even +disgusting, to give other examples of this futile and almost +<pb n="471"/><anchor id="Pg471"/>idiotic superstition, masquerading as a science. A painstaking +student might easily classify the modes of interpretation. +They are tolerably uniform, and rest on fanciful but obvious +conceits, superficial analogies, mere play upon words and +impossible etymologies. The interpretations are as dull and +monotonous as the dreams are various and fantastic. Many +of these visions seem like the wildest hallucinations of prurient +lunacy. It is difficult to conceive what was the ordinary state +of mind and the habits of a people whose sleep was haunted +by visions so lawless. It is perhaps even harder to imagine +a father, with the infinite industry of which he is so proud, +compiling such a catalogue for the study of his son.<note place="foot">Artemid. <hi rend="italic">Oneirocrit.</hi> v. Praef.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Lucian, through the mouth of Momus, pours his scorn on +the new oracles which were chanting from every rock, vending +their lies at two obols apiece, and overshadowing the ancient +glories of the more ancient shrines.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Concil. Deor.</hi> c. 12, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀλλ’ ἤδη πᾶς λίθος καὶ πᾶς βωμὸς χρησμῳδεῖ, κτλ.</foreign> +Cf. Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iv. 14.</note> In the last century of +the Republic, and in the first century of the Empire, the faith +in oracles had suffered a portentous decay. The exultation of +the Christian Fathers at the desertion of the ancient seats +of prophecy seems to find an echo in the record of heathen +authors. Cicero speaks as if Delphi were almost silent.<note place="foot">Cic. <hi rend="italic">De. Div.</hi> ii. 57, cur isto modo +iam oracula Delphis non eduntur non +modo nostra aetate, sed jamdiu, jam +ut nihil possit esse contemptius?</note> +Strabo tells us that Delphi, Dodona, and Ammon had shared +in the general contempt which had fallen on oracular divination.<note place="foot">Strab. ix. 3, 4, (419), +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὠλιγώρεται δ’ ἱκανῶς καὶ τὸ ἱερόν, κτλ.</foreign>: vii. 7, 9, +(328) (Dodona); xvii. 1, 43 (Ammon).</note> +From Plutarch we have seen that in Boeotia, the most +famous home of the art, all the oracular shrines were silent +and deserted, except that of Trophonius at Lebadea.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Def. Or.</hi> c. 5.</note> And +curious inquirers gave various explanations of this waning +faith. Strabo thought that, with the spread of Roman power, +the Sibylline prophecies and the Etruscan augury eclipsed the +Greek and Eastern oracles. The explanation in Plutarch, as +we have seen, is involved in an interesting discussion of the +various sources of inspiration, and, in particular, of the office +of daemons. One theorist of the positive type attributes the +failure of the Greek oracles to the growing depopulation of +Greece. It is a question of demand and supply. Others find +<pb n="472"/><anchor id="Pg472"/>the explanation in physical changes, which have extinguished +or diverted the exhalation that used to excite the prophetic +powers of the Pythia. Another falls back on the theory of +daemonic inspiration, which, mysteriously vouchsafed, may be +as mysteriously withdrawn.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Def. Or.</hi> c. 8, 38.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The eclipse of the oracles was really a phase of that pagan +unbelief or indifference which tended to disappear towards +the end of the first century <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> And the eclipse perhaps +was not so complete as it is represented. Cicero himself +consulted the Pythia about his future fame, and received an +answer which revealed insight into his character.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Cic.</hi> c. 5.</note> Germanicus +in the reign of Tiberius visited the shrine of the Clarian +Apollo, and that of Apis at Memphis;<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> ii. 54.</note> Tiberius tried the +sacred lottery at Padua,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> c. xiv.</note> Caligula that of Fortune at Antium.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> c. lvii.</note> +Nero, although he is said to have choked the sacred chasm at +Delphi with corpses, had previously sought light from the +god on his perilous future.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, xl.</note> Before the altar of the unseen +God on Mount Carmel, Vespasian received an impressive +prophecy of his coming greatness.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> ii. 78.</note> Titus had his hopes +confirmed in the shrine of the Paphian Venus.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tit.</hi> c. v.</note> When these +lords of the world, some of whom were notorious sceptics, thus +paid deference to the ancient homes of prophecy, it may be +doubted whether their prestige had been seriously shaken. +</p> + +<p> +Although Delphi had not for many ages wielded the +enormous political, and even international, power which it +enjoyed before the Persian wars, still, even in the days of its +greatest obscurity, it was the resort of many who came to +consult it in the ordinary cares of life. Apollonius of Tyana, +in the reign of Nero, visited the old oracular centres, Delphi, +Dodona, Abae, and the shrines of Amphiaraus and Trophonius.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iv. 24.</note> +They seem to be still active, although the sage had, in +fulfilment of his mission, to correct their ritual. The newer +foundations, like that at Abonoteichos, found it politic to +defer to the authority of oracles, such as those of Clarus and +Didyma, with a great past.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Alex.</hi> c. 29.</note> If the conquests of Rome for +a time obscured their fame, the ease and rapidity of +com<pb n="473"/><anchor id="Pg473"/>munication along the Roman roads, and the safety of the seas, +must have swelled the number of their votaries from all parts +of the world. It is a revelation to find a Tungrian cohort at +a remote station in Britain setting up a votive inscription in +obedience to the voice of the Clarian Apollo.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> iii. p. 469.</note> If new oracles +were springing up in the Antonine age, the old were certainly +not quite neglected. In the reign of Trajan the shrine of Delphi +recovered from its degradation by the violence of Nero.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lxiii. 14.</note> And +Hadrian, as we have seen, tested the inspiration of the Pythia +by a question as to the birthplace of Homer, which was +answered by a verse tracing his ancestry to Pylos and Ithaca.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Wolff. <hi rend="italic">De Nov. Orac. Aet.</hi> p. 5.</note> +The ancient oracles were in full vigour under the emperors of +the third century. Some of the greatest and most venerable—Delphi, +Didyma, Mallus, and Dodona—were not reduced +to silence till the reign of Constantine.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> pp. 6, 52.</note> +</p> + +<p> +But the old oracles could not satisfy the omnivorous superstition +of the time. The outburst of new oracles may be compared, +perhaps, to the fissiparous tendencies of Protestantism +in some countries, at each fresh revival of religious excitement. +Any fresh avenue to the <q>Great Mystery</q> was at once eagerly +crowded. And the most recent claimant to inspiration sometimes +threatened to overshadow the tradition of a thousand +years, and to assert an oecumenical power. +</p> + +<p> +One such case has been recorded and exposed with the +graphic skill and penetrating observation of the greatest +genius of the age. Lucian’s description of the foundation of +the new oracle of Asclepius at Abonoteichos in Paphlagonia, +if it is wanting in the sympathetic handling which modern +criticism has attained or can affect, is an unrivalled revelation +of the superstition of the time. And a brief narrative +of the imposture will probably give a more vivid idea of it +than any abstract dissertation. +</p> + +<p> +Alexander, the founder, was a man of mean parentage, +but of remarkable natural gifts. Tall and handsome in no +ordinary degree, he had eyes with a searching keenness, a look +of inspiration, and a voice most clear and sweet.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Alex.</hi> c. 3, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὀφθαλμοὶ πολὺ τὸ γοργὸν καὶ ἔνθεον διεμφαίνοντες, κτλ.</foreign></note> His mental +gifts were equal to his physical charm. In memory, quick +<pb n="474"/><anchor id="Pg474"/>perception, shrewdness, and subtlety, he had few equals. But +from his early youth, with the affectation of Pythagorean +asceticism, he had all the vices which go to make the finished +reprobate.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Alex.</hi> c. 4, 5.</note> After a youth of abandoned sensuality, in concert +with a confederate of no better character, he determined to +found an oracle. The times were favourable for such a +venture. Never had selfish desire and terror, twin roots of +superstition, such a hold on mankind.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 8, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ῥᾳδίως κατενόησαν τὸν τῶν ἀνθρώπων βίον ὑπὸ δυοῖν τούτοιν +μεγίστοιν τυραννούμενον</foreign>.</note> The problem was, +where to establish the new shrine. It must be founded among +a crassly stupid population, ready to accept any tale of the +marvellous with the most abandoned credulity.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 9.</note> Paphlagonia +seemed to the shrewd observers the readiest prey. Tablets +were dug up, which predicted an epiphany of Asclepius at +Abonoteichos. A Sibylline oracle, in enigmatic verse, heralded +the coming of the god. Alexander, magnificently attired, +appeared upon the scene, with all the signs of mysterious +insanity, and the Paphlagonians were thrown into hysterical +excitement.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 12.</note> Their last new god was fished up from a lake +in the form of a young serpent, which had been artfully sealed +up in a goose’s egg. When the broken shell revealed the +nascent deity, the multitude were in an ecstasy of excitement +at the honour vouchsafed to their city. The infant reptile was +soon replaced by one full grown, to which a very elementary +art had attached a human head. It was displayed to the +crowds who trooped through the reception-room of the +impostor, and they went away to spread throughout all Asia the +tidings of the unheard-of miracle.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 15-18.</note> Alexander had carefully +studied the system of the older oracles, and he proceeded to +imitate it. He received inquiries on sealed tablets, and, with +all ancient pomp and ceremony of attendance, returned them, +apparently untouched, with the proper answer. But Lucian +minutely explains the art with which the seal of the missive +was dexterously broken and restored.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 20.</note> A hot needle and a +delicate hand could easily reveal the secret of the question, +and hide the trick. The oracle was primarily medical. Prescriptions +were given in more or less ambiguous phrases. +The charge for each consultation was, in our money, the +<pb n="475"/><anchor id="Pg475"/>small fee of a shilling.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Alex.</hi> c. 23, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἐτέτακτο δὲ καὶ μισθὸς ἐφ’ ἑκάστῳ χρησμῷ δραχμὴ καὶ δύ’ ὀβολώ</foreign>.</note> Alexander was evidently a shrewd +business man, and his moderate charges attracting a crowd of +inquirers, the income of the oracle rose, according to Lucian, +to the then enormous sum of nearly £7000 a year.<note place="foot">If I am right in interpreting +Lucian’s statement, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀλλ’ εἰς ἑπτὰ ἢ ὀκτὼ μυριάδας ἑκάστου ἔθους ἤθροιζεν</foreign>.</note> But the +manager was liberal to his numerous staff of secretaries, interpreters, +and versifiers.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Alex.</hi> c. + <anchor id="corr475"/><corr sic="23">23,</corr> +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἅπασιν ἔνεμεν ἑκάστῳ τὸ κατ’ ἀξίαν</foreign>.</note> He had, moreover, missionaries who +spread his fame in foreign lands, and who offered the service +of the oracle in recovering runaway slaves, discovering buried +treasure, healing sickness, and raising the dead.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 24.</note> Even the +barbarians on the outskirts of civilisation were attracted by +his fame, and, after an interval required to find a translator +among the motley crowd who thronged from all lands, an +answer would be returned even in the Celtic or Syrian +tongue.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 51, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀλλὰ καὶ βαρβάροις πολλάκις ἔχρησεν ... Συριστὶ ἢ Κελτιστί</foreign>.</note> The fame of the oracle, of course, soon spread to +Italy, where the highest nobles, eager for any novelty in +religion, were carried away by the pretensions of Alexander. +None among them stood higher than Rutilianus, either in +character or official rank. But he was the slave of every +kind of extravagant superstition.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 30, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀλλόκοτα περὶ τῶν θεῶν πεπιστευκώς, κτλ.</foreign></note> He would fall down and +grovel along the way before any stone which was shining +with oil or decked with garlands. He sent one emissary after +another to Abonoteichos to consult the new god. They +returned, some full of genuine enthusiasm, some hiding their +doubts by interested exaggeration of what they had seen. +Soon society and the court circle felt all the delight of a new +religious sensation. Great nobles hurried away to Paphlagonia, +and fell an easy prey to the gracious charm and the ingenious +charlatanry of Alexander.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 31.</note> Some, who had consulted the +oracle by questions which might have a sinister meaning, and +suggest dangerous ambitions, he knew how to terrify into his service +by the hint of possible disclosure.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 32.</note> All came back to swell +the fame of the Paphlagonian oracle and to make it fashionable +in Italy. But none were so besotted as Rutilianus. This great +Roman noble, who had been proved in a long career of office,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 30, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἐν πολλαῖς τάξεσι ἐξητασμένος</foreign>.</note> +<pb n="476"/><anchor id="Pg476"/>at the mature age of sixty, stooped to wed the supposed +daughter of the vulgar charlatan by Selene, who had honoured +him with the love which she gave of old to Endymion!<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Alex.</hi> c. 35.</note> +And Rutilianus henceforth became the stoutest champion +of Alexander against all assaults of scepticism. For, in +spite of the credulity of the crowd and of the visitors from +Rome, there was evidently a strong body of sturdy dissent. +There were, in those days, followers of Epicurus even in +Paphlagonia, and, by a strange freak of fortune, the followers +of Christ found themselves making common cause against a +new outbreak of heathenism with the atheistic philosophy of +the Garden.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 38, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">εἴ τις ἄθεος ἢ Χριστιανὸς ἢ Ἐπικούρειος ἥκει κατάσκοπος + τῶν ὀργίων, κτλ.</foreign>: cf. 25, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">λέγων ἀθέων ἐμπεπλῆσθαι καὶ Χριστιανῶν τὸν Πόντον, κτλ.</foreign></note> An honest Epicurean once convicted Alexander +of a flagrant deception, and narrowly escaped being stoned to +death by the fanatics of Paphlagonia.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 46.</note> One of the books of +Epicurus was publicly burnt in the agora by order of Alexander, +and the ashes cast into the sea. Lucian himself, with his sly, +amused scepticism, tested and exposed the skill of the oracle +at the most imminent risk to his life.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> cc. 53 sqq.</note> +</p> + +<p> +But in spite of all exposure and opposition, the oracle, +managed with such art and supported with such blind +enthusiasm, conquered for a time the Roman world. It was +a period of calamity and gloom. Plague and earthquake added +their horrors to the brooding uncertainty of the dim conflict +on the Danube.<note place="foot">Jul. Capitol. <hi rend="italic">M. Ant.</hi> cc. 22, 17.</note> The emissaries of Alexander went everywhere, +exploiting the general terror. Prediction of coming evil was +safe at such a time; any shred of comfort or hope was eagerly +sought for. A hexameter verse, promising the help of Apollo, +was inscribed over every doorway as an amulet against the +awful pestilence of 166 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> Another ordered two lion’s cubs +to be flung into the Danube, to check the advance of the Marcomanni.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Alex.</hi> cc. 36-48.</note> +Both proved dismal failures, but without shaking the +authority of the impostor, who found an easy apology in the +darkness of old Delphic utterances. He established mysteries +after the model of Eleusis, from which Christians and Epicureans +were excluded under a solemn ban. Scenes of old and new +mythologies were presented with brilliant effects—the labour of +<pb n="477"/><anchor id="Pg477"/>Leto, the birth of Apollo, the birth of Asclepius, the epiphany +of Glycon, the new wondrous serpent-deity of Abonoteichos, the +loves of Alexander and Selene. The second Endymion lay +sleeping, as on Latmus in the ancient story, and the moon +goddess, in the person of a great Roman dame, descended from +above to woo a too real earthly lover.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Alex.</hi> c. 38.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Lucian’s history of the rise of the new oracle in Paphlagonia +is not, perhaps, free from some suspicion of personal +antipathy to the founder of it. He attributes to Alexander +not only the most daring deceit and calculating quackery, but +also the foulest vices known to the ancient world. These +latter charges may or may not be true. Theological or anti-theological +hatred has in all ages too often used the poisoned +arrow. And the moral character of Alexander has less +interest for us than the spiritual condition of his many +admirers and votaries. He can hardly be acquitted of some +form of more or less pious imposture. How far it was +accompanied by real religious enthusiasm is a problem which +will be variously solved, and which is hardly worth the trouble +of investigation, even if the materials existed for a certain +answer. But the eager readiness of a whole population to +hail the appearance of a new god, and the acceptance of his +claims by men the most cultivated and highly placed in +the Roman Empire, are facts on which Lucian’s testimony, +addressed to contemporaries, cannot be rejected. Nor is there +anything in our knowledge of the period from other sources +which renders the thing doubtful. Creative mythology had +revived its activity. Not long before the epiphany of Glycon, +in a neighbouring part of Asia Minor the Apostles Paul and +Barnabas, after the miraculous cure of the impotent man, had +difficulty in escaping divine honours. The Carpocratians, a +Gnostic sect, about the same time built a temple in honour +of the youthful son of their founder.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> iii. 456.</note> The corn-goddess +Annona first appears in the first century, and inscriptions, +both in Italy and Africa, were set up in honour of the power +who presided over the commissariat of the Roman mob.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 1810, 5320; cf. Preller, +<hi rend="italic">Rom. Myth.</hi> (Tr.), p. 415.</note> The +youthful favourite of Hadrian, after his mysterious death in +the waters of the Nile, was glorified by instant apotheosis. +<pb n="478"/><anchor id="Pg478"/>His statues rose in every market-place and temple court; his +soul was supposed to have found a home in a new star in the +region of the milky way; temples were built in his honour, +and the strange cult was maintained for at least a hundred +years after any motive could be found for adulation.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lxix, 11; cf. Gregorov. +<hi rend="italic">Hadrian</hi>, p. 128.</note> The +Cynic brothers, and the gaping crowd who stood around the +pyre of Peregrinus at Olympia were eager, as we have seen, to +hail the flight of a great soul to join the heroes and demigods +in Olympus.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">De Morte Peregr.</hi> c. 29.</note> The cult of M. Aurelius was maintained by an +enthusiasm very different from the conventional apotheosis of +the head of the Roman State. We are told that he was adored, +by every age and sex and class, long after his death. His +sacred image found a place among the <hi rend="italic">penates</hi> of every +household, and the home where it was not honoured was of +more than suspected piety. Down to the time of Diocletian, +the saintly and philosophic emperor, who had preached an +imperturbable indifference to the chances and changes of life, +was believed to visit his anxious votaries with dreams of +promise or warning.<note place="foot">Jul. Capitol. <hi rend="italic">M. Ant.</hi> c. 18, +hodieque in multis domibus M. Antonini +statuae consistunt inter deos +penates ... sacrilegus judicatus est +qui ejus imaginem in sua domo non +habuit.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Maximus of Tyre may have been guilty of no exaggeration +when he reckoned the heavenly host as thrice ten thousand.<note place="foot">Max. Tyr. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> xiv. 8.</note> +The cynical voluptuary of Nero’s reign, who said that a town +of Magna Graecia was inhabited by more gods than men, only +used a comic hyperbole to enforce a striking fact.<note place="foot">Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 17.</note> The +anthropomorphic conceptions of Deity, which were prevalent, +easily overleapt the interval between the human and Divine. +The crowds of the Antonine age were as ready to recognise +the god in human form as the Athenians of the days of +Pisistratus, who believed that they saw in the gigantic Phye +an epiphany of the great goddess of their Acropolis, leading +the tyrant home.<note place="foot">Herod. i. 60.</note> In the minds of a philosophic minority, +nurtured on the theology of Plato, there might be the dim +conception of one awful and remote Power, far removed from +the grossness of earth, far above the dreams of mythologic +poetry and the materialist imagination of the masses. Yet +<pb n="479"/><anchor id="Pg479"/>even philosophy, as we have already seen, had succumbed to +the craving for immediate contact, or for some means of communication, +with the Infinite Spirit. The daemons of Plutarch +and Maximus of Tyre were really a new philosophic mythology, +created to give meaning and morality to the old gods. These +hosts of baleful or ministering spirits, with which the Platonist +surrounded the life of man, divine in the sweep of their power, +human in their passions or sympathies, belong really to the +same order as the Poseidon who pursued Odysseus with tempest, +or the Moon goddess who descended on Latmus to kiss the +sleeping Endymion. Anthropomorphic paganism was far from +dead; it was destined to live openly for more than three hundred +years, and to prolong a secret life of subtle influence under +altered forms, the term of which who shall venture to fix? +</p> + +<p> +The daemons of the Platonic philosophers find their counterpart +in the popular cult of <hi rend="italic">genii</hi>. If there was a visible +tendency to syncretism and monotheistic faith in the second +century, there was a no less manifest drift to the endless +multiplication of spiritual powers. The tendency, indeed, to +create divine representatives of physical forces and dim +abstract qualities was from early ages congenial to the Roman +mind. All the phenomena of nature—every act, pursuit, or +vicissitude in human life—found a spiritual patron in the +Roman imagination.<note place="foot">Preller, <hi rend="italic">Myth. Rom.</hi> p. 65, 66, +387.</note> But the tendency received an immense +impulse in the age with which we are dealing, and the +inscriptions of the imperial period reveal an almost inexhaustible +fertility of religious fancy. Every locality, every +society and occupation of men, has its patron genius, to whom +divine honours are paid or recorded,—the canton, the municipality, +the curia; the spring or grove; the legion or cohort +or troop; the college of the paviors or smiths or actors; the +emperors, or even the great gods themselves.<note place="foot">Cf. <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> Ind. pp. 27, 28; <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> +especially 1730 (genius Jovis), 1812 +(Neronis), 193 (Arvernorum), 2204 +(Col. Ostiensis), 689 (municipii), 1704 +(legionis), 4113 (pavimentariorum), +6628 (fontis).</note> +</p> + +<p> +The old gods of Latium still retained a firm hold on the +devotion of the simple masses, as crowds of inscriptions record. +But ancient religion, in its cruder forms, divided and localised +the Divine power by endless demarcations of place and +function. Although the Roman centurion or merchant might +<pb n="480"/><anchor id="Pg480"/>believe in the power of his familiar gods to follow him with +their protection, and never forgot them, still each region, to +which his wanderings carried him, had its peculiar spirits, who +wielded a special potency within their own domain, and whom +it was necessary to propitiate. On hundreds of provincial +inscriptions we can read the catholic superstition of the +Roman legionary. The mystery of desert or forest, the +dangers of march and bivouack, stimulated his devotion. If +he does not know the names of the strange deities, he will +invoke them collectively side by side with the gods whom he +has been taught to venerate. He will adore the <q>genius +loci,</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2135, Sei Deo Sei Deivae +Sac. etc.; 1580, Aesculapio et Hygiae +caeterisque diis deabusque hujus loci +Salutaribus; 5902, Hospitibus diis +Mauricis et genio loci, etc.</note> or all the gods of Mauritania or of Britain. And so +the deities of Alsace and Dacia and Lusitania, of the Sahara +and Cumberland, easily took their place in his growing +pantheon.<note place="foot">Cf. Tertull. <hi rend="italic">Apol.</hi> c. 24.</note> They were constantly identified with the great +figures of Greek or Roman mythology. Many an inscription +is dedicated to Apollo Grannus of Alsace, whom Caracalla +invoked for the recovery of his health, along with Serapis and +Aesculapius.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 1997-2001; cf. D. Cass. +lxxvii. 15.</note> Apollo Belenus, a favourite deity in Southern +Gaul, was the special patron of Aquileia.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 823, 1967.</note> Batucardus and +Cocideus received vows and dedications in Cumberland and +Westmorland, Arardus and Agho in the Pyrenees, Abnoba in +the Black Forest;<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 1959, 1986, 1954; cf. <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> +xii. 1556, 3097; viii. 9195, 4578, 8834.</note> and many another deity with strange, outlandish +name, like their provincial votaries, were honoured +with sacred Roman citizenship, and took their places, although +in a lower grade, with Serapis of Alexandria or <anchor id="corr480"/><corr sic="Aesclepius">Asclepius</corr> of +Epidaurus. The local heroes were also adored at wayside +shrines or altars, which met the traveller in lonely passes. In +the heart of the Nubian desert, inscriptions, scratched on obelisk +or temple porch, attest the all-embracing faith of the Roman +legionary.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> iii. pp. 482-4.</note> At Carlsbourg in Transylvania, a legate of the +5th Legion records his own gratitude to Aesculapius and all +the gods and goddesses of the place, and that of his wife and +daughter, for the recovery of his sight.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 1580.</note> A praetorian prefect, +visiting the hot springs of Vif left a graceful inscription to +<pb n="481"/><anchor id="Pg481"/>the gods of the eternal fire.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 5689.</note> A legate of the 5th Legion +returns pious thanks to Hercules and the <hi rend="italic">genius loci</hi>, at the +baths in Dacia sacred to the hero.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 1560.</note> Many a slab pays honour +to the nymphs who guarded the secret spring, especially where +a source, long since forgotten, had resumed its flow.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 1632, 4, 7; Nymphis ob reditum +aquarum, etc.</note> A chief +magistrate of Lambesi is specially grateful that the town has +been refreshed by a new fountain during his year of office.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 5758.</note> +The heroes of poetic legend were still believed to haunt the +scene of their struggles. Apollonius once spent a night in +ghostly converse with the shade of Achilles beside his tomb in +the Troad, and was charged by the divine warrior to convey his +reproaches for the neglect of his worship in the old Thessalian +home of the Myrmidons.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iv. 16, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">Θετταλοὶ γὰρ τὰ ἐναγίσματα χρόνον ἤδη πολὺν εκλελοίπασί μοι</foreign>.</note> The Troad had a hero of much +later date, the proconsul Neryllinus, who was believed to deliver +oracles and to heal the sick.<note place="foot">Friedl. <hi rend="italic">Sittengesch.</hi> iii. p. 479.</note> +</p> + +<p> +In a time of such vivid belief in the universal presence +of divine beings, faith in miracle was a matter of course. +Christian and pagan were here at least on common ground. +Nay, the Christian apologists did not dispute the possibility +of pagan miracles, or even of pagan oracular inspiration. It +is curious to see that Origen and Celsus, as regards the probability +of recurring miracle, are on very much the same plane +of spiritual belief, and that the Christian apologist is fighting +with one arm tied. He is disabled from delivering his assaults +at the heart of the enemy’s position. The gods of heathenism +are still to him living and potent spirits, although they are +spirits of evil.<note place="foot">Orig. <hi rend="italic">C. Celsum</hi>, lib. iii. p. 124, +ed. Spencer; lib. vii. p. 334, Friedl. +iv. p. 458; S. Aug. <hi rend="italic">De Civ. D.</hi> xix. 23, +quis ita stultus est qui non intelligat ... consilio +simili ab impuris daemonibus +ita fuisse responsa, etc.; cf. +viii. 22, mirabilibus et fallacibus signis +sive factorum sive praedictorum deos +se esse persuaserunt.</note> The pagan daemonology, on its worse side, +had been accepted by the champion of the Church. Yet +it is hard to see how, on such principles, he could deal +with the daemon of the Apolline shrine at Delphi, when he +denounced the Spartan Glaucus for the mere thought of a +breach of faith to his friend,<note place="foot">Herodot. vi. 86.</note> or the daemon who lurked under +the pure stately form of Athene Polissouchos, when she threw +<pb n="482"/><anchor id="Pg482"/>a maiden goddess’s protection around the Antigones of Athens. +In the field of miracle in the second century the heathen could +easily match the Christian. With gods in every grove and +fountain, and on every mountain summit; with gods breathing +in the winds and flashing in the lightning, or the ray of sun +and star, heaving in the earthquake or the November storm in +the Aegean, watching over every society of men congregated +for any purpose, guarding the solitary hunter or traveller in +the Alps or the Sahara, what is called miracle became as +natural to the heathen as the rising of the sun. In fact, if +the gods had not displayed their power in some startling way, +their worshippers would have been shocked and forlorn. But +the gods did not fail their votaries. Unquestioning and +imperious faith in this kind is always rewarded, or can always +explain its disappointments. The Epicurean, the Cynic, or the +Aristotelian, might pour their cold scorn on tales of wonder. +An <hi rend="italic">illuminé</hi> like Lucian, attached to no school, and living +merely in the light of clear cultivated sense, might shake his +sides with laughter at the tales which were vouched for by a +spiritualist philosophy. But the drift of the time was against +all such protests. The Divine power was everywhere, and +miracle was in the air. +</p> + +<p> +Enough has been said of the dreams and signs and omens +which in the first and second century heralded every accession +to the throne and every death of a prince, and which even +Tacitus records with more or less vacillating faith. Enough, +too, has been said of the miracles of healing which were +wrought by the sons of Asclepius in his many shrines from +Pergamum to the island in the Tiber. The miracles wrought +by Vespasian at Alexandria are the most hackneyed example +of belief in miracle, because the tale is told by the greatest +master of vivid narrative in a book which every educated +man has read. The sensible Vespasian was not confident +of his power to give energy to the impotent, even on the +strength of a dream sent by Serapis, just as he jested on his +deathbed about his approaching apotheosis. But the efficiency +of the imperial touch was vouched for by eye-witnesses, to +whom Tacitus would not refuse his credence. The chronicler +of the age of Diocletian has surrounded the death-bed of +Hadrian with similar wonders. A blind man from Pannonia +<pb n="483"/><anchor id="Pg483"/>came and touched the fever-wracked emperor, and immediately +regained his sight. The legend of the Thundering Legion was +long the battle-ground of opposing faiths equally credulous, and +equally bent on securing the credit of supernatural powers. +The timely rainfall was attributed with equal assurance to +the incantations of an Egyptian sorcerer, to the prayers of +the believers in Jupiter, or the prayers of the believers in +Christ. Apuleius, who was himself prosecuted for practising +the black art, has filled his Thessalian romance with the most +astounding tales of fantastic sorcery. He may have copied +other lawless romances, but he would hardly have given +such space to these weird arts if his public had not had an +uneasy belief in them. The home of Medea in the days of +M. Aurelius was a veritable witch’s cave: the air is tremulous +with superstitious fear: everything seems possible in the field +of miraculous metamorphosis or monstrous vice. If Apuleius +had meant to discredit superstition by wedding it to disgusting +sensuality, he could hardly have succeeded better. But +he was more probably bent, with perverted skill, on producing +a work which might allure imaginations haunted by +the ghosts of hereditary sensuality and a spiritual terror revived +in redoubled force. An Egyptian priest with tonsure and linen +robes raises a dead man to life who has been <q>floating on +the Stygian streams.</q> Or you are admitted to a witch’s +laboratory, open to all the winds and stored with all the +wreckage of human life—timbers of ships splintered on cruel +rocks, the curdled blood and mangled flesh of murdered men, +toothless skulls gnawed by beasts of prey. You see the +transformation going on before your eyes under the magic of +mysterious unguents, the feathers springing from the flesh, or +the human sinking into the ass’s form. Tales like these, +which to us are old wives’ tales, may have had a strange +charm for an age when human life was regarded as the slave +of fate, or the sport of the inscrutable powers of the unseen +universe. +</p> + +</div><div type="chapter" n="2" rend="page-break-before: always"> +<pb n="484"/><anchor id="Pg484"/> +<index index="toc" level1="II. Belief in immortality"/><index index="pdf" level1="II. Belief in immortality"/> +<head>CHAPTER II</head> + +<head type="sub">BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY</head> + +<p> +A great part of the charm of those oriental religions, on the +study of which we are about to enter, lay in the assurance +which they seemed to give of an immortal life. It would, +therefore, appear a necessary preface to such a review to examine +some of the conceptions of the state of the departed +which the missionaries of Isis and Mithra found prevalent +in the minds of their future votaries. Immortality, in any +worthy sense, is inseparable from the idea of God. And the +conception of continued life must always be shaped by the +character of a people’s beliefs as to the powers of the unseen +world. A pantheon of dim phantasms or abstractions will not +promise more than a numb spectral future to the human shade. +The nectar and ambrosia of Olympian feasts may have their +human counterpart in an <q>eternal debauch.</q> The Platonist will +find his eternal hope in emancipation from the prison of the flesh, +and in the immediate vision of that Unity of all beauty, truth, +and goodness, which is his highest conception of God. But +not only does religion necessarily colour the conception of +the eternal state: it may also furnish the warrant for a belief +in it. And a religion which can give men a firm ground for +that faith will have an immense advantage over others which +are less clear and confident as to another world. It is generally +admitted that the long array of philosophic arguments +for immortality have by themselves little convincing power. +They are not stronger, nor perhaps so strong as the argument +from the wish for continued life, inveterate in the human +spirit, on which Plutarch laid so much stress.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Non posse suav. vivi</hi>, etc. c. 26 sq.; <hi rend="italic">De Ser. Num. Vind.</hi> c. 18.</note> Even amid the +<pb n="485"/><anchor id="Pg485"/>triumphant dialectic of the <hi rend="italic">Phaedo</hi>, an undertone of doubt +in any human proof of immortality is sometimes heard, along +with the call for some <q>divine doctrine</q> as a bark of safety +on perilous seas.<note place="foot">Plat. <hi rend="italic">Phaed.</hi> 85 <hi rend="small">D</hi>, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">εἰ μή τις δύναιτο ἀσφαλέστερον ἐπὶ βεβαιοτέρου ὀχήματος +[ἢ] λόγου θείου τινὸς διαπορευθῆναι</foreign>.</note> The inextinguishable instinct of humanity +craves for a voice of revelation to solve the mystery of life +and death. +</p> + +<p> +The Roman spirit, down to the Antonine age, had been the +subject of many influences which had inspired widely various +ideas of the future state. And the literary and funerary +remains from Nero to M. Aurelius are full of contradictions +on the subject. Nor, in the absence of authoritative revelation +on a field so dark to reason, is this surprising. Even +Christian teaching, while it offers a sure promise of a life to +come, has not lifted the veil of the great mystery, and the +material imagery of the Apocalypse, or the shadowed hints of +Jesus or S. Paul, have left the believer of the twentieth century +with no clearer vision of the life beyond the tomb than that +which was vouchsafed to Plato, Cicero, Virgil, or Plutarch. +<q>We know not what we shall be,</q> is the answer of every +seer of every age. Something will always <q>seal the lips of the +Evangelist,</q> as the key of the Eumolpidae closed the lips of +those who had seen the vision of Eleusis.<note place="foot">Soph. <hi rend="italic">O.C.</hi> 1055.</note> The pagans of the +early Empire were thus, in the absence of dogma and ecclesiastical +teaching, free to express, with perfect frankness, their +unbelief or their varying conceptions of immortality, according +to the many influences that had moulded them. Nor could +these influences be kept apart even in the same mind. Even +the poet seer, who was to be the guide of Dante in the shades, +has failed to blend the immemorial faith of the Latin race with +the dreams of future beatitude or anguish which came to him +from Pythagorean or Platonic teaching.<note place="foot">Sellar’s <hi rend="italic">Virgil</hi>, p. 367; cf. Boissier, +<hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> i. 367.</note> In the sixth book of +the <hi rend="italic">Aeneid</hi> the eschatologies of old Rome and Greece are combined, +but not blended, with the doctrines of transmigration +and purgatorial expiation descending from Pythagoras or the +Orphic mystics. Virgil, in fact, mirrors the confusion of beliefs +which prevailed in his own age, and which pre-eminently +characterised the age of the Antonines. +</p> + +<pb n="486"/><anchor id="Pg486"/> + +<p> +Along with other archaic elements of the Latin faith, the +cult of the Manes held its ground, especially in secluded homes +of old Italian piety. The most ancient Indo-European conception +of the state after death was that of a continuance or +faint, shadowy reproduction of the life on earth; it was not +that of a vast and mysterious change to a supernatural order. +The departed spirit was believed to linger in a dim existence +in the vault or grave near the familiar homestead.<note place="foot">Cic. <hi rend="italic">Tusc.</hi> i. 16, sub terra censebant +reliquam vitam agi mortuorum; cf. F. +de Coulanges, <hi rend="italic">La Cité Ant.</hi> p. 8.</note> The tomb +is not a temporary prison, but an everlasting home,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4525.</note> and often +provides a chamber where the living members of the family +or clan may gather on solemn days around the ashes of the +dead.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4433, posticum cum apparitorio, +et compitum a solo pecun. sua fecerunt, +etc.; cf. 4353; Petron. c. 71.</note> Provision is made for the sustenance of this spectral +life. Vessels for food and drink, the warrior’s arms, the workman’s +tools, the cosmetics of the lady, the child’s playthings, +are buried with them.<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. 367.</note> Or they are figured on their tombs +cheerfully engaged in their familiar crafts,<note place="foot">Cf. Duruy, <hi rend="italic">Hist. Rom.</hi> v. 637.</note> not with folded +hands, and calm, expectant faces, like the marble forms which +lie in our cathedral aisles awaiting the Resurrection. +</p> + +<p> +With such views of the tomb, the perpetual guardianship +of it became to the Roman a matter of supreme moment. It +is a chapel or an altar, as well as a last home.<note place="foot">Aesch. <hi rend="italic">Choeph.</hi> 92, 488; F. de +Coulanges, <hi rend="italic">La Cité Ant.</hi> p. 16.</note> It is the +meeting-place, in faint ghostly communion, of the society which +embraced, by its solemn rites, the members of the household +church in the light or in the shades. All the cautious forms +of Roman law are invoked to keep the sepulchre, with its +garden and enclosure, from passing into alien hands. Its +site is exactly described, with the minutest measurements, +and the intruder or the alienator is threatened with curses or +with fines, to be paid into the public treasury.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 7364, 7338, 4076, 4417, +4422.</note> Here, among +his children and remotest descendants, among his freedmen +and freedwomen, the Roman dreamed of resting for ever +undisturbed.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4428, somno aeterno sacr. ... fecerunt +sibi et suis libertis libertabusque, +etc., 4631, 4435.</note> And many an appeal comes to us from the +original slab not to violate the eternal peace.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4781, 3, 5, 6, 4790, quisquis +hoc sustulerit aut laeserit ultimus +suorum moriatur.</note> What that dim +<pb n="487"/><anchor id="Pg487"/>life beneath the marble or the sod, at least in the later times, +was conceived to be, how far it involved a more or less vivid +consciousness of what was passing in the world above, how far +it was a numb repose, almost passing into <q>the eternal sleep,</q> +seems to be uncertain. The phrases on the tomb in all ages are +apt to pass into conventional forms, and personal temperament +and imagination must always give varying colour to the picture. +Such phrases as <q>eternal sleep,</q> however, did not probably at +any time imply complete unconsciousness. The old Latin +faith that the Manes had a real life and some link of +sympathy with the living was still strong and vivid in an age +which was eager to receive or answer voices from the world +beyond the senses. The wish to maintain, in spite of the +severance and shock of death, a bond of communion between +the living and the departed was one of the most imperious +instincts of the Latin race. It was not a mere imagination, +projected on far distant years, which craved for the yearly +offering of violets and roses, or the pious <hi rend="italic">ave</hi> of the passing +traveller.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4775, 4419, 4420, 4415, +4737; T. Lollius positus propter viam +ut dicant praeterientes, Lolli ave, cf. +4745.</note> The dwellers in the vault still remained members +of the family, to which they are linked for ever by a dim +sympathy expressed in ritual communion. Every year, on the +<hi rend="italic">dies parentales</hi> in February, there was a general holiday, +cheerfully kept in honour of all those whose spirits were at +peace.<note place="foot">Fowler, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Festivals</hi>, p. 307.</note> On the eighth day, the festival of <hi rend="italic">cara cognatio</hi>, +there was a family love-feast, in which quarrels were forgotten, +and the members in the spirit-world joined in the sacred meal. +But besides this public and national commemoration, the birthday +of each departed member was observed with offerings of wine +and oil and milk. The tomb was visited in solemn procession; +dead and living shared the sacred fare; flowers were scattered, +and with an <hi rend="italic">ave</hi> or a prayer for help and good fortune, the +shade was left to its renewed repose.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4414, 4417, nam curatores +substituam qui vescantur ex +horum hortorum reditu natali meo et +praebeant rosam in aeternum. Hos +neque dividi neque alienari volo.</note> Many a slab makes +anxious provision for these communions, and the offering of +violets and roses in their season.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4084, 4100, 4420.</note> +</p> + +<p> +But the Roman in his tomb longed to be near the sound of +<pb n="488"/><anchor id="Pg488"/>busy human life, and to feel the tread of pious feet, which +might turn aside for a moment to salute even a stranger’s +memory. This feeling is expressed in the long rows of vaults +which line so many of the great roads, the Via Appia, or the +way from Pompeii to Nola.<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. 362; Mau, <hi rend="italic">Pompeii</hi>, +p. 421 sqq.; cf. Cic. <hi rend="italic">Tusc.</hi> i. 16.</note> There were many like that Titus +Lollius who had himself laid close to the road into Aquae +Sextiae, that the passers might for ever greet his spirit with +an <hi rend="italic">ave</hi>.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4737.</note> Others leave a prayer for all good things to those +who will stop an instant and read the legend; <q>may the earth +lie light upon them when they too depart.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 7396, 7402, vivite felices qui +legitis.</note> The horror of the +lonely soul, cut off from the kindly fellowship of the living, +and lingering on in a forgotten grave, to which no loving hand +should ever more bring the libation or the violets in spring, +which should one day awake no memory or sympathy in +any human heart, was to the old Roman the worst terror in +death. This passion for continued memory, especially in great +benefactors of their kind, is used by Cicero as an argument +for immortality,<note place="foot">Cic. <hi rend="italic">Tusc.</hi> i. 12, 27, quas (caeremonias +sepulcrorum) ingeniis praediti +nec tanta cura coluissent, nec violatas +tam inexpiabili religione sanxissent, +nisi haereret in eorum mentibus mortem +non interitum esse omnia tollentem, +etc.</note> and the passion for enduring life blends +indistinguishably with the wish to be long remembered. +Even Epicurus, the apostle of annihilation, made provision in +his last testament for yearly offerings in honour of himself +and Metrodorus his disciple—a curious instance of agnostic +conformity.<note place="foot">Aelian, <hi rend="italic">Fr.</hi> p. 1023 (Gronov.).</note> The passion for remembrance was responded to +by the dutiful devotion of many generations. The cult of the +dead long survived in the cult of martyrs, and the pagan +feasting at their tombs disturbed and perplexed S. Augustine +and S. Paulinus of Nola.<note place="foot">S. Paulin. Nol. <hi rend="italic">Carm.</hi> 27; S. +Aug. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 22, <hi rend="italic">Serm.</hi> v. xvii.; cf. Sidon. +Apoll. v. 17; Bingham, <hi rend="italic">Antiq. of Chr. +Church</hi>, ii. p. 1165.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The old Roman thought of his departed friends as a company +of good and kindly spirits, who watched over the family +on earth. But there was another conception of spirits in the +other world, whether derived from the gloomy superstition of +Etruria, or descending from days anterior to orderly devotion +to the dead.<note place="foot">Fowler, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Festivals</hi>, p. 108.</note> The Lemures were a name of fear. They +<pb n="489"/><anchor id="Pg489"/>were dark, malevolent spirits who craved for blood, as they +had departed this life by a violent end. Their festival, the +Lemuria in May, was quite distinct from the festival of the +Manes, and the household ritual for laying the ghosts by the +spitting of black beans and a ninefold form of exorcism savours +of a far-gone age. These maleficent powers were propitiated +by blood—especially by the blood of men in the combats of +the arena. +</p> + +<p> +The visitations of these beings, whether as guardian, +ministering spirits or as evil powers, were expected and believed +in for many ages by all classes of Roman minds. The ancient +Latin faith as to the state of the dead was, according to Cicero, +confirmed by many tales of spiritual apparition. There are +pathetic memorials which end with an appeal in which the +lonely wife entreats the lost one sometimes to return in dream +or vision.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4775, horis nocturnis ut +eum videam, et possim dulcius et +celerius aput eum pervenire.</note> One vivacious inscription challenges the sceptic to +lay his wager and make the experiment of a summons from +the unseen world.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 7346.</note> The spread of cremation instead of burial +gradually led to a new conception of the spirit as having a +separate existence from the body, now reduced to a handful +of grey ashes.<note place="foot">Marq. <hi rend="italic">Priv.</hi> i. pp. 438-9; Preller, +<hi rend="italic">Rom. Myth.</hi> (Tr.), p. 331.</note> And spirits no longer clung to the body in +the family vault, but were gathered in a dim region near the +centre of the earth, where, according to gloomy Etrurian fancy, +they were under the cruel care of the conductor of the dead, a +brutal figure, with wings and long, matted beard, and armed +with a hammer, who for ages appeared in human form to close +the last ghastly scene in the gladiatorial combats.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">Rom. Hist.</hi> i. p. 189; +Tertull. <hi rend="italic">Apol.</hi> xv. vidimus et Jovis +fratrem gladiatorum cadavera cum +malleo deducentem.</note> From +this limbo of the departed a sort of gateway was provided in +every Latin town in the <hi rend="italic">Mundus</hi>, a deep trench intended to represent +an inverted heaven, which was dug before the <hi rend="italic">pomoerium</hi> +was traced. Its lower aperture was closed by the stone of the +Manes, which on three solemn days, in August, October, and +November, was lifted to permit the spirits from the deep to +pass for a time into the upper world. Thus a public sanction +was given to the belief in the commerce between this life and +the next.<note place="foot">Fowler, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Festivals</hi>, p. 211.</note> +</p> + +<pb n="490"/><anchor id="Pg490"/> + +<p> +Cicero had said that the faith in immortality was sustained +by the fact of spirits returning to the world of sense. In the +first and second centuries there was no lack of such aids to +faith. Apparitions became the commonest facts of life, and +only the hardiest minds remained incredulous about them. +Philosophers of all schools, except the Epicurean, were swept +into the current. The <hi rend="italic">Philopseudes</hi> of Lucian is a brilliant +effort to ridicule the superstition of the age, but the attack +would have been discredited if it had not had a foundation +of fact. There, around the sick-bed of Eucrates, himself +saturated with philosophy, are gathered a Stoic, a Peripatetic, +a Pythagorean, a Platonist, and a trained physician.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Philops.</hi> c. 6.</note> And +they regale one another with the most weird and exciting +tales of the marvellous. Ion, the Platonic student, has seen +the exorcism of a black and smoky daemon.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 16.</note> Eucrates has +seen such spirits a thousand times, and, from long habit, has +lost all fear of them. At vintage time, he once saw a gigantic +Gorgon figure in the woods in broad daylight, and by the +turning of a magic ring had revealed to him the gulf of +Tartarus, the infernal rivers, and been even able to recognise some +of the ghosts below.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> cc. 22-24.</note> On another day, as he lay upon his bed +reading the <hi rend="italic">Phaedo</hi>, his <q>sainted wife,</q> who had recently died, +appeared and reproached him because, among all the finery +which had been burnt upon her pyre, a single gold-spangled +shoe, which slipped under the wardrobe, had been forgotten.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 27.</note> +Plutarch reports, apparently with perfect faith, the appearance +of such spectral visitors at Chaeronea.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Cim.</hi> c. 1, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἐπὶ πολὺν χρόνον εἰδώλων τινῶν ἐν τῷ τόπῳ προφαινομένων, +ὡς οἱ πατέρες ἡμῶν λέγουσι, κτλ.</foreign></note> The younger Pliny consulted +his friend Sura as to the reality of such apparitions, and +reveals his faith in the gruesome tale of a haunted house at +Athens, where a restless ghost, who had often disturbed the quiet +of night with the clank of chains, was tracked to the mystery of +a hidden grave.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vii. 27.</note> Suetonius, of course, welcomes tales of this +kind from every quarter. Before Caligula’s half-burnt remains +were borne stealthily to a dishonoured burial, the keepers of +the Lamian Gardens had been disturbed each night by ghostly +terrors.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> c. 59.</note> The pages of Dion Cassius abound in similar wonders. +<pb n="491"/><anchor id="Pg491"/>When Nero attempted to cut through the Isthmus of Corinth, +the dead arose in numbers from their graves.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lxii. 17.</note> In such an +age the baleful art of <q>evocation</q> acquired a weird attraction +and importance. By spells and incantations Hecate was +invoked to send up spirits, often for evil ends.<note place="foot">Lobeck, <hi rend="italic">Aglaoph.</hi> i. p. 221.</note> And there +were dark rumours of the spell being fortified by the blood of +children. Many of the emperors from Tiberius to Caracalla +had dabbled in this witchcraft.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lvii. 15.</note> When Nero was haunted by +the Furies of his murdered mother, he is said to have offered a +magic sacrifice to evoke and appease her spirit.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, c. xxxiv.</note> The early +Neo-Platonists were, of course, eager to admit the reality of such +visits from the unseen world. In anxious quest of any link +of sympathy between this world and the next, Maximus tries +to fortify his doctrine of daemons by stories of apparitions.<note place="foot">Max. Tyr. xv. 7.</note> +Hector has been often seen darting across the Troad in shining +armour. At the mouth of the Borysthenes, Achilles has been +espied by mariners, who were sailing past his isle, careering +along with his yellow locks and arms of gold, and singing his +paean of battle. +</p> + +<p> +In enlarging its rather blank and poor conception of the +future state, the Latin race, as in other fields, was content to +borrow rather than invent. The Sixth Book of the Aeneid was +an effort not only to glorify the legendary heroes of Rome, but +to appease a new or revived longing for the hope of immortality, +after the desolating nihilism of the Epicurean philosophy had +run its course.<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> i. p. 316.</note> Virgil has some touches of old Roman faith +about the dead, but the scenery of his Inferno is mainly +derived from Greek poetry inspired by Orphism, and the +vision is moralised, and also confused, by elements drawn from +Pythagoras or Plato.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 279; cf. Conington, <hi rend="italic">Introd. +Aen.</hi> vi. p. 419; Rohde, <hi rend="italic">Psyche</hi>, ii. p. +165.</note> The scene of Aeneas’s descent to the +underworld is laid by the lake of Avernus, where, buried +amid gloomy woods, was the cave of the Cumaean Sibyl. +Cumae was the oldest Greek colony in the West. Its foundation +was placed long before the days of Romulus. Rich, +prosperous, and cultivated, at a time when the Romans were +a band of rude warriors, it must have early transmitted Greek +<pb n="492"/><anchor id="Pg492"/>ideas of religion to the rising power on the Tiber.<note place="foot">Grote, ii. p. 518 (ed. 1862).</note> The +Etrurians also, who affected so profoundly the tone of Roman +religion, had come under Greek influences. The spectral ferryman +of the dead was a familiar figure in Etruscan art. Thus, +both on the south and north, Latium had points of contact +with the world of Hellenic legend. And from the early days +of the Republic, the worship of Greek gods—Apollo, Asclepius, +or the Dioscuri—became naturalised at Rome. Probably of +even earlier date was the influence of the oracular lore of +Greece through Delphi and the oracle of Cumae.<note place="foot">Mommsen, <hi rend="italic">R. Hist.</hi> i. p. 187; +Preller, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Myth.</hi> pp. 197, 407, 438.</note> +</p> + +<p> +On the threshold of the underworld Aeneas and the Sibyl +are confronted by the monstrous forms of Hellenic legend—Centaurs +and Scyllas, Harpies and Gorgons, the fire-armed +Chimaera, and the hissing hydra of Lerna.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Aen.</hi> vi. 289.</note> They have to +pass the ninefold barrier of the Styx in Charon’s steel-grey +bark. The grisly ferryman of the infernal stream, foul and +unkempt, with fixed eyes of flame, is surrounded by a motley +crowd, thick as autumnal leaves, all straining and eager for +the further shore. Landed on a waste expanse of mud and +sedge,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 313, 416.</note> they pass the kennel of triple-headed Cerberus, and on +to the judgment seat, where Minos assigns to each soul its +several doom, according to the deeds done in the body. Thence +they traverse the <q>mourning fields,</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 441.</note> where are those sad +queens of Grecian tragedy whose wild loves have been their +undoing, and among them Phoenician Dido, who, with stony +silence and averted gaze, plunges into the darkness of the +wood.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 472.</note> As the dawn is breaking, they find themselves before +the prison-house of the damned, rising amid the folds of +the river of fire, with walls of iron and adamant, its portals +watched by a sleepless Fury in blood-red robe.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 555.</note> From within +are heard the cries of anguish and the clank of chains, as +the great rebels and malefactors of old-world story—Ixion, +Salmoneus, and the Titans—are tortured by lash and wheel +and vulture.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 600.</note> And with them, sharing the same agony, are +those who have violated the great laws on which the Roman +character was built.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 608.</note> Through other dusky ways and Cyclopean +portals they at last reach the home of the blessed, as it was +<pb n="493"/><anchor id="Pg493"/>pictured long before in the apocalypse of Pindar—the meads +and happy groves of Elysium, under another sun and other +stars than ours, and bathed in the splendour of an ampler +air.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Aen.</hi> 640; cf. Pind. <hi rend="italic">Ol.</hi> ii. 130.</note> Here is the eternal home of the heroic souls of a nobler +age, men who have died for fatherland, holy priests and +bards and founders of the arts which soften and embellish +the life of men. But though their home is radiant with a +splendour not of earth, they are, in old Roman and Greek +fashion, occupied with the toils or pleasures of their earthly +life. Youthful forms are straining their sinews in the +wrestling-ground as of old. The ancient warriors of Troy +have their shadowy chariots beside them, their lances planted +in the sward, their chargers grazing in the meadow. Others +are singing old lays or dancing, and the bard of Thrace +himself is sweeping the lyre, as in the days when he sped the +Argo through the <q>Clashing Rocks</q> in the quest of the fleece +of gold.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Aen.</hi> vi. 645.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The vision closes with a scene which criticism has long +recognised as irreconcilable with the eschatology of Greek +legend hitherto followed by the poet, but which is drawn from +a philosophy destined to govern men’s thoughts of immortality +for many ages. In a wooded vale, far withdrawn, through +which Lethe glided peacefully, countless multitudes are +gathered drinking the <q>water of carelessness and oblivion.</q> +These are they, as Anchises expounds to his son, who, having +passed the thousand purgatorial years, to cleanse away the +stains of flesh in a former life, and, having effaced the memory +of it, now await the call of Destiny to a new life on earth.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 748; cf. Conington’s <hi rend="italic">Virg. +Introd. Aen.</hi> vi. p. 419; Lobeck, +<hi rend="italic">Aglaoph.</hi> ii. 798.</note> +This theory of life and death, coming down from Pythagoras, +and popularised by Platonism, with some Stoic elements, +had gained immense vogue among educated men of the +last period of the Republic. Varro had adopted it as a +fundamental tenet of his theology, and Cicero had embalmed +it in his dream of Scipio, which furnished a text for Neo-Platonist +homilies in the last days of the Western Empire.<note place="foot">Diog. Laert. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Pythag.</hi> viii. 1, +§ 14; +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">πρῶτόν τέ φασι τοῦτον ἀποφῆναι τὴν ψυχὴν κύκλον ἀνάγκης +ἀμείβουσαν ἄλλοτ’ ἄλλοις ἐνδεῖσθαι ζῴοις</foreign>: S. Aug. +<hi rend="italic">De Civ. D.</hi> vii. 6; cf. Liebaldt, <hi rend="italic">Theolog. +Varr.</hi> i. p. 14; Cic. <hi rend="italic">Rep.</hi> vi. 15-25; +Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Som. Scip.</hi> i. 14.</note> +<pb n="494"/><anchor id="Pg494"/>A fiery spirit animates the material universe, from the farthest +star in ether down to the lowest form of animal life. The +souls of men are sparks or emanations from this general +soul which have descended into the prison of the body, and +during the period of their bondage have suffered contamination.<note place="foot">Rohde, <hi rend="italic">Psyche</hi>, ii. 161, n. 1, 34, 312; +Cic. <hi rend="italic">De N. D.</hi> i. 11, 27; Pythagoras +qui censuit animum esse per naturam +rerum omnem intentum et commeantem, +ex quo nostri animi carperentur, +etc.</note> +And the prison walls hide from their eyes for a time +the heaven from which they come. Nor when death releases +them do they shake off the engrained corruption. For a +thousand years they must suffer cleansing by punishment till +the stains are washed away, the deeply festering taint burnt +out as by fire. Then only may the pure residue of ethereal +spirit seek to enter on another life on earth. +</p> + +<p> +Virgil, in his Nekuia, mirrored the confusion of beliefs +as to the future state prevailing in his time. For his +poetic sensibility, the old Roman faith of the Manes, the +Greek legends of Tartarus and Elysium, the Pythagorean +or Orphic doctrine of successive lives and purgatorial +atonement, had each their charm, and a certain truth. On +a subject so dim and uncertain as the future life, the +keenest minds may have wavering conceptions, and in different +moods may clothe them in various guise. This is the field of +the protean poetic imagination inspired by religious intuition, +not of the rigorous dogmatist. But a great poet like Virgil +not only expresses an age to itself: he elevates and glorifies +what he expresses. He gives clear-cut form to what is vague, +he spreads the warmth and richness of colour over what is +dim and blank, and he imparts to the abstract teaching of +philosophy a glow and penetrating power which may touch +even the unthinking mass of men. The vision of the Sixth +Book, moreover, like the Aeneid as a whole, has a high note of +patriotism. Beside the water of Lethe are gathered, waiting +for their call to earthly life, all the great souls from the Alban +Silvius to the great Julius, all the Scipios, Gracchi, Decii, and +Fabricii, who were destined through storm and stress to give +the world the calm of the Roman peace.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Aen.</hi> vi. 756 sqq.</note> The poet of Roman +destiny had a marvellous fame among his countrymen. Men +rose up to do him honour when he entered the theatre; the +<pb n="495"/><anchor id="Pg495"/>street boys of Pompeii scratched his verses on the walls.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iv. 2361, 1982; Mau, <hi rend="italic">Pompeii</hi>, +486-8; Friedl. iii. p. 300.</note> Can +we doubt that the grandest part of his great poem, which lifts +for a moment the veil of the unseen world, had a profound +effect on the religious imagination of the future? +</p> + +<p> +The opinion long prevailed that the period of the early +Empire was one of unbelief or scepticism as to the future life. +The opinion was founded on literary evidence accepted without +much critical care. Cicero and Seneca, Juvenal and Plutarch,<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ad. Marc.</hi> xix. 4; Cic. <hi rend="italic">Tusc.</hi> +i. 21, 48; Juv. xiii. 48; Plut. <hi rend="italic">De +Superst.</hi> c. 4.</note> +had spoken of the Inferno of Greek legend, its Cerberus +and Chimaera, its gloom of Tartarus, as mere old wives’ fables, +in which even children had ceased to believe. But such +testimony should always be taken with a good deal of reserve. +The member of a comparatively small literary and thoughtful +circle is apt to imagine that its ideas are more widely diffused +than they really are. It may well have been that thoughtful +men, steeped in Platonic or Pythagorean faith as to the +coming life, rejected as anthropomorphic dreams the infernal +scenery of Greek legend, just as a thoughtful Christian +of our day will hardly picture his coming beatitude in the +gorgeous colouring of the Book of Revelation. Yet the mass +of men will always seek for concrete imagery to body forth +their dim spiritual cravings. They always live in that uncertain +twilight in which the boundaries of pictured symbolism +and spiritual reality are blurred and effaced. Lucian was a +pessimist as to spiritual progress, and he may have exaggerated +the materialistic superstition of his time; he had ample excuse +for doing so. Yet, artist as he was, his art would have +been futile and discredited in his own time, if it had not had +a solid background in widely accepted beliefs. And we cannot +refuse to admit his testimony that the visions of the grim +ferryman over the waters of Styx, the awful judge, the tortures +of Tartarus, the asphodel meads, and the water of Lethe, the +pale neutral shades who wandered expectant of the libation +on the grave, filled a large space in the imagination of the +crowd.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">De Luctu</hi>, cc. 1-10.</note> Plutarch, who sometimes agrees with Juvenal and +Seneca as to the general incredulity, at others holds that a +large class of remorseful sinners have a wholesome fear of the +<pb n="496"/><anchor id="Pg496"/>legendary tortures of lost souls, and that they are eager to +purge their guilt before the awful ordeal of the Eternal +Judgment.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Non p. Suav.</hi> c. 27.</note> And, however pure and etherealised his own views +may have been as to the life to come, no one has left a more +lurid picture of the flames, the gloom, the sounds of excruciating +anguish from the prison-house of the damned, which oppressed +the imagination of the multitude in his time. One part of +that vision had a peculiarly tenacious hold.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">De. Ser. Num. Vind.</hi> iv. 44; +<hi rend="italic">De Gen. Socr.</hi> c. 22.</note> The belief in +the gruff ferryman of the dead, who sternly exacted his fare, +and drove from the banks of Styx those who had no right to +cross the awful stream, was widely diffused and survived far +into the medieval times. For many centuries, long before and +long after the coming of Christ, the coin which was to secure +the passage of the shade into the world below was placed in +the mouth of the corpse.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">De Luctu</hi>, c. 10; Friedl. iii. +p. 632; Rohde, <hi rend="italic">Psyche</hi>, i. p. 306, n. 3; +Maury, <hi rend="italic">La Magie</hi>, p. 158.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The inscriptions might be supposed to give authoritative +evidence as to the belief of ordinary men about the future +state. The funerary monuments from every part of the +Roman world are almost countless for the period of the early +Empire. Yet such records, however abundant, are not so +clear and satisfactory as they are by some taken to be. +The words of a tombstone are sometimes a sincere utterance +of real affection and faith. They are also not unfrequently +purely conventional, representing a respectable, historic creed, +which may not be that of the man who erects the slab. Just +as a Frenchman, who has never from infancy entered a church, +may have his wife interred with all the solemn forms with +which the Catholic Church makes the peace of the passing +soul, so the Roman pagan may have often inscribed on his +family tomb words which expressed the ancient creed of his +race rather than his personal belief. Heredity in religion is +a potent influence, and may be misleading to the inquirer of +a later age. An epitaph should not be construed as a confession +of faith. +</p> + +<p> +The great mass of these inscriptions are couched in the +same phrases, with only slight variations. The dedication Dis +Manibus, representing the old Roman faith, is the heading of +<pb n="497"/><anchor id="Pg497"/>the majority of them. The vault is an <q>eternal home,</q> whose +peace is guarded by prayers or threats and entreaties. There +is a rare dedication to the <q>ashes</q> of the dead. There are +many to their <q>eternal repose.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4443.</note> But it is surely rather +absurd to find in expressions which occur almost in the same +form in the niches of the Catacombs a tinge of Epicureanism. +The poor grammarian of Como, who left all his substance +to his town, may be permitted to enjoy <q>the calm peace</q> he +claims after all the troubles of his life, without a suspicion +that he meant the peace of nothingness.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 1197.</note> A pious Christian +may rejoice at escaping the miseries of old age, and even hail +death as the last cure of all mortal ills.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2982.</note> Death and sleep +have always seemed near akin, and when the Roman spoke of +the sleep of death, he probably did not often mean that it had +no awaking. The morning indeed, as we have seen, to old +imaginations was not very bright. <q>The day of eternity</q> was +not irradiated with the golden splendour of Pindar’s Happy +Isles; it was grey and sad and calm. But that it was felt +to be a real existence is shown by the insistent demand on +scores of monuments for the regular service of the living. +Every possible precaution is taken by the testator that his +family or his club shall maintain this sympathetic observance +for ever.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4433, 4416, 4417.</note> With the idea of prolonged existence, of course, is +blended the imaginative hope of having a continued memory +among men. And probably the majority of the funerary +inscriptions express this feeling chiefly. But the same is true +of the monuments of every age, and warrants no conclusion as +to the opinions about immortality held by those who raised +them. There is abundance of the purest affection expressed +on these memorials, and sometimes, although not very often, +there is the hope of reunion after death. The wife of a +<hi rend="italic">philologus</hi> at Narbonne confidently expects to meet him, or a +mother prays her son to take her to himself.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 4662, 4755.</note> Such expressions +of a natural feeling, the same from age to age, have really little +value as indications of religious belief. But there are not wanting +in the inscriptions references to Tartarus and the Elysian +fields, to Pluto and Proserpine, to Orcus who has snatched +away some one in his bloom. <q>One little soul has been +<pb n="498"/><anchor id="Pg498"/>received among the number of the gods.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4581, 4841, 4849, 4701, +7352.</note> There are others, +impregnated with the prevalent philosophy, which speak of +the soul returning to its source, or of being dissolved into the +infinite ether, or of passing to a distant home in the stars.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 7392.</note> +This, however, as M. Boissier says,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> i. 342.</note> must have been the dream +of a small minority. The funerary inscriptions leave the +impression that, down to the final triumph of the Church, the +feeling of the Romans about death was still in the main the +feeling of their remote ancestors of the Samnite and Punic +wars. It was a social feeling, in the prospect of a dim life +dependent on the memory of the living, a horror of loneliness +and desertion, the longing for a passing prayer even from a +stranger. Blessings are heaped on him who will not forget +the pious duty to the shade. On him who refuses it is invoked +the bitterest curse to Roman imagination—<q>May he die the +last of his race.</q> +</p> + +<p> +But no dogmatic ecclesiastical system deterred the Roman +from expressing frankly his unbelief in any future state. +And the rejection of all hope for the future, sometimes coupled +with a coarse satisfaction with a sensual past, is the note of +not a few epitaphs of this period. Matrinia, the wife of one +C. Matrinius Valentius, an Epicurean philosopher, dedicates a +tablet to his <q>eternal sleep,</q> which in this case is no conventional +phrase.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 1192.</note> And others, in even more decided language, +parade their withering faith that this brief life is only a +moment of consciousness between the blank of the past and +the blank of the future, and record their indifference at passing +again into the nothingness from which they came. +The formula is frequent—<q>Non fueram, non sum, nescio</q>; or +<q>Non fui, fui; non sum, non curo.</q> Another adds <q>non +mihi dolet.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 7387, 4809, 4810, 4811, 4807, +4813, vixi dum vixi bene; jam mea +peracta mox vestra agetur fabula; +velete et plaudite, 7411.</note> The subjects of some of these epitaphs +seem to have obeyed literally the counsel of their master +Lucretius, though in a sense different from his, and to have +risen up sated with the banquet of life. They express, with +cynical grossness, their only faith in the joys of the flesh, and +their perfect content at having made the most of them. +<pb n="499"/><anchor id="Pg499"/><q>Balnea, Vina, Venus,</q> sums up the tale.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 4806, 7; 4; 4816, hic +secum habet omnia. Balnea, vina, +venus corrumpunt corpora nostra, set +vitam faciunt.</note> <q>What I have +eaten, what I have drunk, is my own. I have had my life.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 7407.</note> +And the departing voluptuary exhorts his friends to follow his +example: <q>My friends, while we live, let us live</q>; <q>Eat, +drink, disport thyself, and then join us.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> ii. 1877.</note> A veteran of the +fifth legion records, probably with much truth, that <q>while +he lived he drank with a good will,</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6674, dum vixi bi(bi) +libenter; bibite vos qui vivitis.</note> and he exhorts his +surviving friends to drink while they live. Under the confessional +of St. Peter’s at Rome, in the year 1626, was found +a monument of one Agricola of Tibur and his wife. There +was a figure holding a wine-cup, and an inscription so frankly +sensual that the whole was destroyed by order of the Pope. +From the copy which was kept, it appears that Agricola was +perfectly satisfied with his life, and recommended his example +to others, <q>since it all ends in the grave or the funeral fire.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 7410—miscete Lyaeum, etc., +caetera post obitum tellus consumit +et ignis.</note> +But inscriptions such as these are the exception. The funerary +records, as a whole, give a picture of a society very like our +own, with warm affections of kindred or friendship, clinging +to ancestral pieties, ready to hope, if sometimes not clear and +confident in faith. +</p> + +<p> +There was probably a much more settled faith in immortality +among the ordinary masses than among the highly +educated. The philosophy of Greece came to the cultivated +Roman world with many different voices on the greatest +problem of human destiny. And the greatest minds, from +Cicero to M. Aurelius, reflect the discordance of philosophy. +Nay, some of those who, in more exalted moods, have left +glowing pictures of the future beatitude, have also at times +revealed a mood of melancholy doubt as to any conscious +future life. The prevailing philosophy in the last generation +of the Republic, demoralised by an internecine strife, was +that of Epicurus.<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> i. 312-316; +Thiersch, <hi rend="italic">Politik und Phil. in ihrem +Verhältn. zur Rel.</hi> p. 13.</note> It harmonised with the decay of old +Roman religion, and with the more disastrous moral deterioration +in the upper cultivated class. The cultivated patrician, +enervated by vice and luxury, or intoxicated with the +<pb n="500"/><anchor id="Pg500"/>excitement of civil war and the dreams of disordered ambition, +flung off all spiritual idealism, and accepted frankly a +lawless universe and a life of pleasure or power, to be ended +by death. The great poem of Lucretius, the greatest <hi rend="italic">tour de +force</hi> in Latin, if not in any literature, braving not only +the deepest beliefs of the Latin race, but the instinctive longings +of humanity, was a herculean attempt to relieve men +from the horrors of Graeco-Etruscan superstition. Even the +gay frivolity of the comic stage reveals the terror which the +path to Acheron inspired in the thoughtless crowd<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> i. 310.</note>—the +terror from which, with all the fervid zeal of an evangelist, +Lucretius sought to relieve his countrymen.<note place="foot">Lucret. iii. 952, 991.</note> The pictures of +Tartarus had burnt themselves into the popular imagination. +And no message of Epicurus seems to his Roman interpreter +so full of peace and blessing as the gospel of nothingness after +death, the <q>morningless and unawakening sleep</q> which ends +the fretful fever of life. As we felt no trouble when the +storm of Punic invasion burst on Italy, we shall be equally +unconscious when the partnership of soul and body is dissolved, +even in the clash and fusion of all the elements in some great +cosmic change.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 844 sqq.</note> The older Stoicism permitted the hope of a +limited immortality until the next great cataclysm, in which, +after many ages, all things will be swallowed up.<note place="foot">Plut. (?) <hi rend="italic">De Plac. Phil.</hi> iv. 7, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οἱ Στωικοὶ ἐξιοῦσαν ἐκ τῶν σωμάτων ὑποφέρεσθαι, τὴν μὲν +ἀσθενεστέραν ἅμα τοῖς συγκρίμασι γενέσθαι· τὴν δὲ ἰσχυροτέραν, +οἵα ἐστὶ περὶ τοὺς σοφούς, καὶ μέχρι τῆς ἐκπυρώσεως</foreign>.</note> But +Chrysippus admitted this prolonged existence only for the +greater souls. And Panaetius, in the second century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, among +other aberrations from the old creed of his school, abandoned +even this not very satisfactory hope of immortality.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, p. +185; Cic. <hi rend="italic">Tusc.</hi> i. 32, 79.</note> Aristotle, +while he held the permanence of the pure thinking principle +after death, had given little countenance to the hope of a +separate conscious personality. And the later Peripatetics, +like Alexander Aphrodisias, had gone farther even than +their master in dogmatic denial of immortality.<note place="foot">Zeller, iii. 1, p. 711, keine Seelenthätigkeit +ist ohne körperliche +Bewegung möglich; Renan, <hi rend="italic">Averroès</hi>, +pp. 128 sq., 418; Rohde, <hi rend="italic">Psyche</hi>, ii. +p. 309.</note> Whatever +support the instinctive craving of humanity for prolonged +existence could obtain from philosophy was offered by the +<pb n="501"/><anchor id="Pg501"/>Platonic and Neo-Pythagorean schools. And their influence +grew with the growing tendency to a revival of faith in the +supernatural. For Plato, with his intense belief in the divine +affinity of the human spirit, must always be the great leader +of those who seek in philosophy an interpreter and a champion +of religious intuition. The Phaedo was the last consolation of +many a victim of conscription or imperial tyranny. Its fine-spun +arguments may not have been altogether convincing, as +they hardly seem to be even to the Platonic Socrates. But Plato +was not merely a dialectician, he was also a seer and a poet. +And, on a subject so dim as immortality, where mere intellectual +proof, it is generally recognised, can be no more than +tentative and precarious, men with a deep spiritual instinct have +always felt the magnetism of the poet who could clothe his +intuitions in the forms of imagination, who, from a keener sensibility +and a larger vision, could give authority and clearness +to the spiritual intuitions of the race.<note place="foot">Cf. Graham, <hi rend="italic">Creed of Science</hi> (2nd +ed.), p. 183, <q>The poets must count +for much in the argument, since they +possess in higher degree than others +the great creative faculty of imagination +which outlines the province of +the possible</q>; Jowett, <hi rend="italic">Plato</hi>, i. pp. +389 sqq., etc.</note> The philosophy of the +Porch gave to the Antonine age some of its loftiest characters. +But it was not the philosophy of the future. It was too cold, +and too self-centred. It had too little warmth of sympathy +with religious instincts which were becoming more and more +imperious. Although, as we have seen in Seneca, it was softened +by elements borrowed from Platonic sources, in Epictetus and +M. Aurelius, in spite of a rare spiritual elevation, it displays +the old aloofness from the mass of men, and a cold temperance +of reserve on the great question of the future of the soul. +</p> + +<p> +There can be little doubt that in the last age of the Republic +a negative philosophy conspired with a decaying religious sense +to stifle the hope of immortality among the cultivated class. +Lucretius was certainly not a solitary member of his order. +His great poem, by its combination of dialectic subtlety, poetic +charm, and lofty moral earnestness, may have made many +converts to its withering creed. In the debate on the fate of +the Catilinarian conspirators, Julius Caesar could assert, without +fear of contradiction or disapproval, that death was the final +term alike of joy and sorrow in human life.<note place="foot">Sall. <hi rend="italic">Catil.</hi> c. 51.</note> This philosophy, +<pb n="502"/><anchor id="Pg502"/>indeed, was waning in force in the time of Augustus, and its +forces were spent before the close of the first century. Yet +the elder Pliny, who saw the reign of Vespasian, inveighs +almost fiercely against the vanity or madness which dreams of +a phantom life beyond the tomb, and robs of its great charm +the last kindly boon of nature.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> vii. 55, 188.</note> Seneca on this, as on many +other questions of high moment, is not steady and consistent. +In moments of spiritual exaltation he is filled with apocalyptic +rapture at the vision of an eternal world. At other times he +speaks with a cold resignation, which seems to have been the +fashion with men of his class and time, at the possibility of +extinction in death. To the toil-worn spirit, weary of the +travail and disappointments of life, death will be a quiet haven +of rest.<note place="foot">Cf. Plut. (?) <hi rend="italic">Cons. ad Apoll.</hi> c. xii. +xiii.</note> The old terrors of Charon and Cerberus, of the +awful Judge and the tortures of Tartarus, are no longer +believed in even by children.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> c. xix.</note> And stripped of its mythic +horrors, death, being the loss of consciousness, must be the +negation of pain and desire and fear. It is, in fact, a return +to the nothingness from which we come, which has left +no memory. <hi rend="italic">Non miser potest esse qui nullus est.</hi><note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 54, 99, § 30; <hi rend="italic">De Prov.</hi> vi. +§ 6; <hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> 25.</note> The +literary men and men of the world in the age of the Flavians, +like their successors ever since, probably occupied themselves +little with a problem so long debated and so variously solved. +Quintilian treats the question of the existence of the disembodied +spirit as an open one for dialectical debate.<note place="foot">Quint. <hi rend="italic">Inst.</hi> v. 14, 13, cum, soluta +corpore anima an sit immortalis vel ad +tempus certe maneat, sit in dubio.</note> Tacitus, +at once credulous and sceptical, is no clearer on the subject of +immortality than he is on the subject of miracles, or omens, or +Providence. In his eulogy on Agricola he expresses a faint, +pious hope of eternal peace for his hero, if there is a place in +some other world for pious shades, and the sages are right +in thinking that great souls do not perish with the body.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Agric.</hi> c. 46; cf. Rohde, +<hi rend="italic">Psyche</hi>, ii. p. 318, n. 3.</note> +This is a very guarded and hypothetical hope; and, probably, +the only immortality for his friend in which Tacitus had much +confidence was the undying fame with which the pen of +genius can invest its subject. Tacitus, like so many of his +<pb n="503"/><anchor id="Pg503"/>class, had the old Roman distrust of philosophy, and the +philosophies of which men of his generation had a tincture +had no very confident or comforting message about the soul’s +eternal destiny. +</p> + +<p> +Hadrian, the most interesting of the emperors, was probably +a sceptic on this as on all kindred subjects. The +greatest practical genius in the imperial line had, in the field +of religion and speculation, an infinite passion for all that was +curious and exotic.<note place="foot">Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> c. 13, § 3; 14, § 3; +17, § 9; cf. Gregorovius, p. 303.</note> Tramping at the head of his legions +through his world-wide domains, he relieved the tedium of +practical administration by visiting the scenes of historic +fame or the homes of ancient religion both in the East and +West. The East particularly attracted him by its infinite +fecundity of superstition. He came to see whether there was +anything in these revelations of the unseen world; he went +away to mock at them. His insatiable curiosity had an endless +variety of moods, and offered an open door to all the influences +from many creeds. The restorer of ancient shrines, the +admirer of Epictetus, the dabbler in astrology, the votary of +Eleusis<note place="foot">Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> 13, § 1.</note> and all the mysteries of the East, the munificent +patron of all professors of philosophy and the arts, the +man who delighted also to puzzle and ridicule them,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 15, § 12; 16, § 8.</note> had +probably few settled convictions of his own. His last words +to his soul, in their mingled lightness and pathos, seem to +express rather regret for the sunlight left behind than any +hope in entering on a dim journey into the unknown. +</p> + +<p> +The Antonine age was for the masses an age of growing +faith, and yet three or four of its greatest minds, men who +had drunk deep of philosophy, or who had a rare spiritual +vision, either denied or doubted the last hope of humanity. +Epictetus came from Phrygia as the slave of a freedman of +Nero.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, +p. 660 n.</note> Even in his days of slavery, he had absorbed the +teaching of Musonius.<note place="foot">Epict. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> iii. 6, § 10.</note> He received his freedom, but lived +in poverty and physical infirmity till, in the persecution of +Domitian’s reign he was, with the whole tribe of philosophic +preachers, driven from Rome,<note place="foot">A. Gell. xv. 11.</note> and he settled at Nicopolis in +Epirus, where Arrian heard his discourses on the higher life. +<pb n="504"/><anchor id="Pg504"/>According to Hadrian’s biographer, he lived in the greatest +intimacy with that emperor.<note place="foot">Ael. Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> c. 16.</note> He refers more than once to +the reign of Trajan,<note place="foot">Epict. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> iv. 5, § 17.</note> but it is hardly possible that the tradition +is true which carries his life into the reign of M. Aurelius, +although the great philosophic emperor owed much to his +teaching.<note place="foot">M. Aurel. i. 7, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καὶ τὸ ἐντυχεῖν τοῖς Ἐπικτητείοις ὑπομνήμασιν ὧν οἴκοθεν μετέδωκε</foreign>.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Epictetus is an example of a profoundly religious mind, to +whom personal immortality is not a necessity of his religion. +The great law of life is glad submission to the will of God, to +the universal order. Death, as an event which is bound to +come soon or late, should be regarded without fear. The +tremors it excites are like the shuddering of children at a tragic +mask of Gorgon or Fury. Turn the mask, and the terror is +gone.<note place="foot">Epict. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> ii. 1, § 17.</note> For what is death? A separation of soul and body, +a dissolution of our frame into the kindred elements.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 24, § 93; cf. M. Aurel. iv. +14, 21, and Rohde, <hi rend="italic">Psyche</hi>, ii. 330.</note> The +door is opened, God calls you to come, and to no terrible +future. Hades, Acheron, and Cocytus are mere childish +fancies.<note place="foot">Epict. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> iii. 13, § 15.</note> You will pass into the wind or earth or fire from +which you come. You will not exist, but you will be something +else of which the world now has need, just as you came +into your present existence when the world had need of you. +God sent you here subject to death, to live on earth a little +while in the flesh, to do His will and serve His purpose, and +join in the spectacle and festival. But the spectacle for you +is ended; go hence whither He leads, with adoration and gratitude +for all that you have seen and heard. Make room for +others who have yet to be born in accordance with His will.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> § 14, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὅταν δὲ μὴ παρέχῃ τἀναγκαῖα, τὸ ἀνακλητικὸν σημαίνει, +τὴν θύραν ἤνοιξε, καὶ λέγει σοι, Ἔρχου, Ποῦ; Εἰς οὐδὲν δεινόν· +ἀλλ’ ὅθεν ἐγένου, εἰς τὰ φίλα καὶ συγγενῆ, εἰς τὰ στοιχεῖα</foreign>.</note> +Language like this seems to give slight hope of any personal, +conscious life beyond the grave. Epictetus, like the pious +Hebrew of many of the Psalms, seems to be satisfied with +the present vision of God, whether or not there be any fuller +vision beyond the veil. Yet he elsewhere uses almost Platonic +language, which seems to imply that the soul has a separate +life, that it is a prisoner for a time in the bonds of the flesh, +and that it passes at death to the kindred source from which +<pb n="505"/><anchor id="Pg505"/>it sprang.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> i. 9, § 14, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἄφες ἡμᾶς ἀπελθεῖν ὅθεν ἐληλύθαμεν κτλ.</foreign></note> Yet even here the hope of an individual immortality, +of any future reproduction on a higher scale of the life +on earth, need not be implied; it is indeed probably absent. +It is enough for the profoundly religious spirit of Epictetus that +God calls us; whither He calls us must be left to His will. +</p> + +<p> +Galen the physician shows a similar detachment from +the ordinary hopes of humanity as to a future life, although +it springs from a very different environment and training +from those of Epictetus. Born in the reign of Hadrian, +and dying in the reign of Septimius Severus, Galen represents +the religious spirit of the Antonine age in his firm belief +in a spiritual Power and Providence.<note place="foot">Überweg, <hi rend="italic">Hist. Phil.</hi> i. p. 237.</note> But in philosophy +he was an eclectic of the eclectics. His medical studies +began at the age of seventeen. The influence of the Platonist, +Albinus of Smyrna, above all his stay at Alexandria, while +they gave him a wide range of sympathy, account for +the mingled and heterogeneous character of his philosophic +creed, which contains elements from every system except that +of Epicurus.<note place="foot">Zeller, iii. 1, p. 735.</note> The result is a curious hesitation and equipoise +between conflicting opinions on the greatest questions. He is +particularly uncertain as to the nature of the soul and its +relation to the body. The Platonic doctrine that the soul is +an immaterial essence, independent of corporeal support, seems +to Galen very disputable. How can immaterial essences have +any separate individuality? How can they diffuse themselves +over a corporeal frame and alter and excite it, as in lunacy +or drunkenness? And again, if the Peripatetic doctrine be +true, that the soul is the <q>form</q> of the body, we are soon +landed in the Stoic materialism from which Galen shrank. +The soul will become, as in the well-known theory refuted in +the Phaedo,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Phaedo</hi>, 86 <hi rend="small">B</hi>.</note> a <q>temperament</q> of bodily states, and its superior +endurance, its immortality, will become a baseless dream. On +these great questions the cautious man of science will not +venture to come to any dogmatic conclusion.<note place="foot">Zeller, iii. 1, p. 740; Überweg, <hi rend="italic">Hist. +Phil.</hi> i. p. 237.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Galen came to Rome in the year 164, at the beginning of +the reign of M. Aurelius. He soon rose to great fame in his +profession, and when, in 168, he had returned to his native +<pb n="506"/><anchor id="Pg506"/>Pergamum, he was recalled by the emperors to meet them at +Aquileia. It was an anxious time. It was the second year +of the campaign against the Marcomanni, and the legions, +returning with Verus from the East, had brought with them +the taint of a pestilence which spread a desolation throughout +Italy from which it did not recover for ages. The slaves +were called to arms as in the Punic invasion, along with the +gladiators, and even the brigands of Dalmatia, and the massing +of the forces on the Adriatic only concentrated the malignity +of the plague.<note place="foot">Jul. Capit. <hi rend="italic">M. Ant.</hi> c. 13; c. 21; +cf. Merivale, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Hist.</hi> viii. pp. 335-6.</note> Galen remained with the army for some +time, lending his skill to mitigate the horrors of the disease. +He returned to Rome in 170, and was left there in charge of +the youthful Commodus. The philosophic Emperor and his +philosophic physician must have often met in those dreadful +years. And we may be sure, from the detachment of +M. Aurelius, that their conversations would take a wider +range than the sanitary arrangements of the camp. With +death in the air, how could two such men, trained under such +masters, fail to question one another as to the sequel of death? +At any rate the fact remains that M. Aurelius on this question +is as submissive as Epictetus, as hesitating as Galen. +</p> + +<p> +M. Aurelius is commonly spoken of as realising Plato’s +dream of the philosopher on the throne. And yet the +description is, without some additions and explanations, somewhat +misleading. Philosopher, in the large speculative sense, +he certainly is not in his Meditations. For the infinite +curiosity of intellect, the passion to pierce the veil of the +unknown, to build a great cosmic system, he seems to have +had but little sympathy.<note place="foot">M. Aurel. vii. 67; Zeller, iii. 1, p. 677.</note> His is the crowning instance of +philosophy leaving the heights and concentrating itself on conduct, +which becomes not merely <q>three-fourths of life,</q> but the +whole, and his philosophy is really a religion. It is a religion +because it is founded on the great principle of unquestioning, +uncomplaining submission to the will of God, the law of the +whole universe. It is a religion because the repellent and +rigorous teaching of the older Stoicism is, as it is in Epictetus, +suffused with a glow of emotion.<note place="foot">M. Arnold, <hi rend="italic">Essays in Criticism</hi>, p. 427.</note> And yet this religion, which +<pb n="507"/><anchor id="Pg507"/>makes such immense demands on human nature, cuts itself off +from any support in the hope of a future life. +</p> + +<p> +On the subject of immortality, indeed, M. Aurelius sometimes +seems to waver. He puts the question hypothetically, +or he suggests immortality as an alternative to extinction +at death. <q>If thou goest indeed to another life, there is no +want of gods, not even there. But if to a state without +sensation, thou wilt cease to be held by pains and pleasures, +and to be a slave to the vessel.</q><note place="foot">M. Aurel. iii. 3, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">εἰ δὲ ἐν ἀναισθησίᾳ, παύσῃ πόνων καὶ ἡδονῶν ἀνεχόμενος, +καὶ λατρεύων τοσούτῳ χείρονι τῷ ἀγγείῳ ἢ περίεστι +τὸ ὑπηρετοῦν</foreign>: Rohde, <hi rend="italic">Psyche</hi>, +ii. pp. 327-28.</note> In one doubtful passage he +speaks of <q>the time when the soul shall fall out of this +envelop, like the child from the womb.</q><note place="foot">ix. 3, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οὕτως ἐνδέχεσθαι τὴν ὥραν ἐν ᾓ τὸ ψυχάριόν σου τοῦ ἐλύτρου +τούτου ἐκπεσεῖται</foreign>.</note> He does not dogmatise +on a subject so dark. But his favourite conception +of death is that of change, of transformation, of dissolution +into the original elements. An Infinite Spirit, of which the +individual soul is an emanation, pervades the universe, and at +death the finite spirit is reabsorbed by the Infinite.<note place="foot">xii. 30-32.</note> With this +is coupled the doctrine of the dark Ephesian philosophy, which +through Platonism had a profound influence on later thought. +Life is but a moment of consciousness in the unresting flow of +infinite mutation;<note place="foot">vi. 42, 47; ix. 29, 32; vi. 15; vii. +19; vi. 36, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">πᾶν τὸ ἐνεστὼς τοῦ χρόνου, στιγμὴ τοῦ αἰῶνος</foreign>: Rohde, <hi rend="italic">Psyche</hi>, ii. +p. 147.</note> it is a dream, a mere vapour, the sojourn of +a passing stranger. And the last thought of Aurelius probably +was that there was no place for a hope of separate conscious +existence after the last mortal change. Soul and body alike +are swept along the stream of perpetual transformation, and +this particular <q>ego,</q> with all its dreams and memories, will +never re-emerge in a separate personality. +</p> + +<p> +M. Aurelius, from the frequency with which he returns to +the subject, seems fully conscious of the instinctive passion +for continued life. But he refuses to recognise it as original +and legitimate, and therefore demanding some account to be +given of it.<note place="foot">M. Aurel. vi. 49, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">μήτι δυσχεραίνεις ὅτι τοσῶνδέ τινων λιτρῶν εἶ καὶ οὐ + τριακοσίων; οὕτω δὲ καὶ ὅτι μέχρι τοσῶνδε ἐτῶν βιωτέον +σοι καὶ οὐ μέχρι πλείονος</foreign>.</note> Still less would he ever dream of erecting it, as +Cicero and Plutarch did, into a powerful argument for some +corresponding satisfaction in another world. It is simply one +<pb n="508"/><anchor id="Pg508"/>of the irrational appetites, a form of rebellion against the +universal order, which must be crushed and brought into submission +to inexorable law. Neither do we find in M. Aurelius +any feeling of the need for a rectification of the injustices of +time, for any sphere for the completion of ineffectual lives, +where the crooked may be made straight and the perverted +be restored. He has, apparently, no sympathy with the sadness +so often felt by the noblest minds, at having to go hence with +so little done, so little known. The philosopher seems to have +no wish to explore in some coming life the secrets of the +universe, to prolong under happier conditions the endless quest +of the ideal in art and knowledge and thought, which seems so +cruelly baffled by the shortness of the life here below. The +affectionate father and husband and friend seems to have no +dream of any reunion with kindred souls. Above all, this +intensely religious and devout spirit seems to have no conception, +such as sometimes flashes on the mind of Seneca and of +Plutarch, of a future beatitude in the full vision of God. +This austere renunciation, if it was deliberate, of feelings and +hopes so dear to humanity, excites a certain admiration, as +the result of a stern self-discipline. It is the resignation +of what are thought to be mere fond, self-flattering fancies +in the cold light of truth, and, as such, it must ever command +a reverent respect. Yet how completely the renunciation +cuts off M. Aurelius from the spiritual movement of his time, +from the great onward sweep of humanity to a spiritual +reconstruction! +</p> + +<p> +The attitude of M. Aurelius to the instinctive longing for +immortality is partly dictated by logical loyalty to the fundamental +principles of his theory of life, partly by personal +temperament and sad experience. The cosmic theory of +Heraclitus, the infinite flux of cyclic change, left little ground +for faith in the permanence of consciousness. The Stoic +principle of submission to the law of the whole made it a duty +to acquiesce calmly, or even cheerfully, in what has been +ordained for us. The whole duty, the sole blessedness of man, +lie in bringing his will into conformity with the Eternal +Reason, and in moulding this brief mundane life into a slight +counterpart of the order of the mighty world. From one +point of view the single human life is infinitely small, a mere +<pb n="509"/><anchor id="Pg509"/>point in infinite age,<note place="foot">M. Aurel. ix. 32, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀχανὲς δὲ τὸ πρὸ τὴς γενέσεως ὡς καὶ τὸ μετὰ +τὴν διάλυσιν ὁμοίως ἄπειρον</foreign>.</note> agitated by hopes and fears which are +mere flitting dreams of a momentary consciousness. Nay, +the grandest features of its earthly home shrink to mean +proportions before the eye of reason. Asia is a mere corner, +the sea a drop, Athos a tiny clod in the universe.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vi. 36, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἡ Ἀσία, ἡ Εὐρώπη, γωνίαι τοῦ κόσμου ... Αθως +βωλάριον τοῦ κόσμου</foreign>.</note> Life is so +little a thing that death is no evil.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 35.</note> Yet, looked at on another +side, the daemon, the divine spark within each of us, may, by +its irresistible power, create a moral whole in each human +spirit which, during its short space of separate being, may +have the rounded harmony and perfectness of the whole vast +order—it may become a perfect miniature of the universe of +God.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> x. 33; v. 11; v. 27.</note> This consummate result, attainable, though so rarely +attained, is the ideal which alone gives dignity to human life. +The ideal of humanity lies not in any future life or coming +age; it may be, were the will properly aroused to its divine +strength, realised here and now in our short span of forty years +of maturity.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xi. 1.</note> Get rid of gross fears and hopes, aim only at +the moral ends which the will, aided by the daemon within, +can surely reach, dismiss the fear of censure from the ephemeral +crowd around us, the craving for fame among ephemeral +generations whom we shall not see,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vi. 16; vi. 2; vi. 51; vii. 21, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἐγγὺς μὲν ἡ σὴ περὶ πάντων λήθη ἐγγὺς δὲ ἡ πάντων περὶ σοῦ λήθη</foreign>.</note> let the divine impulse +within us gravitate to its proper orbit, and this poor human life +is swept into the eternal movement of the great whole, and, +from a moment of troubled consciousness, becomes a true life +in God. Such a life, having fulfilled the true law of its being, +is in itself rounded and complete: it needs no dreams of +future beatitude to rectify its failures or reward its eager +effort. Death to such a soul becomes an unimportant incident, +fixed, like all other changes, in the general order. And +the length or shortness of life is not worth reckoning. The +longest life is hardly a moment in eternity: the shortest is +long enough if it be lived well. This life, as fixed by eternal +law, is a whole, a thing by itself, a thing with innumerable +counterparts in the infinite past, destined to be endlessly +reproduced in the years of the limitless future.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xi. 1; vii. 1.</note> To repine at +<pb n="510"/><anchor id="Pg510"/>its shortness is no more rational than to mourn the swift +passing of a springtime, whose glorious promise, yet ever-withering +charm, have come and gone in the self-same way +through myriads of forgotten years. +</p> + +<p> +This is the ideal view of an austere creed, with a grandeur +of its own which all generations of the West have agreed to +venerate. But the temperament and the history of M. Aurelius +had also their share in shaping his views of life and death. +With infinite charity, indulgence, and even love for his fellows, +he was a pessimist about human life.<note place="foot">M. Aurel. vi. 46, 47; vii. 3; ix. 30.</note> He had good excuse +for being so. In the words of one who knew that age as only +genius combined with learning can, <hi rend="italic">le monde s’attristait</hi>; and +with good cause. The horizon was darkened with ominous +thunder-clouds. The internal forces of the Empire were becoming +paralysed by a mysterious weakness. The dim hordes beyond +the Danube had descended with a force only to be repelled in +many weary campaigns. Famine and pestilence were inflicting +worse horrors than the Marcomanni. It was the beginning of +the end, although the end was long deferred. The world was +growing sad; but there was no sadder man than the saintly +Stoic on the throne, who had not only to face the Germans on +the Danube, and bear the anxieties of solitary power, but who +had to endure the keener anguish of a soul which saw the +spiritual possibilities of human nature, but also all its littleness +and baseness. The Emperor needed all the lessons of self-discipline +and close-lipped resignation which he had painfully +learnt for himself, and which he has taught to so many generations. +There have been few nobler souls, yet few more hopeless. +Like the arch mocker of the time, although from a very +different point of view, he sees this ephemeral life, with its +transient pleasures and triumphs, ending in dust and oblivion.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vi. 47; cf. Luc. <hi rend="italic">Icaromenippus</hi>, +c. 18; <hi rend="italic">Traj. sive Tyr.</hi> c. 8; <hi rend="italic">Charon</hi>, c. +17; <hi rend="italic">Menip.</hi> c. 15, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀλλ’ ὅμοια τὰ ὀστᾶ ἦν, ἄδηλα καὶ ἀνεπίγραφα κτλ.</foreign></note> +And its fragility is only matched by its weary sameness from +age to age. The wintry torrent of endless mutation sweeps +all round in an eternal vortex.<note place="foot">M. Aurel. vii. 19, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">διὰ τῆς τῶν ὅλων οὐσίας, ὡς διὰ χειμάρρου, διεκπορεύεται + πάντα τὰ σώματα</foreign>. Cf. ix. 29, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">χειμάρρους ἡ τῶν πάντων αἰτία· πάντα φέρει</foreign>.</note> This restless change is a +movement of cyclic monotony.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 49; vii. 1; ix. 14; x. 23; +xi. 1.</note> Go back to Vespasian or +<pb n="511"/><anchor id="Pg511"/>Trajan: you will find the same recurring spectacle, men +plotting and fighting, marrying and dying.<note place="foot">M. Aurel. iv. 32.</note> The daughter +who watches by her mother’s death-bed soon passes away under +other eyes. The soul can in vision travel far, and survey the +infinity of ages.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xi. 1.</note> It can stretch forward into the endless ages +to come, as it can go back in historic imagination through the +limitless past. Yet it finds nothing strange in the experience +of the past, as there will be nothing new in the experience +of our remotest posterity. The man whose course has run for +forty years, if he has any powers of perception, has concentrated +in his brief span the image of all that has been, all that ever +will be in human thought or fate. The future is not gilded +by any dream of progress: it is not to be imaged in any magic +light of a Platonic Utopia, or City of God descending from +heaven like a bride.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ix. 29, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">μηδὲ τὴν Πλάτωνος πολιτείαν ἔλπιζε, ἀλλ’ ἀρκοῦ εἰ τὸ +βραχύτατον πρόεισι</foreign>.</note> From this <q>terrene filth,</q> from these +poor frivolous souls, what celestial commonwealth could ever +emerge?<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vii. 47; ix. 34.</note> The moral is, both on the ground of high philosophy +and sad experience—<q>be content, thou hast made thy voyage, +thou hast come to shore, quit the ship.</q> +</p> + +<p> +But even in heathendom, long before M. Aurelius was born, +the drift of thought towards the goal of a personal immortality +was strong and intense. And this was only one consequence +of a movement which had profoundly affected human thought, +and had compelled Stoicism to recast itself, as in the teaching of +Seneca. Pure reason could not explain the relation of man to +the universe, it could not satisfy the deepest human instincts. +The maxim, <q>live according to Nature,</q> was interpreted by the +Stoic to mean a life in accordance with our own higher nature, the +Divine element within us. Yet this interpretation only brought +out the irreconcilable discordance between the two conceptions +of Nature in the physical universe and in the human spirit. +There are depths and mysteries in the one which have no +answering correspondence in the other. Something more than +reason is needed to solve the problems of human destiny, the +mysterious range of human aspiration. Nature, as a system +of cold impersonal processes, has no sympathy with man, she +may be icily indifferent or actively hostile. To conform one’s +<pb n="512"/><anchor id="Pg512"/>life to the supposed dictates of an abstract Reason, asserting +itself in physical laws, which seem often to make a mockery +of the noblest effort and aspiration of man, demanded a servility +of submission in human nature, and called upon it to disown a +large part of its native powers and instincts. Man, a mere +ghost of himself, attenuated to a bloodless shade, finds himself +in presence of a power cold, relentless, unmoral, according to +human standards, a power which makes holocausts of individual +lives to serve some abstract and visionary ideal of the whole. +The older Stoicism provided no object of worship. For worship +cannot be paid to an impersonal law without moral attributes. +You may in abject quietism submit to it, but you cannot revere +or adore it. It is little wonder that the Stoic sage, who could +triumph over all material obstructions by moral enthusiasm, +was sometimes exalted above the Zeus who represented mere +passionless physical law. Such an idea—for it cannot be +called a Being—has no moral import, it supplies no example, +succour, or inspiration. The sage may for a moment have +a superhuman triumph, in his defiance of the temptations +or calamities with which Nature has surrounded him, but it +is a lonely triumph of inhuman pride.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 109, § 9.</note> It may be the divine +element within him which has given him the victory, but this +is conceived as the mere effluence of that subtle material force +which moves under all the phenomena of physical Nature. +In surrendering yourself to the impulse of such a power you +are merely putting yourself in line with the other irrational +subjects of impersonal law. There is here, it need not be said, +no stimulus to moral life, there is the absolute negation of it. +The affinity of the human soul with the soul of the world is a +mere physical doctrine, however refined and subtle be the <q>fiery +breath</q> which is the common element of both. But prolonged +ethical study and analysis combined with the infiltration of +Platonism by degrees to modify profoundly the Stoic conception +of the nature of God, and of the relation of man to Him. +God tended to become more and more a person, a moral power, +a father. And the indwelling God became the voice of +conscience, consoling, prompting, supporting, inspiring an +ideal of fuller communion in another sphere. Was the +longing for continued life, in communion with kindred souls, +<pb n="513"/><anchor id="Pg513"/>with a Divine Spirit, which has made us what we are, to be +relegated to the limbo of anthropomorphic dreams? +</p> + +<p> +Seneca, as we have seen in a former chapter, still retains +some of the hard orthodoxy of the older Stoicism. In his +letters to Lucilius he occasionally uses the language of the +old Stoic materialism.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 57, § 7.</note> But there can be little doubt that +Seneca had assimilated other conceptions antagonistic to it. +God becomes more a Person, distinct from the world, which +He has created, which He governs, which He directs to +moral ends.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 73, § 16; <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 83.</note> He is not merely the highest reason, He is +also the perfect wisdom, holiness, and love. He is no longer +a mere blind force or fate; He is the loving, watchful Father, +and good men are His sons. The apparent calamities which +they have to suffer are only a necessary discipline, for, <q>whom +He loves He tries and hardens by chastisement.</q><note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">De Prov.</hi> iv. § 7, quos amat +indurat, exercet.</note> God can +never really injure, for His nature is love, and we are continually +loaded with His benefits.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">De Ben.</hi> iv. 4; <hi rend="italic">De Ira</hi>, ii. 27.</note> In his view of the constitution of +man, Seneca has deviated even further from the creed of his +school. He appears indeed to assert sometimes that the soul +is material, but it is matter so fine and subtle as to be indistinguishable +from what we call spirit. And the ethical studies +of Seneca compelled him to abandon the Stoic doctrine of the +simple unity of the soul for the Platonic dualism, with the +opposition of reason and animal impulse. The latter has its +seat in the body, or the flesh, as he often calls it. And of the +flesh he speaks with all the contempt of the <hi rend="italic">Phaedo</hi>. It is a +mere shell, a fetter, a prison; or a humble hostelry which the +soul occupies only for a brief space.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 65, § 22; 102, § 26; + <hi rend="italic"><anchor id="corr513"/><corr sic="Ad.">Ad</corr> +Helv.</hi> 11, § 7; <hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> 24, § 5. Cf. +Plat. <hi rend="italic">Phaed.</hi> 83 <hi rend="small">C, D</hi>. Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. +Tyan.</hi> vi. 11; vii. 26.</note> With the flesh the spirit +must wage perpetual war, as the alien power which cramps its +native energies, darkens its vision, and perverts its judgment +of the truth. The true life of the spirit will, as in the theology +of Plato, only begin when the unequal partnership is dissolved.<note place="foot">Plat. <hi rend="italic">Phaed.</hi> 79 <hi rend="small">C</hi>; 81 <hi rend="small">A</hi>.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The orthodox Stoic doctrine allowed a limited immortality, +till the next great cosmic conflagration. But it was doubtful +whether even this continued existence was real personal life, +and with some Stoic doctors it was a privilege confined to the +<pb n="514"/><anchor id="Pg514"/>greater souls.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 1, p. 185.</note> Like nearly all philosophers of this age, Seneca +occasionally seems to admit the possibility of a return to antenatal +nothingness at death. <q>Non potest miser esse qui nullus +est</q> is a consolation often administered even by those who +have the hope of something better than the peace of annihilation.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> c. 19, 20; cf. Plut. (?) +<hi rend="italic">Consol. ad Apoll.</hi> c. 15, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">εἰς τὴν αὐτὴν οὖν τάξιν οἱ τελευτήσαντες καθίστανται + τῇ πρὸ τῆς γενέσεως</foreign>: cf. <hi rend="italic">ib.</hi> c. 34.</note> +It was a consolation which might be a very real one +to men living in the reign of Nero. Taken at the worst, death +can only be dissolution, for the rivers of fire and the tortures +of Tartarus are mere figments of poetic fancy. The mind +trained in submission to universal law will not shrink from a +fate which awaits the universe by fire or cataclysmal change. +Its future fate can only be either to dwell calmly for ever +among kindred souls, or to be reabsorbed into the general +whole.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 36; 71, § 12; <hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> +19, § 4. Cf. Rohde, <hi rend="italic">Psyche</hi>, ii. p. 328.</note> But in moments of spiritual exaltation, such an +alternative does not satisfy Seneca. He has got far beyond +the grim submission, or graceful contempt, of aristocratic suicide, +or even the faith in a bounded immortality. He has a hope +at times apparently more clear than any felt by the Platonic +Socrates on the last evening in prison. Death is no longer a +sleep, a blank peace following the futile agitations of life: it +is the gateway to eternal peace. The brief sojourn in the body +is the prelude to a longer and nobler life.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 102, § 21.</note> The hour, at which +you shudder as the last, is really the birthday of eternity, +when the mind, bursting from its fetters, will expatiate in +all the joy of its freedom in the light, and have unrolled +before it all the secrets and splendour of starry worlds, without +a haunting shadow.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 120, § 14; 102, § 28, +aliquando naturae tibi arcana retegentur: +discutietur ista caligo ... +nulla serenum umbra turbabit, cf. +Rohde, <hi rend="italic">Psyche</hi>, ii. p. 328, n. 4. Rohde, +like Zeller, seems to me not to recognise +sufficiently how far Seneca has departed +from the old Stoicism.</note> Nay, the vision is moralised almost in +Christian fashion. The thought of eternity compels us to think +of God as witness of every act, to remember that <q>decisive +hour</q> when, with all veils and disguises removed, the verdict +on our life will be pronounced. It also gives the hope of +purging away for ever the taint of the flesh and entering on +communion with the spirits of the blessed.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 26, § 5; <hi rend="italic">Ad Marc.</hi> xxv.</note> Thus as though +<pb n="515"/><anchor id="Pg515"/>with the Eternal eyes upon him, a man should shrink from all +the baser and meaner side of his corporeal life, and so prepare +himself for the great ordeal, and the beatitude of the life to +come. +</p> + +<p> +In the apocalypse of Seneca a new note is struck in pagan +meditation on the immortality. We have left far behind the +thought of the Manes haunting the ancestral tomb, and soothed +in returning years by the jet of wine or the bunch of violets. +We are no longer watching, with Pindar or Virgil, the spirits +basking in Elysian meads and fanned by ocean breezes. We +are far on the way to the City of God, <hi rend="italic">cujus fundamenta in +montibus sanctis</hi>. And indeed Seneca has probably travelled +as far towards it as any one born in heathendom ever did. +It is not wonderful that, in the fierce religious struggle of the +fourth century, his moral enthusiasm, his view of this life as a +probation for the next, his glowing vision of an almost Christian +heaven, should have suggested an imaginary intercourse with +St Paul.<note place="foot">See the apocryphal letters, p. 477, +of Haase’s ed. of Sen.; cf. Lightfoot, +<hi rend="italic">S. Paul’s Ep. to the Philippians</hi>, p. +268 sqq. Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. +1, p. 637, n. 1; Baur, <hi rend="italic">Ch. Hist.</hi> i. p. 16.</note> +</p> + +<p> +What were the influences which really moulded his +highest conception of the future state, how much was due +to a pure and vigorous spiritual intuition, how much to +Platonic and Pythagorean sources, we cannot pretend to say. +In Seneca’s most enraptured previsions of immortality, the +very exuberance of the rhetoric seems to be the expression of +intense personal feeling. But Seneca’s was a very open and +sensitive mind. One of his teachers was Sotion, who, like his +master Sextius, was called a Pythagorean, and who, on true +Pythagorean principles, taught Seneca to abstain from animal +food.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 108, § 17; cf. Philostr. +<hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> i. 7, 8.</note> We may be sure that no Pythagorean teacher of that age +would fail to discuss with his pupil the problem of the future +life. It is true that Seneca only once or twice alludes to the +doctrine of a previous life, and he only mentions the Pythagorean +school to record the fact that in his day it was without a head.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Nat. Qu.</hi> vii. 32, § 2, Pythagorica +illa invidiosa turbae schola praeceptorem +non invenit.</note> +But that does not preclude the supposition that he may have +felt its influence in the formative years of youth. And the +Pythagoreans of the early empire were a highly eclectic school. +<pb n="516"/><anchor id="Pg516"/>They still reproduced the spirit of their founder in mathematical +symbolism, in the ideal of asceticism, in a pronounced religious +tendency.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 2, p. 95.</note> But they had absorbed much from Platonism, as +well as from the Lyceum and the Porch. These mingled influences +also account for the profound alterations which Stoicism +had undergone in the mind of Seneca. And his contempt for +the body or the flesh, and many of the phrases in which its +cramping, lowering influences are described, savour of the +Pythagorean and Platonist schools. +</p> + +<p> +But Seneca is an inconsistent, though eloquent and powerful, +expounder of that faith in personal immortality, with its +moral consequences, which goes back through many ages to +Plato, to Pythagoras, to the obscure apostles of the Orphic +revelation, perhaps to Egypt.<note place="foot">Herodot. ii. 123.</note> The mythical Orpheus represents, +in the field of religion and in the theory of life and death, an +immense revolution in Greek thought and an enduring spirit +which produced a profound effect down to the last years of +paganism in the West.<note place="foot">Herodotus never mentions Orpheus, +but speaks of +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τὰ Ὀρφικά</foreign>, ii. 81; nor do +the schol. on Homer allude to him (Lob. +<hi rend="italic">Aglaoph.</hi> i. p. 540; cf. <hi rend="italic">Aglaoph.</hi> p. 255 +sqq.). His existence was denied by +Aristotle (Cic. <hi rend="italic">De Nat. Deor.</hi> 1. 38, 108). +Plato seems to be as assured of it as +Iamblichus, <hi rend="italic">Cratyl.</hi> 402; cf. Iambl. +<hi rend="italic">Pythag.</hi> 145, 243.</note> With the names of Orpheus and +Pythagoras are connected the assured faith in immortality, +the conception of this life as only preparatory and secondary +to the next, the need for purgation and expiation for deeds +done in the body, the doctrine of transmigration and successive +lives, possibly in animal forms. Orpheus was also the +mythical founder of mysteries in whose secret lore the initiated +were always supposed to receive some comforting assurance +of a life to come.<note place="foot">Iambl. <hi rend="italic">Pythag.</hi> 151; Lobeck, <hi rend="italic">Aglaoph.</hi> +i. p. 238.</note> A spokesman in one of Cicero’s dialogues +recalls with intense gratitude the light of hope and cheerfulness +which the holy rites had shed for him both on life +and death.<note place="foot">Cic. <hi rend="italic">De Leg.</hi> ii. 14, 36, neque solum +cum laetitia vivendi rationem accepimus, +sed etiam cum spe meliore moriendi.</note> And Plutarch, on the death of their daughter, reminded +his wife of the soothing words which they had together +heard from the hierophant in the Dionysiac mysteries.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Cons. ad Ux.</hi> c. 10.</note> Long +before their day Plato had often, on these high themes, sought +a kind of high ecclesiastical sanction or suggestion for the +tentative conclusions of dialectic.<note place="foot">Plat. <hi rend="italic">Phaed.</hi> 70 <hi rend="small">C</hi>; 69 <hi rend="small">C</hi>.</note> The great name of Orpheus, +<pb n="517"/><anchor id="Pg517"/>and the mystic lore of this esoteric faith, had indeed in Plato’s +day been sadly cheapened and degraded by a crowd of mercenary +impostors.<note place="foot">Plat. <hi rend="italic">Rep.</hi> ii. 364 <hi rend="small">B</hi>.</note> And even the venerable rites of Eleusis may have +contained an element of coarseness, descending from times +when the processes of nature were regarded unveiled.<note place="foot">Cf. Gardner and Jevons, p. 268, +who think the ceremonies never were +indecent. Rohde, i. p. 289.</note> But +philosophy and reason, which purged and elevated religion as +a whole, did the same service for the mysteries, and Orphic and +Pythagorean became almost convertible.<note place="foot">Herodot. ii. 81; Iambl. <hi rend="italic">Pythag.</hi> +151; Rohde, <hi rend="italic">Psyche</hi>, ii. p. 103.</note> The systems represent +a converging effort to solve those great questions which lie on +the borderland of religion and philosophy, questions on which the +speculative intellect is so often foiled, and has to fall back on +the support of faith and religious intuition.<note place="foot">Baur, <hi rend="italic">Ch. Hist.</hi> ii. p. 178.</note> In an age which +had forsaken curious speculation, whose whole interest was concentrated +on the moral life, an age which longed for spiritual +vision and supernatural support, an essentially religious philosophy +like the new Pythagoreanism was sure to be a great +power. Gathering up impartially whatever suited its main +end from the ancient schools, maintaining a scrupulous reverence +for all the devotion of the past, it shed over all a higher +light, issuing, as its votaries believed, from the lands of the +dawn.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. + <anchor id="corr517"/><corr sic="2">2,</corr> p. 99.</note> Keeping a consecrated place for all the gods of +popular tradition, linking men to the Infinite by a graduated +hierarchy of spirits with their home in the stars, it rose to the +conception of the One, pure, passionless Being to whom no +bloody sacrifice is to be offered, who is to be worshipped best +by silent adoration and a life of purity. And in cultivating +this purity, the grossness of the body must be attenuated by a +strict rule of life.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> i. 7, 8; cf. +Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 108, §§ 17-20.</note> And though the Highest be so remote and +so ethereal, He has not left us without messengers and interpreters +to bridge the vast interval between us and the Infinite, +by means of dream and vision and oracle. A world of strange +daemonic life surrounds us, a world of spirits and heroic souls +akin to ours.<note place="foot">Zeller, iii. 2, p. 122.</note> For though we are immersed in the alien element +of the flesh, yet our complex soul has a divine part, which may +even here below have converse with the Divine. During its +<pb n="518"/><anchor id="Pg518"/>period of duress and probation, it may indeed become irremediably +tainted by contact with matter. It may also, hearkening +to the voice of philosophy, hold itself clear and pure from such +defilement. When the mortal severance of the two natures +comes, the divine part does not perish with its mouldering +prison, but it may have a very different destiny in the ages to +come, according to the manner of its earthly life. This life +and the eternal state are linked in an inevitable moral +sequence; as we sow, so shall we reap in successive lives. +There is a Great Judgment in the unseen world, with momentous, +age-long effects. The spirit which has refused to yield to the +seductions of the flesh may, in the coming life, rise to empyrean +heights beyond human imagination to picture. The soul +which has been imbruted by its environment may have to +pass a long ordeal of three thousand years, and then return +to another sojourn in human form, or it may sink hopelessly +to ever lower depths of degradation. +</p> + +<p> +The biography of Apollonius of Tyana is, of course, in +one sense a romance.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> i. 2; cf. +Zeller, iii. 2, p. 134, n.; Baur, <hi rend="italic">Ch. Hist.</hi> +ii. pp. 174, 206.</note> Yet its tales of miracle should hardly +be allowed to obscure its value as a picture of the beliefs of +that age. We cannot doubt that the Pythagorean apostle of +the time of the Flavians went all over the Roman world, +preaching his gospel of moral and ritual purity, kindling or +satisfying the faith in the world of spirit, striving in a strange +fashion to reconcile a mystic monotheism and devotion to +a pure life of the soul with a scrupulous reverence for +all the mythologies. It may, at first sight, appear strange +that a mystic like Apollonius, of the Pythagorean school, +should so seldom allude to the subject of immortality. +The truth is that Apollonius was not a dogmatic preacher; +he dealt little in theories. His chief business, as he +conceived it, was with practical morality, and the reform or +restoration of ritual where it had fallen into desuetude and +decay.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> iv. 20; iii. +41; i. 11, 16; vi. 40.</note> Penetrated as he was with the faith in a spiritual +world, he seems to assume as a postulate the eternity of the +soul, and its incarnation for a brief space on earth. During +its sojourn in the flesh, it is visited by visions from on high, +<pb n="519"/><anchor id="Pg519"/>and such revelations are vouchsafed in proportion to its +ascetic purity.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> ii. 37; vi. 11.</note> What conception of the life to come Apollonius +entertained we cannot say; but its reality to him was a self-evident +truth. We are surrounded by the spirits of the +departed, although we know it not. Sailing among the islands +of the Aegean, he once gratified his disciples by the tale of +his having met the shade of Achilles at his tomb in the Troad.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 16.</note> +Men said that the hero was really dead, and in the old home +of the Myrmidons, his worship was forgotten. But Apollonius, +in a prayer which he had learnt from the sages on the +Ganges, called upon the heroic shade to dispel all doubts by +appearing at his call. At once an earthquake shook the tomb, +and a fair youthful form was by his side of wondrous beauty +and superhuman stature, clothed in a Thessalian mantle. His +stature grew more majestic, and his beauty more glorious as +Apollonius gazed. But the sage had no weak fears in the +presence even of so august a spirit, and pressed him with +questions which savour far more of antiquarian than spiritual +interest. Was Helen really in Troy? Why does not Homer +mention Palamedes? The hero resolved his doubts, sent a +warning message to the Thessalians to restore his forgotten +honours, and in a soft splendour vanished at the first cock-crow.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iv. 16.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The biography of Apollonius closes with a tale which +throws a strong light on the spiritual cravings of that age. +The sage firmly believed in transmigration and immortality, +although he discouraged debate on these high themes.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> viii. 31, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">περὶ ψυχῆς δὲ, ὡς ἀθάνατος εἴη, ἐφιλοσόφει ἔτι διδάσκων +μὴν ὅτι ἀληθὴς ὁ ὑπὲρ αὐτῆς λόγος, πολυπραγμονεῖν +δὲ μὴ ξυγχωρῶν τὰ ὦδε μεγάλα</foreign>.</note> After +his death, the youth of Tyana were much occupied with +solemn thoughts. But there was a sceptic among them who +had vainly besought the departed philosopher to return from +spiritland and dispel his doubts as to the future life. At +last one day he fell asleep among his companions, and then +suddenly started up as one demented, with the cry—<q>I believe +thee.</q> Then he told his friends that he had seen the spirit of +the sage, that he had been actually among them, though they +knew it not, chanting a marvellous song of life and death. It +told of the escape of the soul from the mouldering frame and +<pb n="520"/><anchor id="Pg520"/>of its swift flight to ethereal worlds. <q>Thou shalt know all +when thou art no more; but while thou art yet among the +living, why seek to pierce the mystery?</q><note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> viii. 31, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἢ τὶ μετὰ ζῳοῖσον ἐὼν περὶ τῶνδε ματεύεις;</foreign></note> +</p> + +<p> +The new Platonist school, with Plutarch and Maximus at +their head, were, in this age, the great apostles of the hope of +immortality. Platonists in their theory of mind and God, Neo-Pythagorean +in their faith in the openness of the human +spirit at its best to supernatural influences, they felt the +doctrine of the coming life to be axiomatic. It is true that +the author of the <hi rend="italic">Consolation to Apollonius</hi>, seems at times to +waver, as Seneca did, between the idea of extinction at death +and the hope of eternal beatitude.<note place="foot">Plut. (?) <hi rend="italic">Consol. ad Apoll.</hi> c. 34; cf. +c. 15.</note> This piece is full of +pessimist thoughts of life, and embalms many a sad saying of +the Greek poets on its shortness and its misery.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 7 sqq.</note> Bringing +far more sorrow than joy, life may well be regarded as a +mysterious punishment. That Thracian tribe which mourned +at each birth as others do at death, had a true philosophy of +man’s estate. The great consolation is that, in the phrase of +Heraclitus, death and life are one, we are dying every moment +from our birth. Death is the great healer, in the words of +Aeschylus, the deliverer from the curse of existence, whether it +be an eternal sleep or a far journey into an unknown land. +The prospect of blank nothingness offers no terrors; for the +soul only returns to its original unconsciousness. But this +was hardly a congenial mood to the author, and before the close, +he falls back on the solace of mystic tradition or poetic vision, +that, for the nobler sort, there is a place prepared in the ages +to come, after the Great Judgment, when all souls, naked and +stripped of all trappings and disguises, shall have to answer +for the deeds done in the body.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 36, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τεθνεῶτας γὰρ δεῖ κρίνεσθαι κτλ.</foreign></note> The same faith is professed +by Plutarch to his wife in the Consolation on the death of +their little daughter, which took place while Plutarch was from +home. The loss of a pure bright young soul, full of love and +kindness to all, even to her lifeless toys, was evidently a heavy +blow.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Consol. ad Ux.</hi> c. 3.</note> But Plutarch praises his wife’s simple restraint and +abstinence from the effusive parade of conventional mourning. +All such displays seemed to him a rather vulgar intemperance +<pb n="521"/><anchor id="Pg521"/>and self-indulgence.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Consol. ad Ux.</hi> c. 4, 6.</note> And why grieve for one who is spared +all grief? She had her little joys, and, knowing no other, she +suffers no pain of loss. Yet Plutarch would not have his wife +accept the cold consolation that death brings unconsciousness. +He reminds her of the brighter, more cheering vision which +they have enjoyed together as communicants in the Dionysiac +mysteries. If the soul is undying, if it is of divine parentage +and has a divine destiny, then the shortness of its imprisonment +and exile is a blessing. The captive bird may come by +use and wont actually to love its cage. And the worst misery +of old age is not grey hairs and weakness, but a dull absorption +in the carnal and forgetfulness of divine things. <q>Whom the +gods love die young.</q> By calling them back early, they save +them from long wanderings.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Consol. ad Apoll.</hi> c. 17-24.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Plutarch’s belief in immortality is a religious faith, a +practical postulate. He nowhere discusses the bases of the +belief in an exhaustive way. It is rather inseparable from his +conception of God and His justice, and the relation of the +human soul to God.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ser. Num. Vind.</hi> c. 18 (561 <hi rend="small">A</hi>).</note> He admits that the prospect of reward +or punishment in another world has but little influence on +men’s conduct.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οὐδέν ἐστι πρὸς ἡμᾶς τοὺς ζῶντας ἀλλ’ + ἀπιστοῦνται καὶ λανθάνοισιν</foreign>.</note> Few believe in the tales of tortures of the +damned. And those who do can soothe their fears, and purchase +a gross immortality, by initiations and indulgences.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Non p. Suav.</hi> c. 26, 27.</note> +Yet it is impossible to doubt that to Plutarch the hope of the +eternal life was a precious possession. He assails with force, +and even asperity, the Epicurean school for their attempt to rob +humanity of it, on the pretext of relieving men of a load of superstitious +fears. They are like men on board a ship who, letting +the passengers know that they have no pilot, console them with +the further information that it does not matter, as they are +bound to drive upon the rocks.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 23 (1103).</note> The great promise of Epicurus +was to free men from the spectral terrors with which poetic +fancy had filled the scenery of the under world. But in doing +so, he invested death with a new horror infinitely worse than +the fabled tortures of the damned. It was a subtle fallacy +which taught that, as annihilation involves the extinction of +consciousness, the lamented loss of the joys and vivid energy +<pb n="522"/><anchor id="Pg522"/>of life was a mere imagination projected on a blank future +where no regret could ever disturb the tranquillity of nothingness<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Non. p. Suav.</hi> c. 30, 26.</note>. +Plutarch took his stand on psychology. The passion +for continued existence is, as a matter of fact, the most imperious +in our nature. With the belief in immortality, Epicurus +sweeps away the strongest and dearest hopes of the mass of +men. This life is indeed full of pain and sorrow; yet men +cling to it passionately, merely as life, in the darkest hours. +And they are ready to brave the worst horrors of Cerberus +and Chimaera for the chance of continued existence.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 27, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">δι’ ἣν ὀλίγου δέω λέγειν πάντας καὶ πάσας εἶναι προθύμους +τῷ Κερβέρῳ διαδάκνεσθαι ὅπως ἐν τῷ εἶναι +διαμένωσι μηδ’ ἀναιρεθῶσι</foreign>.</note> The +privation of a dream of happiness in another world is a real +loss, even though, when the grey day of nothingness dawns, +the consciousness of loss be gone. Is it a light thing to tell +the nobler spirits, the moral athletes, who have battled with +evil all life long, that they have been contending for a visionary +crown?<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 28.</note> Is it nothing to the idealist who, amid all the +obstructions of the life in the flesh, has been fostering his +nobler powers, in the hope of eternal freedom and the full +vision of truth, that that real life to which he fancied +death was only the gateway is, after all, a mere illusion? +Nor does Plutarch disdain to take account of that vivacity of +love which in all ages has sought to soften the bitterness +of parting by the hope of reunion and recognition in other +worlds.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 28, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἡλίκης ἑαυτοὺς χαρᾶς ἀποστεροῦσι ... καὶ τὸν φίλον πατέρα + καὶ τὴν φίλην μητέρα καί που γυναῖκα χρησθὴν ὄψεσθαι + μὴ προσδοκῶντες μηδ’ ἔχοντες ἐλπίδα τῆς ὁμιλίας + ἐκείνης καὶ φιλοφροσύνης ἣν ἔχουσιν οἱ τὰ αὐτὰ + Πυθαγόρᾳ καὶ Πλάτωνι δοξάζοντες</foreign>.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The Consolation to Apollonius only refers briefly to the +punishment of lawless wealth and power, as the complement +to the reward of virtue.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Consol. ad Apoll.</hi> c. 36.</note> But this aspect of immortality is +dwelt on at length in the remarkable treatise on the Delays of +the Divine Vengeance. The problem of hereditary guilt, and +the punishment of the children for the sins of the fathers in +this world, in view of the justice and benevolence of God, leads +on to the thought of another tribunal which may terribly correct +the injustices of time.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ser. Num. Vind.</hi> c. 16: cf. +Gréard, <hi rend="italic">De la Morale de Plut.</hi> p. 283; +Oakesmith, <hi rend="italic">Rel. of Plut.</hi> p. 111 sqq.</note> The doctrine of Divine providence and +<pb n="523"/><anchor id="Pg523"/>the doctrine of immortality stand or fall together.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Ser. N. Vind.</hi> v. c. 17, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">εἷς οὖν, ἔφην, λόγος ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ τὴν πρόνοιαν καὶ τὴν διαμονὴν +τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης ψυχῆς βεβαιῶν, κτλ.</foreign></note> God could +not take so much care for ephemeral souls, blooming for a brief +space and then withering away, as in the women’s soon-fading +gardens of Adonis.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 17 (560 <hi rend="small">F</hi>).</note> Above all, Apollo would be the greatest +deceiver, the god who has so often solemnly from the tripod +ordered rites of expiation and posthumous honours to be paid to +lofty souls departed.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 17, ad fin.</note> Yet, like his great master Plato, Plutarch +felt that the full assurance of the long dream of humanity lies +beyond the veil—that we know not what we shall be. And, +like the master, he invoked the apocalyptic power of the +religious and poetic imagination to fortify the hesitating +conclusions of the reason. +</p> + +<p> +The visionary power and charm of the great master, whose +reign was to be prolonged for ages after Plutarch’s time, is seen, +perhaps in a faint reflection, in Plutarch’s mythical forecast of +the future of the soul. Plato’s psychology, his sharp opposition +of the reason to the lower nature rooted in the flesh, his +vision of the Eternal Goodness, his intensely moral conception +of the responsibility of life on earth, its boundless possibilities +of future unimpeded intuition, its possible eternal degradation +through ages of cyclic change, all this, together with kindred +elements, perhaps from the Semitic east, had left a profound +effect on religious minds. The greatness of S. Augustine is +nowhere more apparent than in his frank recognition of the +spiritual grandeur of Plato. And that great spirit, so agile in +dialectic subtlety, so sublime in its power of rising above the +cramping limitations of our mortal life, is also, from its vivid +poetic sympathy, most ready to aid weak ordinary souls to +climb <q>the altar stairs.</q> Never was pure detached intelligence +wedded so harmoniously to glowing imagination, never was +ethereal truth so clothed in the warm colouring and splendour +of the world of sense. Where reason has strained its utmost +strength to solve the eternal riddle, ecstatic vision and religious +myth, transcending the limits of space and time, must be called +in to lend their aid. +</p> + +<p> +Plato and the Platonic Socrates are fully conscious that +the conclusions of philosophic reason on a future state can be +<pb n="524"/><anchor id="Pg524"/>only tentative. And they often fall back on a divine doctrine, +or tradition, or a <anchor id="corr524"/><corr sic="mythopœic">mythopoeic</corr> power by which poetic imagination +peoples the dim regions of a world beyond the senses. +The visions of Timarchus and Thespesius in Plutarch are, like +the Nekuia of the <hi rend="italic">Phaedo</hi> and of the <hi rend="italic">Republic</hi>, an effort of the +religious imagination to penetrate the darkness from which +reason recoils. Nor is the effort strange in one who, along with +the purest conception of an immaterial spirit, still believed in +the efficacy of legend and material symbol to reveal the truth +which they veiled.<note place="foot">Rohde, <hi rend="italic">Psyche</hi>, ii. pp. 275, 279; +Jowett’s <hi rend="italic">Plato</hi>, i. p. 396; Pl. <hi rend="italic">Phaed.</hi> +85 <hi rend="small">C</hi>, <hi rend="small">D</hi>; 60 <hi rend="small">B</hi>, <hi rend="small">C</hi>; 69 C; <hi rend="italic">Meno</hi> 81 <hi rend="small">A</hi>; +<hi rend="italic">Phaed.</hi> 114 <hi rend="small">D</hi>, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τὸ μὲν οὖν τοιαῦτα διισχυρίσασθαι οὕτως ἔχειν, οὐ πρέπει +νοῦν ἔχοντι ἀνδρί, κτλ.</foreign></note> +</p> + +<p> +Thespesius of Soli, a man of evil life, once fell from a height, +was taken up for dead, but revived again on the third day, on +the eve of his funeral. He came back to the living an altered +man, after a marvellous experience. His soul, on escaping from +the body, was swept along a sea of light among the stars.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Ser. Num. Vind.</hi> c. 22 +(563 <hi rend="small">C</hi>).</note> He +saw other souls emerging in the form of fiery bubbles, which +burst and gave forth a subtle form in the likeness of man.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">εἶτα ῥηγνυμένης ἀτρέμα τῆς πομφόλυγος, ἐκβαίνειν τύπον +ἐχούσας ἀνθρωποειδῆ, τὸν δ’ ὄγκον εὐσταλεῖς κτλ.</foreign></note> Three +or four he recognised, and would have spoken to them, but they +seemed delirious or senseless, and shrank away from him, forming +in the end little companies of their own, who swept along in +wild disordered movements, uttering strange cries of wailing or +terror. The soul of an old acquaintance then hailed him and +became his guide, pointing out that the souls of the really dead +cast no shadow, being perfectly pellucid, surrounded by light. +Yet some of them are marked with scales and weals and +blotches. Adrasteia is the inevitable judge of all, and, through +three ministers, three great classes of criminals receive their +proper doom. Some are punished swiftly on earth, another +class meet with heavier judgment in the shades. The utterly +incurable are ruthlessly pursued by the Erinnys, and finally +plunged in a dark abyss, of which the horrors might not be +told. The second class undergo a fierce purgatorial cleansing, in +which some spirits have all their stains wiped out and become +clear and lustrous. But where evil is more obstinate, and +passion again and again asserts its power, the soul long retains +a colour appropriate to its peculiar vice. The mean avaricious +<pb n="525"/><anchor id="Pg525"/>soul is dark and squalid; the cruel is blood-red; the envious +violet and livid. Short of the worst eternal torture, souls +with insatiable craving for fleshly delights, gravitate to a birth +into low animal forms.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Ser. Num. Vind.</hi> c. 22 +(565).</note> +</p> + +<p> +Thespesius and his guide are then swept on wings of +light to other and less gloomy scenes. Over the chasm of +Forgetfulness, clothed in its recesses with flowers and herbs +which exhale a fragrant odour, the opening through which +Dionysus had passed to his place among the gods, floated a +cloud of spirits like birds, drinking in the fragrance with +mirth and gladness. On again they passed, till they came to +a crater which received the flow of many-coloured streams, +snow-white or rainbow-hued,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 22 (566), +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἔδοξεν ἀφορᾶν κρατῆρα μέγαν, εἰς δὲ τούτον ἐμβάλλοντα +ῥεύματα τὸ μὲν ἀφροῦ θαλάσσης ἢ χιόνων λαμπρότερον κτλ.</foreign></note> and hard by was the oracle of +Night and Selene, from which issue dreams and phantoms to +wander among men. Then Thespesius was dazzled with the +radiance which shot from the Delphic tripod upwards to the +peaks of Parnassus; and, blinded by the radiance, he could +only hear the shrill voice of a woman chanting a song which +seemed to tell of the hour of his own death. The woman, his +guide explained, was the Sibyl who dwells on the face of the +moon. The sweep of the moon’s onward course prevented +him catching the Sibyl’s words to the full, but he heard a +prophecy of the desolation of Campania by the fires of Vesuvius, +and the death of the emperor. +</p> + +<p> +Other scenes of punishment follow, among which Thespesius +saw his own father rising from the abyss, covered with weals +and marks of torture which had been inflicted for a long-buried +crime. Finally, the friendly guide vanished, and +Thespesius was forced onwards by dread spectral forms to +witness fresh scenes of torment. The hypocrite who had +hidden his vices under a veil of decorum was forced, with +infinite pain of contortion, to turn out his inmost soul. The +avaricious were plunged by daemons by turns in three lakes, +one of boiling gold, one of freezing lead, and one of hardest +iron. But the worst fate of all was reserved for those whose +sins had been visited on their innocent descendants upon +earth, who pursued them with curses, or clung around them +<pb n="526"/><anchor id="Pg526"/>in clouds like bees or bats, keeping ever poignant the memory +of transmitted guilt and suffering.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Ser. Num. Vind.</hi> c. 22 +(567 <hi rend="small">D</hi>), + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">πάντων δὲ πάσχειν ἔλεγεν οἰκτρότατα τὰς ἤδη δοκούσας ἀφεῖσθαι + τῆς Δίκης, εἶτ’ αὖθις συλλαμβανομένας· αὖται δ’ ἦσαν + ὧν εἴς τινας ἐκγόνους ἢ παῖδας ἡ ποινὴ περιῆλθεν κτλ.</foreign></note> +</p> + +<p> +The vision of Timarchus, in the piece on the Genius of +Socrates, has a rather different motive from that which inspired +the vision of Thespesius. Thespesius came back with a +message as to the endless consequences of sin in worlds +beyond the senses, and the far-reaching responsibilities of +the life on earth. The experiences of Timarchus in the +cave of Trophonius were intended to teach the doctrine of +the existence, apart from the lower powers akin to fleshly +nature, of the pure intelligence or daemon, which, coming +from the Divine world, can catch its voices and transmit +them to the mortal life here below. Timarchus made the +descent into the cave of Trophonius and spent in its weird +darkness two nights and a day, during which he saw a wondrous +revelation of the spirit-world.<note place="foot">Cf. Pausan. ix. 39, § 5; Philostr. +<hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> viii. 19; Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Gen. +Socr.</hi> c. 21, 22 (589, 590); cf. Gardner +and Jevons, <hi rend="italic">Greek Antiq.</hi> pp. 267-8.</note> His higher part, escaping +from the sutures of the head, emerged in pellucid ether. +There was no trace of earthly scenery, but countless islands swept +around him, gleaming with the shifting colours of lambent fire, +amid tones coming from ethereal distances.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Gen. Socr.</hi> c. 22 (590), +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἀναβλέψας δὲ τὴν μὲν γῆν οὐδαμοῦ καθορᾶν, νήσους δὲ +λαμπομένας μαλακῷ πυρί κτλ.</foreign></note> From a yawning +abyss of surging darkness arose endless wailings and moans. +An unseen guide explained to him the fourfold division of the +universe and the boundaries of its provinces. High above all +is the sphere of the One and the Invisible. Next in order is +the region of pure mind, of which the Sun is lord. The third +is the debatable land between pure intelligence and the sensible +and mortal—the region of soul, whose mistress is the moon. +Styx is the boundary between this lunar kingdom and the low +world of matter, sin, and death. The three realms beneath +the highest correspond to the three elements of our composite +nature,—mind, soul, and body.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> (591).</note> This mortal life is a temporary +and unequal partnership of the Divine reason with the lower +appetites, which have their roots in the flesh. It is an exile, +an imprisonment; it is also a probation of the higher part of +human nature, and its escape comes to it by a twofold death. +<pb n="527"/><anchor id="Pg527"/>The first, imperfect and incomplete, is the severance of soul +from body in what men call death, the falling away of the +gross wrappings of matter. This death is under the sway of +Demeter. The second, under the care of Persephone, is a +slower process, in which the ethereal reason, the true eternal +personality of man, is finally released from association with +the passionate and sensitive nature, which is akin to the bodily +organism. After the first corporeal death, all souls wander +for a time in the space between the moon and earth. In +the vision of Timarchus, he saw over the chasm of darkness +a host of stars with a curious variety of motion. Some +shot up from the gulf with a straight decided impetus. +Others wavered in deflexions to right or left, or, after an +upward movement, plunged again into the abyss. These +motions, as the invisible guide expounded, represent the +various tendencies of souls, corresponding to the strength or +weakness of the spiritual force within them. All souls have +an element of the Divine reason, but it is variously blended +with the baser elements in different natures. In some it +becomes completely sunk and absorbed in the life of the +senses. In others, the rational part holds itself above the +lower bodily life, and maintains an almost separate existence. +And yet there are natures in which the rational +and irrational elements wage a long and indecisive conflict +until, slowly, at last, the passions recognise their rightful +master, and become obedient to the heavenly voice within. +The debased and hopeless souls, rising for a moment after +death, are repelled with fierce angry flashes by the moon, +and fall back again to the world of sense and corruption, to +undergo a second birth. The purer souls are received by her +for a loftier destiny. In some, the pure spiritual part is finally +released by the love of the Sun from the lower powers of the +soul, which wither and fade away as the body does on earth. +Others, still retaining the composite nature, though no longer +tainted by the flesh, dwell in the moon as daemons, but often +revisit the earth on various missions, to furnish inspiration to +oracles and mysteries, to save men from crime or to punish, +to help the struggling by land or sea. But even the daemons +may fall from their high estate. If, in their duties of providence +and succour, they show anger or favour or envy, they +<pb n="528"/><anchor id="Pg528"/>may be thrust down once more into the purgatory of material +form.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Fac. in Orb. Lun.</hi> c. 30.</note> +</p> + +<p> +It may well be that the unsympathetic critic will regard +such an imaginative invasion of the unseen as a freak of +lawless fancy, hardly worth chronicling. And like all similar +attempts, the apocalypse of Plutarch may easily be treated +with an airy ridicule. To a more serious criticism, it seems +vitiated by a radical inconsistency. Starting with the principle +of the absolutely immaterial nature of the immortal part of +man, it yet depicts its future existence in the warmest colours +of the world of sense. Its struggles, its tortures, its beatitude +are described in terms which might seem fitting only to a +corporeal nature. All this is true; and yet the answer which +Plutarch would probably have made to any such cavils is very +simple. How can you speak of pure disembodied spirit at all, +how can you imagine it, save in the symbolism of ordinary +speech? Refine and subtilise your language to the very +uttermost, and it will still retain associations and reminiscences, +however faint and distant, of the material world. Myth and +symbol are necessary to any expression of human thought +alike about God and the future of the soul. The Infinite +Spirit and the future destiny of the finite, which is His child, +are equally beyond the range of human sense and speech. +When the human spirit has exhausted all its efforts of +imagination to pierce the darkness of the world beyond the +grave, it takes refuge in some religious system which claims +to have a divine message and speaks in the tones of another +world. The voice from eternity came to troubled heathendom +from Egypt and the East. +</p> + +</div><div type="chapter" n="3" rend="page-break-before: always"> +<pb n="529"/><anchor id="Pg529"/> +<index index="toc" level1="III. The old Roman religion"/><index index="pdf" level1="III. The old Roman religion"/> +<head>CHAPTER III</head> + +<head type="sub">THE OLD ROMAN RELIGION</head> + +<p> +It is well known that, from the second Punic War to the +revival of Augustus, old Roman religion was falling into +decay. Yet sweeping assertions about the religious condition +of any age must he taken with some reserve. They are +often unsafe about a contemporary society; they must be still +more so with regard to a society which is known to us almost +entirely through the literary remains of a comparatively small +cultivated class. Even among that limited circle, we can +know only the opinions of a few, and hardly anything of its +silent members, still less of the feelings of its women and +dependents. A deep shadow rests on those remote granges +and quiet country towns in Samnium or Lombardy where +character remained untainted in the days of Nero or Domitian, +and where the religion of Numa long defied the penal edicts of +Theodosius and Honorius. Lucretius, whose mission it was to +liberate men from the terrors of old Latin and Etrurian superstition, +was not contending against an imaginary foe. The +sombre enthusiasm which he throws into the conflict reveals +the strength of the enemy. The grandmother of Atticus and +Terentia, the wife of Cicero, were timorous devotees. Among +the aristocratic augurs of Cicero’s day there were firm believers +in the sacred birds; and Lentulus, a confederate of Catiline, +trusted implicitly in the oracles of the Sibyl.<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> i. p. 67.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Still there can be no doubt that in the governing and thinking +class of the last century of the Republic, scepticism and +even open contempt for the old religion were rampant. Many +causes were at work to produce this decadence of old Roman +<pb n="530"/><anchor id="Pg530"/>faith. It was hardly possible for the cultivated Roman of the +days of Scipio Aemilianus, or of Cicero and Caesar, who had +fought and travelled in many lands, and studied their +mythologies and philosophies, to acquiesce in the faith of the +simple farmers of Latium, who founded the Ambarvalia and +Lupercalia, who offered the entrails of a dog to Robigus<note place="foot">W. Fowler, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Festivals</hi>, p. 89.</note> and +milk to Pales and Silvanus, who worshipped Jupiter Feretrius +under the mountain oak.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 229.</note> Since those far-off days, Latium +had come under many influences, and added many new deities +to her pantheon. The gods of Hellas had come to be identified +with the gods of Rome, or to share their honours. Syncretism +had been at work in Italy centuries before the days of Plutarch +and Aristides. And the old Italian deities, who had only a +shadowy personality, with no poetry of legend to invest them +with human interest, melted into one another or into forms of alien +mythology. Greek literature became familiar to the educated +from the Hannibalic war, and a writer like Euripides, who had +a great popularity, must have influenced many by the audacious +skill with which he lowered the dignity and dimmed the +radiance of the great figures of Greek legend. The comic +stage improved upon the lesson. Early in the second century +Ennius translated the Sacred Histories of Euhemerus, and +familiarised his countrymen with a theory which reduced +Jupiter and Saturn, Faunus and Hercules, to the stature of +earthly kings and warriors. But Greek philosophy was the +great solvent of faith. The systems of the New Academy and +Epicurus were openly or insidiously hostile to religious belief. +But they had not so long and powerful a reign over the Roman +mind as Stoicism, and, although the earlier Stoicism extended +a philosophic patronage to popular religion, it may be doubted +whether it stimulated faith. There was indeed a certain +affinity between Stoical doctrine and old Roman religion, as +there was between Stoic morals and old Roman character. In +resolving the gods by allegory and pseudo-scientific theory into +various potencies of the great World-Soul, the follower of Zeno +did not seem to do much violence to the vaguely personified +abstractions of the old Latin creed. Above all, with the exception +of Panaetius, the Stoic doctors did not throw doubt +on the powers of divination and augury, so essential an element +<pb n="531"/><anchor id="Pg531"/>in the religion of Rome. The power to read the future was a +natural corollary to the providence and benevolence of the +gods.<note place="foot">Cic. <hi rend="italic">De Div.</hi> i. 5, 9, existimo ... +si Dii sint, esse qui divinent; i, 38, +82; si sunt Dii, neque ante declarant +hominibus quae futura sint, aut non +diligunt homines, aut quid eventurum +sit ignorant. This argument is attributed +to Chrysippus and Diogenes in ii. +49, 101.</note> Yet, although the Stoic might strive to discover the +germ of truth, he did not conceal his contempt for the husk of +mythology in which it was hidden, and for many of the practices +of worship.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Frag.</hi> 39 (Aug. <hi rend="italic">De Civ. D.</hi> +vi. 11). See Varro’s opinion, <hi rend="italic">ib.</hi> vi. 5.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Quintus Scaevola and Varro applied all the forces of subtle +antiquarianism and reverence to sustain the ancestral faith. +But they also drew the line sharply between the religion of +philosophy and the religion of the State. And Varro went so +far as to say that the popular religion was the creation of early +statesmen,<note place="foot"><anchor id="Note531-3"/><hi rend="italic">De Civ. Dei</hi>, vi. 4.</note> and that if the work had to be done again, it might +be done better in the light of philosophy. The Stoic in +Cicero, as Seneca did after him, treated the tales of the gods +as mere anile superstition.<note place="foot">Cic. <hi rend="italic">De Nat. D.</hi> ii. 28, 70; cf. Sen. +<hi rend="italic">Frag.</hi> 39, cf. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 95, 47.</note> It is probable that such was the +tone, in their retired debates, of the remarkable circle which +surrounded Scipio and Laelius. Panaetius, their philosophic +guide, had less sympathy than any great Stoic with popular +theology.<note place="foot">Cic. <hi rend="italic">De Div.</hi> i. 3, 6.</note> Polybius gave small place to Providence in human +affairs, and regarded Roman religion as the device of statesmen +to control the masses by mystery and terror.<note place="foot">Polyb. vi. 56, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καὶ μοι δοκεῖ τὸ παρὰ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἀνθρώποις ὀνειδιζόμενον +τοῦτο συνέχειν τὰ Ῥωμαίων πράγματα, λέγω δὲ τὴν δεισιδαιμονίαν, +ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον γὰρ ἐκτετραγῴδεται ... ὥστε μὴ καταλιπεῖν ὑπερβολἠν, κτλ.</foreign></note> Yet these men +were enthusiastic champions of a system which they regarded +as irrational, but which was consecrated by immemorial +antiquity. Laelius defended the institutions of Numa in a +speech of golden eloquence which moved the admiration of +Cicero, just as Symmachus defended them five centuries later +before the council of Valentinian.<note place="foot">Cic. <hi rend="italic">De Nat. Deor.</hi> iii 17, 43, in +illa aureola oratiuncula, cf. Sym. <hi rend="italic">Rel.</hi> iii.</note> The divorce between +esoteric belief and official profession must have insidiously +lowered the moral tone of those who were at once thinkers +and statesmen. Such a false position struck some of the +speakers in Cicero’s theological dialogues, and it makes his own +opinions an enigma.<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> i. p. 60.</note> The external and utilitarian attitude to +<pb n="532"/><anchor id="Pg532"/>the State religion hardly secured even punctual or reverent +conformity in the last age of the Republic. Divination and +augury had become mere engines of political intrigue, and the +aristocratic magistrate could hardly take the omens without a +smile. Varro could not repress the fear that the old religion, +on which he expended such a wealth of learning, might perish +from mere negligence.<note place="foot">Aug. <hi rend="italic">De Civ. D.</hi> vi. 2; cf. Cic. <hi rend="italic">De +Leg.</hi> ii. 13, 33, dubium non est quin +haec disciplina et ars augurum evanuerit +jam et vetustate et negligentia.</note> The knowledge of liturgical usage +began to fade, and Varro had to recall the very names of +forgotten gods. An ancient priesthood of the highest rank +remained unfilled for seventy years.<note place="foot">D. Cass. liv. 36; cf. W. Fowler’s +<hi rend="italic">Rom. Fest.</hi> p. 343, Preller, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Mythol.</hi> +p. 24.</note> Scores of the most +venerable temples were allowed to fall into ruin,<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> c. 30.</note> and ancient +brotherhoods like the Titii and Fratres Arvales are hardly +heard of for generations before the reforms of the Augustan age. +</p> + +<p> +It is not within the scope of this work to enter minutely +into the subject of that great effort of reform or reaction. +It is commonly said that the cool imperial statesman had +chiefly political ends in view, and especially the aggrandisement +and security of the principate. And certainly Ovid, who +strove to interest his countrymen in the revival of their religion, +does not display much seriousness in religion or morals. He +treats as lightly the amours of Olympus as the intrigues of +the Campus Martius and the Circus. Yet it may well have +been that after the terrible orgies of civil strife through which +the Roman world had passed, Augustus was the convinced +representative of a repentant wish to return to the old paths. +The Roman character, through all wild aberrations of a trying +destiny, was an enduring type. And Augustus, if he may have +indulged in impious revels in his youth, which recall the +wanton freaks of Alcibiades,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 70, coena + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">δωδεκάθεος</foreign>: cf. +Thuc. vi. c. 28, § 1.</note> had two great characteristics of +the old Roman mind, formalism and superstition. He had +an infinite faith in dreams and omens. He would begin no +serious business on the Nones.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> c. 91, 92.</note> When he had to pronounce +a funeral oration over his sister, Octavia, he had a curtain +drawn before the corpse, lest the eyes of the pontiff might be +polluted by the sight of death.<note place="foot">D. Cass. liv. 35 <hi rend="italic">ad fin.</hi></note> We may think that his +<pb n="533"/><anchor id="Pg533"/>religious revival was not inspired by real religious sentiment. +Yet it is well to remind ourselves that old Roman religion, +while it consecrated and solemnised the scenes and acts of +human life, was essentially a formal religion; the <hi rend="italic">opus +operatum</hi> was the important thing. Its business was to avert +the anger or win the favour of dim unearthly powers; it was +not primarily to purify or elevate the soul. Above all, it was +interwoven from the beginning with the whole fabric of society +and the State. Four centuries after Augustus was in his +grave, it was only by a violent wrench, which inflicted infinite +torture even on pagan mystics of the Neoplatonist school, that +Rome was severed from the gods who had been the guardians +and partners of her career for twelve hundred years. The +altar of Victory which Augustus had placed in the Senate-house, +and before which twelve generations of senators after +him offered their prayers for the chief of the State, the most +sacred symbol of the pagan Empire, was only removed after a +fierce, obstinate struggle. +</p> + +<p> +The religious revival of Augustus may not have aroused +any deep religious sentiment; that, as we shall see, was to +come from a different source. But it gave a fresh life to the +formal religion of the State, which maintained itself till within +a few years before the invasion of Alaric. The title Augustus +which the new emperor assumed was one which, to the +Roman mind, associated him with the majesty of Jupiter and +the sanctity of all holy places and solemn rites.<note place="foot">Ov. <hi rend="italic">Fasti</hi>, i. 609, hic socium +summo cum Jove nomen habet. Sancta +vocant augusta patres; augusta vocantur +Templa, sacerdotum rite dicata +manu.</note> It was +the beginning of that theocratic theory of monarchy which +was to culminate, under the influence of Sun-worship, in the +third century, and to propagate itself into ages far removed +from the worship of Jupiter or the Sun. Although +the counsels of Maecenas, recorded by Dion Cassius, may be +apocryphal, Augustus acted in their spirit.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lii. 36, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τὸ μὲν θεῖον πάντῃ πάντως αὐτός τε σέβου καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους +τιμᾷν ἀνάγκαζε</foreign>.</note> As triumvir he +had raised a shrine to Isis,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xlvii. 15 <hi rend="italic">ad fin.</hi></note> as emperor he frowned on alien +worships.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> liv. 6.</note> His mission was to restore the ancient religion of +Latium. He burnt two thousand books of spurious augury, +retaining only the Sibylline oracles.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> c. 31.</note> He restored the ancient +<pb n="534"/><anchor id="Pg534"/>temples, some of them, like those of Jupiter Feretrius and +Juno Sospita, coeval with the Roman State, and encouraged +his friends to do the same for other venerable monuments of +devotion. The most lavish gifts of gold and jewels were +dedicated in the Capitoline temples. The precision of ancient +augury was restored. Ancient priesthoods which had been +long vacant were filled up, and the sacred colleges were raised +in dignity and wealth.<note place="foot">D. Cass. li. 20.</note> Special care was taken to recall the +vestals to the chaste dignity from which they had fallen for a +hundred years. Before taking his seat, each senator was +required to make a prayer, with an offering of incense and +wine before the altar. Three worships, specially connected +with the fortunes of Augustus or his race,—those of Venus +Genetrix, Mars Ultor, and the Palatine Apollo,—were revived +with added splendour.<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> i. 87.</note> The emperor paid special attention +to the ancient sacred colleges, such as the Salii and Arvales, +which went back to days far earlier than the Republic. Amid +all the cares of State, he attended their meetings punctually. +The dangerous right of co-optation was quietly withdrawn, till +the members in the end owed their appointment to the sacerdotal +chief of the State.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">Röm. Staatsr.</hi> ii. p. +1024.</note> The colleges became the most courtly +and deferential supports of the prince’s power. Prayers for +his safety soon found a place in their antique litanies. It has +been said with some truth that the Salii and Arvales seem to +be thinking more of the emperors than of the gods. The +colleges had a courtly memory for all anniversaries in the +imperial family. The Arval brothers achieved the infamy of +complimenting Nero on his return after the murder of Agrippina,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 2042; cf. 2444 and 2034. +Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> i. p 363.</note> +and made vows of equal fervour for all the emperors +of the year 69.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 2051, 2.</note> +</p> + +<p> +But it was through the chief pontificate that the emperors +did most at once to fortify and dignify their secular power, +and to prolong the reign of the old Latin religion. It was +the highest religious dignity of ancient Rome. The college of +which the emperor, as Pontifex Maximus, was head exercised +a supreme and comprehensive control over the whole field +of religion.<note place="foot">Momms. <hi rend="italic">Röm. Staatsr.</hi> ii. p. 1022.</note> It was charged with the duty of maintaining +<pb n="535"/><anchor id="Pg535"/>the ancestral purity and exactness of the national worship, +and of repressing tendencies to innovation and the adoption +of alien rites. It selected the virgins who guarded the +eternal fire, and sat in judgment on erring vestals and their +betrayers. It had special jurisdiction in questions of adoption, +burial, and sacred sites.<note place="foot">Liv. i. 20.</note> From Augustus every emperor +was also chief pontiff;<note place="foot">Habel, <hi rend="italic">De Pontif. Rom.</hi> p. 45.</note> even the Christian princes from +Constantine to Valentinian and Valens bear the honoured +title in the inscriptions, and accepted the pontifical robes.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 1080, 1117; cf. Zosim. iv. 36; +Amm. Marc. xvi. 10; Sym. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> x. 54.</note> Thus +the emperors strove in their religious attributes to connect +themselves with the sacred tradition of Numa and the Roman +kings. And, as time went on, the imperial house claimed a +growing share in the pontifical honours. Nero, indeed, had +been a member of all the sacred colleges as well as chief +pontiff.<note place="foot">Habel, <hi rend="italic">De Pontif. Rom.</hi> p. 13.</note> But down to the reign of Vespasian only one of the +<q>Caesares</q> could belong to the sacred college. But his sons +Titus and Domitian were co-opted to the pontificate and all +the priestly colleges before his death.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> pp. 16, 17, 62; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 932, +1984.</note> From Hadrian the +pontificate and all the highest sacerdotal honours were held by +all designated successors of the emperor.<note place="foot">Habel, p. 62.</note> Antoninus Pius has +the insignia of four priestly colleges on his coins.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 24.</note> M. Aurelius +was one of the Salian brotherhood in his eighth year,<note place="foot">Jul. Capitol. <hi rend="italic">M. Ant. Phil.</hi> c. 4.</note> and was +received into all the colleges at nineteen.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 6.</note> Commodus had +reached the same sacred honours before he assumed the toga,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 16; Lamprid. <hi rend="italic">Com.</hi> c. 12 +(a. 175).</note> and +in five years more was Pontifex Maximus. Thus deeply had +the policy of Augustus sunk into the minds of his successors. +It is little wonder that never in the great days of the Republic +were the forms of ancient religion more scrupulously observed +than in the reign of M. Aurelius.<note place="foot">Jul. Capitol. <hi rend="italic">M. Ant.</hi> c. 13.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Private opinion after the Augustan revival greatly varied +as to matters of faith. Men like the elder Pliny and Seneca +scoffed at anthropomorphic religion. Men like Juvenal +and Tacitus maintained a wavering attitude, with probably a +receding faith. Others like Suetonius were rapacious collectors of +every scrap of the miraculous. The emperors who succeeded +<pb n="536"/><anchor id="Pg536"/>Augustus were, with the exception of Nero, loyal supporters +and protectors of the religion of the State. Tiberius, although +personally careless of religion, displayed a scrupulous respect +for ancient usage in filling up the ancient priesthoods, and in +guarding the Sibylline verses from interpolations.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iv. 16. Yet he is said +to be <hi rend="italic">circa deos negligentior</hi>, c. 69.</note> He also +frowned on the imported rites of Egypt.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 36.</note> Claudius, at once +pedantic and superstitious, revived venerable rites of the days +of Tullus Hostilius, and, when an ill-omened bird alighted on +the temple of Jupiter, as supreme pontiff, the emperor pronounced +the solemn form of expiation before the assembled +people.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Claud.</hi> c. 22; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> +xii. 8.</note> Nero, and the Neronian competitors for the Empire, +in the fierce conflict which followed his death, were, indeed, +often, though not always, careless of ancient rite, but they were +all the slaves of superstition.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Otho</hi>, c. 7, 8, 12; <hi rend="italic">Vitell.</hi> c. +5, 11; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 87.</note> The Flavians and Antonines +were religious conservatives of the spirit of Augustus. There +is a monument to Vespasian of the year 78 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> as <q>the +restorer of temples and public ceremonies.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 2364.</note> The restoration +of the Capitol, which had been burned down in the civil war, +was one of the first tasks of his reign. And the ceremony +made such an impression on the imagination of the youthful +Tacitus, that he has recorded with studied care the stately +and accurate ritual of olden time which was observed by the +emperor.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iv. 53.</note> Domitian carried on the restoration on even a +more splendid scale; he was a devotee of Minerva, and a +rigorous vindicator of old ascetic religious law.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> c. 5, 15.</note> The emperor +Hadrian, whose character is an enigma of contrasts, to judge by +his last famous <hi rend="italic">jeu d’esprit</hi> on his death-bed, probably died a +sceptic. Yet his biographer tells us that he was a careful +guardian of the ancient ritual.<note place="foot">Ael. Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> c. 22.</note> The archaistic fashion in +literary taste, which had begun in the first century, and which +culminated in Hadrian’s reign, favoured and harmonised with +a scrupulous observance of ancient forms in religion.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 16, § 5; Plin. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> vi. 21, +§ 1; Macé, <hi rend="italic">Suétone</hi>, p. 96; Martha, +<hi rend="italic">Moralistes</hi>, p. 184 sq.</note> The +genius of one too early taken away has done more than a +legion of historic critics to picture for us the sad, dutiful piety +of a spirit of the Antonine age, steeped in philosophies which +<pb n="537"/><anchor id="Pg537"/>made the passing moment of vivid artistic perception the +great end of life, yet still instinct with the old Roman love +of immemorial forms at the harvest gathering or the yearly +offering to the dead members of the household.<note place="foot">Pater, <hi rend="italic">Marius</hi>, chap. ii., xxvii.</note> The cheerless +negation of Epicurus, and the equally withering theology +of the Stoics, could not weaken in Roman hearts the spell of +ancestral pieties which clustered round the vault near the grey +old country house of the race, looking down on the Tyrrhene +sea, or the awe of ancient grove or spring sacred to Silvanus +and the Nymphs, or the calm, chastened joy in a ritual in which +every act was dictated by a love of ceremonial cleanness and +exactness, and redolent of an immemorial past. In such a +household, and in such an atmosphere, the two great Antonines +were reared. The first, who was before all else an honest +country gentleman, fond of hunting, fishing, and the gladness +of the vintage at Lorium, never failed to perform all due +sacrifices unless he was ill. His coins bear the pictured +legends of the infancy of Rome.<note place="foot">Jul. Capitol. <hi rend="italic">Ant. P.</hi> c. 11.</note> M. Aurelius was famous +as a boy for his knowledge of Roman ritual. Enrolled in the +college of the Salii in his eighth year, he performed all its +sacred offices with perfect composure, reciting from memory, +with no one to dictate the form, every word of the ancient +liturgy which had in his generation become almost unintelligible.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 4.</note> +In the terror of the Marcomannic invasion he +delayed his departure for the seat of war to summon around +him all the priests; he had the city purified in solemn, +decorous fashion, not excluding even the rites of alien lands; +and for seven days the images of the gods were feasted on +their couches along all the streets.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 13.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The emperors from Augustus found religion a potent ally of +sovereignty, and the example of the master of the world was a +great force. Yet it may well be doubted whether, in the matter +of religious conservatism, the emperors were not rather following +than leading public opinion. Gods were in those times being +created by the score; apotheosis was in the air from the days of +Nero to the days of the Severi. Petronius, with an exaggeration +which has a certain foundation in fact, affirms that in Croton +you could more readily light upon a god than on a man.<note place="foot">Petron. c. 17.</note> The +<pb n="538"/><anchor id="Pg538"/>elder Pliny uses almost the same strength of language. The +grumbler in Lucian indignantly complains of the fashion in +which the ancient gods of Olympus are being overshadowed by +the divine <hi rend="italic">parvenus</hi> of every clime. And, as we shall presently +see, the inscriptions reveal an immense propaganda of worships +in tone and spirit apparently hostile to the old religion of the +Latin race. Yet the inscriptions also show that the old gods +had really little to fear from the new. A survey of the index +to almost any volume of the Corpus will convince the student +that the Trinity of the Capitol,—Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva,—that +Hercules and Silvanus, the Nymphs, Semo Sancus and +Dea Dia, Mars and Fortuna, so far from being neglected, were +apparently more popular than ever.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iii. p. 1160 sqq.; xii. p. +924 sqq.; <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> iii.; <hi rend="italic">Ind.</hi> pp. 25, +29, 30, 33.</note> In an age of growing +monotheism the King of the gods was, of course, still supreme +in his old ascendency. Jupiter is worshipped under many +titles; he is often coupled or identified with some provincial +deity of ancient fame.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> xii. 3070, 3077; 2383; iii. +2804, 5787; <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 1244, 1245.</note> But Jupiter is everywhere. The +Lord of the thunder and the tempest has shrines on the +high passes of the Apennines or the Alps,<note place="foot">Liv. xxi. 38, quem in summo sacratum +vertice Poeninum montani appellant; +<hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 231-6, 5028, 1271.</note> and soldiers or +travellers leave the memorials of their gratitude for his +protection on perilous journeys.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 1267, 1271.</note> The women of Campanian +towns go in procession to implore him to send rain.<note place="foot">Petron. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> 44.</note> Antoninus +Pius built a temple to Juno Sospita of Lanuvium, where the +goddess had a sacred grove, and a worship of great antiquity.<note place="foot">Jul. Capitol. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Ant. P.</hi> c. 8; +Preller, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Myth.</hi> p. 185.</note> +The Quinquatria of Minerva were not only celebrated with +special honour by Domitian, but by large and powerful classes +who owned her divine patronage, physicians and artists, orators +and poets.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Dom.</hi> c. 4.</note> Some of the old Latin deities seem to have even +grown in popularity under the early Empire. Hercules, the +god of plenty, strong truth, and good faith, whose legend is +intertwined with the most venerable names in Roman story, +has his altars and monuments everywhere.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 1561, 1590; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> xii. +4316; iii. 1162.</note> Combining with +his own native Latin character the poetic prestige of his +brother of Greek legend, he became the symbol of world-<pb n="539"/><anchor id="Pg539"/>wide conquest, and was associated in the end with the triumph +of the <q>unconquered</q> Mithra. His image is stamped upon the +coins of some of the emperors. Septimius Severus, Caracalla, +and Diocletian took him for their great divine patron and +ensample.<note place="foot">Preller, p. 437.</note> Silvanus, too, the god of the primeval forest, and, +when the forest had receded, the god of the shepherd and the +farmer, the guardian of boundaries, acquired a strange vogue +in what was eminently an age of cities. One is apt, however, +to forget sometimes that it was an age which had also a charming +country life. A Roman cavalry officer in Britain has left +a memorial of his gratitude to Silvanus for the capture of a +wild boar of surpassing size and strength,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 1603.</note> which had long +defied the hunter. In one of the forest cantons of the Alps a +procurator of the imperial estates inscribed his gratitude in +a pretty set of verses to the god of the wilds, whose image +was enshrined in the fork of a sacred ash.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 1613.</note> It is the record +of many a day passed in lonely forest tracks, coupled with a +prayer to be restored safely to Italian fields and the gardens +of Rome. The nymphs and river gods had all their old honours. +Chapels and hostelries, in the days of Pliny, rose on the banks +of the Clitumnus, where the votaries easily combined pleasure +with religious duty. The nymphs receive votive thanks for +the discovery of hidden springs, or for the reappearance of some +fountain long dried up.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 1632, 1634, 1637, 5758a.</note> Aesculapius, who had been naturalised +in Italy since the beginning of the third century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, sprang +to a foremost place in the age of the Antonines. Whether it +was <q>an age of valetudinarians,</q> as has been said, may be +doubtful; but it was an age eagerly in quest of the health +which so often comes from the quiet mind. Whatever we +may think of the powers of the old Olympians, there can be +no doubt about the beneficent influence of the god of Epidaurus. +He was summoned to Rome 300 years before Christ, and +obtained a home in the island in the Tiber, where for ages he +gave his succour in dreams. His worship spread far and wide, +and was one of the last to succumb to the advance of the +Church.<note place="foot">Preller, pp. 406-8; <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 1580, 1581, +1572.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The unassailable permanence of the old religion may perhaps +<pb n="540"/><anchor id="Pg540"/>be still more vividly realised in the long unbroken life of +sacred colleges, such as the Salii and the Fratres Arvales. The +Arval brotherhood was probably the oldest sacred corporation +of Latium, as its liturgy, preserved in the Acta from the reign +of Augustus to that of Gordian, is the oldest specimen of the +Latin language.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2270; cf. Wordsworth, +<hi rend="italic">Specimens of Early Latin</hi>, p. 158; +<hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 2024 sqq.</note> According to the legend, the first members +were the twelve sons of Acca Larentia, the foster-mother of +Romulus, and Romulus himself first held the dignity of master +of the brotherhood.<note place="foot">Preller, p. 293.</note> Its patron goddess, Dea Dia,<note place="foot">Fowler, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Festivals</hi>, p. 74, 275.</note> was, as +her very name suggests, one of those dim shadowy conceptions +dear to old Roman awe, who was worshipped in the still +solitude of ancient groves, on whose trunks no axe of iron +might ever ring,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 2059, ob inlatum ferrum, +etc.</note> a power as elusive and multiform to picturing +fancy as the secret forces which shot up the corn ear from the +furrow. The whole tone of the antique ritual savours of a time +when the Latin race was a tribe of farmers, believing with a simple +faith that the yearly increase of their fields depended on the +favour of secret unearthly powers. The meetings of the college +took place on three days in May, the precise dates being fixed and +solemnly announced by their master on the 3rd of January.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> vi. 2040, 2041, 2043; Preller, +p. 294; Oldenberg, <hi rend="italic">De Sacris Fr. Arv.</hi> +p. 5.</note> +The festival began and ended in the master’s house at Rome, the +intermediate day being spent in a sacred grove on the right bank +of the Tiber, about four miles from the city. There was much +feasting, at which the brethren were attended by the Camilli, +four sons of high-born senators. Corn of the new and the +preceding year was touched and blessed; libations and incense +were offered to the goddess, and all the rites were performed +with many changes of costume, which were rigidly observed.<note place="foot">Oldenberg, p. 9.</note> +In the ceremonies which took place in the grove, an expiatory +sacrifice of two porkers and a white cow was always offered, +to atone for the use of any iron implement, or other infringement +of the ancient rubric.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 2086.</note> Fat lambs were offered in +sacrifice to Dea Dia, and ancient earthen vessels of rude make, +resembling those of the age of Numa, were adored upon the +altar.<note place="foot">Boissier, i. p. 369; Oldenberg, p. +41.</note> Ears of corn, plucked in some neighbouring field, were +<pb n="541"/><anchor id="Pg541"/>blessed and passed from the hand of one member to another, +and back again in reverse order, and, at last, in the closed +temple, along with solemn dancing, the famous chant was intoned +from ancient scrolls, the words of which had long become +strange even to the antiquary. After another meal in the hall +of the brotherhood, the members passed on to the circus and +gave the signal for the races to begin.<note place="foot">Boissier, i. p. 374; Preller, p. 295.</note> +</p> + +<p> +This ritual, so little heard of before the time of Augustus, +is chiefly known to us from the Acta which have been recovered +from the site of the ancient grove. The monuments of it +extend from the reign of Augustus to the year 241 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 2023-2113.</note> +Members of the highest aristocracy and princes of the imperial +house appear on its lists. Its membership was a high distinction, +and was sometimes conferred by the potent recommendation +of the emperor.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2056, ex tabella missa Imp. +Vesp. cooptamus, etc.</note> The college evidently became a +great support of the imperial power. +</p> + +<p> +The emperors were elected <hi rend="italic">magistri</hi> of the College, and we +can read that Caligula, Nero, Vespasian, and Titus were present +at its meetings. In the opening days of January the most +solemn vows are made in old Roman fashion for the emperor’s +safety, to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, to Salus and Dea Dia, +and they are duly paid by offerings of oxen with gilded horns.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2024.</note> +So servile or so devoted to the throne was the brotherhood, +that their prayers were offered with equal fervour for three +emperors in the awful year 69 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2051.</note> The vows made for +Galba in the first week of January were alertly transferred to +the cause of Otho the day after Galba’s murder.<note place="foot">Jan. 16, 69 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi></note> The college +met to sacrifice in honour of Otho’s pontificate on the day +(March 14) on which he set out to meet his doom in the battle +on the Po. Thirteen days after his death, while the spring air +was still tainted with the rotting heaps on the plain of Bedriacum, +vows as fervent or as politic were registered for Vitellius. +In the summer of the following year, the arrival of Vespasian in +the capital was celebrated by the Arval brothers with sacrifices +to Jupiter, Juno, Minerva and Fortuna Redux.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 2052.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The college, as a matter of course, paid due honour to +the emperor’s birthday and all important anniversaries in his +<pb n="542"/><anchor id="Pg542"/>family. It is interesting to see how for years the Neronian +circle, the Othos and Vitellii, along with Valerii and Cornelii, +appear in all the records of the college.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 2040, 2041.</note> It was apparently +devoted to Nero. The brothers celebrate his birthday and all +the civic and sacerdotal honours heaped upon him.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2039.</note> They make +vows for his wife Octavia, and soon after, for the safety of +Poppaea in childbirth. The matricide dreaded to return from +Campania after his unnatural crime, but his admirers knew well +the abasement of the Roman aristocracy, and promised him an +enthusiastic reception. The Arval brotherhood, which then +included a Regulus and a Memmius, redeemed the promise, +and voted costly sacrifices for his safe restoration to the +capital.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2042.</note> They execrate the secret plots against his sacred +person, and offer thanksgiving for the detection of the Pisonian +conspiracy.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2044; cf. 2029 (Caligula).</note> +</p> + +<p> +The extant prayers and congratulations for the safety of +Vespasian are much more quiet and restrained than those for +his cruel son Domitian.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2064, 2067.</note> The public joy at Domitian’s +safe return from ambiguous victories in Germany or Dacia is +faithfully re-echoed, and effusive supplications are recorded for +his safety from all peril and for the eternity of the Empire whose +bounds he has enlarged. There is a sincerer tone in the prayers, +in the spring of 101, for the safe return of Trajan, when he was +setting out for his first campaign on the Danube, and on his +home-coming four years later.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2074.</note> The Arval records of Hadrian’s +reign are chiefly noteworthy for his letters to the college, +recommending his friends for election.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2078.</note> In the reign of +Antoninus Pius the Acta register those perfervid acclamations +which meet us in the later Augustan histories:<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 2086; cf. Flav. Vop. <hi rend="italic">Probus</hi>, c. 12.</note>—<q>O nos +felices qui te Imperatorem videmus; Di te servent in perpetuo; +juvenis triumphis, senex Imperator!</q> The young M. Aurelius +is first mentioned in 155 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> Probably the sincerest utterance +in the Arval liturgies is the petition for his safety, and +that of L. Verus, from peril in the years when the Quadi and +Marcomanni swept down through Rhaetia and the Julian +Alps to the shores of the Adriatic.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 2092.</note> +</p> + +<pb n="543"/><anchor id="Pg543"/> + +<p> +It was thus that the antique ritual of a rustic brotherhood +was converted into a potent support of the imperial power. +No part of the Augustan revival was perhaps so successful. +Probably few of the emperors, or of the aristocratic brothers +who intoned the litany for the safety of the imperial house, +had much faith in its efficacy. But the ceremony linked the +principate with the most venerable traditions of Latium, and +with Romulus the first master of the college. When we read +the minute and formal record of these coarse sacrifices and +rude, fantastic rites, with the chanting of prayers no longer +understood, we are amazed at the prolongation for so many +ages of religious ideas which the Roman mind might appear to +have outgrown. Yet in such inquiries there is often a danger +of treating society as a uniform mass, moving together along +the same lines, and permeated through all its strata by the +same influences. In another chapter we have shown that the +masses were probably never so superstitious as in the second +century. And the singular thing is that the influx of foreign +religions, due to the wide conquests of Rome, never to the end +seems to have shaken the supreme attachment of the people +to their ancient gods. It is true that the drift towards +monotheism was felt even among the crowd. But while the +educated might find expression for that tendency in the adoration +of Isis or the Sun, the dim monotheism of the people turned to +the glorification of Jupiter. Dedications to him are the most +numerous in all lands. He is often linked with other gods or all +the gods,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iii. 5788; <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 1245, 1290.</note> but he is always supreme. And, while he is the lord +of tempest and thunder,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 1238, Fulguratori, 1240, 1271, +Jovi O. M. tempestatum potenti.</note> he is also addressed by epithets which +show that he is becoming a moral and spiritual power. On +many a stone he appears as the governor and preserver of all +things, monitor, guardian, and heavenly patron, highest and +best of the heavenly hierarchy.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iii, 1032, 1948, 1590; <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> +1269, 1248, 1225, 1269; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> xii. +1066.</note> Yet it is equally clear that +other gods are worshipped in the same spirit as of old. Roman +religion was essentially practical. Prayer and vow were the +means to win temporal blessings. The gods were expected, in +return for worship, to be of use to the devotee. It is evident +from the inscriptions that this conception of religion was as +<pb n="544"/><anchor id="Pg544"/>prevalent in the age of the Antonines, or of the oriental princes, +as it was under the Republic. The sailor still offers thanks +for his preservation to Neptune and the gods of the sea.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 1335.</note> The +successful merchant still honours Mercury.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 1410.</note> Minerva Memor +receives thanks for succour in sickness. A lady of Placentia +even pays her vows for the recovery of her hair.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 1428, 1429, restitutione facta sibi capillorum.</note> The reappearance +of a hidden spring is still attributed to the grace of +the Nymphs.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 1634.</note> And in many a temple the healing power of +Aesculapius is acknowledged by grateful devotees.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 1572, 1576.</note> +</p> + +<p> +A more difficult problem is presented by the attitude of the +cultivated class to the old mythologies. Since the days of +Xenophanes and of Plato, philosophy had revolted against the +degradation of the Divine character by ancient legend. It had +taught for ages the unity of the mysterious Power or Goodness +which lies behind the shifting scene of sense. Moreover, +philosophy for generations had deserted the heights of speculative +inquiry, and addressed itself to the task of applying the +spiritual truth which the schools had won to the problems of +practical religion and human life. Alike in Cicero, in Seneca, +in Plutarch, and M. Aurelius, there are conceptions of God and +the worship due to Him, of prayer, of the relation of conduct +to religion, which seem irreconcilable with conformity to the +old religion of Rome. How could a man, nourished on such +spiritual ideas and refined by a thousand years of growing +culture, take part in a gross materialistic worship, and even +gallantly defend it against all assailants? +</p> + +<p> +The conformity of highly instructed minds to ancient +systems which their reason has outgrown is not always to be +explained by the easy imputation of dishonesty. And that +explanation is even less admissible in ancient than in modern +times. Roman religion did not demand any profession of faith +in any theory of the unseen; all it required was ceremonial +purity and exactness. And the Roman world was never +scandalised by the spectacle of a notorious sceptic or libertine +holding the office of chief pontiff. If a man were more +scrupulous himself, philosophy, whether of the Porch or the +Academy, came to his aid. It would tell him that frail +<pb n="545"/><anchor id="Pg545"/>humanity, unable to comprehend the Infinite God, had parcelled +out and detached his various powers and virtues, which it +adored under material forms according to its varying needs.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> ii. 7, 5, fragilis et +laboriosa mortalitas in partes ista +digessit infirmitatis suae memor, ut +portionibus coleret quisque quo maxime +indigeret.</note> +Or it found a place for all the gods of heathendom, as +ministering or mediating spirits in the vast abyss which +separates us from the unapproachable and Infinite Spirit.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> supra, p. 425 sqq.</note> If +the legends which had gathered around the popular gods +offended a tender moral sense, men were taught that the +apparent grossness was an allegorical husk, or a freak of poetic +fancy which concealed a wholesome truth. Thus a pantheist +or monotheist, who would never have created such a religious +system for himself, was trained to cultivate a double self in +matters of religion, to worship reverently with the crowd, and +to believe with Zeno or with Plato. +</p> + +<p> +The heathen champion in the dialogue of Minucius Felix +maintains that, in the dimness and uncertainty of things, +the safest course is to hold fast to the gods of our fathers.<note place="foot">Min. Fel. <hi rend="italic">Octav.</hi> c. 6, quanto +venerabilius ac melius antistitem veritatis +majorum excipere disciplinam, +religiones traditas colere, deos, quos a +parentibus ante imbutus es timere +quam nosse familiarius, adorare, etc.</note> +The inclination of the sceptic was fortified by the conservative +instinct of the Latin race and its love of precedent and +precision of form. Moreover the religion of Numa was +probably more than any other involved and intertwined with +the whole life of the people. It penetrated the whole fabric +of society; it consecrated and dignified every public function, +and every act or incident of private life. To desert the +ancient gods was to cut oneself off from Roman society, as the +Christians were sternly made to feel. No established Church +in modern Christendom has probably ever so succeeded in +identifying itself with the national life in all its aspects. +Alike under the Republic and under the Empire, religion was +inseparable from patriotism. The imperial pontiff was bound +to watch over the purity and continuity of the Latin rites. He +might be a scoffer like Nero, or a spiritually-minded Stoic like +M. Aurelius, an Isiac devotee like Commodus, or devoted to the +Syrian worships like the Oriental princes of the third century. +But he took his duties seriously. He would dance with the Salii, +<pb n="546"/><anchor id="Pg546"/>or accept with gratitude the mastership of the Arval brotherhood, +or order a <hi rend="italic">lectisternium</hi> to ward off a pestilence or a menacing +invasion. The imperial colleges still held their meetings on +the eve of the revolution of Theodosius. Antiquarian nobles +still discussed nice questions of ritual in the reign of Honorius. +At the end of the fifth century the Lupercalia were still +celebrated with coarse, half-savage rites which went back to the +prehistoric times.<note place="foot">Virg. <hi rend="italic">Aen.</hi> viii. 343; Ov. <hi rend="italic">Fasti</hi>, +ii. 267; Baronius, <hi rend="italic">Ann. Eccl.</hi> viii. 60; +Gibbon, c. 36; Fowler, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Fest.</hi> p. 310.</note> The imperial policy, founded by Augustus, +no doubt inspired much of this conformity. But old Roman +sentiment, the passion expressed with such moving eloquence +by Symmachus, to feel himself in touch with a distant past<note place="foot">Sym. <hi rend="italic">Relat.</hi> 3.</note> +through a chain of unbroken continuity, was the great support +of the State religion in the fourth century as in the first. Yet, +among the great nobles who were its last champions—Flavianus, +Praetextatus, or Volusianus—there was a spiritual craving for +which the religion provided little satisfaction. They sought it +in the rites and mysteries of Eastern lands which had little in +common with the old Roman religious sentiment. In these +alien rites they found a new religious atmosphere. The priest, +set apart from the world, with his life-long obligations and the +daily offices in the shrine, becomes in some way a minister +to the spiritual life of his flock. Instead of cold ceremonial +observance, ecstatic emotion is aroused, often to a degree which +was perilous to character. Through a series of sacraments, with +ascetic preparation for them, the votary rose under priestly +guidance to some vision of the eternal world, with a new +conception of sin; this life and the next were linked in a moral +sequence, with tremendous issues of endless beatitude or endless +degradation. In a temple of Magna Mater, Isis, or Mithra in +the reign of Julian, we are far away from the worship of the +Lares and the offering of a heifer to Dea Dia in the grove on +the Tiber. We are travelling towards the spiritual mystery +and sacramental consolations of the mediaeval Church. +</p> +</div><div type="chapter" n="4" rend="page-break-before: always"> +<pb n="547"/><anchor id="Pg547"/> +<index index="toc" level1="IV. Magna Mater"/><index index="pdf" level1="IV. Magna Mater"/> +<head>CHAPTER IV</head> + +<head type="sub">MAGNA MATER</head> + +<p> +The earliest invader from the East of the sober decorum of +old Roman religion, and almost the last to succumb, was +Magna Mater of Pessinus. There is no pagan cult which S. +Augustine, and many of the Fathers before him, assail with +such indignant contempt as hers.<note place="foot">Aug. <hi rend="italic">De Civ. Dei</hi>, ii. 4; Tertull. +<hi rend="italic">Apol.</hi> 13; <hi rend="italic">Adv. Marc.</hi> i. 13.</note> And indeed it was long +regarded with suspicion by old Romans of the cultivated class. +For generations after her reception on the Palatine, no Roman +was permitted to enter her official service. But there was +something in that noisy and bloody ritual, and in the cruel, +ascetic sacrifice of its devotees, which exercised an irresistible +power over the imagination of the vulgar; and even Lucretius +felt a certain imaginative awe of the tower-crowned figure +drawn by lions and adored by the cities of many lands.<note place="foot">Lucret. ii. 600.</note> +Varro, who probably had no great love for the un-Roman +ritual, found a place for the Phrygian goddess in his théodicée.<note place="foot">Aug. <hi rend="italic">De Civ. Dei</hi>, ii. 8, vii. 24.</note> +Her baptism of blood in the taurobolium was a rite of such +strange enthralling influence that it needed all the force of the +Christian Empire to abolish it. And on many of the last +inscriptions of the fourth century the greatest names in the +Roman aristocracy leave the record of their cleansing in the +curious phrase <hi rend="italic">renatus in aeternum</hi>.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 499, 504, 509, 510, +511, 512; xii. 1782, 1567; <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 1899, +1890, 2335.</note> In his youth S. Augustine +had seen processions of effeminate figures with dripping locks, +painted faces, and soft womanish bearing, passing along the +streets of Carthage, and begging alms of the crowd. His +horror at the memory of the scene probably springs almost +<pb n="548"/><anchor id="Pg548"/>as much from the manly instincts of the Roman as from +the detestation of the Christian moralist for a debasing +superstition.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Civ. Dei</hi>, ii. 4, 7, 8; vi. 7; vii. +24.</note> +</p> + +<p> +But S. Augustine knew well the power of the superstition. +For more than 600 years the Great Mother had been enthroned +on the Palatine; for more than 300 years she had captivated +the remotest provinces of the West.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> ii. 179 (Spain, 108 p. Chr.); +iii. 1100, 1443 (Dacia, p. Chr. 110); +<hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 5839 (Portugal).</note> In the terror of the +Second Punic War, 204 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, she had been summoned by +solemn embassy from her original home at Pessinus in Galatia. +In obedience to a sibylline command, the Roman youth +with purest hands, together with the Roman matrons, had +welcomed her at Ostia.<note place="foot">Liv. 29, 10.</note> The ship which bore her up the +Tiber,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 1906, Navisalviae et matri D. +(<hi rend="italic">v.</hi> note).</note> when it grounded on a shoal, had been sent forward +on its way, to vindicate her calumniated virtue, by the touch +of a virgin of the Claudian house.<note place="foot">Ov. <hi rend="italic">Fasti</hi>, iv. 305; Sen. <hi rend="italic">Frag.</hi> 80; +Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> c. 2.</note> A decree of the Senate +in 191 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> had given the strange goddess a home on the +Palatine, hard by the shrine of Apollo; and the great +Megalesian festival in April was founded.<note place="foot">Fowler, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Fest.</hi> p. 70.</note> But the foreign +character of the cult was long maintained. It was a time +when the passion for religious excitement was in the air, and +when its excesses had to be restrained by all the forces of the +State. No Roman was permitted to accept the Phrygian +priesthood for a century after the coming of the Great +Mother.<note place="foot">Val. Max. vii. 7, 6; Goehler, <hi rend="italic">De +Matr. Magn. Cultu</hi>, p. 10.</note> But towards the end of the Republic, the goddess +had captured all imaginations, and her priests and symbols +meet us in all the poets of the great age.<note place="foot">Lucret. ii. 600; Virg. <hi rend="italic">Aen.</hi> ix. +620; x. 220; Ov. <hi rend="italic">A. Am.</hi> i. 507; +Prop. iii. 17, 35; cf. Preller, p. 484.</note> Augustus restored +her temple; some of his freedmen were among her priests;<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 496.</note> +Livia is pictured with the crown of towers upon her brow.<note place="foot">Goehler, p. 12.</note> +Then came a long interval, till the death of Nero, during +which the Phrygian goddess is hardly heard of.<note place="foot">Yet cf. D. Cass. lxi. 20, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἐκιθαρῴδεσέ τε Ἄττιν ὁ Αὔγουστος</foreign>.</note> With the +accession of the Flavians the eastern cults finally entered on +a long and unchallenged reign. Vespasian restored the temple +of the Great Mother at Herculaneum, which had been thrown +<pb n="549"/><anchor id="Pg549"/>down by an earthquake.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> x. 1406. Imp. Vesp. templum +M. M. terrae motu conlapsum +restituit.</note> In the reign of Trajan her worship +had penetrated to the Spanish peninsula,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> ii. 179 (108 p. Chr.); cf. <hi rend="italic">Or. +Henz.</hi> 5839.</note> and she is found, +along with other Eastern deities, in the towns of the new +province of Dacia.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iii. 1100, 1443.</note> The first glimpses of the taurobolium +appear before the middle of the second century, and the goddess +figures on the coins of Antoninus Pius.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> x. 1596 (Naples, p. Chr. 134).</note> A taurobolium +for that emperor was offered <q>with intention</q> at Lyons in +160 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2322.</note> and there are several dedications to Magna Mater +in the same reign made by colleges of the <hi rend="italic">Dendrophori</hi> at Ostia.<note place="foot">Goehler, p. 15.</note> +Tertullian tells how a high priest of Cybele vainly offered his +blood for the safety of M. Aurelius, seven days after the Emperor +had died in his quarters on the Danube.<note place="foot">Tertull. <hi rend="italic">Apol.</hi> 25; D. Cass. lxxi. 33.</note> It does not fall +within the scope of our present inquiry to trace the immense +popularity of the worship under the princes of the third +century. That was the period of the great triumph of the +spiritual powers of the East. At the end of the fourth century +the Great Mother and Mithra were in the van of the pagan +resistance to the religious revolution of Theodosius and his +sons.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 501 (p. Chr. 383); 509, +511, 510, 500.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The worship of Cybele, coming from the same regions as the +Trojan ancestors of Rome, was at first a patrician cult.<note place="foot">Réville, p. 60; Ov. <hi rend="italic">Fasti</hi>, iv. 251, + +<lg> +<l>Cum Trojam Aeneas Italos portaret in agros,</l> +<l rend="margin-left: 2">Est dea sacriferas paene secuta rates.</l> +</lg></note> +Members of the proudest houses bore a part in welcoming her +to a place in the Roman pantheon.<note place="foot">Ov. <hi rend="italic">l.c.</hi> 293.</note> Yet, as we have seen, +Romans were for generations forbidden to enrol themselves +among her effeminate priesthood. By a curious contradiction +of sentiment, people were fascinated by the ritual, while they +despised the celebrants. The legend which was interpreted by +Stoic and Neoplatonist as full of physical or metaphysical +meanings,<note place="foot">Aug. <hi rend="italic">De Civ. Dei</hi>, vi. 8; vii. 25; +Jul. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> v. p. 161 <hi rend="small">D</hi>.</note> had also elements of human interest which appealed +to the masses, always eager for emotional excitement. The love +of the Great Mother for a fair youth, his unfaithfulness, and +penitential self-mutilation under the pine-tree; the passionate +mourning for lost love, and then the restoration of the self-made +victim, attended by a choir of priests for ever, who had made +<pb n="550"/><anchor id="Pg550"/>the same cruel sacrifice<note place="foot">There were many variations of the +myth; <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Goehler, pp. 2, 3; <anchor id="corr550"/><corr sic="Foucart">Foucart,</corr> +<hi rend="italic">Assoc. Rel.</hi> p. 89; Ov. <hi rend="italic">Fasti</hi>, iv. 223.</note>—all this, so alien to old Roman +religious sentiment, triumphed over it in the end by novelty +and tragic interest. The legend was developed into a drama, +which, at the vernal festival of the goddess, was produced +with striking, if not artistic, effect. On the first day the +Dendrophori bore the sacred tree, wreathed with violets, to +the temple. There was then a pause for a day, and, on the +third, the priests, with frantic gestures and dishevelled hair, +abandoned themselves to the wildest mourning, lacerating their +arms and shoulders with wounds, from which the blood flowed +in torrents. Severe fasting accompanied these self-inflicted +tortures. Then came a complete change of sensation. On the +day called Hilaria the votaries gave themselves up to ecstasies +of joy, to celebrate the restoration of Attis. On the last day +of the festival a solemn procession took its way to the brook +Almon, to bathe the goddess in its waters.<note place="foot">Réville, p. 64; Preller, p. 485.</note> The sacred stone, +brought originally from her home in Asia, and the most sacred +symbol of the worship, wrapped in robes, was borne upon a +car with chants and music, and that gross, unabashed +naturalism which so often shocks and surprises us in pagan +ritual till we trace it to its source. +</p> + +<p> +The government long treated the cult of Cybele as a foreign +worship.<note place="foot">Fowler, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Festivals</hi>, p. 70; cf. +Foucart, <hi rend="italic">Assoc. Rel.</hi> p. 88, for similar +treatment at Athens.</note> The title of its great festival is Greek. Yet before +the close of the Republic, Romans are found enrolled in its +priesthoods and sacred colleges, and long lists of these official +votaries can be gathered from the inscriptions of the imperial +period. The archigallus, or high priest, appears often on the +Italian and provincial monuments. He is found at Merida, +Capua, Ostia, and Lyons, in Numidia and Portugal.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> x. 3810; viii. 8203; xii. +1782; ii. 5260.</note> He must +have performed his part at many a taurobolium, crowned with +laurel wreaths, wearing his mitre and ear-rings and armlets, with +the image of Attis on his breast.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xii. 1782; <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2325, +6031; Goehler, p. 40.</note> The names of the ordinary +priests abound, from the freedman of the house of Augustus to +the great nobles of the reign of Theodosius and Honorius.<note place="foot">Goehler, p. 12; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 511, +504, 500.</note> The +priesthood was sometimes held for life, or for a long term of years. +<pb n="551"/><anchor id="Pg551"/>A priest at Salonae in Dalmatia had punctually performed the +sacred offices for seventeen years.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iii. 2920; xii. 1567.</note> Women were naturally +admitted to the priesthood of a cult whose central interest was +a woman’s love and grief. Sometimes they are lowly freedwomen +with Greek names, sometimes they bear the proudest +names in the Roman aristocracy.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> x. 6074; vi. 502, 508; <hi rend="italic">Or. +Henz.</hi> 7200 (Acte), 2330, 1902, 2371, +2319, 2325; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> xii. 4322, 4326.</note> The Dendrophori, who on +festive days bore the sacred tree, formed a religious college, and +their record appears on many monuments of Italian and provincial +towns—Como, Ostia, and Cumae, Caesarea (Afr.), Valentia, +and Lyons.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 7336, 2322, 6031, 4109, +7197; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii. 9401.</note> Other colleges were the Cannophori and Cernophori, +the keepers of the mystic symbols.<note place="foot">Goehler, p. 45.</note> The chanters, +drummers, and cymbal players were indispensable at great ceremonial +scenes, such as the taurobolium,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> xii. 1782.</note> and were arranged in +graded ranks. Of a lower degree were the vergers and apparitors, +who watched over the chapels of the goddess.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2325, 2984.</note> And, lastly, there +were the simple worshippers, who also formed themselves into +guilds, with all the usual officers of such corporations. This +cult, like so many others, existed not only for ceremonial rite, +but for fellowship and social exhilaration, and, through its +many gradations of religious privilege, it must have drawn vast +numbers into the sacred service in the times of the Empire. +</p> + +<p> +But the pages of Apuleius, and other authorities, show us +that, beside the official clergy and collegiate members, there +were, as happens to all popular religions, a mass of unlicensed +camp followers and mere disreputable vagrants, who used the +name of the Great Mother to exploit the ignorant devotion +and religious excitability of the rustic folk. The romance of +Apuleius, as Dr. Mahaffy has suggested, is probably derived +from earlier sources, and dressed up to titillate the prurient +tastes of a degraded society.<note place="foot">Mahaffy, <hi rend="italic">The Greek World under +Roman Sway</hi>, p. 295 sqq.</note> Yet its pictures of country life +in Thessaly, although they may not be always locally accurate, +can hardly be purely imaginative. The scenes may not be +always Thessalian, but that they are in the main true pictures +of country life in the Antonine age may be proved from other +authorities. Apuleius was too careful an artist to sever himself +<pb n="552"/><anchor id="Pg552"/>altogether from the actual life of his time. And what a picture +it is! The air positively thrills with daemonic terror and +power. Witches and lewd sorceresses abound; the solitary +inn has its weird seductions; the lonely country cottage has +its tragedy of lawless love or of chaste devotion to the dead. +Brigands in mountain fastnesses divide their far-gathered spoil, +and hold debate on plans of future lawless adventure. Mountain +solitudes, and lonely villages or castles among the woods, are +aroused by the yelping hounds, who start the boar from his +lair, while the faithless traitor places his friend at its mercy. +We meet the travelling cheese merchant, and the noble exile +on his way to Zacynthus. We watch the raid on the banker’s +house at Thebes, and the peasants setting their dogs on the +passing traveller; the insolence of the wandering legionary; +the horrors of the slave prison, with its wasted, starved, and +branded forms; the amours of buxom wives, and the comic concealment +or discovery of lovers, in the manner of Boccaccio. +It is only too certain that the vileness and superstition which +Apuleius has depicted may easily find a parallel on the Roman +stage, or in the pages of Martial. +</p> + +<p> +In all this social panorama, romantic, amusing, or disgusting, +there is no more repulsive, and probably no truer scene +than that in which the wandering priests of the Syrian goddess +appear. That deity, like many others of Eastern origin, was +often identified with the Great Mother. Apuleius probably +confounded them; the rites of their worships were often the +same, and the picture in Apuleius may be taken to represent +the orgies of many a wandering troop of professed devotees of +the Great Mother in the age of the Antonines.<note place="foot">Réville, <hi rend="italic">Rel. unter den Sev.</hi> p. 65; Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> viii. 24 (<hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Hildenbrand’s notes.)</note> The leader +is an old eunuch, with wild straggling locks—a man of the +foulest morals, carrying about with him an image of the goddess, +and levying alms from the superstition of the rustics. He is +attended by a crew worthy of him, wretches defiled with all +the worst vices of the ancient world, and shamelessly parading +their degradation. But they combine a shrewd eye to business +with this wild licence. They know all the arts to catch the +fancy of the mob of clowns, whose grey dull lives and inbred +superstition make them eager for any display which will +intoxicate them with the novelty of a violent sensation. These +<pb n="553"/><anchor id="Pg553"/>people are on that level where lust and the passion for blood +and suffering readily league themselves with religious excitement. +After a night of moral horrors, the foul brotherhood go +forth in various costume to win the largesses of the countryside. +With painted cheeks and robes of white or yellow, +crossed with purple stripes, their arms bared to the shoulder, +and carrying swords or axes, they dance along wildly to the +sound of the flute.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> viii. c. 27 (580); cf. +Aug. <hi rend="italic">De Civ. Dei</hi>, ii. 4.</note> With obscene gesticulation and discordant +shrieks they madly bite their arms or lacerate them +with knives. One of the band, as if seized with special +inspiration, heaving and panting under the foul afflatus, shrieks +out the confession of some sin against the holy rites, and claims +the penalty from his own hands.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> viii. c. 28 (583).</note> With hard knotted scourge +he belabours himself, while the blood flows in torrents. At +last the cruel frenzy exhausts itself, and obtains its reward in +the offerings of the spectators. Fine flour and cheese, milk +and wine, coins of copper and silver, are eagerly showered upon +the impostors, and as eagerly gathered in.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 28 (585).</note> Surprised in +frightful orgies of vice, the scoundrels have at last to retreat +before the outraged moral sense of the villagers. They decamp +during the night, and on the morrow once more find comfortable +quarters in the house of a leading citizen who is devoted to +the service of the gods, and blind to the imposture of their +professing ministers.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 30 (589).</note> +</p> + +<p> +The episode in Apuleius suggests some curious questions as +to the moral effect of these emotional cults. That in their +early stages they had no elevating moral influence,—nay, that +their votaries might combine a strict conformity to rite with +great looseness of life,—is only too certain. The Delias and +Cynthias of the poets, who kept the fasts of Isis, were assuredly +not models of virtue. The assumption of the tonsure and +linen habit by a debauchee like Commodus does not reassure +us. Yet princes of high character in the second and the +third centuries lent the countenance of imperial power to the +worships of the East.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> x. 1406; Lamprid. <hi rend="italic">Alex. +Sev.</hi> c. 37.</note> And the Mother of the Gods found +her last and most gallant defenders among great nobles of +high repute and sincere pagan piety in the last years of +<pb n="554"/><anchor id="Pg554"/>heathenism in the West. It was a strange transformation. +Yet the problem is not perhaps insoluble. A religion may +deteriorate as its authority over society becomes more assured +with age. But, in times of moral renovation, and in the face +of powerful spiritual rivalries, a religion may purge itself of +the impurities of youth. Religious systems may also be +elevated by the growing moral refinement of the society to +which they minister. It is only thus that we can explain the +undoubted fact that the Phrygian and Egyptian worships, +originally tainted with the grossness of naturalism, became +vehicles of a warm religious emotion, and provided a stimulus +to a higher life. The idealism of humanity, by a strange +alchemy, can marvellously transform the most unpromising +materials. And he would make a grave mistake who should +treat the Isis and Osiris, the Mater Deum or the Attis, of +the reign of Augustus as representing the same ideals in the +reign of Gratian. But these Eastern cults contained a germ, +even in their earliest days, of their great future development +and power. The old religion of Latium, along with much +that was sound and grave and fortifying to character, was also +hard and cold and ceremonial. It could mould and consecrate +a militant and conquering state; it did little to satisfy the +craving for moral regeneration or communion with a Higher +Power. It could not appease the sense of error and frailty +by ghostly comfort and sacramental absolution. It was, moreover, +wanting in that warmth of interest and sympathy, linking +the human and Divine, which has helped to make Christianity +the religion of Western civilisation, and which in a feeble adumbration +made the paganism of the East a momentary rival of +the Church. These Eastern cults, often originating in gross +symbolism of the alternations and recurring processes of +nature,<note place="foot">Firm. Matern. <hi rend="italic">De Err. Prof. Rel.</hi> c. 2, 3.</note> often arousing a dangerous excitability and an unregulated +emotion, yet contained the germ of a religious spirit +far more akin to ours than the old austere Latin creed. A +divine death and restoration, the alternation of joy and sorrow +at a divine event, instinct with human interest, calming +expiation and cleansing from the sins which burdened the +conscience,—above all, the hope of a coming life, stamped on +the imagination by symbol and spectacle,—these were the +<pb n="555"/><anchor id="Pg555"/>elements which, operating on imperious religious yearnings, +gave a fresh life to paganism, and prepared or deferred the +victory of the Church. The religion of the Great Mother +seems at first sight to offer the poorest promise of any moral +message or spiritual support. It expressed at first the feelings +of rude rustics at the recurring mortality and resurrection of +material life in the order of the seasons. The element of human +feeling which it contained was grossly expressed in bloody +rites of mutilation. This cult was often defiled and disgraced +by a crew of effeminate and lustful impostors. Yet the Thessalian +villagers in Apuleius, who chased these vagabonds from +their fields, evidently expected something better from them. +They despised the foul hypocrites, but they did not cease to +believe in their religion. The spiritual instinct of humanity +triumphed, as it has so often done, over the vices of a historical +system, extracted the good in it, rejected the evil, and +made it an organ of some sort of spiritual life. Thus the Great +Mother became the Mother of all, enthroned beside the Father +of gods and men. She wears the chaste honours of the Virgin +Goddess. Attis and her love for Attis are similarly transformed. +In the syncretism of the age, which strove to gather +up all the forces of heathenism and make them converge +towards a spiritual unity, Magna Mater and Attis leagued +their forces with the conquering Mithra.<note place="foot">Réville, p. 66; Goehler, p. 29; +Cumont, <hi rend="italic">Mon. figurés de Mithra</hi>, +Introd. p. 333; <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 2329, 2330, 1900; +<hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 497, 500, 511; cf. <hi rend="italic">ib.</hi> x. +1596, where the taurobolium is connected +with Venus Coelesta (<hi rend="italic">sic</hi>); +Preller, p. 486.</note> In the taurobolium +there was developed a ritual, in which, coarse and materialistic +as it was, paganism made, in however imperfect form, its +nearest approach to the religion of the Cross. +</p> + +<p> +The greatest and most impressive rite in the worship of +Cybele was the taurobolium. There was none which so +excited the suspicion and indignation of the Christian apologists, +from Tertullian to Prudentius, because in its ceremony of the +cleansing blood, and in its supposed effects in moral regeneration +and remission of sins, it seemed invented by the ingenuity +of daemons to be a travesty of the sacrifice on Calvary.<note place="foot">Tertull. <hi rend="italic">De Praescrip. Haeret.</hi> 40; +Firm. Matern. <hi rend="italic">De Err. Prof. Relig.</hi> c. 27, +neminem aput idola profusus sanguis +munit ... polluit sanguis iste, non +redimit.... Tauribolium quid vel +criobolium scelerata te sanguinis labe +perfundit? S. Paulin. Nol. <hi rend="italic">Poem. +Ult.</hi> 112-117.</note> It is +<pb n="556"/><anchor id="Pg556"/>possible that the last champions of the ancient cults may +have had some such defiant purpose when they inscribed, in +the record of their cleansing, the words <q><hi rend="italic">in aeternum renatus</hi>.</q> +But in its origin there can be no doubt that the rite was +purely heathen. Its appearance in the Phrygian ceremonial +is comparatively late. The worship of Magna Mater was +essentially an orgiastic cult, and theologically arid. But the +syncretism of the second and third centuries came to its +support. And the worships of Persia, Syria, and Phrygia were +ready to coalesce, and to borrow from one another symbols and +doctrines which gave satisfaction to the spiritual wants of +the time. The taurobolium, with its ideas of cleansing and +immortality, passed in the Antonine age from the worship of +Anaitis of Cappadocia to the worship of Magna Mater, and +gave the Great Mother a new hold upon the religious consciousness. +In the earlier votive tablets the name of the rite is +<hi rend="italic">tauropolium</hi>. Anaitis had been identified with the Artemis +Tauropolus of Brauron, whose legend, by popular etymology, +came to be identified, as Milesian exploration spread in the +Euxine, with the cult of the cruel goddess of the Tauric +Chersonese.<note place="foot">Cumont, Introd. pp. 236, 333; +Herodot. iv. 103; Eur. <hi rend="italic">Iph. T.</hi> 1455; +Strab. v. 3, § 12, p. 240.</note> And by another etymological freak and the +change of a letter, we arrive at the bull-slaughtering rite of +the later Empire. Whether the taurobolium ever became +part of the service of Mithra is a disputed point.<note place="foot">Cumont, p. 334; Gasquet, <hi rend="italic">Culte de +Mithra</hi>, p. 75; Cumont, Introd. p. 334, +n. 5; Réville, <hi rend="italic">Rel. unter den Sev.</hi> p. +93, takes an opposite view.</note> Certainly +the syncretistic tendency of the age, the fact that the most +popular Mithraist symbol was the slaying of the mystic bull, +and the record of the taurobolium on so many inscriptions +dedicated to Mithra, would prepare us for the conclusion that +the rite was in the end common to the Persian and the +Phrygian deities. Whatever may be the truth on this point, +the two worships, in the last ages of heathenism in the West, +were close allies. Attis tended more and more to become a +solar deity in the age which culminated in the sun-worship +of Julian.<note place="foot">Donsbach, <hi rend="italic">Die + <anchor id="corr556"/><corr sic="raümliche">räumliche</corr> Verbreitung +des Mithrasdienstes</hi>, pp. 8, 9.</note> Heliolatry, the last refuge of monotheism in +heathendom, which refused to accept the religion of Galilee, +swept all the great worships of strong vitality into its system, +<pb n="557"/><anchor id="Pg557"/>softened their differences, accentuated their similarities, by +every effort of fancy, false science, or reckless etymology, and +in the end, <q>Sol invictus</q> and Mithra were left masters of +the field. But Magna Mater, however originally unworthy, +shared in the victory. If she could lend the support of an +accredited clergy, recognised for ages by the State, and the +impressive rite of the bloody baptism, Mithra, on the other +hand, had a moral and spiritual message, an assurance of a +future life, and an enthralling force of mystic and sacramental +communion, which made his alliance even more valuable. The +Great Mother, indeed, admitted women to the ranks of her clergy, +while the rites of Mithra probably excluded them.<note place="foot">This is rendered doubtful by +Porphyr. <hi rend="italic">De Abstin.</hi> iv. 16, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὡς τοὺς μὲν μετέχοντας τῶν αὐτῶν ὀργίων μύστας + λέοντας καλεῖν (εἰώθασιν). τὰς δὲ γυναῖκας ὑαίνας</foreign> + (altered by Felicianus to <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">λεαίνας</foreign>); +cf. Gasquet, p. 98.</note> And thus +a Fabia Aconia Paulina, while her husband, Vettius Agorius +Praetextatus, could inscribe himself <q>pater patrum,</q> had no +Mithraist grade which she could place beside her consecration +to Hecate and the Eleusinian goddesses.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 1778, 9.</note> But the pair were +united in the sacrament of the taurobolium. And the Great +Mother probably never had purer or sincerer devotees. +</p> + +<p> +When the taurobolium was first introduced into the West +is uncertain.<note place="foot">Goehler, p. 55; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> x. 1596; +<anchor id="corr557"/><corr sic="(Puteoli">Puteoli</corr>, p. Chr. 134; taurobol. +Veneris Caelestae (<hi rend="italic">sic</hi>).</note> The earliest monument belongs to <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> 134 in +the reign of Hadrian, when the ceremony seems to be connected +with the Celestial Venus. The most famous inscription, which +connects the rite with the Great Mother, is of the year 160 +<hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, when one L. Aemilius Carpus, an Augustalis, and a member +of the college of the Dendrophori at Lyons, had the ceremony +performed <q>for the safety</q> of Antoninus Pius and the imperial +house.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 2382; Goehler, p. 55; cf. <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> +viii. 8203.</note> The rite was celebrated at the command of the goddess, +or on the inspired advice of the priest.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 2327, ex jussu ipsius; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> +xii. 1782, ex vaticinatione Archigalli; +cf. xii. 4321, 4323.</note> It took place generally +in early spring, and was often prolonged over three or four days.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> xii. 1782.</note> +It was a costly rite, and the expense was sometimes borne by +the community, who made an offertory for the purpose.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xii. 4321 (<hi rend="italic">stipe collata</hi>); at +private expense, xii. 1568.</note> The +ceremony was superintended by the xvviri, and attended by a +great concourse of the people, with the magistrates at their +<pb n="558"/><anchor id="Pg558"/>head. It is needless to describe again the scene, so well known +from the verses of Prudentius, in which the consecrated bull +is with solemn forms slaughtered on a high-raised platform, and +bathes with the streams of his blood the votary placed in a +trench below.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Peristeph.</hi> x. 1011; cf. Duruy, v. +p. 743.</note> The rite was believed to impart some sort of +strength and purification, the effect of which lasted for twenty +years, when the sacrament was often renewed. It was, as we +have seen, sometimes performed <q>with intention,</q> for the reigning +emperor and his house,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> xii. 1311, 251, 1822, 4332; +<hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 2332.</note> and furnishes another example of +the manner in which religion was employed to buttress the +power of the Caesars. A considerable number of monuments +in Italy and the provinces commemorate, in a phrase perhaps +borrowed from the Church, the gratitude of one <q>born again +to eternal life.</q> It is probable that the coarse ritual often +expressed only an external and materialistic conception of +religious influence. On the other hand, following upon, or +closely connected with initiation into the mysteries of Mithra, +it may easily have become a symbol of moral and spiritual +truth, or at any rate a record of moral aspiration. +</p> + +<p> +For, indeed, in the syncretism and monotheistic drift of the +age, the more powerful worships lost the hardness of their +original lines and tended to absorption and assimilation. +There was little strife or repulsion among these cults; they +borrowed freely legends and ritual practice from one another; +even characteristic insignia were interchanged. The legend +and tone of the Cybele worship naturally linked her with +others sprung from the same region, such as the Syrian goddess, +Celestial Venus, and Bellona.<note place="foot">Goehler, p. 34; Réville, p. 66; +Preller, p. 488; Cumont, Introd. p. +333.</note> Fanaticism, self-mutilation, +expiation by blood, were the common bond between them. +The fierce goddess of Cappadocia, who had visited Sulla in a +dream, was probably first introduced to Roman devotion in his +time. Her dark-robed priests and priestesses were familiar +figures in the Augustan age, gashing themselves like the Galli of +Magna Mater, catching the blood in shields, and dashing it +over their train of followers who believed in its powers of +expiation. But Magna Mater, as her name promises, assumed +a milder character, and was identified sometimes with Maia, +<pb n="559"/><anchor id="Pg559"/>Ops, and Minerva; sometimes with Demeter, Bona Dea, and +Fauna, as Attis was identified with Hercules.<note place="foot">Goehler, p. 29.</note> In the last age +the great goddess became the universal Mother, full of tenderness +and grace, and giving peace through her cleansing rites. +Hers is, along with the cults of Isis and Mithra, which will +next claim our attention, an example of the process of Divine +evolution, by which, in the painful progress of humanity, the +crude efforts of religious symbolism are purged and elevated. +It is an example of the way in which the human spirit, refusing +to break with its past, sometimes succeeds, if only for a +time, in putting new wine into old bottles. +</p> + +</div><div type="chapter" n="5" rend="page-break-before: always"> +<pb n="560"/><anchor id="Pg560"/> +<index index="toc" level1="V. Isis and Serapis"/><index index="pdf" level1="V. Isis and Serapis"/> +<head>CHAPTER V</head> + +<head type="sub">ISIS AND SERAPIS</head> + +<p> +The worship of Isis and Serapis, reckoning from the day when +it established itself in the port of Athens, had a reign of more +than seven centuries over the peoples of Europe. Its influence +in the western provinces of the Empire and in the capital may +be roughly said to cover a period of 500 years. It was not, +indeed, the old native worship of the valley of the Nile which +won such an empire over cultivated intellects from Chaeronea +to the Thames. The ancient Egyptian worship underwent vast +transformations in the crucible of all creeds at Alexandria. +It was captured and utilised for political purposes by the +Ptolemies.<note place="foot">Lafaye, <hi rend="italic">Culte des divinités d’Alexandrie</hi>, +p. 15; Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is. et Osir.</hi> c. 28.</note> It was linked with the most spiritual forces of +Hellenic piety at Eleusis and Delphi;<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is. et Osir.</hi> c. 35, addressed +to Clea, who was high in the +worship of Dionysus, and <q>hereditarily +devoted to Osiris.</q></note> it was transformed by +the subtle syncretism of later Greek philosophy; and, through +the secretaries of embassies, and the Egyptian slaves and +merchants who poured into the ports of southern Italy in the +second century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, it stole or forced itself into the chapels of +great houses at Rome, till, in the end, emperors were proud to +receive its tonsure, to walk in the processions, and to build +and adorn Egyptian temples.<note place="foot">Lamprid. <hi rend="italic">Com. Ant.</hi> c. 9; Spart. +<hi rend="italic">Sev.</hi> c. 17; Réville, <hi rend="italic">Rel. unter den Sev.</hi> p. 58.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The Isiac worship had conquered the Greek world before it +became a power in Italy. In the fourth century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> traders +from the Nile had their temple of Isis at the Peiraeus;<note place="foot">Foucart, <hi rend="italic">Assoc. Religieuses</hi>, p. 83.</note> in the +third century the worship had been admitted within the walls +of Athens.<note place="foot">Lafaye, pp. 27-32; Paus. i. 18, § 4.</note> About the same time the goddess had found a +<pb n="561"/><anchor id="Pg561"/>home at Ceos, and Delos, at Smyrna and Halicarnassus, and +on the coasts of Thrace.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 38.</note> She was a familiar deity at +Orchomenus and Chaeronea for generations before Plutarch +found in her legends a congenial field for the exposition of +his concordat between philosophy and myth. Nor need we +wonder at his choice of the Egyptian cults. For the Isis and +Osiris of Greek and Italian lands were very different objects +of devotion from the gods who bore those names in Egyptian +legend.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is. et Osir.</hi> c. 53, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τὸ τῆς φύσεως θῆλυ</foreign>, c. 52, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οὐχ ἑτέραν τῆς σελήνης</foreign>: c. 38, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οὕτος Ἴσιδος σῶμα γῆν ἔχουσι καὶ νομίζουσιν, οὐ πάσαν, + ἀλλ’ ἧς ὁ Νεῖλος ἐπιβαίνει σπερμαίνων</foreign>: cf. c. 32; +c. 56, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">Ὄσιριν ὡς ἀρχήν, τὴν δὲ Ἴσιν ὡς ὑποδοχήν, τὸν δὲ Ὥρον ὁς ἀποτέλεσμα</foreign>: +cf. Herodot. ii. 156; Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. +c. 7, matrem siderum, parentem temporum, +orbisque totius dominam +blando mulcentes affamine.</note> From the seventh century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> Greeks from the +Asiatic coast had been securely settled at the mouth of the +Nile.<note place="foot">Herodot. ii. 154.</note> Greek mercenaries had served in the Egyptian armies +in the southern deserts; and Greek half-breeds had long +amused and cajoled travellers from Miletus or Halicarnassus, +as interpreters and guides to the scenes of immemorial interest. +When Herodotus visited the country, the identity of Greek +and Egyptian gods was a long accepted fact.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 156; cf. Plew, <hi rend="italic">De Sarapide</hi>, +p. 23 sqq.</note> From the fifth +century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> the Egyptian Trinity of Isis, Osiris, and Horus had +found counterparts in Demeter, Dionysus, and Apollo. The +campaign of the Athenian fleet in 460 probably hastened and +confirmed the process of syncretism,<note place="foot">Thuc. i. 104.</note> and crowds of travellers, +steeped in Orphic and Pythagorean mysticism, returned from +the valley of the Nile to spread the doctrine of a common +faith. After the foundation of Alexandria the theory became +a propaganda. The first Ptolemy strove to unite the two +races under his sway by an eclecticism of which Alexandria +was the focus for seven centuries. He found skilful allies +in Manetho, the Egyptian priest who had written a treatise +on the inner meaning of the myths, and in Timotheus, a +scion of the Eumolpidae of Eleusis.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 15 sqq.</note> The Orphic and Dionysiac +mysticism was leagued with the Isiac worship. The legend +of Egypt was recast. A new deity was introduced, who +was destined to have a great future in all lands under the +Roman sway. The origin of Serapis is still a mystery<note place="foot">Plew, <hi rend="italic">De Sarapide</hi>, p. 10 sqq.</note> and +the latest critic may have to acquiesce in the confused or +<pb n="562"/><anchor id="Pg562"/>balanced judgment of Tacitus.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iv. 84.</note> Egyptian archaeologists +claimed him as indigenous at Rhacotis or Memphis, and +construed his name as a compound of Osiris and that of his +earthly incarnation, the bull Apis.<note place="foot">Plew, <hi rend="italic">De Sarapide</hi>, p. 15; Preller, p. 478.</note> The more popular tale +was that the first Ptolemy, after repeated visions of the night, +sent envoys to bring him from Sinope, where he was identified +with Pluto, god of the under world. Other traditions connected +him with Seleucia in Cappadocia, or with Babylon.<note place="foot">Plew, <hi rend="italic">De Sarapide</hi>, p. 6.</note> +It may be that a false etymology, confounding a hill near +Memphis with the name of Sinope, was the source of the tale +in Tacitus.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 17.</note> However this may be, Serapis takes the place of +Osiris; they never appear together in inscriptions. The infant +Horus received the Greek sounding name Harpocrates, and +Serapis, Isis, and Harpocrates became the Egyptian Trinity for +Graeco-Roman Society. Anubis, the minister of the Trinity, +was easily identified with Hermes, <q>the conductor of souls</q> in +Greek legend. +</p> + +<p> +Syncretism and mysticism were great forces at Eleusis, from +which Ptolemy’s adviser Timotheus came. And there all +interest centred in the future life, and in preparation for it +by sacerdotal ritual and moral discipline. The Orphic and +Pythagorean mysticism which traced itself to Egypt or the +remoter East, returned to its sources, to aid in moulding the +cults of Egypt into a worship for the world. A crowd of +ingenious theologians set to work, by means of physical explanation, +wild etymology, and fanciful analogies, to complete +the syncretism. And the final results of their efforts, preserved +in the famous treatise of Plutarch on Isis, is a trinitarian +monotheism, with an original dualism of the good and evil +principles.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is. et Osir.</hi> c. 45, 49.</note> But the idea of God, although limited in one +sense by the recognition of a co-ordinate evil power, tends on +the other to become more all-embracing. Serapis is constantly +linked with Jupiter and Sol Invictus in the inscriptions.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 1890 sqq.; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii. 1005; iii. 4560, 3.</note> In +the orations of Aristides he becomes the centre of the universe.<note place="foot">Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or. Sac.</hi> viii. 53, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καὶ ταμίας ὢν τοῦ βιωσίμου κατὰ τοῦτ’ ἃν δικαίως ἅπαντα +περιειληφέναι νομίζοιτο ... ὁ δὲ ὥσπερ κορυφαῖος πάντων +ἀρχὰς καὶ πέρατα ἔχει</foreign>. Cf. Baumgar. +<hi rend="italic">Aristides als Repräsentant der Soph. +Rhet.</hi> p. 90 sqq.</note> +Isis of the <q>myriad names</q> tends to absorb all other deities, +<pb n="563"/><anchor id="Pg563"/>and was addressed by her votaries as <q>Thou who art all.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 1871, tibi quae es omnia.</note> +The Isis of the dream of Lucius in Apuleius is the universal +mother, creator of all things, queen of the world of shades, first +of the inhabitants of heaven, in whom all gods have their +unchanging type.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. 7.</note> She is also pre-eminently the power who +can cleanse and comfort, and impart the hope of the life everlasting. +</p> + +<p> +The Isiac worship arrived in Italy probably through the +ports of Campania. Puteoli, in particular, was the great +entrepôt for the trade with Alexandria. Foreign merchants, +sailors, and slaves were arriving there every day, and, in the century +between 204 and 100 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, more than ten embassies passed +between the Ptolemies and the Roman Senate, with a crowd of +secretaries and servants attached to them.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 43.</note> There was probably +a temple of Serapis at Puteoli as early as 150 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, and the +old temple of Isis at Pompeii, which was thrown down by the +earthquake of 63 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, may probably be referred to the year +105 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi><note place="foot">Id. p. 40; Mau, <hi rend="italic">Pompeii</hi>, p. 163.</note> But the erection of temples must have been preceded +by a period of less formal and more obscure worship, and we +may perhaps conclude that Isis had established herself in +Southern Italy, at all events early in the second century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> +Thus, although it was generations before the worship won its +way, in the face of fierce persecution, to an assured place at +Rome, its first appearance coincides with the decay of the +old religion, the religious excitement in the beginning of the +second century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, and the immense popular craving for a +more emotional form of worship. +</p> + +<p> +The years at the end of the third and the beginning of +the second century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> were in Italy years of strange religious +excitement. In 204 the great goddess was brought from +Pessinus.<note place="foot">Liv. xxix. 10; Goehler, <hi rend="italic">De Matris Magnae Cultu</hi>, p. 7.</note> In 186 the decree for the suppression of the +Bacchanalian scandal was passed.<note place="foot">Liv. xxxix. 19.</note> Magna Graecia and Etruria +were the first points assailed by the invasion of the orgiastic +rites. But they soon crept into the capital, with results which +alarmed and shocked old Roman sentiment. At first, an +appearance of asceticism disguised the danger. But the +rites soon gave an opportunity for the wildest licence and for +<pb n="564"/><anchor id="Pg564"/>political intrigue. 7000 men and women were found to be +implicated, in one way or another, in the movement.<note place="foot">Preller, <hi rend="italic">Myth. Rom.</hi> p. 473.</note> Within +five years after the great scandal, the apocryphal books of +Numa were unearthed in the grounds of Cn. Terentius on the +Janiculum. The forgery was soon detected, and they were +burnt publicly in the Comitium by the praetor L. Petilius.<note place="foot">Plin. <hi rend="italic">H. N.</hi> xiii. 27; Liv. xl. +29; Momms. <hi rend="italic">Rom. Hist.</hi> ii. p. 402; +Lafaye, p. 41.</note> +But it was a suspicious circumstance that the rolls were of +Egyptian papyrus, which had been till then unknown to the +Roman world, and that they contained the dogmas of a +Pythagorean lore which was equally strange. It is almost +certain that, in the same years in which the Dionysiac fanaticism +arrived at Ostia, the Egyptian cults had been brought by +merchants and sailors to Puteoli. Osiris and Dionysus had +long been identified by the Alexandrian theologians; both were +the patrons of mystic rites which, in their form and essence, +had much in common, and the Pythagorean system, combining +so many influences of philosophy and religion in the East and +West, was the natural sponsor of the new worships. It +was perhaps some eclectic Alexandrian, half Platonist, half +Buddhist, devoted to the Isiac worship, yet ready to connect it +with the Dionysiac legends of Delphi, Cithaeron, and Eleusis, +who penned the secret scrolls, and buried them in the garden +on the Janiculum. The movement was setting in which, so +often repulsed by the force of government and conservative +feeling, was destined to have enormous influence over the last +three centuries of paganism in the West. +</p> + +<p> +It has been plausibly suggested that the ease and completeness +with which the Bacchanalian movement was suppressed +in 186 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> was due to the diversion of religious interest to the +Egyptian mysteries. The cult of Isis had indeed very various +attractions for different minds. But for the masses, slaves, +freedmen, and poor working people, its great fascination lay in +the pomp of its ritual, and the passionate emotion aroused by +the mourning for the dead Osiris, and his joyful restoration. +It is this aspect of the worship which is assailed and ridiculed +by the Christian apologists of the reign of Alexander Severus +and of the reign of Constantine.<note place="foot">Tertull. <hi rend="italic">Adv. Marc.</hi> i. 13; Firm. +Mat. <hi rend="italic">De Err. Prof. Rel.</hi> 2, § 7, cur +plangitis fruges terrae et crescentia +lugetis semina?</note> The goddess, one of whose +<pb n="565"/><anchor id="Pg565"/>special functions was the care of mothers in childbirth, appealed +especially to female sensibility. As in the cult of Magna +Mater, women had a prominent place in her services and processions, +and records of these sacred dignities appear on the +monuments of great Roman ladies down to the end of the +Western Empire. The history of the Isiac cult at Rome from +Sulla to Nero is really the history of a great popular religious +movement in conflict with a reactionary conservatism, of +cosmopolitan feeling arrayed against old Roman sentiment. +</p> + +<p> +It is significant of the popularity of Isis that the reactionary +Sulla, who restored the election of chief pontiff to the sacred +college, was forced to recognise the Isiac guild of the Pastophori +in 80 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi><note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. c. 30, Collegii +vetustissimi et sub illis Sullae temporibus +conditi, etc.</note> Four times in the decade 58-48 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, the +fierce struggle was renewed between the government and those +who wished to place Isis beside the ancient gods; and in +the year 50 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi> the consul, when unable to find a workman +to lay hands upon her shrine, had to unrobe and use +the axe himself.<note place="foot">Tertull. <hi rend="italic">Apol.</hi> 6; <hi rend="italic">Ad Nat.</hi> i. 10; +prohibitos Capitolio Varro commemorat +eorumque aras a senatu dejectas nonnisi +per vim popularium restructas, +Val. Max. i. 3, 4; cf. Lewald, <hi rend="italic">De Peregr. +Rel. ap. Rom.</hi> p. 10.</note> The victory of conservatism was only +temporary and apparent. Within five years from the renewed +fierce demolition of 48 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>,<note place="foot">D. Cass. xlii. 26.</note> the white robe and tonsure and the +mask of Anubis must have been a common sight in the streets, +when the aedile M. Volusius, one of those proscribed by the +triumvirs, was able to make his escape easily in this disguise.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 47; Val. Max. vii. 3, 8; +cf. App. <hi rend="italic">B. C.</hi> iv. 47.</note> +The influence of Cleopatra over Julius Caesar overcame his +own prejudices and probably hastened the triumph of the +popular cult. The triumvirs had to conciliate public feeling +by erecting a temple of Isis in 42 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi><note place="foot">D. Cass. xliii. 27; xlvii. 15.</note> Priestesses +and devotees of Isis are henceforth found among the freedwomen +of great houses and the mistresses of men of letters of +the Augustan age.<note place="foot">Catull. x. 26; Tibull. i. 3, 23; +Propert. ii. 33.</note> And, although the reaction following upon +the battle of Actium, in which the gods of Latium and the +Nile were arrayed against one another,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Aen.</hi> viii. 698.</note> banished Isis for a +time beyond the pomoerium,<note place="foot">D. Cass. liii. 2, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τὰ μὲν ἱερὰ τὰ Αἰγύπτια οὐκ ἐσεδέξατο εἴσω τοῦ πωμηρίου</foreign>; +cf. liv. 6.</note> the devotion of the masses to +<pb n="566"/><anchor id="Pg566"/>her seems never to have slackened, and her tonsured, white +stoled priests were to be seen everywhere. In the reign +of Tiberius a serious blow fell on the Eastern worships. +According to Josephus, a great lady named Paulina, was, with +the collusion of the priest, seduced in an Isiac temple by a +libertine lover in the guise of Anubis, and the crime was +sternly punished by the emperor.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 55, discredits the tale +of the seduction, which is given by +Josephus alone, <hi rend="italic">B. Jud.</hi> xviii. 3; cf. +Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> ii. 85; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Tib.</hi> 36.</note> Tacitus and Suetonius +seem to be ignorant of this particular scandal, but they record +the wholesale banishment to Sardinia of persons of the freedmen +class, who were infected with Judaic or Egyptian +superstition. In the grotto of Cagliari there is to be seen the +record of an obscure romance and tragedy which may have +been connected with this persecution. Atilia Pomptilla, who +bore also the significant name of Benedicta, in some great +calamity had followed her husband Cassius Philippus into +exile. Their union had lasted for two-and-forty years +when the husband was stricken with disease in that deadly +climate. Like another Alcestis, Atilia by her vows and +devotion offered her life for his. The husband repaid the +debt in these inscriptions, and the pair lie united in death +under the sculptured serpent of the goddess whom they +probably worshipped.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> x. 2, 7563 sqq.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Thenceforth under the emperors Isis met with but little +opposition. Claudius struck hard at the Jewish and Druidic +rites, but on the other hand he was ready to transport those +of Eleusis to Rome.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Claud.</hi> 25; cf. D. Cass. lx. 6.</note> He was probably equally tolerant to +the rites of Egypt. And in his reign dedications were made to +Isis by freedmen of great consular houses.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 353.</note> Nero despised all +religions except that of the Syrian goddess; yet Isis had +probably little to fear from a prince who had been touched by +the charm and mystery of the East, and who at the last would +have accepted the prefecture of Egypt.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xv. 36; cf. Suet. <hi rend="italic">Nero</hi>, +40, 47, varia agitavit, an vel Aegypti +praefecturam concedi sibi oraret, etc.</note> Otho was, however, +the first Roman emperor who openly took part in the Egyptian +rites.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Otho</hi>, 12.</note> The Flavians had all come under the spell of Eastern +superstition. Vespasian had had a solitary vigil in the +<pb n="567"/><anchor id="Pg567"/>temple of Serapis; in obedience to a dream from the god he +had consented to perform miracles of healing.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> iv. v. vii.; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> +iv. 81.</note> In the fierce +civil strife of 69 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, when the Capitol was stormed and burnt +by the Vitellians, the service of Isis was actually going on, and +Domitian, disguised in her sacred vestments, escaped among +the crowd of priests and acolytes.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iii. 74; cf. Suet. <hi rend="italic">Domit.</hi> i.</note> He repaid the debt by +rebuilding the temple of Isis in the Campus Martius, in 92 +<hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, on a magnificent scale.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 61, n. 8.</note> The sarcasms of Juvenal on the +<q>shaven, linen-clad herd,</q> and the pious austerities of female +worshippers of Isis, reveal the powerful hold which the goddess +had obtained in his day, even on the frivolous and self-indulgent. +Hadrian, of course, had the gods of the Nile in the +Canopus of his cosmopolitan villa at Tibur.<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Prom. <anchor id="corr567"/><corr sic="Archaeol.">Archæol.</corr></hi> p. 238; +Spart. <hi rend="italic">Hadr.</hi> c. 26.</note> Commodus walked +in procession with shaven head and an image of Anubis in his +arms.<note place="foot">Lamprid. <hi rend="italic">Commod.</hi> 9.</note> The triumph of Isis in the Antonine age was complete. +</p> + +<p> +The Serapeum at Alexandria was to the Egyptian cult what +the Temple was to the religion of Israel.<note place="foot">Gibbon, c. 28; Amm. Marc. xxii. 16.</note> And the world-wide +trade and far-spreading influence of what was then the +second city in the Empire might have given a wide diffusion +even to a religion less adapted to satisfy the spiritual wants of +the time. Slaves and freedmen were always the most ardent +adherents and apostles of foreign rites. Names of persons of +this class appear on many monuments as holders of Isiac +office or liberal benefactors. A little brotherhood of household +slaves at Valentia in Spain were united in the worship.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> ii. 6004.</note> +Petty traders from Alexandria swarmed in the ports of the +Mediterranean, and especially in those of Campania, and near +the Nolan gate of Pompeii the humble tombs of a little +colony of these emigrants have been discovered.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 157.</note> The sailors +and officers of the corn fleets from Africa also helped to spread +the fame of Isis and Osiris. In the reign of Septimius Severus, +their chief officer, C. Valerius Serenus, was neocorus of +Serapis.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 158.</note> Alexandria also sent forth a crowd of artists, +philosophers, and savants to the West. Several men of +Egyptian origin filled high places in the imperial household, +<pb n="568"/><anchor id="Pg568"/>as librarians or secretaries in the first and second centuries. +Chaeremon, who had been librarian at Alexandria, and who +had composed a theological treatise on Isis and Osiris, became +Nero’s tutor.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 157.</note> Chaeremon’s pupil, Dionysius, was librarian +and imperial secretary in the reign of Trajan. And Julius +Vestinus, who held these offices under Hadrian, is described +in an inscription as chief pontiff of Egypt and Alexandria,—a +combination of dignities which probably enabled him to +throw his powerful protection around the Isiac rites at +Rome.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.G.</hi> 5900, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">Ἀρχιερεῖ Ἀλεξανδρεῖας καὶ Αἰγύπτου πάσης καὶ ἐπιστάτῃ +τοῦ Μουσείου καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἐν Ῥώμῃ βιβλιοθηκῶν ... +ἐπιστολεῖ τοῦ αὐτοῦ αὐτοκράτορος</foreign>: +cf. Macé, <hi rend="italic">Suétone</hi>, pp. 92, 116.</note> An influence so securely seated on the Palatine was +sure to extend to the remotest parts of the Empire. If Isis +could defy all the force of the Republican Government, what +might she not do when emperors were enrolled in her priesthood, +and imperial ministers, in correspondence with every +prefecture from Britain to the Euphrates, were steeped in her +mystic lore? +</p> + +<p> +Already in Nero’s reign, Lucan could speak of Isis and +Osiris as not only welcomed in the shrines of Rome, but as +deities of all the world.<note place="foot">Lucan, <hi rend="italic">Phars.</hi> viii. 831, nos in +templa tuam Romana accepimus Isin; +ix. 158, jam numen gentibus Isin.</note> Plutarch and Lucian, from very +different points of view, are witnesses to the same world-wide +movement. The judgment will be confirmed by even a +casual inspection of the religious records of the inscriptions. +Although Isis and Serapis were not peculiarly soldiers’ gods, +like Mithra and Bellona, yet they had many votaries among the +legions on distant frontiers. A legate of the Legion Tertia +Augusta, who was probably of Egyptian birth, introduced +the rites into the camp of Lambaesis, and a temple to Isis and +Serapis was built by the labour of many pious hands among his +soldiers.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii. 2630; cf. Cagnat, +<hi rend="italic">L’Armée Rom. d’Afr.</hi> p. 423. See +other dedications by officers in <hi rend="italic">Or. +Henz.</hi> 5836, 7.</note> Serapis appears often on the African monuments, +sometimes leagued or identified with Jupiter or Pluto.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii. 2629, 1002, 4, 5.</note> In +Dacia and Pannonia the cults of Egypt were probably not as +popular as that of Mithra, but they have left traces in all the +great centres of population.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> iii. 881, 2, 1428, 1590, 1342, +4015; <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 5838.</note> In several inscriptions<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iii. 4809; <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2035, +5833.</note> Isis is called +<pb n="569"/><anchor id="Pg569"/>by a native name such as Noreia, and we find on others the +instructive blending of the strata of four mythologies. Tacitus +thought he had discovered the counterpart of Isis in the forests of +Germany.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Germ.</hi> 9.</note> She is certainly found in Holland, and at Cologne.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 1897.</note> +Officers of the sixth Legion worshipped her at York.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 5836.</note> French +antiquaries have followed the traces of the Egyptian gods in +nearly all the old places of importance in their own country, +at Fréjus, Nîmes, and Arles, at Lyons, Clermont, and Soissons.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 162. For an interesting +dedication for the support of the worship +at Nîmes <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> xii. 3058.</note> +Shrines of Isis have been explored in Switzerland and at the +German spas.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 457; cf. Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 67, +in modum municipii exstructus locus, +amoeno salubrium aquarum usu frequens.</note> The scenes which were so common at Rome +or Pompeii or Corinth, the procession of shaven, white-robed +priests and acolytes, marching to the sound of chants and +barbaric music, with the sacred images and symbols of a worship +which had been cradled on the Nile ages before the time +of Romulus, and transmuted by the eclectic subtlety of Platonic +theologians into a cosmopolitan religion, were reproduced in +remote villages on the edge of the Sahara and the Atlantic, +in the valleys of the Alps or the Yorkshire dales. +</p> + +<p> +What was the secret of this power and fascination in the +religion of a race whose cult of the dog and cat had so often +moved the ridicule of the satirist and comic poet? No single +answer can be given to that question. The great power of +Isis <q>of myriad names</q> was that, transfigured by Greek +influences, she appealed to many orders of intellect, and +satisfied many religious needs or fancies. To the philosopher +her legends furnished abundant material for the conciliation of +religion and pseudo-science, for the translation of myth into +ancient cosmic theory, or for the absorption of troublesome +mythologies into a system which perhaps tended more than +any other, except that of Mithra, to the Platonic idea of the +unity of God. The mystic who dreamt of an ecstasy of divine +communion, in which the limits of sense and personality might +be left behind in a vague rapture of imaginative emotion, +found in the spectacle of her inner shrine a strange power far +surpassing the most transporting effects of Eleusis. Women +especially saw in the divine mother and mourner a glorified +<pb n="570"/><anchor id="Pg570"/>type of their sex, in all its troubles and its tenderness, such as +their daughters in coming ages were destined to find in the +Virgin Mother.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 160; Réville, <hi rend="italic">Rel. unter +den Sev.</hi> p. 53; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> ii. 3386, Isis +puellaris.</note> The ascetic impulse, which has seldom been +far from the deepest religious feeling, derived comfort and +the sense of atonement in penitential abstinence and preparation +for the holy mysteries. The common mass, who are affected +chiefly by the externals of a religion, had their wants amply +gratified in the pomp and solemnity of morning sacrifice and +vespers, in those many-coloured processions, such as that which +bore in spring-time the sacred vessel to the shore, with the sound +of hymn and litany.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. c. 11.</note> And in an age when men were everywhere +banding themselves together in clubs and colleges for +mutual help and comfort, the sacred guilds of Isis had +evidently an immense influence. That evil, as in nearly all +heathen worships, often lurked under her solemn forms cannot +be denied, though there was also groundless calumny.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 160, 1.</note> Yet +there must have been some strange power in a religion which +could for a moment lift a sensualist imagination like that of +Apuleius almost to the height and purity of Eckhart and +Tauler.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. c. 24.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The triumph of Isis and Serapis in the Western world is +an instructive episode in the history of religion. It is, like +that of Mithra, a curious example of the union of conservative +feeling with a purifying and transforming influence +of the growing moral sense. A religion has a double strength +and fascination which has a venerable past behind it. The +ancient symbolism may be the creation of an age of gross +conceptions of the Divine, it may be even grotesque and +repulsive, at first sight, to the more refined spiritual sense of +an advanced moral culture. Yet the religious instinct will +always strive to maintain its continuity with the past, however +it may transfigure the legacy of ruder ages. Just as Christian +theologians long found anticipations of the Gospel among +patriarchs and warrior kings of Israel, so pagan theologians +like Plutarch or Aristides could discover in the cults of Egypt +all their highest cosmic theories, and satisfaction for all their +spiritual wants.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is. et Osir.</hi> c. 78; Aristid. +<hi rend="italic">Or. Sac.</hi> viii. 52, 53.</note> With unwavering faith, Plutarch and his +<pb n="571"/><anchor id="Pg571"/>kind believed that under all the coarse mythic fancy of early +ages there was veiled a profound insight into the secrets of +nature and the spiritual needs of humanity. The land of +the Nile, with its charm of immemorial antiquity, was long +believed to have been the cradle of all that was best and deepest +in the philosophic or religious thought of Hellas. The gods of +the classic pantheon were identified with the gods of Egypt.<note place="foot">Herodot. ii. c. 50.</note> +Pythagoras and the Orphic mystics had derived their inspiration +from the same source.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 81; Iambl. <hi rend="italic">De Pythag. Vit.</hi> +§ 151, cf. § 14; Porph. <hi rend="italic">Pythag.</hi> § 6; +Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is. et Osir.</hi> c. 10.</note> The conquests of Alexander +and the foundation of Alexandria had drawn to a focus the +philosophical or the religious ideas of East and West, of India, +Palestine, Persia, and Greece. At Alexandria were blended +and transformed all the philosophies and mythologies by the +subtle dialectic of Greece. The animal cult of Egypt, indeed, +was always a stumbling-block to Greek and Roman.<note place="foot">Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apollon. Tyan.</hi> vi. 19; +D. Chrys. <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> xii. § 68.</note> It moved +the contempt and ridicule of comedian and satirist.<note place="foot">Juv. xv. 3; cf. Cic. <hi rend="italic">De Nat. Deor.</hi> +iii. 15; <hi rend="italic">Tuscul.</hi> v. 27.</note> It was +an easy mark for the sneers of the crowd. Yet even the +divinised dog or ibis could find skilful, if not convinced, +defenders among the Greek eclectics, who lent all the forces of +Hellenic ingenuity to the cause of antiquarianism in religion.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is. et Osir.</hi> cc. 72-74.</note> +Their native mythology was not without traces of zoolatry. +Their own god of healing, who became so popular in all lands, +was always connected in art and legend with the serpent. The +serpent of the Acropolis, which daily ate the holy wafer, was +the immemorial companion of the tutelary goddess of Athens.<note place="foot">Herodot. viii. c. 41.</note> +Had not Zeus, in his many amours, found an easy access to +the fair victims of his love in animal forms? The Divine +virtues are only faintly imaged in animals which have their +uses in the world. If all religion is only symbolism, why +should not the multiform beneficence of the unseen Powers +be expressed in the form of creatures who give their service +and companionship to man, as fitly as in lifeless bronze or +marble? +</p> + +<p> +But although men might try to reconcile theology even +to a worship of animal forms, it was by very different spiritual +influences that Isis and Serapis won the devotion of the +<pb n="572"/><anchor id="Pg572"/>rustics of remote villages in Spain and Britain. The dog-headed +Anubis might perhaps be borne in processions.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. c. 11, attollens canis +cervices arduas Anubis; cf. Juv. vi. +534; Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is.</hi> c. 44; Tertull. +<hi rend="italic">Apol.</hi> 6; <hi rend="italic">Ad Nat.</hi> ii. 8.</note> The +forms of sacred animals might be portrayed, along with those of +Io and Andromeda, on the frescoes of Herculaneum or Pompeii.<note place="foot">Mau, <hi rend="italic">Pompeii</hi>, p. 175.</note> +But the monuments of the Western provinces are, as a rule, +singularly free from the grossness of early Egyptian zoolatry.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 106, 7.</note> +And there is hardly a hint of it in the famous picture of the +initiation of Lucius in the <hi rend="italic">Metamorphoses</hi> of Apuleius. In +that fascinating scene, Isis is the universal mother, Nature, +queen of the worlds of light and darkness, the eternal type +of all lesser divinities. And on inscriptions she appears as +the Power who <q>is all in all.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 1871.</note> Whatever her special functions +may be, goddess of the spring, or of the sailor on the sea, +guardian of women in the pangs of motherhood, the <q>Queen +of peace,</q><note place="foot">On a Dacian inscription, <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> +iii. 1590, Placidae Reginae.</note> guide and saviour of souls in the passage to the +world beyond the tomb, she remains the Supreme Power, +invoked by many names, with virtues and graces as various +as her names. And Serapis, in the later theology, is not the +president of any provincial territory in the universe. He is +not the lord of sea or earth or air only; he is lord of all the +elements, the dispenser of all good, the master of human life. +It is thus that Aristides hails him after his rescue from the +perils of the sea.<note place="foot">Baumgart, <hi rend="italic">Ael. Aristides Repräsent. +der Soph. Rhet. des zweit. Jahr.</hi> +p. 91; cf. Hadrian’s letter to Servianus, +Vopisc. <hi rend="italic">Vit. Saturn.</hi> c. 8.</note> But although Serapis in many a monument +is enthroned beside Jupiter, Queen Isis is also supreme in +the world both of the living and the dead. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, although there is a very decided tendency to monotheism +in the Alexandrian religion, a tendency which appealed +strongly to minds like Plutarch, it did not succeed in altogether +breaking with polytheism and its attendant superstitions. The +attempted alliance of religion and philosophy was far from +complete. Philosophy, indeed, had substituted abstract theory +for the poetry of legend. It struggled hard to assert the +essential unity of the Divine nature. And Plutarch, in his +treatise on Isis, declares that God is one and the same in all +lands under whatever names He may be worshipped.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is.</hi> c. 66, 79.</note> But the +<pb n="573"/><anchor id="Pg573"/>treatise shows at the same time how vague and unsettled still +was the theology of Alexandria, and how hard it found the task +of wedding Platonism to the haunting tradition of old idolatry. +Physics, metaphysics, etymology, are all employed with infinite +ingenuity to recover the secret meaning which it is assumed +that ancient wisdom had veiled under the forms of legend. +But arbitrary fancy plays far too large a part in these random +guesses, and system there is none, to bridge the gulf between +the Platonist eclectic and the superstitious masses. Isis +worship was in practice linked with all the reigning superstitions, +with divination, magic, astrology, oneiromancy. +Manetho, who was one of the founders of the worship of +Serapis, wrote a treatise for the Greek world on the influence +of the stars on human destiny.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 101.</note> Egyptian astrologists were +always in great demand. The emperors Otho and M. Aurelius +carried them in their train.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> i. 23; D. Cass. lxxi. 8, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καὶ γάρ τοι λόγος ἔχει Ἀρνοῦφιν τινα μάγον Αἰγύπτιον +συνόντα τῷ Μάρκῳ κτλ.</foreign></note> Many Roman ladies in sickness +would not take food or medicine till the safe hour had been +determined by inspecting the Petosiris.<note place="foot">Juv. vi. 581.</note> The Isiac devotee +was an enthusiastic believer in dreams sent by his favourite +deities. On many inscriptions the record may be read of +these warnings of the night.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 1882, ex visu; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 346, +572; v. 484.</note> In the syncretism of the time, +Serapis came to be identified with the Greek god of healing, +and patients sleeping in Egyptian temples received in dreams +inspired prescriptions for their maladies.<note place="foot">Cic. <hi rend="italic">De Div.</hi> i. 58, 132; Diod. +i. 25; Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or. Sacr.</hi> iii. p. 319 +(Jebb).</note> Sometimes the deity +vouchsafed to confer miraculous powers of cure on a worshipper. +The sceptical good sense of Vespasian was persuaded by medical +courtiers at Alexandria to try the effect of his touch on the +blind and paralytic, who had a divine monition to seek the +aid of the emperor.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Hist.</hi> iv. 81, monitu Serapidis, +etc.</note> The cultivated Aristides had a firm +faith in these heaven-sent messages. He even believed that +Serapis could call back the dead to life.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 104; Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or. Sacr.</hi> +viii. 55.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Yet Aristides, in his prose hymn to Serapis, gives us a +glimpse of the better side of that religion. After all, the +superstitions which clustered round it were the universal +<pb n="574"/><anchor id="Pg574"/>beliefs of the age, prevalent among the most cultivated and +the most ignorant. The question for the modern student is +whether these Alexandrian worships provided real spiritual +sustenance for their devotees. And, in spite of many appearances +to the contrary, the impartial inquirer must come to +the conclusion that the cult of the Egyptian deities, through +its inner monotheism, its ideal of ascetic purity, its vision of a +great judgment and a life to come, was a real advance on +the popular religion of old Greece and Rome. Isis and Serapis, +along with Mithra, were preparing the Western world for +the religion which was to appease the long travail of humanity +by a more perfect vision of the Divine. It is impossible for a +modern man to realise the emotion which might be excited by +a symbolism like that of Demeter, or Mithra, or Isis, with +its roots in a gross heathen past. But no reader of Apuleius, +Plutarch, or Philostratus should fail to realise the surging +spiritual energy which, in the second and third centuries, was +seeking for expression and appeasement. It struck into +strange devious tracks, and often was deluded by phantasms of +old superstition glorified by a new spirit. But let us remember +the enduring strength of hereditary piety and ancient association, +and, under its influence, the magical skill of the religious +consciousness to maintain the link between widely severed +generations, by purifying the grossness of the past and +transforming things absurd and offensive into consecrated +vehicles of high spiritual sentiment. No one, who has read +in Apuleius the initiation of Lucius in the Isiac mysteries, +can doubt that the effect on the votary was profound and +elevating. Pious artistic skill was not wanting to heighten +emotion in Isis worship, as it is not disdained in our Christian +churches. But the prayer of thanksgiving offered by Lucius +might, <hi rend="italic">mutatis mutandis</hi>, be uttered by a new convert at a +camp-meeting, or a Breton peasant after her first communion. +It is the devout expression of the deep elementary religious +feelings of awe and gratitude, humility and joy, boundless +hope and trust. In the same tone, Aristides sings his prose +canticle to Serapis. There is not a memory of the brute +gods of the Nile. The Alexandrian god is now the equal or +counterpart of Zeus, the lord of life and death, who cares +for mortal men, who comforts, relieves, sustains. He is +<pb n="575"/><anchor id="Pg575"/>indeed a most awful power, yet one full of loving-kindness, +tenderness, and mercy.<note place="foot">Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or. Sacr.</hi> viii. 54, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">φιλανθρωπότατος γὰρ θεῶν καὶ φοβερώτατος αὐτός, κτλ.</foreign></note> In Plutarch we reach perhaps an even +more spiritual height. Osiris, who in old legend represented the +Nile, or the coarse fructifying powers of nature, passes into +the Eternal Love and Beauty, pure, passionless, remote from +any region of change or death, unapproachable in His ethereal +splendour, save, as in moments of inspired musing, we may +faintly touch Him as in a dream. +</p> + +<p> +In the <hi rend="italic">Metamorphoses</hi> of Apuleius, the goddess who appears +in a vision to Lucius promises that, when his mortal course +is run, he shall find her illumining the Stygian gloom. +And, next to the maternal love with which she embraced her +votaries in this life, the great attraction of her cult was the +promise of a blessed future, through sacramental grace, which +she offered for the world to come. Serapis, too, is from the +beginning a god of the under world, a <q>guide of souls,</q> as +he is also their judge at the Great Assize.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> viii. 54, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">σωτὴρ αὐτὸς καὶ ψυχοπομπός, ἄγων εἰς φῶς καὶ πάλιν δεχόμενος κτλ.</foreign>; Plew, <hi rend="italic">De Sarapide</hi>, +p. 30.</note> The Orphic lore, the +mysteries of the Eleusinian goddesses and Dionysus, had for ages +taught a dim doctrine of immortality, under the veil of legend, +through the scenic effects of their dramatic mysteries. They +first revealed to the Greek race that the life to come was +the true life, for which the present was only a purgatorial +preparation. They taught, in whatever rude fashion, that +future beatitude could only be secured by a purification from +the stains of time.<note place="foot">Rohde, <hi rend="italic">Psyche</hi>, ii. p. 126; cf. i. 286; +Lobeck, <hi rend="italic">Aglaoph.</hi> i. p. 239; Hardie, <hi rend="italic">Lectures +on Classical Subjects</hi>, pp. 56, 57. +The Orphici laid more stress on the +moral aspect of immortality than the +priests of Eleusis did.</note> The doctrine may have been drawn from +Egypt, and Egypt once more gave it fresh meaning and force. +The Alexandrian worship came with a deeper faith and more +impressive ritual, with dreams and monitory visions, with a +mystic lore, and the ascetic preparation for the holy mysteries, +with the final scene in the inner sanctuary, when the +votary seemed borne far beyond the limits of space and +time into ethereal distances.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. c. 22.</note> The soul might, indeed, +have to pass through many bodies and mortal lives before +it reached the life eternal. But the motto of the Isiac faith, +inscribed on many tombs, was <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">εὐψύχει</foreign>, <q>be of good courage,</q> +<pb n="576"/><anchor id="Pg576"/><q>may Osiris give the water of refreshment.</q><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.G.</hi> 6562, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">δοίη σοι ὁ Ὄσιρις τὸ ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ</foreign>: cf. Plew, <hi rend="italic">De Sarap.</hi> p. 31.</note> Everywhere +the lotus, image of immortality, in its calix opening at +every dawn, appears on symbols of the worship. And Harpocrates, +the god who has triumphed over death, appears +as the child issuing from the mystic flower. The Roman +practice of burning the dead might seem to separate for ever +the fate of the body from the spirit, although it is really a +question of more or less rapid resolution of the mortal frame +into its original elements. But, as we have seen, the man of +the early Empire became more and more anxious to preserve +undisturbed the <q>handful of white dust</q> rescued from the pyre, +and would invoke the wrath of Isis against the desecrator.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 1879.</note> The +great object of many of the colleges was to secure their humble +members a niche in the <hi rend="italic">columbarium</hi>. The Alexandrine faith in +immortality, by the grace of Isis and Serapis, probably did not +inquire too curiously into the manner of the resurrection. +</p> + +<p> +Undoubtedly another secret of the popularity of the +Egyptian worships lay in their impressive ritual, the separation +of their clergy from the world, and in the comradeship of +the guilds in which their votaries were enrolled. Apuleius +has left us, in the initiation of Lucius at Cenchreae, and +again at Rome, a priceless picture of the Isiac ritual. Everything +in the ceremonial tends to kindle pious enthusiasm. +Sophocles and Pindar had extolled the blessedness of those +who had seen the mystic vision.<note place="foot">Pind. <hi rend="italic">Fr.</hi> 137 (Christ); Soph. <hi rend="italic">Fr.</hi> 753— +<lg> +<l rend="margin-left: 10"><foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ὡς τρὶς ὄλβιοι</foreign></l> +<l><foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">κεῖνοι βροτῶν οἳ ταῦτα δερχένθες τέλη</foreign></l> +<l><foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">μόλωσ’ ἐς Ἅιδου.</foreign></l> +</lg> + +Cf. <hi rend="italic">O.C.</hi> 1051.</note> The experience of Lucius +would seem to confirm the testimony of the Greek poets. +When the goddess has promised him deliverance from +brutish form, and pledged him to strict obedience, Lucius is +inspired with the utmost ardour to join in <q>the holy warfare.</q> +He takes up his abode in the sacred precincts, he begs to be +admitted to full communion. But the venerable pontiff +requires him to await the sign of the divine will. Lucius +continues in fasting and prayer till the sign at last comes; +when it comes he hastens to the morning sacrifice. The +scrolls, covered with symbols of ancient Egypt, are brought in, +and then, before a crowd of the faithful, he is plunged in the +sacred font. Returning to the temple, as he lies prostrate +<pb n="577"/><anchor id="Pg577"/>before the image of the goddess in prayer, he has whispered to +him <q>the unutterable words.</q> Ten days more are spent in +strictest retreat and abstinence from pleasures of the flesh; +and then came the crowning rite, the solemn vigil in the inner +sanctuary. There, as at Eleusis, a vivid drama of a divine +death and resurrection probably passed before his eyes, in +flashing radiance and awful visions, amid gloom and the +tones of weird music. But the tale of what he saw and heard +could never be fully unfolded to mortal ear. +</p> + +<p> +There indeed are some sordid and suspicious traits in the +history of this worship. As in the case of the taurobolium,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> xii. 4321, ex stipe collata.</note> +the mysteries of Isis and Serapis could not be enjoyed without +a considerable outlay. And Lucius found a difficulty in meeting +the expense.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. c. 28 (813), veste +ipsa mea quamvis parvula distracta +sufficientem corrasi summulum; cf. +Tertull. <hi rend="italic">Apol.</hi> 13.</note> But, whether in heathendom or Christendom, +a regular priesthood and an elaborate ritual cannot be +supported without the offerings of the faithful. There has +probably never been a religion in which the charge of venality +has not been levelled against the priests. But Lucius finds +here no stumbling-block. No material offering can repay the +goodness and love of the goddess. He feels towards her not +only reverence and gratitude, but the love of a son to a +Divine mother. Ascetic isolation has produced the natural +result of imaginative ecstasy and mystic exaltation. The long, +quiet hours of rapt devotion before the sacred figure in the +stillness of the shrine, the spectral visions of the supreme +hour of revelation, made a profound impression on a soul +which was deeply tainted by other visions of old-world sin. +</p> + +<p> +The daily ritual of Isis, which seems to have been as +regular and complicated as that of the Catholic Church, produced +an immense effect on the Roman mind. Every day +there were two solemn offices, at which white-robed, tonsured +priests, with acolytes and assistants of every degree, officiated.<note place="foot">Tibull. i. 3, 31, bisque die, resoluta +comas, tibi dicere laudes Insignis +turba debeat in Pharia.</note> +The morning litany and sacrifice was an impressive service. +The crowd of worshippers thronged the space before the chapel +at the early dawn. The priest, ascending by a hidden stair, +drew apart the veil of the sanctuary,<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. c. 20 (795), velis +candentibus reductis.</note> and offered the holy image +<pb n="578"/><anchor id="Pg578"/>to their adoration. He then made the round of the altars, +reciting the litany, and sprinkling the holy water <q>from the +secret spring.</q> At two o’clock in the afternoon the passers by +could hear from the temple in the Campus Martius the chant +of vespers.<note place="foot">Mart. x. 48, 1, nunciat octavam +Phariae sua turba juvencae.</note> A fresco of Herculaneum gives us a picture of the +service. It is the adoration of the holy water, representing +in symbol the fructifying and deathless power of Osiris. A +priest, standing before the holy place, raises breast high a +sacred urn for the adoration of the crowd. The sacrifice is +smoking on the altar, and two choirs are chanting to the +accompaniment of the seistron and the flute.<note place="foot">Mau, <hi rend="italic">Pompeii</hi>, pp. 171, 172.</note> Another fresco +from Herculaneum exhibits a bearded, dark-skinned figure, +crowned with the lotus, in the attitude of dancing before a +throng of spectators to the sound of music. It is plausibly +conjectured that we have here a pantomimic representation of +the passion of Osiris and its joyful close.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 115; <hi rend="italic">Catal.</hi> No. 222.</note> There was much +solemn pomp and striking scenic effect in this public ceremonial. +But it is clear from Apuleius, that an important part of +worship was also long silent meditation before the image of +the goddess. The poets speak of devotees seated thus before +the altar, and in the temple at Pompeii a bench has been +found which, from its position, was probably occupied by such +silent worshippers.<note place="foot">Mau, p. 171; Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. c. 17 +(791), intuitans deae specimen pristinos +casus meos recordabar; Mart. ii. 14, 8.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The great festivals of the Egyptian worship were the +blessing of the sacred vessel on the fifth of March, and the +celebration of the quest and finding of Osiris in November. +The anniversary of the death and rising again of the god was +strictly observed by large numbers, especially among women. +Pagan and Christian writers have alike ridiculed the theatrical +grief and joy for a god so often found, so often lost.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 126; Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is. et Osir.</hi> +c. 39, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">διὸ μηνὸς Ἀθὺρ ἀφανισθῆναι τὸν Ὄσιριν λέγουσιν, + <anchor id="corr578"/><corr sic="κτλ">κτλ.</corr></foreign>: Juv. viii. 29; +vi. 534; Ov. <hi rend="italic">Metam.</hi> ix. 692, nunquamque +satis quaesitus Osiris; Lucan, viii. +831, et quem tu plangens hominem +testaris Osirim; Min. Fel. c. 21.</note> The +death of Osiris at the hands of Typhon, the rending of the +divine form, and the dispersion of the lacerated remains, were +passionately lamented in sympathy with the mourning Isis. +With effusive grief the devotees beat their breasts and lacerated +their arms, and followed in eager search. When on the +<pb n="579"/><anchor id="Pg579"/>third day the god had been found and restored, the joyful +event was hailed with extravagant gladness, and celebrated +by a banquet of the initiated. For some of these holy +days the rubrics prescribed a long preparation of fasting and +ascetic restraint. But that a general strictness of life was not +required of the Isiac votary, at least under the early Empire, +may be inferred from the fact that the frail Cynthias and +Delias in Propertius and Tibullus were among the most regular +in ritual observance.<note place="foot">Ov. <hi rend="italic">Am.</hi> i. 8, 74; iii. 9, 30; Prop. +ii. 33, 3; Tibull. i. 3, 23.</note> The festival of the holy vessel of Isis, +which marked the opening of navigation, and received the +benediction of the goddess, was, in the early Empire, observed +with solemn pomp and enthusiasm by the coast towns of the +Mediterranean. A brilliantly vivid description of such a +scene at Cenchreae has been left by Apuleius. It was a +great popular carnival, in which a long procession, masquerading +in the most fantastic and various costumes, conducted the +sacred ship to the shore. Women in white robes scattered +flowers and perfumes along the way. A throng of both +sexes bore torches and tapers, to symbolise the reign of +the Mother of the stars. The music of flute and pipe +meanwhile filled the air with sacred symphonies, and a +band of youths in snow-white vestments chanted a hymn. +Wave upon wave came the throng of those who had been +admitted to full communion, all clad in linen, and the men +marked with the tonsure. They were followed by the priests, +each bearing some symbol of the many powers and virtues +of the goddess, the boat-shaped lamp, the <q>altars of succour,</q> +the palm of gold, the wand of Mercury. In a pix were +borne the holy mysteries, and, last of all, the most venerable +symbol, a small urn of shining gold and adorned in +subtle workmanship with figures of Egyptian legend.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. c. 11 (774-78); +Réville, <hi rend="italic">Rel. unter den Sev.</hi> p. 56.</note> This +holy vase, containing the water of the sacred river, which was +an emanation from Osiris,<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is. et Osir.</hi> c. 38, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">Νεῖλον Ὀσίριδος ἀπορροὴν ... ἔχουσιν</foreign>.</note> closed the procession. Arrived at +the margin of the sea, the chief priest consecrated the sacred +vessel with solemn form and litany, and named it with the holy +name. Adorned with gold and citrus wood and pictures of +old legend, it spread its white sails to the breeze, and bore +<pb n="580"/><anchor id="Pg580"/>into the distance the vows and offerings of the faithful for the +safety of those upon the deep. +</p> + +<p> +The oriental religions of the imperial period were distinguished +from the native religion of Latium by the possession +of a numerous and highly organised priesthood, and an +intensely sacerdotal spirit.<note place="foot">Réville, p. 54; Lafaye, p. 130 sqq.</note> In an age of growing religious +faith, this characteristic gave them enormous power. The +priest became a necessary medium of intercourse with God. +It is also one of the many traits in the later paganism, +which prepared and softened the transition to the reign of +the mediaeval Church. It would be tedious and unprofitable +to enumerate the various grades of the Isiac priesthood. +There were high priests of conspicuous dignity, who were +also called <hi rend="italic">prophetae</hi>.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.G.</hi> 6006; Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> ii. c. 28 +(159), propheta primarius, xi. c. 17 +(788), sacerdos maximus. <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> +2305, C. Ruf. Volusianus pater ierofanta +profata Isidos; 1878, 6666; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> x. +6445; xii. 410.</note> But ordinary priests could perform +many of their functions.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 133.</note> There were interpreters of +dreams, dressers and keepers of the sacred wardrobe of the +goddess,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> xii. 3061, Ornatrix fani Nemausi.</note> whose duties must have been onerous, if we may +judge from the list of robes and jewels and sacred furniture +preserved in inscriptions or recovered from the ruins of Isiac +shrines.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 135.</note> It has been remarked that the roaming Visigoths +in southern Gaul must have had a rare spoil if they had the +fortune to light on one of the great temples of Isis. The +scribe of the Pastophori, in Apuleius, is also an important +officer. He summons the sacred convocation, and recites the +<q>bidding prayer</q> for the Emperor and all subjects, in their +several places and stations.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. c. 17 (789).</note> Music took a large part in the +ritual; there was hymn-singing to the sound of flutes, harp, +and cymbal; and the chanters and paeanists of Serapis +formed an order by themselves.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> c. 9 (772), dicati Serapi tibicines.</note> The prayer which Lucius +offers to the goddess, in Apuleius, has been arranged as a +metrical litany.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 138, n. 4.</note> Women often appear in inscriptions and in +our texts as priestesses, and had a prominent place in all +solemn ritual.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2355, 6385, 2309.</note> And it is evident that, with all its sacerdotalism, +the worship gave full recognition to devout wor<pb n="581"/><anchor id="Pg581"/>shippers of every degree and sex. All who are devoted to +the service have their place and function. The initiated might +even wear the tonsure in the ordinary lay life. To do this, +indeed, needed some courage, in the face of Roman ridicule. +But the religious were, from the earliest times in Greece and +Italy, associated for mutual support in sacred guilds, designated +by various names, Isiaci or Pastophori or Anubiaci. +In the third century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, such societies are found in Ceos +and Peiraeus.<note place="foot">Foucart, <hi rend="italic">Assoc. Religieuses</hi>, p. 117; +<hi rend="italic">Inscr.</hi> 66, 240.</note> On the walls of Pompeii they have left their +appeals to the electors to vote on behalf of candidates for +the aedileship.<note place="foot">Mau, p. 478, Cn. Helv. Sabinum +aed. Isiaci rogant.</note> They were organised on the usual lines of +the ancient colleges, divided into decuries, with a director and +a treasurer, a <q>father</q> or a <q>mother,</q> or a patron at their +head.<note place="foot">Foucart, pp. 25-30; <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> +6029, 2313, mater sacrorum; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> +vi. 2277; <hi rend="italic">Or.</hi> 2308, patrono Sacr. +Isidis; Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. c. 30 (817).</note> The Isiac guilds must have had a powerful influence +in the diffusion of the religion of Alexandria. But they +also were probably one cause of the suspicion so long entertained +for that worship by the Republican government, and +they only asserted their full strength in the second century, +when the colleges in general received the tacit sanction of the +emperors. That the emperors felt little fear of these foreign +sacred corporations became clear when an emperor actually +took the tonsure of Isis.<note place="foot">Lamprid. <hi rend="italic">Commod.</hi> c. 9.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The Isiac system was energetic and self-assertive, but it +can hardly be called dangerous or revolutionary. It threw +many of the old gods into the shade, but its syncretism also +found a place for many of them. Its inner monotheism, after +the fashion of those days, had open arms of charity for all the +ancient gods. One of the priests of Isis might be called +Iacchagogus or Mithra;<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. c. 22 (800).</note> statues of Dionysus and Venus and +Priapus stood in the court of the Isium at Pompeii.<note place="foot">Lafaye, pp. 189, 190; Mau, p. 169.</note> The +Isis of Apuleius proclaims her identity with nearly all the +great powers of classical legend, and gathers them into herself. +But Isis identifies only to conquer and absorb. And her +priesthood formed an aggressive and powerful caste. The +sacerdotal colleges of the Latin religion were never, except in +<pb n="582"/><anchor id="Pg582"/>the case of the Vestals, separated from ordinary life. The +highest pontificate was held by busy laymen, by consuls or +emperors or great soldiers. After the performance of his part +in some great rite, the Roman priest returned to his civic +place and duties. And in Greece, in the third and second +centuries <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, even the Isiac priesthood was held only for a +year, or even for a month; and the sacred processions at +one time needed the authorisation of the local council at +Samos.<note place="foot">Lafaye, p. 149.</note> But when we come to the days of Apuleius, all +this is changed. The chief priest at Cenchreae is evidently +a great ecclesiastic, bearing the sacred Eastern name of +Mithra.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. c. 22 (800), Mithram +illum suum sacerdotem praecipuum, +divino quodam stellarum consortio ut +aiebat mihi conjunctum, sacrorum +ministrum decernit.</note> He has given up ordinary civic life, and has +probably abandoned his Greek name to take a new name +<q>in religion.</q> Every day two solemn services at least +have to be performed in the temple, besides the private +direction of souls, which had evidently become a regular +part of the priestly functions. Attached to the great +temples, and close to the altar, there is a <q>clergy house</q> +where the ministers are lodged. It is called the Pastophorion, +and its chambers have been traced in the débris +of the temple at Pompeii.<note place="foot">Lafaye, pp. 151, 186; Mau, <hi rend="italic">Pompeii</hi>, +p. 174.</note> One of these presbyteries was +the scene of the seduction which convulsed the religious +world in the reign of Tiberius, and which sent so many pious +exiles to the solitudes of Sardinia. The ministers of Isis and +Serapis are marked off by the tonsure and the Isiac habit, +which meet us in the pages of poets from Tibullus to Juvenal,<note place="foot">Tibull. i. 3, 30; Mart. xii. 29; +Juv. vi. 526; Suet. <hi rend="italic">Otho</hi>, 12.</note> +and in the frescoes of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The +abstinence, which was required as a preparation for communion +in ordinary votaries, was a lifelong obligation on the priest. +The use of woollen garments, of wine, pork, fish, and certain +vegetables, was absolutely forbidden to them.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is.</hi> c. 4, 8, 32.</note> Chastity was +essential in the celebrant of the holy mysteries, and even +Tertullian holds up the priests of Isis as a reproachful example +of continence to professing followers of Christ. The priesthood +is no longer a secondary concern; it absorbs a man’s +<pb n="583"/><anchor id="Pg583"/>whole life, sets him apart within the sanctuary as the dispenser +of sacred privileges, with the awful power of revealing the +mystery of eternity, and preparing souls to meet the great +ordeal. +</p> + +<p> +It does not need much imagination to understand the +fascination of Isis and Serapis for a people who had outgrown +a severe and sober, but an uninspiring faith. They came to +the West at the crisis of a great spiritual and political +revolution, with the charm of foreign mystery and the +immemorial antiquity of a land whose annals ran back to +ages long before Rome and Athens were even villages. But +with antique charm, the religion combined the moral and +spiritual ideas of generations which had outgrown the gross +symbolism of Nature worship. The annual festivals might +preserve the memory of the myth, which in its grossness and +brutal tragedy once pictured the fructifying influence of the +mysterious river on the lands which awaited his visitations, +or the waning force of vegetative power and solar warmth. +But Serapis, the new god of the Ptolemies, became the lord of +life and death, the guide and saviour of souls, the great judge +of all in the other world, an awful power, yet more inclined to +mercy than to judgment.<note place="foot">Aristid. <hi rend="italic">Or. Sacr.</hi> xiii. p. 54.</note> And Isis rose to equally boundless +sway, and one of greater tenderness. Powers above and powers +below alike wait on her will: she treads Tartarus under her +feet, and yet she embraces all, and specially the weak and +miserable, in the arms of her charity.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. c. 24.</note> Above all, she has the +secret of the unseen world, and can lighten for her worshipper +the Stygian gloom. But the Isiac, like the Orphic revelation, +while it gave a blessed promise for the life to come, attached +grave conditions to the pledge. In this brief time of probation, +the soul must prepare itself under ghostly guidance for +the great trial. Sacrament and mystery lent their aid to +fortify the worshipper in the face of death, but, to derive their +full virtue, he must exercise himself in temperance, abjure the +pleasures of the senses, and purify himself for the vision of +God.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi></note> The sacred ritual of the Egyptian might captivate the +senses and imagination by its pomp and music, its steaming +altars, and many-coloured symbolism. But in the stillness of +the sanctuary the worshipper was trained to find his moments +<pb n="584"/><anchor id="Pg584"/>of purest and most exalted devotion in silent meditation +before the Queen of heaven and the shades. The <anchor id="corr584"/><corr sic="lonely">lonely,</corr> +the weak, and the desolate found in the holy guilds succour +and consolation, with a place in the ritual of her solemn +seasons, which bound each to each in the love of a Divine +Mother. +</p> + +</div><div type="chapter" n="6" rend="page-break-before: always"> +<pb n="585"/><anchor id="Pg585"/> +<index index="toc" level1="VI. The religion of Mithra"/><index index="pdf" level1="VI. The religion of Mithra"/> +<head>CHAPTER VI</head> + +<head type="sub">THE RELIGION OF MITHRA</head> + +<p> +Of all the oriental religions which attracted the devotion of +the West in the last three centuries of the Empire, that of +Mithra was the most powerful. It is also the system which +for various reasons has the greatest interest for the modern +student. It is perhaps the highest and most striking example +of the last efforts of paganism to reconcile itself to the great +moral and spiritual movement which was setting steadily, and +with growing momentum, towards purer conceptions of God, of +man’s relations to Him, and of the life to come. It is also the +greatest effort of syncretism to absorb, without extinguishing, +the gods of the classic pantheon in a cult which was almost +monotheistic, to transform old forms of nature worship and +cosmic symbolism into a system which should provide at once +some form of moral discipline and real satisfaction for spiritual +wants. In this effort, Mithraism was not so much impeded +by a heritage of coarse legend as the worships of Pessinus +and Alexandria. It was indeed sprung from the same order +of religious thought as they. It could never detach itself +from its source as a cult of the powers of nature.<note place="foot">Cumont, <hi rend="italic">Monuments Relatifs aux Mystères de Mithra</hi>, Intr. pp. 309, 310.</note> But the +worship of the Sun, with which Mithra was inseparably connected, +was the purest and most natural form of devotion, +if elemental powers were to be worshipped at all. And heathendom +tended more and more under the Empire to fix its +devotion on the source of all light and life. The Sun was to +Plato the highest material symbol of the Infinite Good. Neo-Pythagoreanism +and Neo-Platonism regarded him as the sacred +<pb n="586"/><anchor id="Pg586"/>image of the power beyond human ken.<note place="foot">Zeller, <hi rend="italic">Phil. der Griech.</hi> iii. 2, p. +101; cf. Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> i. 17; Philostr. +<hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> ii. 38; vi. 10, § 1; M. +Aurel. xi. 27.</note> <q>Before religion,</q> +it has been said, <q>had reached the point of proclaiming that +God must be sought in the realm of the ideal and the absolute +outside the world of sense, the one rational and scientific cult +was that of the Sun.</q><note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 336; Dieterich, +<hi rend="italic">Eine Mithrasliturgie</hi>, p. 197.</note> Heliolatry also harmonised with +absolutism in the State, as the old Persian kings and their +imitators, the emperors of the third century, clearly perceived. +The great temple of the Sun, which Aurelian, the son of a +priestess of the deity, founded in the Campus Martius, with its +high pontiffs and stately ritual, did honour not only to the +great lord of the heavenly spheres, but to the monarch who +was the august image of his power upon earth and who was +endued with his special grace.<note place="foot">Flav. Vop. <hi rend="italic">Aurelian</hi>, c. 36, 39.</note> The power of Mithra in the +fourth century lay in the fact that, while it was tender and +tolerant to the old national worships, and never broke with the +inner spirit of heathenism, it created an all-embracing system +which rose above all national barriers, which satisfied the +philosophic thought of the age in its mysticism, and gave +comfort and a hope of immortality through its sacraments. +</p> + +<p> +Mithra was one of the most ancient and venerable objects +of pagan devotion, as he was one of the last to be dethroned. +In faint outline he can be traced to the cradle of the Aryan +race.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 223 sq.; Gasquet, +<hi rend="italic">Le Culte de Mithra</hi>, p. 16 sq.</note> In the Vedas he is a god of light, and, as the god of +truth, who hates all falsehood, he has the germ of that moral +character which grew into a great force in the last age of his +worship in the West. In the Avestas, the sacred books of the +religion of Iran, which, however late their redaction, still enshrine +a very ancient creed, Mithra has the same well-defined +personality. He is the radiant god who seems to emerge +from the rocky summits of eastern mountains at dawn, who +careers through heaven with a team of four white horses; yet +he is not sun or moon or any star, but a spirit of light, ever +wakeful, watching with a thousand eyes, whom nothing can +escape and nothing deceive.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 225.</note> And so, while he gives warmth +and increase to the earth, and health and wealth to men, he is +also from the beginning a moral power. He confers wisdom +<pb n="587"/><anchor id="Pg587"/>and honour and a clear conscience and concord. He wages a +truceless war with the evil powers of darkness, and guards his +faithful soldiers against the craft of the enemy. He is the +friend and consoler of the poor; he is the mediator between +earth and heaven; he is the lord of the world to come.<note place="foot">Gasquet, p. 20.</note> But +his place in the Zoroastrian hierarchy was not always equally +high. At one time he was only one of the <hi rend="italic">yazatas</hi>, who were +created by the supreme Ormuzd.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 226 sqq.</note> But Mithra has still the +attributes of guardian and saviour; he is approached with +sacrifice, libation, ablution, and litany, as in the latest days of +his power in the West. And again a higher place is given to +him; he is the vicegerent of the remote, ineffable Ormuzd, the +mediator through whom the supreme power crushes evil +demons, and wages war with Ahriman; he is invoked in the +same prayers side by side with the Supreme. The Great +Kings, especially the later, regard Mithra as their special +guardian, swear by him in their most solemn oaths,<note place="foot">Xen. <hi rend="italic">Cyrop.</hi> vii. 5, 53; <hi rend="italic">Oecon.</hi> iv. +§ 24.</note> and call +upon him in the hour of battle. If he was the god of the +humble and afflicted, he was also the god of the prince and +warrior noble, and so we shall find him at the end. +</p> + +<p> +The Persian conquest of Babylon had lasting effects on +the religion of Mithra. There he encountered a sacerdotal +system which had its roots in an immemorial civilisation. The +conquerors, as so often happens, were to some extent subdued +by the vanquished.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 231; Gasquet, p. +21 sqq.</note> Syncretism set in; the deities of the +two races were reconciled and identified. The magical arts +and the astrolatry of the valley of the Euphrates imposed +themselves on the purer Mazdean faith, and never relaxed +their hold, although they failed to check its development as a +moral system. Ormuzd was confounded with Bel, Mithra +with Shamash or the Sun-god. The astral and solar lore, +the faith in mystic numbers, which had been cultivated in +Babylonia through many generations, took its place in the +theology of Mithra, and they have left their mark in many a +chapel on the Danube and the Rhine. Yet Mithra, identified +with the Sun at Babylon, was never absorbed in the cult +of the solar deity in the West.<note place="foot">Donsbach, <hi rend="italic">Die räumliche Verbreitung +des <anchor id="corr587"/><corr sic="Mithrasdientes">Mithrasdienstes</corr></hi>, p. 5.</note> On many of the later +<pb n="588"/><anchor id="Pg588"/>inscriptions Mithra and the Sun are mentioned side by side as +equals and allies. Yet the connection of Mithra with Babylon +is never forgotten either by Greeks or Romans. Claudian +connects him with the mysteries of Bel.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Laud. Stilich.</hi> i. 62.</note> The priest who, +with many weird rites, in a waste sunless spot beside the +Tigris, conducts Menippus to the underworld, wears the dress +of Media, and bears the name Mithrobarzanes.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Menippus</hi>, cc. 6-9.</note> +</p> + +<p> +With the destruction of the Persian empire and the diffusion +of Magian influence in Asia Minor, the worship arrived at its +last stage before entering on the conquest of the West. +The monarchs of Pontus, Armenia, Cappadocia, and Commagene, +who claimed descent from the Achaemenids, were +politic or enthusiastic votaries of the religious traditions of +Iran.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 232.</note> While they reverenced Ormuzd and Anaitis, Mithra +was their special patron, as he was to Artaxerxes.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Cumont, <hi rend="italic">Inscr. Orient.</hi> i. 2, 3.</note> Mithra’s +name appears constantly in the names of royal houses, such as +Mithradates and Mithrobarzanes. The inscription on the tomb +of Antiochus of Commagene, who boasted of his descent from +Darius the son of Hystaspes, records the endowment of solemn +Persian rites, and combines the names of Ormuzd and Zeus, of +Apollo and Mithra.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Inscr. Grecques</hi>, i.</note> In the submergence of national barriers +which followed the fall of the Persian monarchy, and under +the influence of Greek philosophy, that process of syncretism +began in Asia Minor which was destined to produce such +momentous results in the third and fourth centuries. But the +Mazdean faith, strong in its associations with the ancient +sources of spiritual enlightenment in the East, never succumbed +to the western paganism. The classical gods might be admitted +to the Mazdean heaven; Zeus might be confounded with +Ormuzd; Anaitis might find an analogue in Artemis Tauropolus. +But the ancient name of Mithra was never profaned +in the liturgy by any translation.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 236.</note> It was chiefly perhaps in +Phrygia and Lydia that alien worships produced a lasting +effect in modifying the Persian theology. The pure morality +of the Mithraist creed might seem to have little in common +with the orgies of the devotees of Attis and the Great Mother. +But religious sentiment has a miraculous power both to +<pb n="589"/><anchor id="Pg589"/>reject and to transmute. The costume and Phrygian cap of +Attis appear on all the monuments of Mithra to the end. +And, although it is a subject of debate, the taurobolium, that +baptism of blood which was the most impressive rite of the +later paganism, was, in all probability, early borrowed by +Mithra from the ritual of Phrygia.<note place="foot">Gasquet, pp. 31 and 75; Réville, +<hi rend="italic">Rel. unter den Sev.</hi> p. 93; Goehler, +<hi rend="italic">De Matris Mag. Cultu</hi>, p. 55; but cf. +Cumont, Intr. pp. 334-5.</note> The pine, the emblem of +immortality, which is so prominent in the scenes of mourning +for Attis,<note place="foot">Gasquet, p. 31.</note> also has a place in the sculptured remains of the +Persian chapels. And the title Menotyrannus, a title of Attis, +which is given to the Persian god on many slabs, recalls his +passage through the same region.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 508, 511; cf. Cumont, +Intr. p. 235.</note> But Greek art had a more +powerful and enduring effect on the future of Mithra than +any of these accretions. Probably the ancient Persian faith +recoiled from any material image of its divine powers,<note place="foot">Strab. xv. 3, § 13 (732), +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">Πέρσαι τοίνυν ἀγάλματα μὲν καὶ βωμοὺς οὐχ ἱδρύονται ... +τιμῶσι δὲ καὶ Ἥλιον ὃν καλοῦσι Μίθραν, κτλ.</foreign></note> although +here also Assyria may have corrupted its purity. But when +Hellenic imagination began to play around the Mazdean gods, +the result was certain. The victorious Mithra was clothed +with human form, and his legend was fixed for ever by some +nameless Pergamene artist, who drew his inspiration from the +<q>steer-slaying Victory</q> of Athens.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. pp. 181, 237.</note> The group in which the +youthful hero, his mantle blown back by the wind, with a +Phrygian cap upon his head, kneels on the shoulder of the +bull, as he buries his poniard in its throat, was for four +centuries reproduced in countless chapels from the mouth of +the Danube to the Solway. That symbolic scene, conveying +so many meanings in its hieratic rigidity, became to the pious +Mithraist what the image of the Divine Figure on the Cross +has been for so many centuries to the devout Catholic. +</p> + +<p> +The revelation of the spread of Mithra worship in the +Roman Empire is one of the greatest triumphs of modern +archaeology. Only faint notices of the cult are found in +Herodotus, Xenophon, and Strabo.<note place="foot">Herod. i. 131; Xen. <hi rend="italic">Cyrop.</hi> vii. +5, 53; Strab. <hi rend="italic">l.c.</hi></note> Quintus Curtius knew the +Persian god as the soldier’s special patron, inspiring courage +in battle.<note place="foot">Q. Curt. iv. 13, § 48.</note> From the verses in the <hi rend="italic">Thebaid</hi> of Statius we +<pb n="590"/><anchor id="Pg590"/>may conclude that he knew something of the service in Mithra’s +grottoes, and that he had seen the figure of the <q>bull slaying</q> +god.<note place="foot">Stat. <hi rend="italic">Theb.</hi> i. 717; cf. Cumont, <hi rend="italic">Textes</hi>, p. 47.</note> Plutarch knows Mithra as the mediator between Ormuzd +and Ahriman.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is. et Osir.</hi> c. 46.</note> Lucian had probably seen the rites in his +native Samosata; he knew the figure with the candys and +tiara, and, from the sneer at the god’s ignorance of Greek, he +may perhaps have heard the old Mazdean litany.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Deor. Concil.</hi> c. 9; <hi rend="italic">Menippus</hi>, +c. 6 sqq.; <hi rend="italic">Jup. Trag.</hi> c. 8.</note> But he had +probably little notion of the hold which Mithra had already +obtained on the farthest regions of the West. Still less had +he any prevision of his great destiny in the third and fourth +centuries. Literature, down to the Antonine age, teaches us +little of the character and strength of the worship. Without +votive inscriptions and the many ruins of his chapels, along +with the indignant, yet anxious, invective of the Christian +apologists, we should never have known how near the Persian +god came to justifying his title of the <q>Unconquered.</q> +</p> + +<p> +It is impossible to fix the precise date when the worship +of Mithra first crossed the Aegean. The silence of inscriptions +must not indeed be taken as proving that he had no devotees +in Italy before the Flavian age. A famous passage in +Plutarch’s life of Pompey would seem to refer the first +appearance of the worship in the West to the conquest of the +pirates of Cilicia by Pompey, in 70 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi><note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Pomp.</hi> c. 24.</note> A religion of the +alien and the slave may well have been long domiciled in +Italy before it attracted general notice. And there may have +been humble worshippers of Mithra at Rome or Puteoli even in +the days of Julius Caesar. The Mithraist inscription of the +time of Tiberius is now admitted to be a forgery.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 5844.</note> But from +his reign may probably be dated the first serious inroads of the +cult. Under Tiberius, Cappadocia was incorporated in the +Empire, and Pontus under Nero; Commagene, the home of +Jupiter Dolichenus, who was a firm ally of Mithra, was +finally absorbed in the reign of Vespasian.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 243, n. 3; Tac. +<hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> ii. 42; D. Cass. lvii. 17; Suet. +<hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> c. 8.</note> The official +organisation of these districts, and the constant intercourse +established between central Asia Minor and the capital, must +have opened many channels for the importation of new forms +<pb n="591"/><anchor id="Pg591"/>of devotion from the East. Almost in the very year in which +Statius was penning his verses about Mithra in the <hi rend="italic">Thebaid</hi>, a +freedman of the Flavian house erected a tablet to the god on +the Esquiline,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 732. On the date of the +<hi rend="italic">Thebaid</hi>, cf. Teuffel, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Lit.</hi> § 316, n. 3.</note> and soldiers of the East carried his mysteries to +the camps on the Danube. The 15th Legion, which had +fought under Corbulo against the Parthians, and taken part +in the conquest of Palestine in 70 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, in the first years of +the reign of Vespasian, established the worship of Mithra at +Carnuntum in Pannonia, which became henceforth the sacred +city of Mithra in the West.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 253; cf. Tac. +<hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> xiii. 35.</note> In 102 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> a marble group +was dedicated by the slave of a praetorian prefect of Trajan.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 718, <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> 102.</note> +It is probable that at Ostia we have records of the cult from +the year 162.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 265, <hi rend="italic">Inscr.</hi> No. +133.</note> The Mithraeum, found under the church of +S. Clement at Rome, has yielded an inscription of the last +years of Antoninus Pius. That emperor erected a temple to +Mithra at Ostia.<note place="foot">Réville, p. 81.</note> Rome and Ostia were probably the +earliest points in Italy invaded by the Persian worship. +All the conditions were favourable to an early and rapid +propagation of the cult in the capital of the world. +Soldiers from the East would be serving in the garrison, +or settled after their release from service. Eastern slaves +swarmed in all the great houses, including that of the emperor. +A large proportion of the dedications are made by men of +servile origin, and the very name of the dedicator would often +be enough to indicate his nationality. More than 100 inscriptions, +more than 75 pieces of Mithraist sculpture, with the +ruins of many chapels of the god, attest his powerful influence +at Rome.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 274, n. 6.</note> Ostia which, since the reconstruction of Trajan, had +overshadowed Puteoli, was hospitable to all alien rites.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 275; Donsbach, pp. 15-17.</note> The +port had at least four temples of Mithra in the second century, +and it is significant of the alliance between the two worships, +that a Mithraeum there was built close to a shrine of the +Great Mother,<note place="foot">Cumont, p. 265, n. 4; cf. p. 333.</note> and that members of the college of the Dendrophori +sometimes made offerings and dedications to Mithra.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Inscr.</hi>; <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 510; <hi rend="italic">Or. +Henz.</hi> 6040.</note> +<pb n="592"/><anchor id="Pg592"/>The remains at Ostia disclose some other indications of the +prevailing syncretism. The Roman Sylvanus has a niche in +one Mithraeum, and, in another, Saturn and Jupiter, Mars, +Mercury and Venus, are figured beside the purely Eastern +symbols of the planets and the signs of the zodiac.<note place="foot">Donsbach, p. 17.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The inner secret of that rapid propaganda we shall never +fully know. But we can discover with tolerable certainty the +kind of people who carried the gospel of Mithra to the most +remote parts of the western world. The soldiers were his most +zealous missionaries.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 246 sq.</note> Drafted from Cappadocia or Commagene, +and quartered, far from his home, in a camp on the Danube or +in the Black Forest, the legionary clung to the worship of his +native East, and was eager to admit his comrades to fellowship +in its rites. The appearance of Mithraism in certain places can +be traced directly to the quartering of a legion which had been +recruited from the countries which were the original home of +the worship. Officers of eastern birth on promotion passed into +other corps, and extended the influence of the East.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 258, n. 8; cf. <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 5855, +1916, 1917, 1922.</note> Centurions +retiring from active service became apostles of the movement +in the places where they settled. Syrian merchants, who were +still found at Orleans in the time of the Merovingians, with all +the fanaticism of their race popularised their native worships +in the ports of Italy, Gaul, along the coasts of the Adriatic, +and among the centres of commerce on the Danube or the +Rhine.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 263.</note> The civil servants of the emperor, clerks and commissaries +of every degree, procurators and agents of great +estates, who were often men of servile origin, have left many +traces of their zeal in spreading the Persian worship both +throughout Italy and in countries north of the Alps.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iii. 3960, 4797, 5620, 4802; +vi. 721.</note> The +slave class probably did as much for the glory of Mithra as +any other.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 265.</note> It was largely drawn from Cappadocia, Pontus, +and Phrygia, those regions where the religion of Mithra had +taken deep root before it passed into Europe. And, like the +Christian, the religion of Mithra was, at the outset of its +career, a religion of the poor and humble. It was only in +the second century that it achieved the conquest of the court +and the educated classes. It was probably through slaves that +<pb n="593"/><anchor id="Pg593"/>it found its way into remote corners of Apulia, Lucania, or +Etruria.<note place="foot">Cf. Cumont, <hi rend="italic">Inscr.</hi> 150, sagaris actor; +cf. the list of the Cultores Mithrae, +<hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> xi. 5737.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The stages in the spread of the Mithraist rites throughout +Italy cannot be clearly traced. But in the second century the +cult was established not only in Campania, Capreae, and Ischia, +but in lonely country places in Southern Italy.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p 268; Donsbach, +p. 19.</note> It had +spread to a circle of towns around Rome—Lanuvium, Alba, +Velitrae, Labici, and Praeneste.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 268.</note> Borne by traders, imperial +officers or slaves, it followed the line of the great roads to +the north. Thus we can trace its march along the Via Cassia +through Etruria, at Volsinii, Arretium, and Florence.<note place="foot">Donsbach, p. 19.</note> It +arrived at Pisa probably by sea. Along the Flaminian Way, it +may be followed through Interamna, Spoletium, and Sentinum +to Bononia. At Nersae, in the Aequian territory, the cult must +have been of some antiquity in 172 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi><note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L</hi> ix. 4109, 4110.</note> For, in that year +the treasurer of the town, a man probably of the slave class, +restored a chapel which had fallen into ruins. The roll of +the patrons of a Mithraist society at Sentinum has come +down to us, with the names of slaves or freedmen among its +members.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> xi. 5737.</note> In Gallia Cisalpina the traces of Mithra are less +frequent. Milan, already growing to its great destiny in the +fourth century, and Aquileia, are the chief seats of the Persian +cult. Aquileia has yielded a large number of inscriptions. +From its situation at the mouth of the Po, as the great +<hi rend="italic">entrepôt</hi> for the trade between the Adriatic and the Danubian +provinces, it must have powerfully stimulated the diffusion of +the worship.<note place="foot">Donsbach, p. 20; Cumont, Intr. +p. 266.</note> It is curious, however, that the passes of the +Alps have yielded richer booty to the investigator in this field +than the plains of Lombardy. In the mountain valleys leading +to Rhaetia and Noricum, as well as in those above the +Italian lakes, many relics of this far-spreading religion have been +given to the light.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 269.</note> A temple of Mithra has been discovered +near Trent, in the valley of the Adige. In the Tyrol and +Carinthia sacred grottoes, buried among woods and rocks, have +disclosed bas-reliefs, sculptured with the traditionary figures of +<pb n="594"/><anchor id="Pg594"/>Persian legend. They were probably frequented by the faithful +down to the reign of Valentinian.<note place="foot">Cumont, <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> 237, 239; <hi rend="italic">Inscr.</hi> +408.</note> Throughout Noricum and +Pannonia imperial functionaries or agents of private enterprise, +procurators, clerks of the treasury, custom-house officers, or +eastern freedmen and slaves, have left many traces of their +devotion to the Persian god.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iii. 3480, 3479, 4796, 4797, +5121.</note> Thus, everywhere along the +great roads which radiated from Aquileia to the markets or +strong places upon the Danube, the votary of Mithra would +find in the days of the Antonines many a shrine, stately or +humble, where he could refresh his piety by the way. +</p> + +<p> +The Greek provinces have yielded but few memorials of the +worship of Mithra. But, from the mouth of the Danube to +the north of England his triumphant march can be traced, with +only a break here and there. He follows the line of the rivers +or the great roads, through the frontier camps or the centres +of Roman commerce. Firmly seated at Tomi and the ports of +the Black Sea, Mithra has not left many traces, so far as +exploration has gone, in Thrace and Macedonia.<note place="foot">Donsbach, p. 21.</note> Nor have the +Moesias as yet contributed many monuments, although at +Troesmis and Oescus, along the great military road, bas-reliefs +and inscriptions have been brought to light.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 249; Donsbach, +p. 22.</note> Next to Pannonia +and the territory of the Upper Rhine, Dacia was the province +where Mithraism seems to have reached its greatest popularity +in Europe.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 250.</note> In the year 107, after six desolating and often +doubtful campaigns, Dacia was resettled and organised by +Trajan.<note place="foot">Eutrop. viii. 6.</note> Its depopulated fields were colonised with immense +masses of men from all parts of the Roman world. Probably +there has seldom been such a <hi rend="italic">colluvies gentium</hi> assembled. +And, among these alien settlers, there were many from Edessa, +Palmyra, and those regions of the East where Mithra or his +kindred deities had their earliest and most fervent worshippers.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 247, n. 6.</note> +In the capital of the province, Sarmizegetusa, an excavated +Mithraeum has afforded fifty bas-reliefs and inscriptions.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 251, n. 3.</note> +The colony of Apulum can show the remains of at least four +temples. And Potaissa and other places, with names strange +to English ears, have enriched the museums. +</p> + +<pb n="595"/><anchor id="Pg595"/> + +<p> +Pannonia abounds with interesting remains of Mithra, not +only in the great seats of Roman power on the Danube, but in +places far in the interior. And in this province can be +distinctly traced not only the progress of the military propaganda, +but the dates, with approximate accuracy, when the +mysteries of Mithra were first introduced.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. pp. 252, 3.</note> Aquincum and +Carnuntum were the chief seats of the Persian worship on +the Danube. In the former town, the god had at least five +chapels in the third century. There were at least four in the +territory of Carnuntum, one of them being closely connected +with that of the allied deity, Jupiter Dolichenus of Commagene.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> No. 228; Intr. p. 253.</note> +The original votaries of the reign of Vespasian had +been contented with a rude grotto, partially formed by the +configuration of the rocks, the intervals being filled in with +masonry.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> No. 225; Intr. p. 253.</note> This structure in the third century was replaced +by a more stately edifice at the expense of a Roman knight.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Inscr.</hi> No. 368.</note> +There can be little doubt that the spread of Mithraism in +Pannonia was chiefly the work of two Legions, the II. Adjutrix +and XV. Apollinaris, both largely recruited from Commagene +or Cappadocia.<note place="foot">Mommsen, <hi rend="italic">Rom. Prov.</hi> ii. p. 63, n.</note> The bricks of a Mithraeum at Carnuntum +bear the stamp of the 15th Legion, and the inscriptions +contain several dedications by soldiers of the two corps.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iii. 4418, 4416; Donsbach, +p. 25.</note> The +15th Legion, which was quartered on the Danube in 71 or 72, +had fought under Corbulo against the Parthians, and had +borne a part in suppressing the Jewish revolt of 70 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> We +may be sure that the gaps in its ranks were filled by eastern +recruits.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> 13, 35, habiti per +Galatiam Cappadociamque dilectus.</note> The soldiers of other corps, such as the Legions +XIII and XIV, Geminae Martiae, caught the religious enthusiasm, +and took part in the erection of buildings and in monumental +offerings.<note place="foot">Cumont, <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> No. 225.</note> It was probably through officers, transferred from +the Danube, that the worship was introduced into the camp of +Lambaesis in Numidia. There is a tablet of the third century to +Mithra in that camp, dedicated by a prefect of the 3rd Legion, +who was born at Carnuntum.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> viii. 2675; Cagnat, p. 189.</note> In Noricum and Rhaetia, the +military propaganda seems to have been less vigorous than in +<pb n="596"/><anchor id="Pg596"/>Pannonia. But a corner of the former province was once +guarded by a corps from Commagene, which has left traces of +its presence in the name of a town on the Danube and in +some monuments to Mithra.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> iii. 5650; Cumont, <hi rend="italic">Inscr.</hi> +No. 416; <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> No. 238; cf. Donsbach, +p. 26.</note> In Rhaetia his remains are +singularly scanty.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 255; Donsbach, + p. 27.</note> But when we come to the <hi rend="italic">Agri Decumates</hi> +and the region of the Upper Rhine, we find ourselves in a +district once more teeming with relics of Mithra. Not only has +this region given to the light the largest number of his chapels,<note place="foot">For the number and the sites <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> +Donsbach, p. 27.</note> +but the bas-reliefs found in their ruins surpass all others in +their dimensions and the completeness of their symbolism. +The tauroctonus group of Osterburken is regarded as the +masterpiece of Mithraist art in its complex variety and the +vivid and masterly skill of the execution.<note place="foot">Cumont, <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> No. 351.</note> Many of the +German inscriptions to Mithra are offered by simple citizens. +But, from the number dedicated by soldiers also, Cumont may +be right in tracing the diffusion of the worship once more to +military zeal. It is true, the legions quartered in Germany +did not contain any considerable number of recruits from the +East. But they were in constant communication with the +camps upon the Danube, where oriental influences were strong. +It is significant that the earliest inscription to Mithra yet +found in Germany, of the year <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> 148, is that of a centurion +of the 8th Legion, which was quartered in Moesia from +47 till 69, and which during that time had frequent communications +with the East. The legion was in 70 removed +from Moesia to Upper Germany.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Inscr.</hi> No. 423; Intr. p. 256, +n. 2.</note> It is probable that, however +it was introduced, the worship of Mithra may have found its +way into the valley of the Neckar, and even to the Lower +Rhine, before the end of the first century. Coins of Trajan +have been found in the temple at Friedberg;<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> No. 248 (p. 359).</note> a series of coins +from Vespasian to M. Aurelius has been recovered from a +temple in the neighbourhood of Cologne.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> No. 265 (p. 388).</note> From Cologne the +line of conquest may be followed to Boulogne, the station of +the British fleet. Thence the cult passed easily to London, +which, in the time of Tacitus, was a centre of great commercial +<pb n="597"/><anchor id="Pg597"/>activity.<note place="foot">Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> 14, 33, Londinium ... +copia negotiatorum maxime celebre.</note> The legions probably carried the worship to the +great camps of Caerleon, Chester and York. At all the guardposts +of the great rampart of Hadrian, there were chapels of +the eastern god, and the inscriptions show that the officers at +this remote outpost of the Empire maintained a warm devotion +to the religion of their native East.<note place="foot">Cumont, <hi rend="italic">Inscr.</hi> Nos. 471-490; +Donsbach, p. 29.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The regions of the western world on which Mithra, from +whatever causes, seems to have made least impression were +Western Gaul, Spain, and North Africa.<note place="foot">Id. Intr. p. 259 n.</note> Syrian merchants, +slaves, or soldiers, had established the worship at Lyons, Arles, +and Narbonne. But Elusa is the only place in Aquitaine +where traces of it have been found. In Spain, the legionaries +carried it only to a few remote frontier posts in Asturia or +Gallicia.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 260; Donsbach, p. 30.</note> The African garrisons, recruited largely from the +surrounding country, remained true to their native deities, and +the few inscriptions to Mithra at great military strongholds, +like Lambesi, are probably due to the devotion of some of the +higher officers, who had been transferred to these distant +quarters from Syria or the Danube.<note place="foot">Cumont, <hi rend="italic">l.c.</hi>; cf. Cagnat, <hi rend="italic">L’Arm. +rom. d’Afr.</hi> p. 353, on the history and +composition of the Legio III. Augusta.</note> +</p> + +<p> +If we try to explain the fascination of this religion of +central Asia for western minds, we must seek it partly in +its theological system, partly in its ritual and clerical organisation, +still more in its clear promise of a life beyond the grave. +In these characteristics, Mithraism differed profoundly from +Graeco-Roman paganism, and seemed, in the eyes of the +Christian apologists, to be a deceptive imitation of the rites +and doctrines of the Christian Church. Inspired with the +tendency or ambition to gather many races into its fold, +Mithraism was a compound of the influences of very different +ages, and offered many footholds for the faith or superstition +of the lands which it traversed in its march. It drew, from +points widely severed in time and place, doctrine or symbolism +or rite, from the ancient lands of the Aryan race, from the +mountain homes of the Persians, from Babylon and Phrygia +and Commagene, from the philosophy of Greece, and the +mythologies of all the peoples among whom it came. Yet it +<pb n="598"/><anchor id="Pg598"/>never to the end ceased to be a Persian cult. In the Divine +Comedy of Lucian, as it may be called, Mithra, even when he +is admitted to Olympus, cannot speak in Greek.<note place="foot">Luc. <hi rend="italic">Deor. Concil.</hi> c. 9.</note> His name +is never disguised or translated. On many of his inscriptions +the names of the old Mazdean pantheon, such as Ahriman, the +power of evil, still figure.<note place="foot">Réville, p. 87.</note> The mystic beasts which are always +present in the sacred scene of the tauroctonus, the lion, the +dog, the snake, the scorpion, had all a hieratic meaning in +Persian theology.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 190; Gasquet, +p. 70.</note> The cave, which was the immemorial +sanctuary of the worship, amid all the mystic meanings attached +to it by later Neo-Platonist speculation, carried the mind +back to Zoroastrian symbolism.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 56; Gasquet, +p. 36.</note> The <hi rend="italic">petra genetrix</hi>, which +is figured on so many sacred slabs on the Danube and in +Upper Germany, goes back to the very cradle of the worship.<note place="foot">Cumont, <hi rend="italic">Inscr.</hi> 441, 444; <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> +213, 245, 252.</note> +The young god, emerging from the spires of rock, round which +a serpent coils itself, is the first radiance of the upspringing +sun, as on high, lonely peaks it flashes and broadens to +the dawn. The great elemental powers, sun and moon, +ocean, the winds and seasons, are generally grouped around +the central piece, in forms borrowed from classic art.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 251 (p. 365); Intr. p. 92; +cf. Herod. i. 131.</note> Fire +and water are always present; no chapel was without its +fountain.<note place="foot">Cumont, <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> 246 (p. 348).</note> And the tradition of the astral lore of the +Euphrates can be seen in the signs of the zodiac which +encompass the sacred scene of mystic sacrifice in the chapels +on the Upper Rhine.<note place="foot">Id. Intr. p. 109; <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> 246, 247, +248, 251, 273.</note> The very letters of the name of +Mithra, expanded into Meithras, according to S. Jerome, like +the mystic word Abraxas, yielded to ingenious calculation +the exact number of days in the year.<note place="foot">Donsbach, p. 6; Gasquet, p. 24; +Dieterich, <hi rend="italic">Mithrasliturgie</hi>, p. 146; +S. Hieron. <hi rend="italic">Com. in Amos</hi>, v. 9, 10.</note> It is difficult for us +to conceive how these frigid astronomical fancies should form +a part in a religious system which undoubtedly from the +beginning had a profound moral effect on its adherents. Yet +it is well to remember that there was a time when the mystery +of the stellar spaces, and the grandeur and beneficence of the +sun, were the most awful and impressive things in human +<pb n="599"/><anchor id="Pg599"/>experience. The cold scrutiny of the telescope has long since +robbed the heavenly orbs of their mystic power over human +destiny. Yet even now, a man who has not been imbued +with the influence of modern science, may, on some calm, +starlit summer night, travel back in imagination to the dreams +of the early star-gazers on the Ganges or the Euphrates, and +fancy that, in the far solitary splendour and ordered movement +of those eternal fires, which shine so serene and pitiless on this +small point in the universe, there may be forces to guide or +signs to predict the course of mortal destiny. Nor was it an +altogether unworthy dream, which floated before the minds +of so many generations, that in those liquid depths of space, +where, in the infinite distance, the radiance of widely-severed +constellations blends into a luminous haze, might be the eternal +abode of spirits who, after their sojourn in the flesh, have +purged themselves of earthly taint.<note place="foot">Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Som. Scip.</hi> i. 15, § 10 +sqq.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The relative influence of Babylon and ancient Iran in +moulding the theology of Mithraism, has long been a subject +of controversy. The opposing schools, represented by Lajard +and Windischmann,<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. pp. 71, 72.</note> have been discredited or reconciled by +saner methods of criticism, and wider archaeological knowledge. +It is now seen that while Babylonia has left a deep impress +on the creed of Mithra, yet the original Aryan or Persian +elements still maintained their ascendency. Mithra, in his long +journey, came under many influences; and he absorbed many +alien ideas from the cults and art of the many lands through +which he travelled. His tolerance, indeed, was one great +secret of his power. But, while he absorbed, he assimilated +and transmuted. He remained the god of Persia, while he +gathered into his creed mystic elements that might appease the +spiritual cravings of the western world.<note place="foot">Cf. Dieterich, <hi rend="italic">Mithrasliturgie</hi>, pp. +150, 165, 202; Cumont, Intr. pp. 331, +336.</note> His system came to +represent the best theological expression of the long movement +of pagan mysticism, which, beginning with the mythic names +of Orpheus and Pythagoras, organised in the classic mysteries, +elevated and glorified by the genius of Plato, ended, if it has +ended, in the Neo-Platonic movement which offered a last +resistance to the Christian church. The central ideas of that +<pb n="600"/><anchor id="Pg600"/>theory of life and death were presented to the neophyte in the +mysteries of Mithra, and one of the last expounders of the +Platonic creed, in the reign of Theodosius, had probably +been initiated in one of the last chapels of the worship.<note place="foot">Gasquet, p. 104; cf. Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Som. +Scip.</hi> i. 12; Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> i. 17; cf. +Lobeck, <hi rend="italic">Aglaoph.</hi> ii. 933; Rohde, +<hi rend="italic">Psyche</hi>, ii. pp. 121, 402.</note> In +that vision of human destiny, of the descent and ascent +of the human soul, the old Orphic doctrine is united with the +star-lore of the Euphrates. Travelling towards its future +prison-house in the flesh, the spirit which leaves the presence +of Ormuzd descends by the gate of Cancer, through the +spheres of the seven planets, and in each acquires a new +faculty appropriate to its earthly state. The Mithraist +discipline and sacraments prepare it for the ascent after death. +When the soul at last leaves its mortal prison, it has to submit +to a great judgment in the presence of Mithra, and if it pass +the ordeal, it may then return through the seven spheres, at +each stage divesting itself of those passions or earthly powers, +which it had taken on for a time in its downward journey.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. pp. 308, 309; cf. +Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Som. Scip.</hi> i. 12.</note> +Finally, through the remote gate of Capricorn, its sublimated +essence will pass back again to ecstatic union with the +Supreme. It is thus that the East and West, Orphic mysteries +and Chaldaean astrology, combined to satisfy the craving for a +moral faith and the vision of another world. +</p> + +<p> +The religion of Mithra probably achieved its highest +victory through an ethical theology, typified and made +concrete to the average worshipper by an elaborate symbolism +in rite and sculptured scene. But it had also a cosmic +theology. Mithra, in virtue of his moral power, became in +the end the central figure. But in nearly all his chapels can +be discovered a divine hierarchy, in which, for ages, he did +not hold the foremost rank. The highest place is given to +Infinite Time, without sex or passions, or properly without +even a name, although in order to bring him within the +vulgar ken, he may be called Cronus or Saturn and imaged in +stone as a lion, wrapped in the coils of a snake.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 294; <hi rend="italic">ib.</hi> p. 75. +But cf. Gasquet, p. 41.</note> He is the +author of life and death; he carries the keys of heaven, and +in his limitless sway, he is identified with the unbending +power of Fate. Like other cosmic systems of the East +<pb n="601"/><anchor id="Pg601"/>the Mazdean explained the universe by a succession of +emanations from the Infinite First Cause.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 295.</note> From his own +essence, Cronus engendered Earth and Heaven, whom mythologers +may call Jupiter and Juno, and they in turn give +life to Ocean. Jupiter, as in classical mythology, succeeded +to the power of Cronus, and gave to the world the Olympian +deities, along with Fortune, Themis, and the Fates. In the +hemisphere of gloom and evil, another order was engendered +by Infinite Time, which is represented by Ahriman, or, in the +fancy of more western lands, by Pluto and Hecate. The evil +spirits, who are their progeny, like the Titans of Greek legend, +have tried to storm Olympus, and been hurled back to the +under world.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 296.</note> There they still retain their power to plague and +corrupt the race of men; but, by means of incantation, and +sacrifice, their malice may be turned aside. In this daemonology +Mithraism joined hands with the new Platonism, of which +Plutarch, as we have seen, was one of the earliest apostles, and +the affinity between them continued to the last age of paganism.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 301.</note> +But it was in its divinisation of the elemental powers and +heavenly bodies that this religion probably obtained its most +powerful hold on an age profoundly fatalist and superstitious. +The strife of the four elements figures under animal symbolism +on innumerable sculptures of the chapels of Mithra, around +the image of the bull-slaying God.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> 251 (p. 365).</note> The divine fire which +sparkles in the stars, and diffuses the warmth of life in animal +or plant, blazed perpetually on the altar of the crypt.<note place="foot">Id. Intr. p. 297.</note> The +sun and moon are seldom missing from these slabs. In the +great masterpiece of Mithraic art at Osterburken, the two +deities occupy opposite corners of the tablet.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> 246 (p. 349).</note> The sun-god, +with a cloak floating from his right shoulder, is urging his four-horse +team up the steep of heaven, and over the car floats +Phosphorus, as a naked boy, bearing a torch in each hand. +On the opposite side, Selene, crowned with the crescent and +erect in her car, is urging her team of oxen downwards towards +the gloom. On another piece, also found in the heart of +Germany, there is an impressive scene, in which Mithra and +the Sun, arrayed in eastern costume, stand side by side over a +<pb n="602"/><anchor id="Pg602"/>huge slaughtered bull. The sun god is handing to Mithra a +bunch of grapes, which he receives with a gesture of admiration.<note place="foot">Cumont, <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> 251 (p. 365).</note> +</p> + +<p> +The most popular, and the least wholesome, element, which +Mithraism borrowed from Babylon, was the belief in planetary +influence. The seven planets became the arbiters of human +destiny, and their number acquired a hieratic significance.<note place="foot">Id. Intr. p. 300; Gasquet, p. +62.</note> +The days of the week and the seven principal metals were +consecrated to them. The various grades of initiation into the +mysteries of Mithra found a correspondence in the intervals of +the seven spheres.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 316; cf. Gasquet, +pp. 94, 95.</note> The soul, in descending to its earthly +tenement for a season, passes through their successive realms, +and assumes appropriate faculties in each, just as, on its +release and ascension, it divests itself of them, one by one, +as it returns to the region of ethereal purity. But the +astral doctrine, introduced into the system of Iran from +Chaldaea, was a dangerous addition to the creed. It was +a fatal heritage from ages of benumbing superstition, and, +while it gave an immense impetus to the progress of the solar +cult, it counterbalanced, and, to some extent, neutralised its +more spiritual and salutary doctrines.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 301.</note> A co-ordinate evil +power, side by side with the beneficent Creator and Preserver, +and his revealer and mediator, a host of daemons, tempting to +sin, as well as visiting men with calamity, an iron Fate at the +centre of the Universe, whose inevitable decrees are at once +indicated and executed by the position and motions of the +planets—all this gloomy doctrine lay like a nightmare on the +human mind for many ages, and gave birth to all sorts of evil +arts to discover or avert or direct the pitiless forces which +controlled the fate of man. This is the dark side of Mithra +worship, and, in this evil tradition from Babylon, which +partially overlaid the purer creed of Persia, we may find some +explanation of the strange blending of dark superstition with +moral earnestness which characterised the reaction of Julian, +the votary of the Sun, and the patron of Maximus. +</p> + +<p> +But, although the deification of the great elemental powers +and the mingled charm and terror of astrology gave the +religion of Mithra a powerful hold on the West, there were +<pb n="603"/><anchor id="Pg603"/>other and nobler elements in his system which cannot escape +the candid enquirer. The old unmoral, external paganism no +longer satisfied the spiritual wants of all men in the second +century. It is true the day will probably never come when +the religion of many will not begin and end in solemn, stately +rite, consecrated to the imagination by ancient use, and +captivating the sense by scrupulously ordered ceremonial. +The ritualist and the puritan conception of worship will +probably always exist side by side, for they represent two +opposite conceptions of religion which can never entirely blend. +And certainly in the days of M. Aurelius the placid satisfaction +in a sumptuous sacrifice, at which every word of the ancient +litany was rendered to the letter, was still profoundly felt by +many, even by the philosophic emperor himself. But there +were other ideas in the air. Men heard from wandering +preachers that God required other offerings than the <q>blood of +bulls and the ashes of a heifer,</q> that the true worship was in +the sacrifice of a purified spirit.<note place="foot">Cf. Denis, <hi rend="italic">Idées Morales</hi>, etc. ii. p. +248 sq.; cf. Burgmann, <hi rend="italic">Seneca’s Theologie</hi>, +p. 37; Sen. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 95, 50; 31, +§ 11; Philostr. <hi rend="italic">Apoll. Tyan.</hi> v. 25; +Max. Tyr. <hi rend="italic">Diss.</hi> viii.; xiv. § 7, 8; +xvi. § 9.</note> Platonist and Pythagorean, +even when they might reverently handle the ancient symbolism +of ritual, were teaching that communion with the Infinite +Father was only possible to a soul emancipated from the +tyranny of sense. Moreover, as we have seen, the new +Platonism was striving to create some mediatorial power between +the world of sense and the Infinite Spirit, transcending all old +materialistic fancies of the Divine.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> supra, <ref target="Pg426">p. 426</ref>.</note> This Platonic daemonology, +indeed, from the Christian point of view, was a very crude and +imperfect attempt to bridge the gulf. And it had the graver +fault that it was really a revival of the old mythology. Yet +it was also an attempted reformation. It was an effort to +introduce a moral influence into paganism. It was an effort +to substitute for physical and naturalistic conceptions a moral +theory of the government of the world. That was surely an +immense advance in religious history, and foreshadowed the +great revolution which was to launch the western world on a +new spiritual career. The hosts of sister spirits, whom +Maximus of Tyre imagines as surrounding and sustaining the +life of men, involved in the darkness and sorrow of time, are +<pb n="604"/><anchor id="Pg604"/>a conception strange to the old paganism. And the need of +mediatorial sympathy, of a sympathetic link, however slight, +with the dim, awful Power, ever receding into more remote and +mysterious distances, was also connected with the need of some +assurance, or fainter hope, of a life beyond the tomb. To that +hope the old classical paganism afforded only slight and +shadowy nutriment. Yet, from hundreds of sepulchral inscriptions +the yearning, often darkened by a doubt, appeals +with pathetic force. Apart, in fact, from the crowd of mere +antiquarian formalists and lovers of spectacle, there were, we +believe, a great mass who longed for some channel through +which they might have the faintest touch of sympathy with +the Infinite Spirit; for some promise, however veiled in +enigmatic symbolism, that this poor, puzzling, ineffectual life +should not close impotently at death. +</p> + +<p> +In all the Mazdean pantheon, it has been remarked, Mithra +was the only divine figure that profoundly affected the religious +imagination of Europe. Who can dare at this distance to +pierce the mystery? But we may conjecture that the ascendency +is partly due to his place as mediator in the Persian +hierarchy, partly to the legends, emblazoned on so many slabs, +of his miraculous and Herculean triumphs; but still more to +the moral and sacramental support, and the sure hope of +immortal life which he offered to his faithful worshippers. +Mithra came as a deliverer from powers of evil and as a +mediator between man and the remote Ormuzd. He bears +the latter office in a double sense. In the cosmic system, as +lord of light, he is also lord of the space between the heavenly +ether and the mists of earth. As a solar deity, he is the +central point among the planetary orbs.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 303.</note> In the ubiquitous +group of the slaughtered bull, Mithra stands between the two +Dadophori, Cautes and Cautopates, who form with him a sort +of Trinity, and are said to be incarnations of him.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> pp. 207, 208.</note> One of these +figures in Mithraic sculpture always bears a torch erect, the +other a torch turned downwards to the earth. They may have +a double significance. They may figure the ascending light of +dawn, and the last radiance of day as it sinks below the horizon. +They may be taken to image the growth of solar strength to +its midsummer triumphs, and its slow decline towards fading +<pb n="605"/><anchor id="Pg605"/>autumn and the cold of winter. Or again, they may shadow +forth the wider and more momentous processes of universal +death and resurgent life. But Mithra also became a mediator +in the moral sense, standing between Ormuzd and Ahriman, +the powers of good and evil, as Plutarch conceives him.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Is. et Osir.</hi> c. 46.</note> He +is the ever victorious champion, who defies and overthrows the +malignant demons that beset the life of man; who, above all, +gives the victory over the last foe of humanity. +</p> + +<p> +The legend of Mithra in hymn or litany is almost entirely +lost. But antiquarian ingenuity and cultivated sympathy have +plausibly recovered some of its meanings from the many +sculptural remains of his chapels. On the great monuments +of Virunum, Mauls, Neuenheim, and Osterburken, can be +seen the successive scenes of the hero’s career. They begin +with his miraculous birth from the <q>mother rock,</q> which was +familiar to Justin Martyr, S. Jerome, and many of the Fathers.<note place="foot">Firm. Matern. c. 20, alterius +profani sacramenti signum est +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">θεός ἐκ πέτρας</foreign>, etc. Cf. S. Hieron. <hi rend="italic">Adv. Jov.</hi> +i. § 7; Just. Mart. <hi rend="italic">Dial. c. Tryph.</hi> +c. 70; Prud. <hi rend="italic">Cathem.</hi> v. 9; Cumont, +<hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> 199, 207.</note> +The dedications <hi rend="italic">petrae genetrici</hi> abound along the Danube, and +the sacred stone was an object of adoration in many chapels.<note place="foot">Id. Intr. p. 160.</note> +A youthful form, his head crowned with a Phrygian cap, a +dagger in one hand, and a torch in the other, is pictured +emerging from an opening rock, around which sometimes a +serpent is coiled. Shepherds from the neighbouring mountain +gaze in wonder at the divine birth, and presently come nearer +to adore the youthful hero, and offer him the firstlings of their +flocks and fields.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 162; <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> 204.</note> And again, a naked boy is seen screening +himself from the violence of the wind in the shelter of a fig +tree; he eats of its fruit and makes himself a garment from +the leaves.<note place="foot">Id. Intr. p. 164.</note> In another scene, the sacred figure appears in full +eastern costume, armed with a bow from which he launches +an arrow against a rock rising in front of him.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 165; + <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> 204 (p. 318), 235 +(p. 338).</note> From the +spot where the arrow strikes the stone, a fountain gushes forth, +and the water is eagerly caught in his upturned palms by a +form kneeling below. Then follow the famous scenes of the +chase and slaughter of the mystic bull. At first the beast is seen +borne in a skiff over an expanse of waters. Soon afterwards +<pb n="606"/><anchor id="Pg606"/>he is grazing quietly in a meadow, when Mithra comes upon +the scene. In one monument the hero is carrying the bull +upon his shoulders; in others he is borne upon the animal’s +back, grasping it by the horns. Or again, the bull is seen in full +career with the hero’s arms thrown around his neck. At last +the bull succumbs to his rider’s courage, and is dragged by +the hind-legs, which are drawn over his captor’s shoulders, into +a cavern where the famous slaughter was enacted.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 167 sq.; <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> +253, 192, 204, 221.</note> The +young god, his mantle floating on the wind, kneels on the +shoulder of the fallen beast, draws back its head with his left +hand, while with the other he buries his dagger in its neck.<note place="foot">See the finest extant specimen from +Osterburken; Cumont, <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> 246; cf. +the one at Heddernheim, <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> 251.</note> +Below this scene are invariably sculptured the scorpion, the +faithful dog, and the serpent lapping the flowing blood. +The two Dadophori, silent representatives of the worlds of light +and gloom, one on each side, are always calm watchers of the +mystic scene. But the destruction of the bull was not a mere +spectacle of death. It was followed by a miracle of fresh +springing life and fertility, and, here and there, on the slabs +are seen ears of corn shooting from the tail of the dying +beast, or young plants and flowers springing up around.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 186 sq.; <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> +104, 246.</note> His +blood gives birth to the vine which yields the sacred juice +consecrated in the mysteries. Thus, in spite of the scorpion +and the serpent, symbols of the evil powers, who seek to +wither and sterilise the sources of vitality, life is ever rising +again from the body of death.<note place="foot">Gasquet, p. 70.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Mithra’s mysterious reconciliation with the Sun is figured +in other groups.<note place="foot">Cumont, <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> 191 (p. 312); 203 +(p. 317); 242 (p. 342); 246 (p. 350); +Intr. p. 172.</note> Mithra, as usual, in eastern costume, has, +kneeling before him, a youthful figure either naked or lightly +clad. The god touches the head of the suppliant with some +mysterious symbol, and the subject of the rite raises his hands +in prayer. The mystic symbol is removed, and Mithra sets a +radiant crown on the suppliant’s head. This reconciliation of +the two deities is a favourite subject. In the sculpture of +Osterburken, they ratify their pact with solemn gestures before +an altar. Their restored harmony is commemorated in even +<pb n="607"/><anchor id="Pg607"/>more solemn fashion. In one monument the two are reclining +on a couch at a solemn agape, with a table before them bearing +the sacred bread, which is marked with the cross, and both are +in the act of raising the cup in their right hands.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 175.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The legend of Mithra, thus faintly and doubtfully reconstructed +from the sacred sculptures, in the absence of express +tradition, must probably for ever remain somewhat of an +enigma. It has been, since the third century, the battle-ground +of ingenious interpreters. To enumerate and discuss +these theories, many of them now discredited by archaeological +research, is far beyond the scope of this work. It is +clear that from the early Chaldaean magi, who, to some +extent, imposed their system on Iranian legend, down to the +Neo-Platonists, the god and his attendants were treated as +the symbols of cosmic theory. The birth from the rock +was the light of dawn breaking over serrated crests of +eastern hills.<note place="foot">Réville, p. 83.</note> The cave, which was always piously perpetuated +in the latest Mithraist architecture, was the solid +vault of heaven, and the openings pierced in its roof were +the stars shining through the celestial dome.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 89.</note> The fountain +which rose in every chapel, the fire on the altar, the animals +surrounding the bull, represent the powers of nature in their +changes and conflict. The young archer, causing water to +spring from the rock by a shot from his bow, marks the +miraculous cessation of prehistoric dearth, as the bull leaping +from a skiff perhaps commemorates a primaeval deluge. The +slaying of the bull, the central scene of all, may go back to +the exploits of the heroic pioneers of settled life, a Hercules +or a Theseus, who tamed the savage wilderness to the uses +of man. It had many meanings to different ages. To one +occupied with the processes of nature, it may have symbolised +the withering of the vegetative freshness of the world in midsummer +heats, yet with a promise of a coming spring. To +another it may have meant a victory over evil spirits and +powers of darkness.<note place="foot">Gasquet, p. 77.</note> Or it may, in the last days, have been +the prototype of that sacramental cleansing which gave assurance +of immortal life, and which seemed to the Fathers the +mockery of a Diviner Sacrifice. +</p> + +<pb n="608"/><anchor id="Pg608"/> + +<p> +There can be no doubt that Mithra and his exploits, in +response to a great need, came to have a moral and spiritual +meaning. From the earliest times, he is the mediator between +good and evil powers; ever young, vigorous, and victorious in +his struggles, the champion of truth and purity, the protector +of the weak, the ever vigilant foe of the hosts of daemons +who swarm round the life of man, the conqueror of death. +His religion, in spite of its astrology, was not one of fatalist +reverie; it was a religion of struggle and combat. In this +aspect it was congenial to the virile Roman temperament, +and, above all, to the temperament of the Roman soldier, +at once the most superstitious and the most strenuous of +men.<note place="foot">Gasquet, p. 108.</note> Who can tell what inspiration the young heroic +figure, wearing an air of triumphant vigour even on the rudest +slabs,<note place="foot">Cumont, <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> 31, 35, 43.</note> may have breathed into a worn old veteran, who kept +ceaseless watch against the Germans in some lonely post on +the Danube, when he spent a brief hour in the splendour of +the brilliantly lighted crypt, and joined in the old Mazdean +litany? Before him was the sacred group of the Tauroctonus, +full of so many meanings to many lands and ages, but which, +to his eyes, probably shed the light of victory over the perilous +combats of time, and gave assurance of a larger hope. +Suddenly, by the touch of an unseen hand, the plaque revolved,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> 251 (p. 364).</note> +and he had before him the solemn agape of the two +deities in which they celebrated the peaceful close of their +mystic conflict. And he went away, assured that his hero +god was now enthroned on high, and watching over his faithful +soldiers upon earth.<note place="foot">Id. Intr. pp. 308, 309.</note> At the same time, he had seen around +him the sacred symbols or images of all the great forces of +nature, and of the fires of heaven which, in their motions +and their effluences, could bring bane or happiness to men +below. In the chapels of Mithra, all nature became divine +and sacred, the bubbling spring, the fire on the cottage hearth, +the wind that levelled the pine tree or bore the sailor on his +voyage, the great eternal lights that brought seed-time and +harvest and parted day from night, the ever-welling vital +force in opening leaf and springing corn-ear, and birth of +young creatures, triumphing in regular round over the +<pb n="609"/><anchor id="Pg609"/>malignant forces which seem for a time to threaten decay +and corruption. The <q>Unconquered Mithra</q> is thus the god +of light and hope in this world and the next.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 297.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The ancient world was craving for a promise of immortality. +Mithraism strove to nurse the hope, but, like the contemporaneous +Platonism and the more ancient Orphic lore, it +linked it with moral responsibility and grave consequences. +Votaries were taught that the soul descended by graduated fall +from the Most High to dwell for a season in the prison of the +flesh.<note place="foot">Dieterich, <hi rend="italic">Mithrasliturgie</hi>, p. 197; +Cumont, Intr. p. 309.</note> After death there is a great judgment, to decide the +future destiny of each soul, according to the life which had +been led on earth.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 308 sqq.</note> Spirits which have defiled themselves +during life are dragged down by Ahriman and his evil angels, +and may be consigned to torture, or may sink into endless +debasement. The pure, who have been fortified by the holy +mysteries, will mount upwards through the seven spheres, at +each stage parting with some of their lower elements, till, at +last, the subtilised essential spirit reaches the empyrean, and is +received by Mithra into the eternal light. +</p> + +<p> +But the conflict between good and evil, even on this earth, +will not last for ever. There will be a second coming of Mithra, +which is to be presaged by great plagues. The dead will +arise from their tombs to meet him. The mystic bull will +again be slain, and his blood, mingled with the juice of the +sacred Haoma, will be drunk by the just, and impart to them +the gift of eternal life.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 310.</note> Fire from heaven will finally devour +all that is evil. Thus the slaughter of the bull, which is the +image of the succession of decay and fructifying power in +physical nature, is also the symbol and guarantee of a final +victory over evil and death. And, typifying such lofty and +consolatory truths, it naturally met the eye of the worshipper +in every chapel. It was also natural that the taurobolium, +which was originally a rite of the Great Mother, should be +absorbed, like so many alien rites and ideas, by the religion +which was the great triumph of syncretism. The baptism of +blood was, indeed, a formal cleansing from impurity of the +flesh; but it was also cleansing in a higher sense. The +inscrip<pb n="610"/><anchor id="Pg610"/>tions of the fourth century, which commemorate the blessing +of the holy rite, often close with the words <hi rend="italic">in aeternum +renatus</hi>.<note place="foot">Réville, p. 150; cf. <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 510; +<hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 2352.</note> How far the phrase expressed a moral resurrection, +how far it records the sure hope of another life, we cannot +presume to say. Whether borrowed from Christian sources +or not, it breathes an aspiration strangely different from the +tone of old Roman religion, even at its best. There may have +been a good deal of ritualism in the cleansing of Mithra. +Yet Mithra was, from the beginning, a distinctly moral power, +and his worship was apparently untainted by the licence which +made other heathen worships schools of cruelty and lust. His +connection, indeed, with some of them, must at times have led +his votaries into more than doubtful company; Sabazius and +Magna Mater were dangerous allies.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6042; Gasquet, p. 112, +on the inscription of Vincentius, priest +of Sabazius, who was buried by the side +of Aurelius, a priest of Mithra; cf. +Réville, p. 92; Renan, <hi rend="italic">M. Aurèle</hi>, pp. +578-9, n. 1.</note> Yet, on the whole, it +has been concluded that Mithraism was a gospel of truth and +purity, although the purity was often a matter of merely ceremonial +purification and abstinence. +</p> + +<p> +The day is far distant when the mass of men will be +capable of the austere mystic vision, which relies little on +external ceremonies of worship. Certainly the last ages of +paganism in the West were not ripe for any such reserved +spirituality. And the religions which captivated the ages +that preceded the triumph of the Catholic Church, while they +strove to satisfy the deeper needs of the spirit, were more +intensely sacerdotal, and more highly organised than the old +religions of Greece and Rome. Probably no small part of +their strength lay in sacramental mystery, and an occult +sacred lore which was the monopoly of a class set apart +from the world.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. pp. 299, 323.</note> Our knowledge of the Mithraic priesthood +is unfortunately scanty, and the ancient liturgy has perished.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 313; cf. Dieterich, <hi rend="italic">Mithrasliturgie</hi>, +pp. 25, 26.</note> +But inscriptions mention an <hi rend="italic">ordo sacerdotum</hi>; and Tertullian +speaks of a <q>high pontiff of Mithra</q> and of holy virgins and +persons vowed to continence in his service.<note place="foot">Tert. <hi rend="italic">De Praescrip. Haeret.</hi> c. 40; +cf. <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 2151, Ordo sacerdotum +Mag. suo; xiv. 403; xiv. 65.</note> The priestly +functions were certainly more constant and exacting than those +of the old priestly colleges of Greece and Rome. There were +<pb n="611"/><anchor id="Pg611"/>solemn sacraments and complicated rites of initiation to be +performed. Three times a day, at dawn, noon, and evening, +the litany to the Sun was recited.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 325.</note> Daily sacrifice was offered +at the altars of various gods, with chanting and music. The +climax of the solemn office was probably marked by the +sounding of a bell.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 325; cf. Lafaye, <hi rend="italic">Div. +d’Alexandrie</hi>, p. 138; flutes and bells +have been found among débris of +chapels, Cum. <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> 253 (p. 380); Intr. +p. 68.</note> And turning on a pivot, the sacred slab +in the apse displayed, for the adoration of the faithful, the +scene of the holy feast of Mithra and the Sun after their +reconciliation. The seventh day of the week was sacred to +the Sun, the sixteenth of each month to Mithra, and the 25th +of December, as marking the sun’s entrance on a new course +of triumph, was the great festival of Mithra’s sacred year.<note place="foot">Gasquet, p. 125.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Initiation in the mysteries, after many rites of cleansing +and trial, was the crowning privilege of the Mithraist believer. +The gradation of spiritual rank, and the secrecy which bound +the votaries to one another in a sacred freemasonry, were a +certain source of power. S. Jerome alone has preserved for +us the seven grades through which the neophyte rose to full +communion. They were Corax, Cryphius, Miles, Leo, Perses, +Heliodromus, and Pater.<note place="foot">S. Hieron. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 107, § 2; Gasquet, +pp. 91, 2; 96; Cumont, Intr. p. 315; +Réville, p. 97.</note> What their origin was who shall +say? They may correspond to the seven planets, and mark +the various stages of the descent of the soul into flesh, and +its rise again to the presence of God. According to Porphyry, +the first three stages were merely preliminary to complete +initiation. Only the Lions were full and real communicants,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">De Abstin.</hi> iv. 16. Porphyry connects +the degrees with ideas of metempsychosis, +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τὴν κοινότητα ἡμῶν τὴν πρὸς τὰ ζῷα αἰνιττόμενοι, κτλ.</foreign></note> +and the title Leo certainly appears oftenest on inscriptions. +The dignity Pater Patrum, or Pater Patratus, was much coveted, +and conferred a real authority over the brethren, with an +official title to their reverence.<note place="foot">Gasquet, p. 101; Réville, p. 97.</note> The admission to each successive +grade was accompanied by symbolic ceremonies, as +when the Miles put aside the crown twice tendered to him, +saying that Mithra was his only crown.<note place="foot">Tert. <hi rend="italic">De Corona</hi>, xv.</note> The veil of +the Cryphius, and the Phrygian bonnet of the Perses, have a +significance or a history which needs no comment. Admission +<pb n="612"/><anchor id="Pg612"/>to full communion was preceded by austerities and ordeals +which were made the subject of exaggeration and slander. +The neophyte, blindfold and bound, was obliged to pass +through flame. It was said that he had to take part in a +simulated murder with a blood-dripping sword. On the +sculpture of Heddernheim a figure is seen standing deep in +snow. These ceremonies probably went back to the scenes +and ages in which mutilations in honour of Bellona and Magna +Mater took their rise. They may also have been a lesson, or a +test of apathy and moral courage.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 322.</note> But the tales of murder +and torture connected with these rites have probably no better +foundation than similar slanders about the early Christian +mysteries.<note place="foot">Lamprid. <hi rend="italic">Commodus Ant.</hi> c. 9, sacra +Mithriaca homicidio vero polluit, cum +illic aliquid ad speciem timoris, vel dici +vel fingi soleat; Gasquet, p. 90.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The votaries of Mithra, like those of Isis and other eastern +deities, formed themselves into guilds which were organised on +the model of ordinary sodalities and colleges. As funerary +societies, or under the shelter of Magna Mater, they escaped +persecution. They had their roll of members, their council of +decurions, their masters and curators.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 326. For the +organisation of the societies of Magna +Mater <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Foucart, <hi rend="italic">Associations Religieuses</hi>, +p. 20 sqq. Cf <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 717; +vi. 734; vi. 3728; xiv. 286; <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> +6042 (Sentinum).</note> And, like the secular +colleges, they depended to a great extent, for the erection of +chapels and the endowment of their services, on the generosity +of their wealthier members and patrons.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6042; on the doubt, however, +as to the meaning of <hi rend="italic">patroni</hi> in +this inscription <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> <hi rend="italic">Henz.</hi> note; and +Cumont, Intr. p. 327, n. 4.</note> One man might give +the site of a chapel, another a marble altar; a poor slave might +contribute out of his <hi rend="italic">peculium</hi> a lamp or little image to adorn +the walls of the crypt.<note place="foot">Cumont, <hi rend="italic">l.c.</hi></note> +</p> + +<p> +One undoubted cause of the success of Mithra in the West +was the spirit of fraternity and charity which was fostered +in his guilds. The hopeless obscurity and depression of the +plebeian and servile classes had some alleviation in companies +where, for the moment, the poor and lowly-born found himself +on an equality with his social superiors. Plebeians and the +slaves had a great part in the propagation of the eastern +worships, and especially that of the God of Light.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 264. Cf. dedications by +slaves or liberti, <hi rend="italic">Inscr.</hi> 67, 245, 175, +53, 410, 47, 178, 292.</note> In his +<pb n="613"/><anchor id="Pg613"/>mysteries and guilds the highest dignities were open to them.<note place="foot">Cf. <hi rend="italic">Or. Henz.</hi> 6042; Cumont, Intr. +p. 327, n. 4.</note> +Moreover, from the size of the chapels it is clear that the +congregations were generally small, so that the members of +lower social importance were not lost in a crowd.<note place="foot">For the dimensions of one at Rome +<hi rend="italic">v.</hi> Cumont, <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> 19 (p. 205).</note> Growing +numbers were accommodated, not by enlarging, but by multiplying +the shrines. +</p> + +<p> +In the sacraments of Mithra, Tertullian and other Apologists +perceived a diabolic parody of the usages of the Church.<note place="foot">Tert. <hi rend="italic">De Pr. Haeret.</hi> c. 40.</note> +The <hi rend="italic">acceptio</hi> of the neophytes, the <hi rend="italic">sacramentum</hi>, in which +they were pledged to secrecy and holy service, the sign or +brand made on the brow of the Miles, the ablutions or +baptism with holy water, as in the rites of Isis, whatever their +origin, could not fail, in an age of death-struggle for supremacy, +to arouse the suspicions and fears of the champions of the +Church.<note place="foot">Gasquet, p. 84; Cumont, Intr. +p. 318.</note> Finally, the consecrated bread and mingled water +and wine, which were only offered to the higher grades, may +well have seemed the last and worst profanation of the most +solemn Christian rite. The draught from the mystic cup, +originally the juice of Haoma, was supposed to have supernatural +effects. It imparted not only health and prosperity +and wisdom, but also the power to conquer the spirits of evil +and darkness, and a secret virtue which might elude the grasp +of death.<note place="foot">Gasquet, pp. 81, 82; Cumont, Intr. +p. 320.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The temples in which these rites took place repeated for ages +the same original type. Mithra and his cave are inseparable +ideas, and the name <hi rend="italic">spelaeum</hi>, <hi rend="italic">antrum</hi>, or <hi rend="italic">specus</hi>, remained +to the end the regular designation of his chapels.<note place="foot">Just. Mart, c. 78; Porphyr. <hi rend="italic">De +Antro Nymph.</hi> c. 5; Tertull. <hi rend="italic">De Cor.</hi> +xv.; S. Hieron. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 57, 107.</note> In country +places, grottoes or recesses on the side of a rocky hill might +supply a natural oratory of the ancient type.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 57; <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> 237.</note> But, in the +centre of great towns, the skill of the architect had to simulate +the rude structure of the original cavern. Entering through +an open portico, the worshipper found himself in an antechapel, +through which he passed into another chamber which +was called the <hi rend="italic">apparatorium</hi>, where the priests and neophytes +arrayed themselves in their robes or masques before the holy +<pb n="614"/><anchor id="Pg614"/>rites.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 59. Cf. <hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> +iii. 1096, cryptam cum porticibus et +apparatorio et exedra, etc.; iii. 3960.</note> Thence they descended by stairs to the level of the +cave-like crypt, which was the true sanctuary. On each side +there ran a bench of stone, on which was ranged the company +of the initiated.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 61; <hi rend="italic">v.</hi> the sketch +of the Mithraeum under the Church of +S. Clement, at Rome, Cumont, <hi rend="italic"><anchor id="corr614"/><corr sic="(italics added)">Mon.</corr></hi> 19.</note> The central aisle led up to the apse, against +the walls of which was set the sculptured scene of the slaying +of the bull, surrounded by the symbolic figures and emblems +of Chaldaean star-lore, with altars in front.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> 19.</note> This was the +holiest place, and, from some remains, it would seem to have +been railed in, like the chancel of one of our churches.<note place="foot">Id. Intr. p. 64.</note> +The neophyte, as he approached, must have been impressed by +a dazzling scene. On either side the congregation knelt in +prayer. Countless lamps shed their brilliant light on the +forms of ancient Hellenic gods, or on the images of the mighty +powers of earth or ether<note place="foot">Twenty-six lamps were found in one +Mithraeum, Cumont, <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> 250 (p. 362). +For the classical gods, cf. <hi rend="italic">Mon.</hi> 221 +(p. 326), 235, 246 (p. 349).</note>—above all, on the sacred scene which +was the memorial of the might of the <q>unconquered.</q> The +ancient rhythmic litany was chanted to the sound of music; +the lights came and went in startling alternations of splendour +and gloom. The draught of the sacred cup seemed to ravish +the sense. And the votary, as in the Isiac vision in Apuleius, +for a moment seemed borne beyond the bounds of space and +time into mystic distances.<note place="foot">Apul. <hi rend="italic">Met.</hi> xi. c. 22.</note> +</p> + +<p> +The Persian cult owed much of its success to imperial and +aristocratic favour. The last pagan emperor of the West, +the last generation of the pagan aristocracy, were devotees of +the Sun-god. It is a curious thing that even under the early +Empire Mithraism seems never to have suffered from the +suspicion and persecution with which other alien worships had +to contend.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 279 sqq.</note> Its close league with the cult of the Great Mother, +which, since the second century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, had been an established +institution, may have saved Mithra from official mistrust. He +also emerged into prominence in the age in which imperial +jealousy of guilds and colleges was visibly relaxing its precautions.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">v.</hi> supra, <ref target="Pg254">p. 254</ref>.</note> +A more satisfying explanation may perhaps be +found in the sympathy of the Flavian dynasty<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> iv. v. vii.; <hi rend="italic">Tit.</hi> v.; +<hi rend="italic">Domit.</hi> i. xiv.; cf. Renan, <hi rend="italic">Les Évangiles</hi>, +p. 226 sq.; <hi rend="italic">L’Antéchrist</hi>, p. 491.</note> and the +<pb n="615"/><anchor id="Pg615"/>princes of the third century for the religious ideas of the East, +and in the manifest support which heliolatry lent to growing +absolutism and the worship of the Caesars. +</p> + +<p> +The apotheosis of the emperors began even in the time +of the first Caesar, who rose to the highest divine honours +before his death. But it was long a fluctuating and hesitating +creed. The provinces, and particularly the cities of Asia +Minor,<note place="foot">D. Cass. xliii. 14; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Ann.</hi> iv. 15; +vi. 18.</note> were more eager to decree temples and divine honours +to the lord of the world than even the common people of Italy. +The superstitious masses and the soldiery, indeed, were equal to +any enthusiasm of flattery and superstition. But the cultivated +upper class, in spite of the effusive compliance of court +poets,<note place="foot">Mart. ix. 4.</note> having but little belief in any Divine Powers, were not +likely to yield an easy faith to the godhead of a Claudius or +a Nero.<note place="foot">Sen. <hi rend="italic">Lud. De Morte Claud.</hi> c. 12; +cf. Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> i. p. 193.</note> The emperors themselves, belonging to this class, and +often sharing its fastidious scepticism, for a time judiciously +restrained a too exuberant devotion to their person.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Aug.</hi> c. lii.</note> The +influence of Herod may have filled the lunatic imagination of +Caligula with dreams of an eastern despotism and the superhuman +dignity of kings.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Calig.</hi> c. xxii.; Meriv. vi. pp. +4-9.</note> Nero, who had visions of a new +monarchy with its seat on eastern hills, may have rejoiced in +being adored by Tiridates as the equal of Mithra.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lxiii. 5, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">ἦλθον πρός σε τὸν ἐμὸν θεὸν προσκυνήσων σε ὡς καὶ τὸν Μίθραν</foreign>.</note> But the +politic Augustus, while he permitted the foundation of temples +and priestly orders in his honour throughout the provinces, +and even in Italian towns, along with the divinity of Rome, +obstinately refused to have shrines erected to him in the +capital.<note place="foot">Suet. <hi rend="italic">Aug.</hi> lii.; D. Cass. li. 20; +lxvii. 13; Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> i. p. 163.</note> Tiberius pursued the same policy, which was congenial +to his cold, realistic temperament. Vespasian, although +eastern superstition had a certain charm for him, jested on his +death-bed about his own claims to divinity.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Vesp.</hi> c. xxiii. vae, inquit, puto, +deus fio.</note> It was reserved +for his son Domitian to be the first emperor who claimed the +salutation of <q>Dominus et Deus</q> in his lifetime.<note place="foot">Id. <hi rend="italic">Domit.</hi> c. xiii.</note> The best +of the early emperors aspired to full divine honours only when +their career on earth had closed. +</p> + +<pb n="616"/><anchor id="Pg616"/> + +<p> +Many historic causes made their posthumous elevation to +divine rank seem not unnatural. The cult of the Manes, +or good spirits of departed friends and ancestors, prepared the +Roman mind to adore the memory of the father of the State. +The legendary kings of the Latin race—Saturnus, Faunus, Picus, +Latinus—were worshipped as <hi rend="italic">Di indigetes</hi>;<note place="foot">Virg. <hi rend="italic">Georg.</hi> i. 498; Warde Fowler, +<hi rend="italic">Rom. Festivals</hi>, p. 258.</note> Romulus had +vanished in a tempest and been carried up to heaven to join +the company of the gods. The hero-worship of the Greeks, +which raised to semi-divine state after death those who had done +great deeds of service to mankind, who had founded cities, +or manifested splendid gifts of mind or body, influenced the +imagination of a people who had long sat at the feet of Greece. +Greek cities raised altars to Rome and to Roman generals who +had enslaved them.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">Flamin.</hi> c. 16; cf. Herod. v. +47; Thuc. v. 11.</note> When the Senate decreed divine honours +to a dead emperor, he became <hi rend="italic">divus</hi>, not <hi rend="italic">deus</hi>, at least to the +cultivated class, and <hi rend="italic">divus</hi> is a title which even modern +sentiment might accord to men who have borne a great and +shining part in a world-wide system of administration. The +Spartan women were said to call great warriors, men who won +their admiration by gallantry, <q>divine.</q><note place="foot">Plato, <hi rend="italic">Meno</hi>, 99 <hi rend="small">D</hi>.</note> To the masses the +dead emperor no doubt became a veritable god, as the image +of M. Aurelius two centuries after his death was found among +the <hi rend="italic">penates</hi> of every pious family in the West.<note place="foot">Capitol. <hi rend="italic">M. Aurel.</hi> c. 18.</note> But the +philosophic man of the world might also honestly accept the imperial +apotheosis by the decree of the Senate, in the sense that +another figure had been added to the rare company of those +who have been lifted by fortune or merit far above their +fellows, and have filled a great space in the life of humanity. +People, who for generations erected shrines to the minion of +Hadrian, might easily believe in the claims of the Antonine +emperors to a place among the gods. +</p> + +<p> +The influence of Egypt and Persia lent its force to stimulate +native and original tendencies to king-worship, and to develop +the principate of Augustus into the theocratic despotism of +Aurelian and Diocletian. The eastern peoples were always +eager to lavish on the emperors the adoration which they had +been used to offer to their native princes. The ancient +<pb n="617"/><anchor id="Pg617"/>Pharaohs had been revered as incarnations of the deity and +gods upon earth.<note place="foot">Boissier, <hi rend="italic">Rel. Rom.</hi> i. 125; Cumont, +Intr. p. 283 sqq.</note> The Ptolemies inherited and utilised so +useful a superstition. These ideas spread into Italy with +the diffusion of the Isiac cult among the upper class, and +through the influence of travellers and envoys who kept up +a fruitful intercourse between Alexandria and Rome. But +Egypt went rather too far for the western mind in its apotheosis +of kings.<note place="foot">Amm. Marc. xv. 1, 3.</note> A more potent and congenial influence came from +the lands of the remoter East. The Persians prostrated themselves +before their monarchs, but they did not actually adore +them as gods. They reverenced the daemon, or, in Roman +phrase, the <q>genius Caesaris,</q> without worshipping the monarch +himself.<note place="foot">Athen. vi. 252, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τράπεζαν παρετίθει χωρὶς ὀνομάζων τῷ δαίμωνι τῷ βασιλέως</foreign>.</note> The king was supposed to be enlightened, inspired, +and guarded by a heavenly grace; his brow was crowned by a +divine aureole. Yet he was not the equal of God. But the +majesty and fortune of kings was something divine and supernatural; +they reigned by special grace and had a divine protection. +The dynasties who succeeded to the great heritage of +the East exploited these ideas to the full, and the most solemn +oath was by the Fortune of the King.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 286.</note> The superstition of +Chaldaea, which connected all human destiny with the orbs of +heaven, exercised a profound influence for many centuries both +in the East and West. And the Sun, the monarch of the +heavens, often identified with Mithra, was regarded as the +special patron of kings, enduing them with irresistible power, +and guarding their lofty destiny. These ideas spread easily +from Pontus and Commagene into the western world. In +eastern cities, Caligula and Nero had altars raised to them as +solar deities,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 290, n. 2.</note> and Tiridates offered to Nero the adoration due +to Mithra.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lxiii. 5, + <foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">καὶ ἦλθον πρός σε τὸν ἐμὸν θεόν, + προσκυνήσων σε ὡς καὶ τὸν Μίθραν</foreign>.</note> The enigmatical goddess Fortuna, who seems +to have had early associations with the Sun,<note place="foot">W. Fowler, <hi rend="italic">Roman Festivals</hi>, p. 169.</note> gained fresh +strength from the ideas of the divinised destiny of eastern +monarchs. According to Plutarch, Tyche left the regions of +Assyria and Persia to make her home on the Palatine.<note place="foot">Plut. <hi rend="italic">De Fort. Rom.</hi> iv. +<foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">οὕτως ἡ τύχη καταλιποῦσα Πέρσας καὶ Ἀσσυρίους ... +τῷ δὲ Παλατίῳ προσερχομένη, κτλ.</foreign></note> The +<pb n="618"/><anchor id="Pg618"/>republican <q>Fortune of the Roman People</q> naturally passed +into the <q>Fortuna Augusti,</q> which appears on the imperial +coins from the reign of Vespasian. In the age of the +Antonines, the image of the goddess in gold always stood in +the prince’s bed-chamber, and was transferred at the hour of +his death to his successor.<note place="foot">Capitol. <hi rend="italic">Ant. P.</hi> c. 12.</note> With the reign of Commodus, who +was himself initiated both in the Isiac and Mithraic mysteries, +begins the temporary triumph of the oriental cults, which was +to reach its height in the reign of Julian. The absence of full +materials for the history of the third century,<note place="foot">Cf. Vop. <hi rend="italic">Prob.</hi> c. i. § 3.</note> a century crowded +with great events, and pregnant with great spiritual movements, +should perhaps impose greater caution in tracing the development +of imperial power than some writers have always observed. +Yet there can be little doubt that the monarchy of the West +tended to become a theocratic despotism, and that Persian Sun-worship +had a large share in this development. There was +always a sober sense in the West which rebelled against +the oriental apotheosis of the prince.<note place="foot">Cf. Amm. Marc. xv. 1, 3.</note> Yet the iterated +adulation, so often recorded faithfully in the Augustan +History, reveals an extraordinary abasement of the upper +class before the person of the emperor.<note place="foot">Cf. Amm. Marc. xv. 1, 3.</note> The emperors never, +indeed, claimed like the Sassanids to be <q>brothers or sons of +the Sun and Moon.</q><note place="foot">Amm. Marc. xxiii. 6, 5, unde reges +ejusdem gentis praetumidi appellari se +patiuntur Solis fratres et Lunae.</note> But in their official style and insignia +there were many approaches to the divine claims of the +monarchs of the East. The title <hi rend="italic">invictus</hi>, sacred to Mithra +and the Sun, was assumed by Commodus, and borne by his +successors.<note place="foot">D. Cass. lxxii. 15, 5.</note> The still more imposing title of <q>eternal,</q> springing +from the same origin, came into vogue in the third century, +and appears in the edicts of the last shadowy emperors of the +fifth. From the reign of Nero, the imperial crown with +darting rays, symbolised the solar ancestry of the prince. +Gallienus used to go forth crowned in this manner, and with +gold dust in his hair, and raised a colossal statue of himself in +the garb of the Sun.<note place="foot">Treb. Poll. <hi rend="italic">Gallien.</hi> 16, 18, crinibus +suis auri scobem aspersit, etc.</note> The coins of Aurelian, who built the +great temple of the Sun from the spoils of Palmyra, bear the +legend <q>deo et domino nato.</q><note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 291, n. 5.</note> The West probably never took +<pb n="619"/><anchor id="Pg619"/>these assumptions so literally as the East. But metaphor +and imagery tended to become a real faith. The centre of +the great religion which was to be the last stronghold of +paganism, was the prototype of the emperor in the starry +world, and his protector on earth. And the solar grace which +surrounded the prince found an easy explanation in the mystic +philosophy of the soul’s descent which had been absorbed by +Mithraism. In coming to earth from the empyrean, the +future lord of the world received a special gift of grace and +power from the great luminary which is the source of light +and life. The religion of the Sun thus tended to become a +great spiritual support of an absolutism which was more and +more modelling itself on the royalty of the East. The cult of +the Sun, which was established in such splendour in 273 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi> +by Aurelian, must have had a great effect in preparing for +the oriental claims of monarchy from the reign of Diocletian. +Thirty years after the foundation of the stately shrine on +the Esquiline, and only twenty years before the conversion +of Constantine, all the princes of the imperial house, Jovii +Herculii, Augusti, Caesares, as an inscription tells, united to +restore a temple of Mithra at Carnuntum, his holy city on the +Danube.<note place="foot">Cumont, <hi rend="italic">Inscr.</hi> No. 367.</note> But the days of Mithra as the god of kings were +numbered. After the establishment of the Christian Empire, he +had a brief illusory triumph in the reign of Julian, and again in +the short-lived effort of reaction led by Eugenius and Nicomachus +Flavianus, which had a tragic close in the battle on the Frigidus. +Yet his mystic theology was the theme of debate among Roman +nobles, trained in the philosophy of Alexandria, long after his +last chapels had been buried in ruins; and his worship lingered +in secluded valleys of the Alps or the Vosges into the fifth +century.<note place="foot">Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> i. 17; Cumont, Intr. +p. 348. The Mithraeum of Sarreburg +seems to have been frequented till +395 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi></note> The theocratic claim of monarchy, to which Mithra +lent his support for so many generations, was destined, in its +symbols and phrases, to have a long reign. +</p> + +<p> +M. Renan has hazarded the opinion that, if the Christian +Church had been stricken with some mortal weakness, Mithraism +might have become the religion of the western world. +And, indeed, its marvellously rapid diffusion in Italy and the +<pb n="620"/><anchor id="Pg620"/>provinces along the Danube and the Rhine, in the second and +third centuries, might well have inspired the hope of such a +splendid destiny. Although it was primarily a kingly and +military creed, it appealed in the end to all classes, by many +various attractions. Springing from remote regions of the East, +it seemed instinctively to seize the opportunity offered by a +marvellous political unity, along with anarchy in morals and +religion, to satisfy the imperious needs of a world eager for +spiritual light and hope, but distracted among the endless +claimants for its devotion. Philosophy had long tried and was +still trying to find a spiritual synthesis, and to draw from old +mythologies a support for life and conduct. Might not +religion succeed where philosophy had failed? Or rather, +might not religion gather up into itself the forces of philosophy, +and transmute and glorify them in a great concrete symbol? +Might not the claims of the past be harmonised with the higher +intuitions of a more instructed age, and the countless cults +embraced within the circuit of the Roman power be reconciled +with the supreme reverence for one central divine figure, as the +liberties of an Alpine canton, like those of a great city of Asia, +were sheltered under the unchallenged supremacy of Rome? +Mithra made the effort, and for the time he succeeded. In his +progress to what seemed an almost assured victory, he swept into +his orbit the Greek and Latin and Phrygian gods—nay, even the +gods of Celtic cantons.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 332, n. 3.</note> They all found a place in his crypts, +beside his own sacred image and the Persian deities of his +original home. Their altars were ranged around his chapels, and +were duly visited by his priests. Yet, though the Persian deity +might seem very cosmopolitan and liberal in his indulgence to +parochial devotion, he never abated his own lofty claims, and +he never forgot his ancestry. While he might ally himself +with Magna Mater and Jupiter Dolichenus, he coldly repulsed +any association with Isis and Serapis, who were his rivals for +oecumenical sway. The old hostility between the worships of +Persia and Egypt was only softened in the internecine conflict +of both with a more powerful foe. It is only in the last stone +records that a votary of Mithra is found combining a devotion +to Isis.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 504, 846; C. Volusianus +was perhaps Praef. Urb. in 365 or +Consul in 314.</note> The claims of the Sun-god to spiritual primacy are +<pb n="621"/><anchor id="Pg621"/>expounded in the orations of Julian and the dissertations of +Praetextatus in the <hi rend="italic">Saturnalia</hi> of Macrobius. Monotheism in +the pagan world was not, indeed, a new thing. It goes back +to the philosophers of Ionia and Elea, to Aeschylus and Plato. +Nor was syncretism unknown to earlier ages. The Greeks of +the days of Herodotus identified the gods of Egypt with their +own, as Julius Caesar and Tacitus identified Gallic and German +deities with those of the Roman pantheon.<note place="foot">Herod, ii. 48, 50; Caes. <hi rend="italic">B.G.</hi> vi. 17; Tac. <hi rend="italic">Germ.</hi> c. 9.</note> But the monotheistic +syncretism of Mithra was a broader and more sweeping +movement. Local and national gods represented single +aspects of nature. Mithra was seated at the centre on which +all nature depends. If nature-worship was to justify itself in +the eyes of philosophic reason, men must rise to the adoration +of the Sun-king, the head of a great hierarchy of divine forces, +by means of which he acts and diffuses his inexhaustible energy +throughout the universe. And such is the claim made for him +by Praetextatus, in the <hi rend="italic">Saturnalia</hi> of Macrobius, who was a +high adept in the mysteries of Mithra. +</p> + +<p> +But the world needed more than a great physical force to +assuage its cravings; it demanded a moral God, Who could raise +before the eyes of men a moral ideal, and support them in striving +to attain it; One Who could guide and comfort in the struggles +of life, and in the darkness of its close, Who could prepare the +trembling soul for the great ordeal, in which the deeds done in +the body are sifted on the verge of the eternal world. In fulfilling +his part, Mithra could rely on his own early character as a +god of truth and righteousness, a mediator between the powers +of good and evil: he had also the experience of the classic +mysteries, stretching back to the legendary Orpheus, which, in +whatever crude, shadowy symbolism, had taught for ten +centuries the doctrine of a moral sequence between this life +and the next. The descent of the soul into gross material +form, and its possible ascent again, if duly fortified, to ethereal +worlds, was common to Mithra and the Orphic and Pythagorean +systems. Such a system on one side sad and pessimist, on +another was full of the energy of hope. And Mithraism +combined the two. It was a religion of strenuous effort and +warfare, with the prospect of high rewards in some far-off +eternal life. +</p> + +<pb n="622"/><anchor id="Pg622"/> + +<p> +It is little wonder that the Fathers, from the second century, +saw in Mithra the most formidable foe of Christ. Indeed, the +resemblances between the two religions, some of them superficial, +others of a deeper kind, were very striking. How far +some of these were due to a common stock of ideas in East and +West, how far they were the result of conscious borrowing +and mutual imitation, seems to be an insoluble problem. The +most learned student of the cult of Mithra is the most cautious +in his conclusions on the subject.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. pp. 341, 2.</note> On the one hand, the +two religions, in outlying regions of the Empire, long followed +different lines of dispersion. Christianity from its origin in +the religion of Israel, spread at first among the cities on the +Mediterranean, chiefly where there were colonies of Jews.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 339.</note> On +the other hand, outside Italy, Mithraism, which was propagated +by soldiers and imperial officers, followed the line of the +camps and centres of commerce chiefly along the great rivers +of the northern frontier. Yet at Ostia and Rome and elsewhere, +the two eastern religions must have been early brought face +to face. In the syncretism of that age, the age of Gnosticism, +rites and doctrines passed easily from one system to another. +Mithra certainly absorbed much from kindred worships of +Asia Minor, from Hellenic mysteries, and from Alexandrian +philosophy. It is equally certain that the Church did not +disdain a policy of accommodation, along with the consecration +of altars of Christ in the old shrines of paganism. The cult +of local heroes was transferred to saints and martyrs. Converts +found it hard to part with consecrated phrases and forms of +devotion, and might address Jesus in epithets sacred to the +Sun. Some Christians in the fifth century still saluted the +rising sun with a prayer.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 341; cf. Gasquet, p. 118 sqq.</note> +</p> + +<p> +Futile attempts have been made to find parallels to Biblical +narrative or symbolism in the faint and faded legend of Mithra +recovered from his monuments, the miraculous birth, the +sacred rock, the adoration of the shepherds, the grotto,—above +all, in the mystic sacrifice of the bull, which seemed to occupy +the same space in Mithraic devotion as the Sacrifice on +Calvary. But one great weakness of Mithraism lay precisely +here—that, in place of the narrative of a Divine life, instinct +<pb n="623"/><anchor id="Pg623"/>with human sympathy, it had only to offer the cold symbolism +of a cosmic legend. In their offices and sacramental system +the two religions had a more real affinity. Mithra had his +baptism and confirmation of new disciples, his ablutions, ascetic +preparation for the sacred mysteries, and holy feasts of the consecrated +bread and wine, where the mystic draught gave purity +and life to soul and body, and was the passport to a life in God. +The sacerdotal and liturgical character of his worship, with its +striking symbolism, using to the full the emotional effects of +lights and music and sacred pomp, offered to souls, who were +ripe for a diviner faith, some of that magical charm which was +to be exerted over so many ages by the Catholic Church. There +are, however, deeper and more fundamental resemblances between +the faiths of Mithra and of Christ, and it was to these that the +Persian cult owed its great superiority to classical mythology +and the official Roman paganism. It responded to a great +spiritual movement, of which it is one great object of this book +to show the sweep and direction. Formal devotion and ascetic +discipline were linked with lofty doctrines as to the origin of the +human spirit and an immortal destiny, depending on conduct, +as well as sacramental grace, through Mithra the mediator. +While the vulgar may have rested in the external charm and +power of the worship, there were others who drank in a more +spiritual creed expounded to us by one of the last Neo-Platonic +votaries of the Sun-God. It told of a fall of the soul into the +duress of the body, for a brief period of probation, of a +resurrection and great judgment, of a final ascent and beatitude +in the life in God, or of endless exile from His presence.<note place="foot">Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Som. Scip.</hi> i. 13.</note> +</p> + +<p> +And yet the two systems were separated by an impassable +gulf, and Mithra had associations which could not save him +from the fate of Jupiter and Demeter, of Hecate and Isis. +It is true that his fate was hastened by hostile forces and +causes external to religion. Many of his shrines in the +Danubian provinces, and along the upper Rhine, were desolated +and buried in ruins by the hordes of invaders in the third +century.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 344.</note> And in the fourth century, the fiercest assaults of +the Christian Empire were directed against the worship which +was thought to be the patron of magic arts, and a device +of the Evil One to travesty and defy the Religion of the +<pb n="624"/><anchor id="Pg624"/>Cross.<note place="foot">S. Hieron. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 107 (Ad Laetam).</note> But material force, however fiercely and decisively +exerted, although it hastened the doom of the Persian god, +only anticipated an inevitable defeat. +</p> + +<p> +A certain severity in Mithraism, which marked it off honourably +from other worships of the East, also weakened it as a +popular and enduring force. The absence of the feminine +charm in its legend, while it saved it from the sensual taint +of other heathen systems, deprived it of a fascination for the +softer and more emotional side of human nature.<note place="foot">Gasquet, p. 134.</note> Although +women may, perhaps, have not been altogether excluded from +his mysteries,<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 329; Porphyr. <hi rend="italic">De +Abstin.</hi> iv. 36; cf. Gasquet, p. 98.</note> still Mithra did not welcome them with the +warm sympathy which gave Demeter and Magna Mater and +Isis so firm a hold on the imagination of women for many +generations. The Mater Dolorosa has in all ages been an +enthralling power. The legend of the Tauroctonus was a +religion for strenuous men. And even its symbolism, with all +its strange spell, seems to lack depth and warmth for human +nature as a whole. It would indeed be rash to set limits to +the power of pious sentiment to transfigure and vivify the most +unspiritual materials. And the slaughtered bull in the apse +of every chapel of Mithra may have aroused in the end visions +and mystic emotion which had passed far beyond the sphere +of astral symbolism. +</p> + +<p> +Yet such spiritual interpretation of ancient myth is only +for the few, who find in a worship what they bring. For +the gross masses, the symbolism of natural processes, however +majestic, could never have won that marvellous power which +has made a single Divine, yet human, life the inexhaustible +source of spiritual strength for all the future. With all his +heroic effort to make himself a moral and spiritual force, +Mithra remained inextricably linked with the nature-worships +of the past. And, with such associations, even the God of +light could not be lord of the spiritual future of humanity. +Mithraism, with all its strange moral force, with all its charm of +antiquity and sacramental rite, with all its charity and tolerance, +had within it the germs of a sure mortality. In its tolerance lay +precisely its great weakness. The Christian Church might, +in S. Augustine’s phrase, <q>spoil the Egyptians,</q> it might borrow +<pb n="625"/><anchor id="Pg625"/>and adapt rites and symbols from pagan temples, or ideas from +Greek philosophy.<note place="foot">Hatch, <hi rend="italic">Hibbert Lectures</hi>, pp. 49, +135, 292.</note> But in borrowing, it transfigured them. +In all that was essential, the Church would hold no truce with +paganism. <q>Break the idols and consecrate the temples</q> +was the motto of the great Pontiff. But Mithra was ready to +shelter the idols under his purer faith. The images of Jupiter +and Venus, of Mars and Hecate, of the local deities of Dacia +and Upper Germany, find a place in his chapels beside the +antique symbols of the Persian faith.<note place="foot">Cumont, Intr. p. 334.</note> And thus, in spite +of a lofty moral mysticism, Mithra was loaded with the +heritage of the heathen past. A man admitted to his highest +ministry might also worship at the old altars of Greece +and Rome. The last hierophant of Eleusis was a high-priest +of Mithra.<note place="foot">Gasquet, p. 137.</note> Human nature and religious sentiment are so +complex that men of the sincere monotheistic faith of +Symmachus, Praetextatus, and Macrobius, have left the almost +boastful record of an all-embracing laxity of tolerance on their +tombs.<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">C.I.L.</hi> vi. 500, 504, 511, 1779.</note> On many of these slabs you may read that the man +who has been a <q>father</q> in the mysteries of Mithra, who has +been <q>born again</q> in the taurobolium, is also a priest of +Hecate, the goddess of dark arts and baleful spirits of the +night.<note place="foot">Maury, <hi rend="italic">La Magie</hi>, p. 54.</note> Through the astral fatalism of Babylon, Mithra was +inseparably connected with the darkest superstitions of East +or West,<note place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ib.</hi> p. 146.</note> which covered all sorts of secret crime and perfidy, +which lent themselves to seduction, conspiracy, and murder, +which involved the denial of a moral Providence of the world. +Many a pious devotee of Mithra and Hecate would have +recoiled, as much as we do, from the last results of his +superstition. Such people probably wished only to gain +another ally in facing the terrors of the unseen world. Yet +there can be little doubt that the majestic supremacy of +Mithra, through its old connection with Babylon, sheltered +some of the most degrading impostures of superstition. +</p> + +<p> +So rooted is religious sentiment in reverence for the past, +for what our fathers have loved and venerated, that men will +long tolerate, or even wistfully cherish, sacred forms and ideas +which their moral sense has outgrown. Down to the last years +<pb n="626"/><anchor id="Pg626"/>of the fourth century, the Persian worship was defended with +defiant zeal by members of the proudest Roman houses. In +their philosophic gatherings in the reign of Honorius, they found +in Sun-worship the sum and climax of the pagan devotion of +the past.<note place="foot">Macrob. <hi rend="italic">Sat.</hi> i. 17, § 4.</note> Many a pious old priest of Mithra, in the reign of +Gratian, was probably filled with wonder and sorrow when he +saw a Gracchus and his retinue break into the sanctuary +and tear down the venerable symbols from the wall of the +apse.<note place="foot">S. Hieron. <hi rend="italic">Ep.</hi> 107, § 2.</note> He deemed himself the prophet of a pure immemorial +faith, as pure as that of Galilee. He was probably a man of +irreproachable morals, with even a certain ascetic sanctity, +unspotted by the world. He treasured the secret lore of the +mysterious East, which sped the departing soul with the last +comforting sacraments on its flight to ethereal worlds. But he +could not see, or he could not regret, that every day when he +said his liturgy, as he made the round of the altars, he was +lending the authority of a purer faith to other worships which +had affrighted or debauched and enervated the Roman world +for forty generations. He could not see that the attempt to wed +a high spiritual ideal with nature-worship was doomed to failure. +The masses around him remained in their grossness and darkness. +And on that very day, it may be, one of his aristocratic +disciples, high in the ranks of Mithra’s sacred guilds, was +attending a priestly college which was charged with the +guardianship of gross and savage rites running back to Evander, +or he was consulting a Jewish witch, or a Babylonian diviner, +on the meaning of some sinister omen, or he may have been +sending down into the arena, with cold proud satisfaction, a +band of gallant fighters from the Thames or the Danube, to +butcher one another for the pleasure of the rabble of Rome. +Mithra, the Unconquered, the god of many lands and dynasties +from the dawn of history, was a fascinating power. But, at his +best, he belonged to the order which was vanishing. +</p> + + </div></div></body> + <back> + <div rend="page-break-before: always"> +<pb n="627"/><anchor id="Pg627"/> +<index index="toc" level1="Index"/><index index="pdf" level1="Index"/> +<head>INDEX</head> + +<list> +<item>Abascantus, secretary <hi rend="italic">ab epistulis</hi>, career of, described in the <hi rend="italic">Silvae</hi>, <ref target="Pg110">110</ref></item> + +<item><hi rend="italic">Acta diurna</hi>, +<list rend="nested"> + <item>regular arrival of, in the provinces, <ref target="Pg205">205</ref>;</item> + <item>reader of, <ref target="Pg95">95</ref></item> +</list> +</item> + +<item>Acte, mistress of Nero, cares for his burial, <ref target="Pg115">115</ref></item> + +<item>Aelian of Praeneste, +<list rend="nested"> + <item>account of his work on Providence, <ref target="Pg456">456</ref>;</item> + <item>immense credulity, and hatred of rationalism, <ref target="Pg456"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>the pious cock of Tanagra, <ref target="Pg457">457</ref>;</item> +<item>last dream of Philemon, <ref target="Pg457"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref></item> +</list> +</item> + +<item>Africa, +<list rend="nested"> + <item>the development of its city life, organisation of Thamugadi, <ref target="Pg202">202</ref>;</item> + <item>of Lambesi, <ref target="Pg208">208</ref>;</item> +<item>amphitheatres in, <ref target="Pg201">201</ref>;</item> +<item>and bishoprics, <ref target="Pg201"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>little touched by Mithraism, <ref target="Pg597">597</ref></item> +</list> +</item> + +<item>Agrippina, mother of Nero, +<list rend="nested"> + <item>memoirs by, used by Tacitus, <ref target="Pg80">80</ref>;</item> + <item>sits on the tribunal with Claudius, <ref target="Pg81">81</ref>;</item> +<item>shade propitiated by Nero, <ref target="Pg491">491</ref></item> +</list> +</item> + +<item>Albinus, P. <anchor id="corr627"/><corr sic="Caeonius">Caeionius</corr>, restores a temple at Thamugadi, <ref target="Pg202">202</ref></item> + +<item>Alcantara, the bridge of, <ref target="Pg220">220</ref></item> + +<item>Alexander of Abonoteichos, +<list rend="nested"> + <item>oracle on the Marcomannic war, <ref target="Pg451">451</ref>, <ref target="Pg476">476</ref>;</item> + <item>physical and mental gifts of, <ref target="Pg473">473</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>skilful charlatanry, <ref target="Pg474">474</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>war with the Epicureans, <ref target="Pg476">476</ref>;</item> +<item>Lucian’s treatment of, <ref target="Pg477">477</ref>;</item> +<item>establishes new Mysteries, <ref target="Pg476">476</ref> sq.</item> +</list> +</item> + +<item>Alexandria, +<list rend="nested"> + <item>roses from, for Nero’s dinners, <ref target="Pg32">32</ref>;</item> + <item>singing boys from, at Trimalchio’s dinner, <ref target="Pg130">130</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>character of its populace, <ref target="Pg374">374</ref>;</item> +<item>Dion Chrysostom rebukes their passion for games, <ref target="Pg374"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>a great focus of religious feeling, <ref target="Pg397">397</ref>;</item> +<item>and eclecticism, <ref target="Pg561">561</ref></item> +</list> +</item> + +<item>Animal-worship, +<list rend="nested"> + <item>excites ridicule, <ref target="Pg571">571</ref>;</item> + <item>philosophy justified it, <ref target="Pg571"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>, <ref target="Pg395">395</ref>;</item> +<item>little noticed in Apuleius, <ref target="Pg572">572</ref></item> +</list> +</item> + +<item>Annaeus Serenus, Seneca’s <hi rend="italic">De Tranquillitate</hi> addressed to, character of, <ref target="Pg319">319</ref></item> + +<item>Antinous, death and apotheosis of, <ref target="Pg450">450</ref>, <ref target="Pg477">477</ref>, <ref target="Pg478">478</ref></item> + +<item>Antium, temple of Fortuna Primigenia at, <ref target="Pg456">456</ref></item> + +<item>Antoninus Pius, +<list rend="nested"> + <item> builds a temple to Juno Sospita of Lanuvium, <ref target="Pg538">538</ref>;</item> + <item>to Mithra at Ostia, <ref target="Pg591">591</ref>;</item> +<item>his country pleasures at Lorium, <ref target="Pg537">537</ref>;</item> +<item>flattered by the Arval Brothers, <ref target="Pg542">542</ref>;</item> +<item>Magna Mater on his coins, <ref target="Pg549">549</ref>;</item> +<item>taurobolium for, in 160, <ref target="Pg549"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>, <ref target="Pg557">557</ref></item> +</list> +</item> + +<item>Apollonius of Tyana, +<list rend="nested"> + <item>involved in political conspiracy, <ref target="Pg40">40</ref>;</item> + <item>a great preacher, effect of his sermons, <ref target="Pg347">347</ref>;</item> +<item>early life, Pythagorean asceticism, Sun worship, and catholic ritualism, <ref target="Pg399">399</ref>;</item> +<item>reconciled myth with a purer faith, <ref target="Pg400">400</ref>;</item> +<item>visits all the oracles, <ref target="Pg472">472</ref>;</item> +<item>his ideas of a future state, <ref target="Pg518">518</ref> sqq.</item> +</list> +</item> + +<item>Apotheosis, +<list rend="nested"> + <item>in the Antonine age, <ref target="Pg386">386</ref>, <ref target="Pg537">537</ref>;</item> + <item>of Antinous, <ref target="Pg477">477</ref>;</item> +<item>of Peregrinus, <ref target="Pg478">478</ref>;</item> +<item>of M. Aurelius, <ref target="Pg478"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>of the Emperors, its history, <ref target="Pg615">615</ref> sqq.</item> +</list> +</item> + +<item>Apuleius, +<list rend="nested"> + <item>sensual imagination and mysticism of, <ref target="Pg389">389</ref>;</item> + <item>weird scenes of miracle in Thessaly, <ref target="Pg483">483</ref>;</item> +<item>lofty conception of God, <ref target="Pg389">389</ref>;</item> +<item>description of the revels of the wandering priests of the Syrian goddess, <ref target="Pg551">551</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>of other scenes in Thessaly, <ref target="Pg552">552</ref>;</item> +<item>conception of Isis in the Metamorphoses, <ref target="Pg563">563</ref>;</item> +<item>mystic raptures, <ref target="Pg570">570</ref>, <ref target="Pg574">574</ref>, <ref target="Pg576">576</ref></item> +</list></item> + +<item>Aquileia, a great seat of Mithraism, <ref target="Pg593">593</ref></item> + +<item>Ardeliones, the, life of, described, <ref target="Pg12">12</ref>, <ref target="Pg174">174</ref></item> + +<item>Aristides, P. Aelius, +<list rend="nested"><item>picture of the Roman Empire in, <ref target="Pg199">199</ref>;</item> +<item>general security, <ref target="Pg205">205</ref>;</item> +<item>journey from Mysia to Rome, <ref target="Pg206">206</ref>, <ref target="Pg464">464</ref>;</item> +<item>early history and travels, <ref target="Pg457">457</ref>;</item> +<item>long ill health and resort to temples of healing, <ref target="Pg458">458</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>his rhetorical training affected his religious attitude, <ref target="Pg458">458</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>diseases of, lasting for thirteen years, <ref target="Pg463">463</ref>;</item> +<item>his ordeals and vitality, <ref target="Pg465">465</ref>;</item> +<item>visited by the gods, <ref target="Pg466">466</ref>;</item> +<item>recovers his rhetorical power, <ref target="Pg466"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>mingled vanity and piety of, <ref target="Pg467">467</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Aristotle, influence of, +<list rend="nested"><item>on Plutarch, <ref target="Pg412">412</ref>;</item> +<item>on Seneca, <ref target="Pg314">314</ref>;</item> +<item>on Maximus of Tyre, <ref target="Pg421">421</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Army, the, +<list rend="nested"><item>honesty and courage in, <ref target="Pg49">49</ref>;</item> +<item><hi rend="italic">castra stativa</hi> grow into towns, <ref target="Pg207">207</ref>;</item> +<item>Septimius Severus allows the soldier <pb n="628"/><anchor id="Pg628"/>to live with his family, <ref target="Pg208">208</ref>;</item> +<item>how pensions provided for, <ref target="Pg283">283</ref>;</item> +<item>military colleges, their objects, <ref target="Pg283">283</ref>;</item> +<item>the worship of Mithra propagated by, <ref target="Pg591">591</ref>;</item> +<item>the legions which were most active, <ref target="Pg595">595</ref>, <ref target="Pg596">596</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Arrius Antoninus, grandfather of Ant. Pius, Greek verses of, <ref target="Pg166">166</ref></item> + + <item>Art, + <list rend="nested"><item>pretence of taste for, <ref target="Pg131">131</ref>, <ref target="Pg178">178</ref>;</item> + <item>influence of, in religion discussed by Dion Chrysostom, <ref target="Pg382">382</ref>;</item> +<item>decay of, lamented by Petronius, <ref target="Pg125">125</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Artemidorus, +<list rend="nested"><item>work on Dreams by, <ref target="Pg468">468</ref>;</item> +<item>immense industry, collections, and faith in the science, <ref target="Pg468"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>contempt for impostors, <ref target="Pg469">469</ref>;</item> +<item>quasi scientific method, <ref target="Pg469"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>its absurdities, <ref target="Pg470">470</ref></item></list> +</item> + +<item>Arvales Fratres, the College of, +<list rend="nested"><item>revived by Augustus, <ref target="Pg534">534</ref>;</item> +<item>early history, meetings and ritual of, <ref target="Pg540">540</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>servility to the Emperors, <ref target="Pg541">541</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Asclepius, +<list rend="nested"><item>immense popularity of his worship, <ref target="Pg459">459</ref>, <ref target="Pg539">539</ref>;</item> +<item>temples of, and their routine and organisation, <ref target="Pg460">460</ref>;</item> +<item>new oracle of, at Abonoteichos, <ref target="Pg474">474</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Asiaticus, freedman of Vitellius, history of, <ref target="Pg206">206</ref></item> + +<item>Astrology, +<list rend="nested"><item>influence of, in the early empire, a political danger, <ref target="Pg45">45</ref>, <ref target="Pg447">447</ref>;</item> +<item>astrologers banished by Claudius, Vitellius and Vespasian, <ref target="Pg45">45</ref>, <ref target="Pg448">448</ref>;</item> +<item>a Greek trade, <ref target="Pg93">93</ref>;</item> +<item>Augustus burns books of, <ref target="Pg446">446</ref>;</item> +<item>Tiberius believes in, <ref target="Pg448">448</ref>;</item> +<item>Otho, <ref target="Pg45">45</ref>, <ref target="Pg448">448</ref>;</item> +<item>Titus, <ref target="Pg449">449</ref>;</item> +<item>and M. <anchor id="corr628"/><corr sic="Aurelius">Aurelius,</corr> <ref target="Pg450">450</ref>;</item> +<item>Domitian, <ref target="Pg450"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item><anchor id="corr628-2"/><corr sic="Hadrian">Hadrian,</corr> <ref target="Pg450"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>in Mithraism, <ref target="Pg598">598</ref>, <ref target="Pg602">602</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Attis, +<list rend="nested"><item>legend of, <ref target="Pg549">549</ref>;</item> +<item>becomes a solar deity, <ref target="Pg556">556</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Augury, +<list rend="nested"><item>decay of, <ref target="Pg445">445</ref>;</item> +<item>abuse of, <ref target="Pg532">532</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Augustales, the, +<list rend="nested"><item>Trimalchio one of, <ref target="Pg136">136</ref>;</item> +<item>importance, organisation, social rank, and insignia in municipal towns, <ref target="Pg216">216</ref>, <ref target="Pg217">217</ref>;</item> +<item>generosity of, as patrons of colleges, <ref target="Pg275">275</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Augustine, S., +<list rend="nested"><item>defends the Cynics of his time, <ref target="Pg352">352</ref>;</item> +<item>contempt for rites of Magna Mater, <ref target="Pg547">547</ref>;</item> +<item>on Varro’s theology, <ref target="Pg417">417</ref>, <ref target="Note531-3">531 n.</ref>;</item> +<item>on the cult of martyrs, <ref target="Pg488">488</ref>;</item> +<item>on Plato, <ref target="Pg523">523</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Augustus, +<list rend="nested"><item>his disguised power, <ref target="Pg41">41</ref>;</item> +<item>destroys 2000 books of divination, <ref target="Pg446">446</ref>;</item> +<item>his horoscope cast, <ref target="Pg447">447</ref>;</item> +<item>his religious restoration, and its motive, <ref target="Pg533">533</ref>;</item> +<item>attitude to foreign religions, <ref target="Pg533">533</ref>;</item> +<item>restores a temple of Magna Mater, <ref target="Pg548">548</ref>;</item> +<item>cautious acceptance of divine honours, <ref target="Pg615">615</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Aurelian, +<list rend="nested"><item>his temple of the Sun, <ref target="Pg586">586</ref>;</item> +<item>outbreak of the workmen of the Mint in his reign, <ref target="Pg255">255</ref>;</item> +<item>legend <hi rend="italic">deo et domino nato</hi> on his coins, <ref target="Pg618">618</ref>;</item> +<item>effect of his Sun-worship on the development of imperial power, <ref target="Pg619">619</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Aurelius, M., +<list rend="nested"><item>slight interest of, in speculation, <ref target="Pg339">339</ref>;</item> +<item>his tutors of various schools, <ref target="Pg343">343</ref>;</item> +<item>as a boy recites the Salian litany, <ref target="Pg385">385</ref>;</item> +<item>his gospel of renunciation, <ref target="Pg393">393</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>his conformity, <ref target="Pg394">394</ref>;</item> +<item>employs diviners, <ref target="Pg450">450</ref>;</item> +<item>relations of, with Galen, <ref target="Pg506">506</ref>;</item> +<item>views of, about immortality, <ref target="Pg507">507</ref>;</item> +<item>his Stoic ideal of life, <ref target="Pg509">509</ref>;</item> +<item>his sadness and its causes, <ref target="Pg510">510</ref>;</item> +<item>one of the Salii in his 8th year, <ref target="Pg535">535</ref>;</item> +<item>his religious conservatism, <ref target="Pg537">537</ref>;</item> +<item>images of, in every family in the West, <ref target="Pg616">616</ref></item></list></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Balbilla, Greek verses by, <ref target="Pg80">80</ref></item> + +<item>Birth, +<list rend="nested"><item>respect for, in Juvenal, <ref target="Pg69">69</ref>;</item> +<item>in D. Cassius, Suetonius, and Pliny, <ref target="Pg70">70</ref>;</item> +<item>manufacture of genealogies, in Vit. Apollonius of Tyana, and S. Jerome, <ref target="Pg70"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>Herodes Atticus traced his descent from the Aeacidae, <ref target="Pg225">225</ref>;</item> +<item>Tiberius on, <ref target="Pg70">70</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Bithynia, +<list rend="nested"><item>civic mismanagement in, <ref target="Pg220">220</ref>;</item> +<item>literary distinction of, <ref target="Pg372">372</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Boeotia, the oracles of, <ref target="Pg471">471</ref></item> + +<item>Brescia, high moral tone of, <ref target="Pg147">147</ref></item> +</list><list> +<item>Caenis, concubine of Vespasian, influence and intrigues of, <ref target="Pg52">52</ref>, <ref target="Pg115">115</ref></item> + +<item>Caligula, +<list rend="nested"><item>wild schemes and profusion of, <ref target="Pg32">32</ref>;</item> +<item>his cruelty and insolence to Senators, <ref target="Pg51">51</ref>;</item> +<item>depraving example, <ref target="Pg73">73</ref>;</item> +<item>consults the oracle of Fortune at Antium, <ref target="Pg472">472</ref>;</item> +<item>apparitions at his burial, <ref target="Pg490">490</ref>;</item> +<item>claims of divinity, <ref target="Pg615">615</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Calpurnia, Pliny’s wife, +<list rend="nested"><item>character of, and his love for her, <ref target="Pg188">188</ref>, <ref target="Pg189">189</ref>;</item> +<item>literary taste of, <ref target="Pg80">80</ref></item></list></item> + +<item><hi rend="italic">Canabae legionis</hi>, at Lambesi, <ref target="Pg208">208</ref></item> + +<item>Canusium, +<list rend="nested"><item><hi rend="italic">Album</hi> of, <ref target="Pg210">210</ref>;</item> +<item>Herodes Atticus gave an aqueduct to, <ref target="Pg225">225</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Captation, +<list rend="nested"><item>a regular profession, <ref target="Pg72">72</ref>;</item> +<item>result of plebeian poverty and aristocratic vice, <ref target="Pg96">96</ref>;</item> +<item>at Croton, in Petronius, <ref target="Pg127">127</ref>;</item> +<item>Regulus a captator, <ref target="Pg156">156</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Carnuntum, in Pannonia, +<list rend="nested"><item>a seat of Mithraism from 70 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, <ref target="Pg591">591</ref>;</item> +<item>its temples, <ref target="Pg595">595</ref>;</item> +<item>temple restored at, by the imperial house, in the fourth century, <ref target="Pg619">619</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Centumviral court, the, +<list rend="nested"><item>picture of, in Pliny’s Letters, <ref target="Pg154">154</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>he welcomes young aristocrats to, <ref target="Pg187">187</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Chaeremon, Alexandrian librarian, wrote a treatise on Isis, <ref target="Pg568">568</ref></item> + +<item>Charity, and munificence, +<list rend="nested"><item>provision for poor children by Trajan and later Emperors, <ref target="Pg192">192</ref>, <ref target="Pg193">193</ref>;</item> +<item>private benevolence exemplified by Pliny, <ref target="Pg193">193</ref>;</item> +<item>his benefactions, <ref target="Pg193">193</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>other examples in the inscriptions, <ref target="Pg193">193</ref>, <ref target="Pg224">224</ref>;</item> +<item>the Stertinii, <ref target="Pg224">224</ref>;</item> +<item>Dion Chrysostom and <pb n="629"/><anchor id="Pg629"/>his father, <ref target="Pg225">225</ref>;</item> +<item>Herodes Atticus, enormous benefactions of, <ref target="Pg225"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>munificence of the Emperors, Vespasian, Titus, Hadrian, <ref target="Pg227">227</ref>, <ref target="Pg228">228</ref>;</item> +<item>private examples from inscriptions, <ref target="Pg223">223</ref>, <ref target="Pg229">229</ref>;</item> +<item>ideals of the uses of wealth, <ref target="Pg232">232</ref>;</item> +<item>men ruin themselves by generosity, <ref target="Pg245">245</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Cicero, +<list rend="nested"><item>adorned by Pliny, <ref target="Pg158">158</ref>;</item> +<item>on augury, <ref target="Pg445">445</ref>;</item> +<item>on beneficence, <ref target="Pg190">190</ref>;</item> +<item>on superstition, <ref target="Pg443">443</ref>;</item> +<item>on legend, <ref target="Pg495">495</ref>;</item> +<item>on Delphi, <ref target="Pg471">471</ref>;</item> +<item>on immortality, <ref target="Pg488">488</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>City life, +<list rend="nested"><item>splendour of, in the Antonine age, <ref target="Pg4">4</ref>;</item> +<item>weariness of life in the capital, <ref target="Pg174">174</ref>;</item> +<item>growth of, in Gaul, Spain, Dacia, and Asia, <ref target="Pg200">200</ref> sqq.</item></list></item> + +<item>Claudian, +<list rend="nested"><item>connects Mithra with Bel, <ref target="Pg588">588</ref>;</item> +<item>contempt for Greeks, <ref target="Pg90">90</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Claudius, +<list rend="nested"><item>recruits the Senate from the provinces, <ref target="Pg71">71</ref>, <ref target="Pg72">72</ref>;</item> +<item>Hellenism of, <ref target="Pg89">89</ref>;</item> +<item>his encouragement of trade, <ref target="Pg264">264</ref>;</item> +<item>his effort to revive the art of augury, <ref target="Pg445">445</ref>;</item> +<item>banishes the astrologers, <ref target="Pg418">418</ref>;</item> +<item>conservative in religion, <ref target="Pg536">536</ref>;</item> +<item>persecutes the Jewish and Druidic religions, <ref target="Pg566">566</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Claudius Etruscus, career of, and duties as minister, <ref target="Pg109">109</ref></item> + +<item>Clea, a priestess of Osiris at Delphi, <ref target="Pg424">424</ref></item> + +<item>Client, the, +<list rend="nested"><item>in Juvenal, <ref target="Pg93">93</ref>, <ref target="Pg94">94</ref>;</item> +<item>change of the relation under the Empire, <ref target="Pg94"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>the relation in the colleges, <ref target="Pg273">273</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Clients, +<list rend="nested"><item>position in the time of Juvenal, <ref target="Pg93">93</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>and Martial, <ref target="Pg61">61</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Clodius, P., uses the colleges, <ref target="Pg254">254</ref></item> + +<item>Colleges, the, +<list rend="nested"><item>plebeian class in towns, <ref target="Pg251">251</ref>;</item> +<item>pride of free artisan class, <ref target="Pg253">253</ref>;</item> +<item>early history of <hi rend="italic">Collegia</hi>, <ref target="Pg254">254</ref>;</item> +<item>danger from, <ref target="Pg255">255</ref>;</item> +<item>restrained by law, <ref target="Pg255"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>an irresistible movement, <ref target="Pg256">256</ref>;</item> +<item>wish for pious burial, <ref target="Pg257">257</ref>;</item> +<item>evidence on, from inscriptions, <ref target="Pg258">258</ref>;</item> +<item>funerary colleges authorised, <ref target="Pg259">259</ref>;</item> +<item>consequences of the concession, <ref target="Pg260">260</ref>;</item> +<item>College of Diana and Antinous, its organisation, fees, etc. <ref target="Pg260">260</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>College of Aesculapius and Hygia, its regulations, <ref target="Pg262">262</ref>;</item> +<item>colleges founded on religion, <ref target="Pg263">263</ref>;</item> +<item>industrial colleges, great fair at Cremona, <ref target="Pg264">264</ref>;</item> +<item>wandering traders, <hi rend="italic">collegia peregrinorum</hi>, <ref target="Pg265">265</ref>;</item> +<item>colleges at Lyons, Ostia, Arles, etc. <ref target="Pg265">265</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>objects of association, <ref target="Pg266">266</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>favoured by masters, <ref target="Pg267">267</ref>;</item> +<item>colleges moulded on the model of the city, names of offices, etc. <ref target="Pg269">269</ref>;</item> +<item>gradation of rank in, its object, <ref target="Pg270">270</ref>;</item> +<item>how the <hi rend="italic">schola</hi> was provided, <ref target="Pg271">271</ref>;</item> +<item>associations gather round it, gifts made to it, <ref target="Pg272">272</ref>;</item> +<item>College of Silvanus at Philippi, <ref target="Pg272"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>patrons of, and their <hi rend="italic">raison d’être</hi>, <ref target="Pg273">273</ref>;</item> +<item>colleges and their patrons of very different rank, <ref target="Pg274">274</ref>;</item> +<item>election of a patron, <ref target="Pg274"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>colleges founded to guard a tomb, <ref target="Pg276">276</ref>;</item> +<item>provisions for permanent observances, <ref target="Pg277">277</ref>;</item> +<item>college feasts and <hi rend="italic">sportulae</hi>, <ref target="Pg277">277</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>regulations for decorum in, fines, <ref target="Pg279">279</ref>;</item> +<item>the college a family, in which the slave is an equal, <ref target="Pg281">281</ref>;</item> +<item>were colleges eleemosynary institutions? <ref target="Pg282">282</ref>;</item> +<item>military colleges of Lambesi, their organisation and objects, <ref target="Pg283">283</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>extinction of a college, <ref target="Pg285">285</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Commodus, +<list rend="nested"><item>takes the tonsure of Isis and walks in an Isiac procession, <ref target="Pg553">553</ref>;</item> +<item>assumes the <anchor id="corr629"/><corr sic="Mithriac">Mithraic</corr> title of <hi rend="italic">Invictus</hi>, <ref target="Pg618">618</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Como, +<list rend="nested"><item>Pliny’s estates at, <ref target="Pg145">145</ref>;</item> +<item>his gifts to, <ref target="Pg194">194</ref>;</item> +<item>a suicide at, <ref target="Pg184">184</ref>;</item> +<item><hi rend="italic">honorarium</hi> of its curia, <ref target="Pg209">209</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Conversion, +<list rend="nested"><item>Seneca on, <ref target="Pg34">34</ref>;</item> +<item>result of the preaching of Apollonius, <ref target="Pg347">347</ref>;</item> +<item>conversion of Polemon, <ref target="Pg347"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>of D. Chrysostom, <ref target="Pg368">368</ref>;</item> +<item>in Plutarch, <ref target="Pg413">413</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Corellius Rufus, suicide of, <ref target="Pg184">184</ref></item> + +<item>Cornelia, wife of Pompey, culture of, <ref target="Pg80">80</ref></item> + +<item>Cotta, M. Aurelius, liberality of, to a freedman, <ref target="Pg119">119</ref></item> + +<item>Country life, +<list rend="nested"><item>growing love of, <ref target="Pg174">174</ref>;</item> +<item>Roman country seats, their sites and architecture, <ref target="Pg176">176</ref>;</item> +<item>extent and grounds, <ref target="Pg178">178</ref>;</item> +<item>routine of life, <ref target="Pg179">179</ref>;</item> +<item>purchase and management of estates, <ref target="Pg180">180</ref>;</item> +<item>charm of the country in Roman literature, <ref target="Pg197">197</ref>;</item> +<item>yet contempt for it, <ref target="Pg199">199</ref>;</item> +<item>moral tone of, <ref target="Pg2">2</ref>, <ref target="Pg144">144</ref>, <ref target="Pg147">147</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Cremona, +<list rend="nested"><item>great fair at, <ref target="Pg263">263</ref>;</item> +<item>sack of, <ref target="Pg264">264</ref>;</item> +<item>colleges of youth at, <ref target="Pg265">265</ref>;</item> +<item>munificence of its citizens, <ref target="Pg225">225</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Curatores, +<list rend="nested"><item>heard of first in the reign of Trajan, <ref target="Pg222">222</ref>;</item> +<item>control of municipal finance by, <ref target="Pg248">248</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Curia, the, +<list rend="nested"><item>composition of, illustrated by the roll of Canusium, <ref target="Pg210">210</ref>;</item> +<item>numbers, and qualification of, <ref target="Pg214">214</ref>;</item> +<item>its fate, <ref target="Pg248">248</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Cynics, the, +<list rend="nested"><item>met a general demand for moral guidance, <ref target="Pg340">340</ref>;</item> +<item>description of, in Dion Chrysostom, <ref target="Pg349">349</ref>;</item> +<item>and in the literature of the age, <ref target="Pg350">350</ref> n.;</item> +<item>the Cynic in Lucian’s <hi rend="italic">Banquet</hi>, <ref target="Pg350"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>attractions of the life of, <ref target="Pg351">351</ref>;</item> +<item>gross charges against; S. Augustine’s testimony, <ref target="Pg352">352</ref>;</item> +<item>causes of prejudice against, <ref target="Pg352"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>death of Peregrinus as treated by Lucian, <ref target="Pg355">355</ref>;</item> +<item>affinity of, with Christian asceticism, <ref target="Pg355">355</ref>, <ref target="Pg361">361</ref>;</item> +<item>evidently a great popular force, <ref target="Pg358">358</ref>;</item> +<item>a one-sided Stoicism, <ref target="Pg359">359</ref>;</item> +<item>Cynic ideal, <ref target="Pg359">359</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>attitude to the Empire, <ref target="Pg362">362</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>and to popular religion, <ref target="Pg363">363</ref>;</item> +<item>cultivated Cynics, <ref target="Pg364">364</ref> sqq.</item></list></item> +</list><list> +<item>Dacia, +<list rend="nested"><item>organisation and town life of, <ref target="Pg201">201</ref>;</item> +<item>worship of Magna Mater in, <ref target="Pg549">549</ref>;</item> +<item>of Isis, <ref target="Pg568">568</ref>;</item> +<item>settlement of, by Trajan, a <pb n="630"/><anchor id="Pg630"/>seat of Mithraism, <ref target="Pg594">594</ref>;</item> +<item>of the worship of Isis and Magna Mater, <ref target="Pg549">549</ref>, <ref target="Pg568">568</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Daemons, +<list rend="nested"><item>conception of, in Plutarch and Maximus of Tyre, <ref target="Pg426">426</ref>;</item> +<item>history of, in Greek literature from Hesiod, <ref target="Pg427">427</ref>;</item> +<item>use of the idea by Platonists, <ref target="Pg425">425</ref>;</item> +<item>Xenocrates first taught the existence of evil daemons, <ref target="Pg431">431</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>employed by Plutarch to rehabilitate myth, <ref target="Pg432">432</ref>;</item> +<item>believed in by the Fathers, <ref target="Pg433">433</ref>;</item> +<item>a cause of oracular inspiration, <ref target="Pg437">437</ref>;</item> +<item>mortality of, <ref target="Pg426">426</ref>;</item> +<item>daemon of Socrates, <ref target="Pg438">438</ref>;</item> +<item>daemon a higher self, <ref target="Pg439">439</ref>;</item> +<item>daemonology an attempt to bridge the gulf between man and the Infinite Spirit, <ref target="Pg603">603</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Dea Dia, worship of, <ref target="Pg540">540</ref></item> + +<item>Delation, +<list rend="nested"><item>history and causes of, <ref target="Pg35">35</ref>;</item> +<item>delators of every rank, <ref target="Pg35"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>attractions of, wealth gained by, <ref target="Pg36">36</ref>;</item> +<item>Regulus a delator, <ref target="Pg37">37</ref>, <ref target="Pg155">155</ref>;</item> +<item>Silius Italicus, <ref target="Pg164">164</ref>;</item> +<item>under Domitian, <ref target="Pg35">35</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Delphi, +<list rend="nested"><item>temple of Osiris at, <ref target="Pg424">424</ref>;</item> +<item>Plutarch’s love of, <ref target="Pg403">403</ref>, <ref target="Pg435">435</ref>;</item> +<item>decay of, in first century, <ref target="Pg434">434</ref>;</item> +<item>revival of, <ref target="Pg435">435</ref>;</item> +<item>why oracles were given in prose, <ref target="Pg436">436</ref>;</item> +<item>sources of its inspiration, <ref target="Pg437">437</ref>;</item> +<item>Nero’s violence to, <ref target="Pg472">472</ref>;</item> +<item>Hadrian tested, <ref target="Pg472"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Demetrius, the Cynic, +<list rend="nested"><item>life of, <ref target="Pg361">361</ref>;</item> +<item>a cultivated ascetic, <ref target="Pg362">362</ref>;</item> +<item>knew Apollonius of Tyana, <ref target="Pg362"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>attitude to the Empire, beards Nero and Vespasian, <ref target="Pg362"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Demonax, +<list rend="nested"><item>attitude to popular religion, <ref target="Pg363">363</ref>;</item> +<item>origin, education, and philosophic tone of, <ref target="Pg364">364</ref>;</item> +<item>fashion of his life and teaching, <ref target="Pg365">365</ref>;</item> +<item>epigrams and sarcasms, <ref target="Pg365">365</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>his personal magnetism, and reverence for him after his death, <ref target="Pg366">366</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Dendrophori, +<list rend="nested"><item>dedications by, to Magna Mater, <ref target="Pg549">549</ref>;</item> +<item>in the inscriptions, <ref target="Pg551">551</ref>;</item> +<item>at Lyons, <ref target="Pg557">557</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Dion Chrysostom, +<list rend="nested"><item>view of the Cynics, <ref target="Pg349">349</ref>;</item> +<item>early history, exile, conversion, and preaching of, <ref target="Pg367">367</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>orations of, <ref target="Pg368">368</ref>;</item> +<item>simple philosophy, and view of the time, <ref target="Pg369">369</ref>, <ref target="Pg370">370</ref>;</item> +<item>warning to Tarsus, <ref target="Pg370">370</ref>;</item> +<item>sermon at Olbia, <ref target="Pg371">371</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>picture of city life in Asia Minor, its vices and jealousies, <ref target="Pg372">372</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>gospel of social charity, <ref target="Pg373">373</ref>;</item> +<item>scorn for the Alexandrian character, <ref target="Pg374">374</ref>;</item> +<item>his prose idyll on virtuous rural life in Euboea, <ref target="Pg375">375</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>view of prostitution and slavery, <ref target="Pg376">376</ref>;</item> +<item>ideal of monarchy, parable of the Two Peaks, <ref target="Pg377">377</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>oration at Olympia, <ref target="Pg379">379</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>suggested by Olympian Zeus of Pheidias, <ref target="Pg380">380</ref>;</item> +<item>Dion’s discussion on natural theology and anthropomorphism, <ref target="Pg381">381</ref>;</item> +<item>makes Pheidias defend representation of the Infinite in human form, <ref target="Pg382">382</ref>;</item> +<item>his Zeus a moral ideal and spiritual power, <ref target="Pg383">383</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Domitian, +<list rend="nested"><item>delators under, <ref target="Pg35">35</ref>;</item> +<item>his belief in astrology, <ref target="Pg45">45</ref>;</item> +<item>secret of his reign, <ref target="Pg52">52</ref>;</item> +<item>value of the authorities on, <ref target="Note52">52 n.</ref>;</item> +<item>good traits in his character, <ref target="Pg53">53</ref>;</item> +<item>his encouragement of literature and political merit, <ref target="Pg53"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>his Hellenism, <ref target="Pg89">89</ref>;</item> +<item>a moral reformer, <ref target="Pg54">54</ref>, <ref target="Pg74">74</ref>;</item> +<item>causes of his unpopularity, <ref target="Pg54">54</ref>;</item> +<item>contradictions in his character, <ref target="Pg55">55</ref>;</item> +<item>replenishes the treasury by confiscation, <ref target="Pg56">56</ref>;</item> +<item>his terror at the end, <ref target="Pg56">56</ref>, <ref target="Pg57">57</ref>, <ref target="Pg450">450</ref>;</item> +<item>his funereal banquet, <ref target="Pg57">57</ref>;</item> +<item>founds a quinquennial competition in literature, <ref target="Pg171">171</ref>;</item> +<item>his superstition, <ref target="Pg450">450</ref>;</item> +<item>a conservative in religion, <ref target="Pg536">536</ref>;</item> +<item>celebrated the Quinquatria of Minerva, <ref target="Pg538">538</ref>;</item> +<item>his victories, <ref target="Pg542">542</ref>;</item> +<item>escaped from the capital in the vestments of Isis in 69 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, <ref target="Pg567">567</ref>;</item> +<item>built a temple to Isis, <ref target="Pg567"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>first called <hi rend="italic">Dominus et Deus</hi>, <ref target="Pg615">615</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Dreams, +<list rend="nested"><item>in temples of healing, <ref target="Pg460">460</ref>;</item> +<item>dream-oracles, <ref target="Pg461">461</ref>;</item> +<item>prescriptions in, <ref target="Pg463">463</ref>, <ref target="Pg464">464</ref>;</item> +<item>treatise of Artemidorus on, <ref target="Pg467">467</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>his faith in, <ref target="Pg468">468</ref>;</item> +<item>his absurdities, <ref target="Pg470">470</ref>;</item> +<item>Pliny on, <ref target="Pg452">452</ref>, <ref target="Pg490">490</ref></item></list></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Education, +<list rend="nested"><item>Vespasian endows, <ref target="Pg148">148</ref>;</item> +<item>influence of Quintilian on, <ref target="Pg149">149</ref>;</item> +<item>Pliny helps to endow a school at Como, <ref target="Pg193">193</ref>;</item> +<item>culture in Asia Minor, <ref target="Pg372">372</ref>;</item> +<item>among freedmen, <ref target="Pg131">131</ref>, <ref target="Pg134">134</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Empire, the, +<list rend="nested"><item>its temptations, <ref target="Pg31">31</ref>;</item> +<item>the influence of the Emperor’s example illustrated, <ref target="Pg31">31</ref>;</item> +<item>how waste led to cruelty and confiscation, <ref target="Pg33">33</ref>;</item> +<item>the secret of the imperial terror, various theories, <ref target="Pg37">37</ref>;</item> +<item>the ideal of the Empire, <ref target="Pg39">39</ref>, <ref target="Pg43">43</ref>;</item> +<item>constant danger from pretenders, <ref target="Pg40">40</ref>, <ref target="Pg41">41</ref>, <ref target="Pg44">44</ref>;</item> +<item>the fiction of Augustus, the Emperor’s real power, <ref target="Pg41">41</ref>;</item> +<item>checks upon it, <ref target="Pg42">42</ref>;</item> +<item>its tolerance of municipal liberty, <ref target="Pg203">203</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Entellus, gardens of, <ref target="Pg112">112</ref></item> + +<item>Epicharis, freedwoman, refuses to betray the Pisonian conspirators, <ref target="Pg47">47</ref></item> + +<item>Epictetus, +<list rend="nested"><item>his ideal of the Cynic philosopher, <ref target="Pg359">359</ref>;</item> +<item>men the soldiers of God, <ref target="Pg393">393</ref>;</item> +<item>gospel of renunciation in, <ref target="Note393-5"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi> n. 5</ref>;</item> +<item>on augury and divination, <ref target="Pg455">455</ref>;</item> +<item>early history of, <ref target="Pg503">503</ref>;</item> +<item>attitude to belief in immortality, <ref target="Pg504">504</ref>;</item> +<item>reference to female Platonists, <ref target="Pg80">80</ref>;</item> +<item>preaching of gratitude and resignation, <ref target="Pg393">393</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Epicurus, +<list rend="nested"><item>Seneca quotes, and defends to Lucilius, <ref target="Pg306">306</ref>;</item> +<item>Aelian anathematises, <ref target="Pg456">456</ref>;</item> +<item>Epicureans at Abonoteichos oppose Alexander, <ref target="Pg476">476</ref>;</item> +<item>orders banquets to his shade, <ref target="Pg456">456</ref>;</item> +<item>influence of, in last age of Republic, <ref target="Pg530">530</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Epidaurus, +<list rend="nested"><item>temple of Asclepius at, <ref target="Pg462">462</ref>, <ref target="Pg539">539</ref>;</item> +<item>social life of the patients, <ref target="Pg463">463</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Equites, +<list rend="nested"><item>in provincial towns, <ref target="Pg215">215</ref>;</item> +<item>freedmen raised to the rank of, <ref target="Pg113">113</ref>;</item> +<item>Juvenal’s <pb n="631"/><anchor id="Pg631"/>contempt for, <ref target="Pg70">70</ref>;</item> +<item>general low estimate of, <ref target="Pg113">113</ref>;</item> +<item>displace freedmen as imperial secretaries, <ref target="Pg107">107</ref>;</item> +<item>employment by Vitellius, Domitian, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius, <ref target="Pg107"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Espionage, +<list rend="nested"><item>under the Empire, <ref target="Pg34">34</ref>;</item> +<item>under Domitian, <ref target="Pg56">56</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Euboea, D. Chrysostom’s description of rural life in, <ref target="Pg375">375</ref></item> + +<item>Euhemerus, +<list rend="nested"><item>translated by Ennius, <ref target="Pg530">530</ref>;</item> +<item>Plutarch on, <ref target="Pg425">425</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Euphrates, +<list rend="nested"><item>Pliny’s sketch of, <ref target="Pg151">151</ref>;</item> +<item>suicide of, <ref target="Pg356">356</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Evil, Plutarch’s theory of, <ref target="Pg430">430</ref></item> + +<item>Extravagance, +<list rend="nested"><item>of Nero, <ref target="Pg20">20</ref>, <ref target="Pg32">32</ref>;</item> +<item>of Domitian, <ref target="Pg55">55</ref>, <ref target="Pg56">56</ref>;</item> +<item>of Vitellius, <ref target="Pg32">32</ref>;</item> +<item>of Caligula, <ref target="Pg32">32</ref>;</item> +<item>under the Republic, <ref target="Pg67">67</ref></item></list></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Fannia, widow of Helvidius Priscus, Pliny’s admiration for, <ref target="Pg152">152</ref></item> + +<item>Finance, +<list rend="nested"><item>profusion of Caligula, <ref target="Pg32">32</ref>;</item> +<item>straits of Domitian, <ref target="Pg56">56</ref>;</item> +<item>economy of Vespasian, <ref target="Pg32">32</ref>, <ref target="Pg148">148</ref>;</item> +<item>Nero’s waste and plunder, <ref target="Pg20">20</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>Nerva’s retrenchment, <ref target="Pg32">32</ref>;</item> +<item>waste of Vitellius, <ref target="Pg32">32</ref>;</item> +<item>finance of provincial towns, <ref target="Pg220">220</ref>, <ref target="Pg248">248</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Fortuna Augusti, <ref target="Pg618">618</ref></item> + +<item>Freedmen, the, +<list rend="nested"><item>their rise a great movement, <ref target="Pg100">100</ref>;</item> +<item>prejudice against, <ref target="Pg101">101</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>why it was natural, <ref target="Pg103">103</ref>;</item> +<item>contempt of literary men for vulgar wealth, <ref target="Pg104">104</ref>;</item> +<item>yet the rise of the freedmen a promising movement, <ref target="Pg105">105</ref>;</item> +<item>rise of, in the imperial household, <ref target="Pg106">106</ref>;</item> +<item>become great ministers, <ref target="Pg107">107</ref>;</item> +<item>replaced gradually by Equites, <ref target="Pg107">107</ref>;</item> +<item>early freedmen ministers worthy of their place, <ref target="Pg108">108</ref>;</item> +<item>career of Claudius Etruscus and Abascantus, <ref target="Pg109">109</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>of Narcissus and Pallas, <ref target="Pg110">110</ref>, <ref target="Pg111">111</ref>;</item> +<item>how their wealth was gained, <ref target="Pg112">112</ref>, <ref target="Pg129">129</ref>;</item> +<item>their politic splendour, <ref target="Pg112">112</ref>;</item> +<item>romantic career of a freedman, <ref target="Pg113">113</ref>;</item> +<item>yet freedmen despised and ostracised, <ref target="Pg113"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>sometimes made great marriages, <ref target="Pg114">114</ref>;</item> +<item>doubtful position of women of this class, <ref target="Pg114">114</ref>;</item> +<item>yet some had great influence, <ref target="Pg115">115</ref>;</item> +<item>Panthea, mistress of L. Verus, picture of, by Lucian, <ref target="Pg115"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>lower freedmen in the imperial service, <ref target="Pg116">116</ref>;</item> +<item>transition from slavery to freedom, how freedmen rose, <ref target="Pg118">118</ref>-<ref target="Pg120">120</ref>;</item> +<item>grossness and ostentation of their wealthy class, <ref target="Pg129">129</ref> sqq.</item></list></item> + +<item>Freedom and Necessity, +<list rend="nested"><item>Plutarch’s views of, <ref target="Pg412">412</ref>;</item> +<item>Seneca’s, <ref target="Pg311">311</ref></item></list></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Gaius, on the law of Colleges, <ref target="Pg254">254</ref></item> + +<item>Galen, +<list rend="nested"><item>early history and training of, <ref target="Pg505">505</ref>;</item> +<item>eclecticism of, <ref target="Pg505"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>views of immortality, <ref target="Pg505"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>relations with M. Aurelius, <ref target="Pg506">506</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Genii, +<list rend="nested"><item>invented for every corporation and scene in Roman life, <ref target="Pg386">386</ref>;</item> +<item>tales of, in Britain and on the Indian Ocean, <ref target="Pg420">420</ref>, <ref target="Pg426">426</ref>;</item> +<item>wide-spread cult of, <ref target="Pg479">479</ref> sq.</item></list></item> + +<item>Gladiators, +<list rend="nested"><item>municipal shows of, in Petronius, <ref target="Pg134">134</ref>;</item> +<item>Trajan provides 10,000 on his Dacian triumph, <ref target="Pg234">234</ref>;</item> +<item>protests against, by Seneca and Demonax, <ref target="Pg235">235</ref>;</item> +<item>schools of, <ref target="Pg236">236</ref>, <ref target="Pg241">241</ref>;</item> +<item>shows began in Campania, <ref target="Pg241"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>school of, at Pompeii, <ref target="Pg237">237</ref>;</item> +<item>notices in the inscriptions, <ref target="Pg238">238</ref>;</item> +<item>enthusiasm for, <ref target="Pg238"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>shows in remote places, <ref target="Pg239">239</ref>;</item> +<item>after battle of Bedriacum, <ref target="Pg240">240</ref>;</item> +<item>less popular in Greece, except at Corinth, <ref target="Pg241">241</ref>;</item> +<item>various cost of, <ref target="Pg241">241</ref>;</item> +<item>classes who furnished gladiators, attractions of the profession, <ref target="Pg242">242</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>organisation of a school; a college of gladiators, <ref target="Pg243">243</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>God, +<list rend="nested"><item>new conceptions of, <ref target="Pg5">5</ref>;</item> +<item>in Seneca, <ref target="Pg305">305</ref>;</item> +<item>God of the Stoics, varying conceptions of, <ref target="Pg307">307</ref>;</item> +<item>demand for a moral God, <ref target="Pg389">389</ref>;</item> +<item>Stoicism fades into Platonism, <ref target="Pg391">391</ref>;</item> +<item>the Stoic god has no claim to worship, <ref target="Pg391"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>vague higher conceptions of, <ref target="Pg396">396</ref>, <ref target="Pg603">603</ref>;</item> +<item>a transcendent Deity, <ref target="Pg397">397</ref>;</item> +<item>Plutarch’s highest idea of, <ref target="Pg418">418</ref>;</item> +<item>man’s relation to, according to Maximus of Tyre, <ref target="Pg421">421</ref>;</item> +<item>relation of, to daemons, <ref target="Pg425">425</ref> sqq.</item></list></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Hadrian, +<list rend="nested"><item>letter of, to Servianus, <ref target="Pg397">397</ref>;</item> +<item>tests the omniscience of Delphi, <ref target="Pg435">435</ref>;</item> +<item>dabbled in astrology, and other dark arts, <ref target="Pg450">450</ref>, <ref target="Pg503">503</ref>;</item> +<item>his love of travel, <ref target="Pg503">503</ref>;</item> +<item>his faint belief in immortality, <ref target="Pg503">503</ref>;</item> +<item>a sceptic, <ref target="Pg536">536</ref>;</item> +<item>the Canopus of, at his villa at Tibur, <ref target="Pg567">567</ref>;</item> +<item>conspiracy against, <ref target="Pg41">41</ref>;</item> +<item>character of, <ref target="Pg503">503</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Hellenism, +<list rend="nested"><item>various aspects of, reaction against, from the times of the elder Cato, <ref target="Pg88">88</ref>;</item> +<item>Hellenism of early Emperors, <ref target="Pg88">88</ref>, <ref target="Pg89">89</ref>;</item> +<item>Roman prejudice against Greeks, <ref target="Pg90">90</ref>;</item> +<item>why Greeks succeeded under the Empire, <ref target="Pg91">91</ref>;</item> +<item>Greek <hi rend="italic">grammatici</hi>, <ref target="Pg91">91</ref>;</item> +<item>Greeks as doctors, <ref target="Pg92">92</ref>;</item> +<item>Greek parasites, <ref target="Pg93">93</ref>;</item> +<item>love of Greek in Pliny’s days, <ref target="Pg166">166</ref> sq.</item></list></item> + +<item>Helvidius Priscus, +<list rend="nested"><item>violence of, <ref target="Pg40">40</ref>;</item> +<item>flouts Vespasian, <ref target="Pg40"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Herculaneum, +<list rend="nested"><item>temple of Magna Mater at, <ref target="Pg548">548</ref>;</item> +<item>frescoes of, illustrating the worship of Isis, <ref target="Pg578">578</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Herodes Atticus, +<list rend="nested"><item>gifts of, to many communities, <ref target="Pg225">225</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>friend of Demonax and Plutarch, <ref target="Pg364">364</ref>, <ref target="Pg403">403</ref>;</item> +<item>on the uses of wealth, <ref target="Pg232">232</ref>;</item> +<item>claimed descent from the Aeacidae, <ref target="Pg225">225</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Herodotus, +<list rend="nested"><item>identifies Greek and Egyptian deities, <ref target="Pg561">561</ref>;</item> +<item>on Mithra, <ref target="Pg589">589</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Hesiod, on daemons, <ref target="Pg427">427</ref></item> + +<item>Holconii, the, of Pompeii, public honours and benefactions of, <ref target="Pg223">223</ref></item> + +<pb n="632"/><anchor id="Pg632"/> + +<item>Horace, +<list rend="nested"><item>love of the country, and memories of Mount Vultur in, <ref target="Pg196">196</ref>, <ref target="Pg198">198</ref>;</item> +<item>journey to Brundisium, <ref target="Pg206">206</ref>;</item> +<item>on beneficence, <ref target="Pg190">190</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Hortensius, Q., +<list rend="nested"><item>luxury of, <ref target="Pg71">71</ref>;</item> +<item>poverty of his descendants, <ref target="Pg71"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref></item></list></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Icelus, +<list rend="nested"><item>raised to rank by Galba, <ref target="Pg107">107</ref>;</item> +<item>journey of, to Spain, <ref target="Pg206">206</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Immortality, +<list rend="nested"><item>ideas of, depend on ideas of God, <ref target="Pg484">484</ref>;</item> +<item><q>We know not what we shall be,</q> <ref target="Pg485">485</ref>;</item> +<item>faith in the <hi rend="italic">Manes</hi>, <ref target="Pg486">486</ref>;</item> +<item>evidence of epitaphs on, <ref target="Pg487">487</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>Lemures, <ref target="Pg488">488</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>the <hi rend="italic">Mundus</hi>, <ref target="Pg489">489</ref>;</item> +<item>mingled elements in Virgil’s Inferno, <ref target="Pg491">491</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>Roman longing for posthumous sympathy, <ref target="Pg488">488</ref>;</item> +<item>Orphic and Pythagorean influences on Virgil, <ref target="Pg494">494</ref>;</item> +<item>evidence of inscriptions on belief in, <ref target="Pg496">496</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>Epicurean negation of, <ref target="Pg498">498</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>philosophic opinion on, <ref target="Pg449">449</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>Lucretius and Julius Caesar on, <ref target="Pg500">500</ref>, <ref target="Pg501">501</ref>;</item> +<item>attitude of Epictetus, <ref target="Pg504">504</ref>;</item> +<item>Galen’s ideas of, <ref target="Pg505">505</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>M. Aurelius on, <ref target="Pg507">507</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>Seneca on, <ref target="Pg514">514</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>Apollonius of Tyana on, <ref target="Pg518">518</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>Plutarch on, <ref target="Pg521">521</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>Platonic imagery of the future world, and its influence on Plutarch, <ref target="Pg523">523</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>belief in, fostered by Isiac worship, <ref target="Pg575">575</ref>, <ref target="Pg583">583</ref>;</item> +<item>and by Mithraism, <ref target="Pg609">609</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Inns, poor and disreputable, <ref target="Pg207">207</ref></item> + +<item>Isis, +<list rend="nested"><item>prescriptions of, in dreams, <ref target="Pg461">461</ref>;</item> +<item>transformation of her worship by the Ptolemies, <ref target="Pg560">560</ref>;</item> +<item>at the Peiraeus, <ref target="Pg560"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>influence of Greek settlers in Egypt, and of Greek mysticism, <ref target="Pg561">561</ref>, <ref target="Pg563">563</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>lofty conception of, in Apuleius, <ref target="Pg563">563</ref>;</item> +<item>date of her introduction in Italy, <ref target="Pg563"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>power over women, <ref target="Pg565">565</ref>;</item> +<item>repeated persecution of her worshippers, first century, <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, <ref target="Pg565">565</ref>;</item> +<item>in the reign of Tiberius, <ref target="Pg566">566</ref>;</item> +<item>favoured by Otho and the Flavians, <ref target="Pg567">567</ref>;</item> +<item>Domitian builds a temple to, in 92 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, classes who propagated the worship of, <ref target="Pg567">567</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>spread through all Western Europe, <ref target="Pg568">568</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>secret of her fascination, <ref target="Pg569">569</ref>;</item> +<item>highest conception of, <ref target="Pg572">572</ref>;</item> +<item>a real spiritual power, <ref target="Pg574">574</ref>;</item> +<item>gives the hope of immortality, <ref target="Pg575">575</ref>;</item> +<item>impressive ritual of, <ref target="Pg576">576</ref>;</item> +<item>daily offices, <ref target="Pg577">577</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>her rites in frescoes of Herculaneum, <ref target="Pg578">578</ref>;</item> +<item>great festivals of, the procession to the shore described, <ref target="Pg578">578</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>her priesthood, including women, <ref target="Pg580">580</ref>, <ref target="Pg582">582</ref>;</item> +<item>sacred guilds, Isiaci, Pastophori, etc., <ref target="Pg581">581</ref>;</item> +<item>syncretism of her worship, <ref target="Pg581"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>her priesthood a separate caste, their presbyteries, and ascetic life, <ref target="Pg582">582</ref></item></list></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Jerome, S., +<list rend="nested"><item>account of the grades of initiation in Mithraism by, <ref target="Pg611">611</ref>;</item> +<item>genealogies in, <ref target="Pg70">70</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Jews, +<list rend="nested"><item>growing influence of, in the first century <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>;</item> +<item>especially under the Flavian dynasty, <ref target="Pg83">83</ref>;</item> +<item>spread of Jewish observances, <ref target="Pg84">84</ref>;</item> +<item>foster superstition, <ref target="Pg84">84</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Julian, his hatred of Oenomaus of Gadara, <ref target="Pg364">364</ref></item> + +<item><hi rend="italic">Jumentarii</hi>, at the gates of towns, <ref target="Pg206">206</ref></item> + +<item>Juvenal, +<list rend="nested"><item>his views of society compared with Tacitus, <ref target="Pg58">58</ref>;</item> +<item>social rank and early training of, <ref target="Pg59">59</ref>;</item> +<item>experience as a client, <ref target="Pg59"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>bitterness of, <ref target="Pg60">60</ref>;</item> +<item>dates of his <hi rend="italic">Satires</hi>, <ref target="Pg60">60</ref>;</item> +<item>he and Martial have a common stock of subjects, <ref target="Pg60">60</ref>, <ref target="Pg61">61</ref>;</item> +<item>plebeian pride, and old Roman prejudice, combined with the moral feeling of a later age, <ref target="Pg63">63</ref>;</item> +<item>attitude to religion, <ref target="Pg64">64</ref>;</item> +<item>extravagant pessimism, his ideal in the past, <ref target="Pg65">65</ref>;</item> +<item>great movements of society described by, and sometimes misunderstood, <ref target="Pg69">69</ref>;</item> +<item>decay of the noble class described by, <ref target="Pg69">69</ref>;</item> +<item>contempt for new men, <ref target="Pg70">70</ref>;</item> +<item>signs of aristocratic poverty, <ref target="Pg72">72</ref>;</item> +<item>his ideal of senatorial dignity, <ref target="Pg74">74</ref>;</item> +<item>treatment of women in the Sixth Satire, its faults, <ref target="Pg76">76</ref>;</item> +<item>condemns mere eccentricities and even laudable tastes, <ref target="Pg77">77</ref>;</item> +<item>distrusts growing culture of women, <ref target="Pg79">79</ref>, <ref target="Pg80">80</ref>;</item> +<item>fighting a lost battle, <ref target="Pg81">81</ref>;</item> +<item>scorn for women’s devotion to eastern cults, <ref target="Pg82">82</ref>;</item> +<item>pessimism about women had some justification, <ref target="Pg84">84</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>his judgments must be taken with some reserve, <ref target="Pg87">87</ref>;</item> +<item>indignation at the invasion of the Greeks, <ref target="Pg88">88</ref>;</item> +<item>humiliation of the client, <ref target="Pg93">93</ref>;</item> +<item>general poverty, <ref target="Pg95">95</ref>;</item> +<item>the cry of the poor, and Roman contempt for industry and trade, <ref target="Pg98">98</ref>;</item> +<item>Juvenal compared with Pliny, as a painter of society, <ref target="Pg141">141</ref></item></list></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Lambaesis, +<list rend="nested"><item>the camp at, how it grew into a <hi rend="italic">municipium</hi>, <ref target="Pg208">208</ref>;</item> +<item>military colleges at, <ref target="Pg283">283</ref>;</item> +<item>temple of Isis at, <ref target="Pg568">568</ref>;</item> +<item>worship of Mithra at, <ref target="Pg595">595</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Lanuvium, college at, <ref target="Pg260">260</ref></item> + +<item>Lemuria, the, described, <ref target="Pg489">489</ref></item> + +<item>Libraries, +<list rend="nested"><item>restocked with MSS. by Domitian, <ref target="Pg53">53</ref>;</item> +<item>Trimalchio’s Greek and Latin libraries, <ref target="Pg131">131</ref>;</item> +<item>rapid production of books, <ref target="Pg156">156</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Literature, +<list rend="nested"><item>in the Antonine age, <ref target="Pg3">3</ref>;</item> +<item>in Pliny’s days, <ref target="Pg157">157</ref>;</item> +<item>literary amateurs abound, <ref target="Pg157"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>Pliny’s poetry, <ref target="Pg159">159</ref>;</item> +<item>love of Cicero, <ref target="Pg158">158</ref>;</item> +<item>the plague of readings, <ref target="Pg160">160</ref>, <ref target="Pg172">172</ref>;</item> +<item>decadence of, <ref target="Pg163">163</ref>, <ref target="Pg173">173</ref>;</item> +<item>Silius Italicus, <ref target="Pg164">164</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>composition in Greek, <ref target="Pg166">166</ref>;</item> +<item>Titinius Capito, a historian, <ref target="Pg167">167</ref>;</item> +<item>devotion to poetry, and its causes, influence of the Augustan tradition, +<pb n="633"/><anchor id="Pg633"/><ref target="Pg169">169</ref>;</item> +<item>fashion of the archaic style, <ref target="Pg170">170</ref>;</item> +<item>Domitian founds a literary competition, its influence, <ref target="Pg171">171</ref>;</item> +<item>literary men generally born in provincial places, <ref target="Pg196">196</ref>;</item> +<item>Demonax rebukes literary archaism, <ref target="Pg367">367</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Livy, +<list rend="nested"><item>on decay of augury, <ref target="Pg445">445</ref>;</item> +<item>on the Bacchanalian scandal, <ref target="Pg563">563</ref>;</item> +<item>on the apocryphal books of Numa, <ref target="Pg564">564</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Lucan, +<list rend="nested"><item>on the worship of Isis, <ref target="Pg568">568</ref>;</item> +<item>betrays his mother, his death, <ref target="Pg471">471</ref>;</item> +<item>style of, referred to in the <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi> of Petronius, <ref target="Pg123">123</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Lucian, +<list rend="nested"><item>his war against the Cynics, <ref target="Pg337">337</ref>;</item> +<item>yet sometimes approaches their view of life, <ref target="Pg337">337</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>the <hi rend="italic">Charon</hi> of, <ref target="Pg338">338</ref>;</item> +<item>the <hi rend="italic">Hermotimus</hi> of, witnesses to a moral movement, <ref target="Pg341">341</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>the Cynic in his <hi rend="italic">Banquet</hi>, and <hi rend="italic">Fugitives</hi>, <ref target="Pg350">350</ref>;</item> +<item>his treatment of the character of Peregrinus, <ref target="Pg354">354</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>visit to Olympia at the time of the Cynic’s suicide, <ref target="Pg355">355</ref>;</item> +<item>how he regarded it, and watched the growth of a myth, <ref target="Pg357">357</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>description of the new oracle of Abonoteichos, <ref target="Pg474">474</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>ridicule of superstition in the <hi rend="italic">Philopseudes</hi>, <ref target="Pg490">490</ref>;</item> +<item>reference to Mithra, <ref target="Pg590">590</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Lucretius, +<list rend="nested"><item>on immortality, <ref target="Pg500">500</ref>, <ref target="Pg501">501</ref>;</item> +<item>on Magna Mater, <ref target="Pg547">547</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Luxury, +<list rend="nested"><item>Juvenal’s view of, <ref target="Pg65">65</ref>;</item> +<item>Roman luxury in Republican times, <ref target="Pg67">67</ref>;</item> +<item>luxury a relative term, <ref target="Pg68">68</ref>;</item> +<item>luxury of the Roman villa, chiefly in marbles, <ref target="Pg177">177</ref>;</item> +<item>the luxury of travelling, progresses of Nero, <ref target="Pg206">206</ref></item></list></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Maecenas, +<list rend="nested"><item>counsels of, to Augustus in Dion Cassius, <ref target="Pg446">446</ref>, <ref target="Pg533">533</ref>;</item> +<item>Trimalchio, a freedman of, <ref target="Pg128">128</ref> n.</item></list></item> + +<item>Magna Mater, +<list rend="nested"><item>brought from Pessinus, 204 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, <ref target="Pg548">548</ref>;</item> +<item>no Roman priest of, for 100 years, <ref target="Pg548"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>growing popularity of, at Rome, in Spain and Dacia, <ref target="Pg549">549</ref>;</item> +<item>legend of, <ref target="Pg549"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>her festival in spring, <ref target="Pg550">550</ref>;</item> +<item>her priests in the inscriptions, <ref target="Pg550">550</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>her sacred colleges, <ref target="Pg551">551</ref>;</item> +<item>her disreputable followers in Apuleius, <ref target="Pg551"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>her worship transmuted, <ref target="Pg554">554</ref>;</item> +<item>the taurobolium and its history, <ref target="Pg556">556</ref>;</item> +<item>alliance of, with Mithra, and Attis, <ref target="Pg556">556</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>women admitted to sacred rank, <ref target="Pg557">557</ref>;</item> +<item>identified with Maia, Demeter, Bona Dea, etc., <ref target="Pg559">559</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Majesty, the law of, under the Empire, <ref target="Pg33">33</ref></item> + +<item>Malaga, inscriptions of, <ref target="Pg209">209</ref></item> + +<item>Manetho, +<list rend="nested"><item>treatise of, on myths, <ref target="Pg561">561</ref>;</item> +<item>assists the first Ptolemy in recasting Isiac worship, <ref target="Pg561"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Marcian, on Colleges, <ref target="Pg255">255</ref></item> + +<item>Martial, +<list rend="nested"><item>deals with the same social subjects as Juvenal, <ref target="Pg61">61</ref>;</item> +<item>his graphic picture of the age, <ref target="Pg61">61</ref>, <ref target="Pg62">62</ref>;</item> +<item>better side of, love of country life, picture of the farm of Faustinus, love of Bilbilis, <ref target="Pg62">62</ref>;</item> +<item>on Regulus, <ref target="Pg156">156</ref>;</item> +<item>on literary amateurs, <ref target="Pg157">157</ref>;</item> +<item>on Silius Italicus, <ref target="Pg158">158</ref>;</item> +<item>relations of, with Pliny, <ref target="Pg158">158</ref>;</item> +<item>regret for the capital, <ref target="Pg198">198</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Maximus of Tyre, +<list rend="nested"><item>character of his Discourses, <ref target="Pg349">349</ref>;</item> +<item>conciliation of anthropomorphism with a higher vision of God by, <ref target="Pg395">395</ref>;</item> +<item>ethical theory of, <ref target="Pg421">421</ref>;</item> +<item>daemonology of, <ref target="Pg429">429</ref>;</item> +<item>fortified by tales of apparitions, <ref target="Pg491">491</ref>;</item> +<item>influenced by Aristotle, <ref target="Pg421">421</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Medicine, +<list rend="nested"><item>profession of, filled by Greeks, <ref target="Pg92">92</ref>;</item> +<item>great physicians, Antonius Musa, the Stertinii, etc., <ref target="Pg92"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>sneers against, <ref target="Pg92"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>public physicians in municipal towns, <ref target="Pg219">219</ref>;</item> +<item>income and munificence of the Stertinii, <ref target="Pg224">224</ref>;</item> +<item>science of, in the second century, superstitious elements, <ref target="Pg459">459</ref>;</item> +<item>how blended with real skill, <ref target="Pg462">462</ref>;</item> +<item>skilled physicians in temples of Asclepius, <ref target="Pg465">465</ref></item></list></item> + +<item><hi rend="italic">Medixtuticus</hi>, title of, still preserved in Oscan towns, <ref target="Pg203">203</ref></item> + +<item>Minucius Felix, +<list rend="nested"><item>quoted, <ref target="Pg545">545</ref>;</item> +<item>on the festivals of Isis, <ref target="Pg578">578</ref> n.;</item> +<item>on daemons, <ref target="Pg433">433</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Miracles, +<list rend="nested"><item>Origen and Celsus on, <ref target="Pg481">481</ref>;</item> +<item>universal belief in, <ref target="Pg482">482</ref>;</item> +<item>miracles in temples of Serapis, <ref target="Pg573">573</ref>;</item> +<item>Vespasian consents to work, <ref target="Pg573"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Mithra, +<list rend="nested"><item>growing power of, <ref target="Pg386">386</ref>;</item> +<item>the taurobolium a part of his worship, <ref target="Pg556">556</ref>;</item> +<item>alliance of, with Magna Mater and Attis, <anchor id="corr633"/><ref target="Pg556"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref><corr sic="(missing)">,</corr> <ref target="Pg589">589</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>in the Vedas and Avestas, <ref target="Pg586">586</ref>;</item> +<item>in the Zoroastrian system, <ref target="Pg587">587</ref>;</item> +<item>the God of kings, <ref target="Pg587"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>influence of Babylon on the worship of, <ref target="Pg587">587</ref>;</item> +<item>influence of syncretism in Asia Minor on, <ref target="Pg588">588</ref>;</item> +<item>the taurobolium probably borrowed, <ref target="Pg588"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>origin of the Tauroctonus group, date of the introduction of the</item> +<item>cult into Europe, <ref target="Pg590">590</ref>;</item> +<item>Plutarch’s statement in the Life of Pompey, <ref target="Pg590"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>worship of, in the Flavian age, <ref target="Pg590"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>syncretism of, <ref target="Pg592">592</ref>;</item> +<item>worship of, propagated by soldiers, civil servants, etc., <ref target="Pg592"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>stages of its diffusion through Italy, <ref target="Pg593">593</ref>;</item> +<item>and north of the Alps, <ref target="Pg594">594</ref>;</item> +<item>progress of the worship along the Danube, <ref target="Pg594">594</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>legions which propagated it in Pannonia, <ref target="Pg595">595</ref>;</item> +<item>remains of, in Upper Germany, <ref target="Pg596">596</ref>;</item> +<item>in England, <ref target="Pg597">597</ref>;</item> +<item>in Gaul, <ref target="Pg597"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>its many attractions, <ref target="Pg597"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>Persian symbolism, <ref target="Pg598">598</ref>;</item> +<item>Babylonian elements in, astrology, <ref target="Pg598">598</ref>, <ref target="Pg602">602</ref>, sq.;</item> +<item>relative influence of Iran and Babylon, different views of, <ref target="Pg599">599</ref>;</item> +<item>influence of Platonism and Pythagoreanism on, <ref target="Pg600">600</ref>;</item> +<item>doctrine of the soul’s descent, <ref target="Pg600"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>cosmic theory, doctrine of emanation, and deification of elemental powers, +<anchor id="Pg634"/><ref target="Pg601">601</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>Mithra as mediator in two senses, <ref target="Pg604">604</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>the Dadophori, <ref target="Pg604"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>, <ref target="Pg606">606</ref>;</item> +<item>the legend recovered from monuments, <ref target="Pg605">605</ref>;</item> +<item>the <hi rend="italic">petra genetrix</hi>, <ref target="Pg605"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>symbolism of the slaughtered bull, <ref target="Pg606">606</ref>;</item> +<item>agape of Mithra and Sun, <ref target="Pg607">607</ref>;</item> +<item>various interpretations of the legend, <ref target="Pg607">607</ref>;</item> +<item>Mithraism a religion of combat, <ref target="Pg608">608</ref>;</item> +<item>its consolations, <ref target="Pg608"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>its eschatology, <ref target="Pg609">609</ref>;</item> +<item>effect of the taurobolium, <ref target="Pg609"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>ritual and sacraments of, <ref target="Pg610">610</ref>;</item> +<item>daily offices, and festivals of, <ref target="Pg611">611</ref>;</item> +<item>seven grades of the initiated, <ref target="Pg611">611</ref>;</item> +<item>ordeals of, <ref target="Pg612">612</ref>;</item> +<item>guilds of, <ref target="Pg612">612</ref>;</item> +<item>rites regarded as a diabolic parody of the Church, <ref target="Pg613">613</ref>;</item> +<item>description of the chapels of, <ref target="Pg613"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref> sq.;</item> +<item>how Mithraism escaped persecution, <ref target="Pg614">614</ref>;</item> +<item>how it fostered theocratic ideas at Rome, <ref target="Pg617">617</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>a great imperial cult, <ref target="Pg619">619</ref>;</item> +<item>last days of, <ref target="Pg619"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>worship of, a great effort of syncretism, <ref target="Pg620">620</ref>;</item> +<item>moral and mystic strength of, <ref target="Pg621">621</ref>;</item> +<item>relations to Christianity, <ref target="Pg622">622</ref>;</item> +<item>similarities between them, <ref target="Pg623">623</ref>;</item> +<item>weaknesses of Mithraism, <ref target="Pg624">624</ref>;</item> +<item>inseparably involved with Nature-worship, <ref target="Pg626">626</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Monarchy, +<list rend="nested"><item>Seneca’s conception of, <ref target="Pg16">16</ref>;</item> +<item>hereditary succession and adoption, <ref target="Pg27">27</ref>;</item> +<item>ideal of, in Dion Chrysostom, <ref target="Pg377">377</ref>, sqq.;</item> +<item>apotheosis of, in third century, <ref target="Pg615">615</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>attitude of Tacitus to, <ref target="Pg21">21</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Morals, +<list rend="nested"><item>divorced from politics and speculation, <ref target="Pg290">290</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>became a religion in Seneca, <ref target="Pg305">305</ref>;</item> +<item>relation of precept and dogma, <ref target="Pg305"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>freedom and necessity, <ref target="Pg311">311</ref>;</item> +<item>the fall of man, <ref target="Pg312">312</ref>;</item> +<item>Plutarch’s theory of, <ref target="Pg410">410</ref> sqq.</item></list></item> + +<item>Municipal life, +<list rend="nested"><item>picture of, in Petronius, <ref target="Pg133">133</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>rapid organisation of, in Spain, Gaul, Dacia, etc., immense growth of towns, <ref target="Pg200">200</ref>;</item> +<item>Baden in 69 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, <ref target="Pg201">201</ref>;</item> +<item>Thamugadi in Numidia, <ref target="Pg202">202</ref>;</item> +<item>policy of government towards provincial towns, <ref target="Pg203">203</ref>;</item> +<item>drift towards uniformity of civic organisation, influence of the capital, <ref target="Pg204">204</ref>;</item> +<item>how towns were formed, <ref target="Pg207">207</ref>;</item> +<item>development from <hi rend="italic">castra stativa</hi>, <ref target="Pg207">207</ref>, sq.;</item> +<item>soldiers allowed to live with their families in the third century, <ref target="Pg208">208</ref>;</item> +<item>municipal town aristocratic in constitution, <ref target="Pg209">209</ref>, <ref target="Pg231">231</ref>;</item> +<item><hi rend="italic">Album Canusii</hi>, <ref target="Pg210">210</ref>;</item> +<item>the <hi rend="italic">honestiores</hi>, <ref target="Pg210"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>popular election the rule in the first century, <ref target="Pg211">211</ref>;</item> +<item>magistracies, <ref target="Pg212">212</ref>;</item> +<item>their burdens, signs of decay, <ref target="Pg212">212</ref>;</item> +<item>powers of the duumvirs, <ref target="Pg213">213</ref>;</item> +<item>the Curia, its numbers, qualification, and privileges, <ref target="Pg214">214</ref>, <ref target="Pg215">215</ref>;</item> +<item>local <hi rend="italic">Equites</hi>, <ref target="Pg215">215</ref>;</item> +<item>Augustales, their importance, organisation, insignia, etc., <ref target="Pg216">216</ref>, <ref target="Pg217">217</ref>;</item> +<item>municipal finance, <ref target="Pg218">218</ref>;</item> +<item>public charges, food, education, medical attendance, <ref target="Pg219">219</ref>;</item> +<item>public works, <ref target="Pg220">220</ref>;</item> +<item>finances, and maladministration of Bithynian towns in Trajan’s reign, <ref target="Pg220">220</ref>, <ref target="Pg221">221</ref>;</item> +<item>municipal life of Pompeii, <ref target="Pg222">222</ref>, sqq.;</item> +<item>generous gifts to towns, <ref target="Pg223">223</ref>, <ref target="Pg225">225</ref>;</item> +<item>examples from the inscriptions, <ref target="Pg226">226</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>public feasts on a great scale, <ref target="Pg229">229</ref>;</item> +<item>gifts of money according to social rank, <ref target="Pg230">230</ref>;</item> +<item>tone of town life, <ref target="Pg231">231</ref>;</item> +<item>pleasures of, <ref target="Pg233">233</ref>;</item> +<item>gladiatorial shows, <ref target="Pg236">236</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>how the community rewarded benefactors, <ref target="Pg244">244</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>municipal meanness, <ref target="Pg245">245</ref>;</item> +<item>decaying local patriotism, <ref target="Pg246">246</ref>;</item> +<item>Plutarch on, <ref target="Pg247">247</ref>;</item> +<item>growing centralisation and interference, <ref target="Pg248">248</ref>;</item> +<item>shadows of the end, <ref target="Pg249">249</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Musonius, +<list rend="nested"><item>his ideal of chastity, <ref target="Pg77">77</ref>;</item> +<item>condemns the Sophists, <ref target="Pg344">344</ref>;</item> +<item>exile of, under Nero; character of his teaching; preaches to the soldiery in 69 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, <ref target="Pg348">348</ref></item></list></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Nature, +<list rend="nested"><item>love of, in Virgil, <ref target="Pg197">197</ref>;</item> +<item>in Pliny, <ref target="Pg174">174</ref>;</item> +<item>in Martial, <ref target="Pg174"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>, <ref target="Pg62">62</ref>, <ref target="Pg198">198</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Nero, +<list rend="nested"><item>hereditary taint of, <ref target="Pg17">17</ref>;</item> +<item>not without some good qualities, <ref target="Pg17">17</ref>;</item> +<item>could inspire affection, <ref target="Pg18">18</ref>;</item> +<item>his devotion to art, and its evil results, <ref target="Pg19">19</ref>;</item> +<item>a <hi rend="italic">cupitor incredibilium</hi>, <ref target="Pg20">20</ref>;</item> +<item>his waste leads to cruel oppression, <ref target="Pg20">20</ref>, <ref target="Pg21">21</ref>;</item> +<item>examples of wild profusion, <ref target="Pg32">32</ref>;</item> +<item>his superstition, <ref target="Pg45">45</ref>, <ref target="Pg536">536</ref>;</item> +<item>compelled by the mob to recall Octavia, <ref target="Pg49">49</ref>;</item> +<item>popular indignation at his appearance on the stage, <ref target="Pg74">74</ref>;</item> +<item>the <q>Noctes Neronis,</q> <ref target="Pg75">75</ref>;</item> +<item>his phil-Hellenism, <ref target="Pg89">89</ref>;</item> +<item>silences Delphi, <ref target="Pg434">434</ref>;</item> +<item>belief in astrology, <ref target="Pg448">448</ref>;</item> +<item>propitiates his mother’s shade, <ref target="Pg491">491</ref>;</item> +<item>flattery of, by the Arval Brothers, <ref target="Pg542">542</ref>;</item> +<item>worshipped by Tiridates, <ref target="Pg617">617</ref>;</item> +<item>violence to Delphi, <ref target="Pg472">472</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Nerva, +<list rend="nested"><item>retrenchments of, <ref target="Pg32">32</ref>;</item> +<item>first provided for poor children, <ref target="Pg192">192</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Nicomedia, D. Chrysostom on its public vices, <ref target="Pg373">373</ref></item> + +<item>Numa, apocryphal books of, <ref target="Pg564">564</ref></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Octavia, divorced on false charge, and recalled by Nero at the bidding of the mob, <ref target="Pg49">49</ref></item> + +<item>Oenomaus of Gadara, +<list rend="nested"><item>rejection of myth and oracles by, <ref target="Pg363">363</ref>;</item> +<item>theory of oracles, <ref target="Pg364">364</ref>;</item> +<item>Julian’s denunciation of, <ref target="Pg364"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Olbia, D. Chrysostom’s visit to, <ref target="Pg371">371</ref> sq.</item> + +<item>Oracles, +<list rend="nested"><item>decay of, <ref target="Pg434">434</ref>;</item> +<item>revival of, <ref target="Pg386">386</ref>;</item> +<item>theory of their inspiration, <ref target="Pg437">437</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>and of their cessation, <ref target="Pg437">437</ref>, <ref target="Pg471">471</ref>;</item> +<item>that of Abonoteichos defers to the older, <ref target="Pg472">472</ref>;</item> +<item>many oracles not silenced till the reign of Constantine, <ref target="Pg473">473</ref>;</item> +<item>how an oracle was worked, <ref target="Pg474">474</ref>;</item> +<item>oracles in Boeotia, <ref target="Pg471">471</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Orphic mysticism, the, <ref target="Pg427">427</ref>; +<list rend="nested"> +<item>influence of, on Virgil, <ref target="Pg494">494</ref>;</item> +<item>on Mithraism, <ref target="Pg600">600</ref>;</item> +<item>on belief in immortality, <ref target="Pg516">516</ref></item></list></item> + +<pb n="635"/><anchor id="Pg635"/> + +<item>Osterburken, remains of Mithra worship at, <ref target="Pg596">596</ref></item> + +<item>Ostia, +<list rend="nested"><item>colleges at, <ref target="Pg215">215</ref>;</item> +<item>cult of Mithra at, <ref target="Pg591">591</ref>;</item> +<item>temple of Magna Mater at, <ref target="Pg591"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Otho, +<list rend="nested"><item>extravagance of, <ref target="Pg32">32</ref>;</item> +<item>his belief in astrology, <ref target="Pg45">45</ref>, <ref target="Pg448">448</ref>;</item> +<item>devotion of soldiers to, <ref target="Pg50">50</ref>;</item> +<item>his end, <ref target="Pg449">449</ref>;</item> +<item>flattered by the Arval Brotherhood, <ref target="Pg541">541</ref>;</item> +<item>the first Emperor who took part in Isiac worship, <ref target="Pg566">566</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Ovid, +<list rend="nested"><item>his ideal of womanhood, <ref target="Pg77">77</ref>, <ref target="Pg142">142</ref>;</item> +<item>shocked by the influence of the theatre on women, <ref target="Pg86">86</ref>;</item> +<item>attitude to religion, <ref target="Pg532">532</ref></item></list></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Pallas, power and insolence of, receives the adulation of the Senate, his wealth, and his end, <ref target="Pg111">111</ref></item> + +<item>Panaetius and the Scipionic circle, <ref target="Pg293">293</ref>; +<list rend="nested"> +<item>modification of Stoicism by, <ref target="Pg408">408</ref>;</item> +<item>abandons belief in immortality, <ref target="Pg500">500</ref>;</item> +<item>rejects divination, <ref target="Pg530">530</ref>;</item> +<item>little sympathy with popular religion, <ref target="Pg531">531</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Panthea, mistress of L. Verus, charms of, described by Lucian, <ref target="Pg115">115</ref></item> + +<item>Paphlagonia, superstition of, <ref target="Pg474">474</ref></item> + +<item>Pastophori of Isis, the, +<list rend="nested"><item>recognised by Sulla, <ref target="Pg565">565</ref>;</item> +<item>scribe of, <ref target="Pg570">570</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Peregrinus, +<list rend="nested"><item>early history of, connection with the Christians, and self-immolation, <ref target="Pg354">354</ref>;</item> +<item>Lucian’s attacks on his character, <ref target="Pg354">354</ref>;</item> +<item>assumes that the motive of Peregrinus was notoriety, <ref target="Pg356">356</ref>;</item> +<item>Peregrinus influenced by eastern mysticism, <ref target="Pg355">355</ref>;</item> +<item>character of, in Aulus Gellius, <ref target="Pg358">358</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Pessimism, +<list rend="nested"><item>of Seneca, <ref target="Pg10">10</ref>, <ref target="Pg11">11</ref>, <ref target="Pg14">14</ref>, <ref target="Pg303">303</ref>, <ref target="Pg313">313</ref>;</item> +<item>of Tacitus, <ref target="Pg30">30</ref>, <ref target="Pg46">46</ref>;</item> +<item>Juvenal, <ref target="Pg65">65</ref>;</item> +<item>M. Aurelius, <ref target="Pg304">304</ref>, <ref target="Pg335">335</ref>;</item> +<item>of the Greek poets, <ref target="Pg416">416</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Petronius, +<list rend="nested"><item>shared in the <q>Noctes Neronis,</q> <ref target="Pg75">75</ref>;</item> +<item>various opinions as to the date and object of his <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi>, <ref target="Pg120">120</ref>;</item> +<item>motive of the work, <ref target="Pg122">122</ref>;</item> +<item>the Petronius of Tacitus, his character and his end; the <hi rend="italic">Satiricon</hi> only a fragment, <ref target="Pg124">124</ref>;</item> +<item>not without a higher moral tone, <ref target="Pg125">125</ref>;</item> +<item>originality of Petronius, <ref target="Pg126">126</ref>;</item> +<item>the scene and the characters, <ref target="Pg127">127</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Philosophy, +<list rend="nested"><item>power of, in government, <ref target="Pg6">6</ref>;</item> +<item>Stoic opposition in the first century, <ref target="Pg39">39</ref>, <ref target="Pg151">151</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>was it ever a dangerous force? <ref target="Pg40">40</ref>;</item> +<item>new ideals of humanity, <ref target="Pg63">63</ref>;</item> +<item>elevating influence of, <ref target="Pg190">190</ref>;</item> +<item>change in the conception of, in the first century, <ref target="Pg289">289</ref>;</item> +<item>practical interest in predominant, causes of the change, <ref target="Pg339">339</ref>, <ref target="Pg290">290</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>eclecticism and scepticism in, <ref target="Pg290"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>, <ref target="Pg408">408</ref>, <ref target="Pg412">412</ref>;</item> +<item>necessity for moral reform, <ref target="Pg292">292</ref>;</item> +<item>private direction of souls, <ref target="Pg293">293</ref>;</item> +<item>directors in great houses, <ref target="Pg294">294</ref>;</item> +<item>the philosopher a <hi rend="italic">generis humani paedagogus</hi>, <ref target="Pg299">299</ref>;</item> +<item>modifications of Stoicism in Seneca, <ref target="Pg314">314</ref> sqq., <ref target="Pg306">306</ref>;</item> +<item><q>nulla virtus sine philosophia,</q> <ref target="Pg341">341</ref>;</item> +<item>eclecticism, <ref target="Pg343">343</ref>;</item> +<item>the Cynic opposition, <ref target="Pg362">362</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>eclecticism of Dion Chrysostom, <ref target="Pg368">368</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>need of a philosophic théodicée, <ref target="Pg384">384</ref>;</item> +<item>effort of, to rehabilitate myth, <ref target="Pg432">432</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Pheidias, +<list rend="nested"><item>the Olympian Zeus of, <ref target="Pg380">380</ref>;</item> +<item>his defence of anthropomorphism in D. Chrysostom, <ref target="Pg382">382</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Pisa, disturbance at elections in, <ref target="Pg212">212</ref></item> + +<item>Piso, the conspiracy of, <ref target="Pg47">47</ref> sq.</item> + +<item>Platonism, +<list rend="nested"><item>few adherents of, in the first century, <ref target="Pg408">408</ref>;</item> +<item>affected Panaetius, <ref target="Pg408"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>and Seneca, <ref target="Pg308">308</ref>;</item> +<item>and Plutarch, <ref target="Pg409">409</ref>;</item> +<item>its daemonology, <ref target="Pg430">430</ref>;</item> +<item>encouraged belief in immortality, <ref target="Pg501">501</ref>;</item> +<item>visionary power of the great Master, <ref target="Pg523">523</ref>;</item> +<item>influence on Mithraism, <ref target="Pg600">600</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Plebeian life, +<list rend="nested"><item>picture of, in Petronius, <ref target="Pg132">132</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>in the inscriptions, <ref target="Pg252">252</ref> sq., <ref target="Pg271">271</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Pliny, the elder, +<list rend="nested"><item>on Roman luxury, <ref target="Pg67">67</ref>, <ref target="Pg68">68</ref>;</item> +<item>care of his nephew, <ref target="Pg145">145</ref>;</item> +<item>life, character, and prodigious industry of, <ref target="Pg146">146</ref>;</item> +<item>scorn for popular religion, <ref target="Pg535">535</ref>;</item> +<item>superstition of, <ref target="Pg451">451</ref>;</item> +<item>rejection of immortality, <ref target="Pg502">502</ref>;</item> +<item>on town life in Spain and Gaul, <ref target="Pg201">201</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>description of baths of Posides, <ref target="Pg112">112</ref>;</item> +<item>on the Stertinii, <ref target="Pg224">224</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Pliny, the younger, +<list rend="nested"><item>ideal of the principate in the <hi rend="italic">Panegyric</hi>, <ref target="Pg43">43</ref>;</item> +<item>compared with Juvenal as a painter of society, <ref target="Pg141">141</ref>;</item> +<item>idealised his circle, <ref target="Pg142">142</ref>, <ref target="Pg185">185</ref>;</item> +<item>his blameless aristocrats, <ref target="Pg144">144</ref>;</item> +<item>early life of, influence of Quintilian on, <ref target="Pg149">149</ref>;</item> +<item>student friends, <ref target="Pg150">150</ref>;</item> +<item>admiration of the Stoic circle, <ref target="Pg151">151</ref>;</item> +<item>military service, and entrance on forensic work, <ref target="Pg153">153</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>the Centumviral court, <ref target="Pg154">154</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>sketch of Regulus, <ref target="Pg155">155</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>passion for fame, <ref target="Pg157">157</ref>;</item> +<item>literary amateurs, <ref target="Pg157">157</ref>;</item> +<item>befriends Martial, <ref target="Pg158">158</ref>;</item> +<item>admiration for Cicero, and for Greece, <ref target="Pg158">158</ref>;</item> +<item>his loose verses, <ref target="Pg159">159</ref>;</item> +<item>ideas of oratory, <ref target="Pg160">160</ref>;</item> +<item>value of his Letters, <ref target="Pg161">161</ref>, <ref target="Pg163">163</ref>;</item> +<item>imitated in fourth century, <ref target="Pg163"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>their principle of arrangement, and date, <ref target="Pg162">162</ref>;</item> +<item>his devotion to literature, <ref target="Pg164">164</ref>;</item> +<item>admiration for Tacitus, <ref target="Pg164"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>his judgment of Silius Italicus, <ref target="Pg164"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>theory of life, <ref target="Pg165">165</ref>;</item> +<item>literary coteries, Greek verse writing, <ref target="Pg166">166</ref>;</item> +<item>writers of history, <ref target="Pg167">167</ref>;</item> +<item>literary competitions, <ref target="Pg171">171</ref>;</item> +<item>the plague of recitations; Pliny gives readings himself, and punctually attends them: his estimate of their value, <ref target="Pg173">173</ref>;</item> +<item>weariness of the capital and love of the country, <ref target="Pg174">174</ref>;</item> +<item>not a sportsman, <ref target="Pg175">175</ref>;</item> +<item>pictures of Roman country seats, <ref target="Pg175">175</ref>;</item> +<item>routine of country life, <ref target="Pg179">179</ref>;</item> +<item>management of +<pb n="636"/><anchor id="Pg636"/>rural estates, <ref target="Pg180">180</ref>;</item> +<item>Pliny’s kindness to slaves and dependents, <ref target="Pg181">181</ref>;</item> +<item>view of suicide, <ref target="Pg183">183</ref>;</item> +<item>Corellius Rufus, <ref target="Pg184">184</ref>;</item> +<item>Pliny’s belief in the solidarity of rank, and the duty of mutual support, <ref target="Pg186">186</ref>;</item> +<item>his superstition, <ref target="Pg452">452</ref>, <ref target="Pg490">490</ref>;</item> +<item>delight in helping young men of the upper class, <ref target="Pg187">187</ref>;</item> +<item>love for Calpurnia, and ideal of girlhood, <ref target="Pg188">188</ref>, <ref target="Pg189">189</ref>;</item> +<item>last glimpse of Pliny and Calpurnia, <ref target="Pg189">189</ref>;</item> +<item>he represents the finest moral tone of the age, <ref target="Pg190">190</ref>;</item> +<item>his many benefactions and their amount, <ref target="Pg193">193</ref>, <ref target="Pg224">224</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Plutarch, +<list rend="nested"><item>on the duties of municipal life, <ref target="Pg247">247</ref>;</item> +<item>early history of, <ref target="Pg401">401</ref>;</item> +<item>friends of, at Rome, <ref target="Pg402">402</ref>;</item> +<item>love of Chaeronea, and Delphi, <ref target="Pg403">403</ref>;</item> +<item>visits to other parts of Greece, <ref target="Pg403">403</ref>;</item> +<item>table talk of, <ref target="Pg404">404</ref>;</item> +<item>his historic power, <ref target="Pg406">406</ref>;</item> +<item>ethical motive in, predominant, <ref target="Pg405">405</ref>;</item> +<item>admiration for Plato, <ref target="Pg409">409</ref>;</item> +<item>eclecticism, <ref target="Pg409"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>attacks Stoic psychology, <ref target="Pg410">410</ref>;</item> +<item>adopts some Aristotelian principles, <ref target="Pg412">412</ref>;</item> +<item>yet has many Stoic elements, <ref target="Pg414">414</ref>;</item> +<item>his treatment of Fate and free-will, <ref target="Pg412">412</ref>;</item> +<item>ideal of moral teaching, <ref target="Pg413">413</ref>;</item> +<item>conception of theology, <ref target="Pg417">417</ref>;</item> +<item>idea of God, <ref target="Pg418">418</ref>;</item> +<item>of matter and evil, <ref target="Pg419">419</ref>;</item> +<item>treatment of myth and religious symbol, <ref target="Pg423">423</ref>;</item> +<item>daemonology, <ref target="Pg430">430</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>used to rehabilitate myth, <ref target="Pg432">432</ref>;</item> +<item>interest in Delphi, <ref target="Pg435">435</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>theory of inspiration, <ref target="Pg439">439</ref>;</item> +<item>on the future state, <ref target="Pg496">496</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>on comfort in the Mysteries, <ref target="Pg516">516</ref>;</item> +<item>Consolation to his wife on the death of their daughter, <ref target="Pg520">520</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>arguments for immortality, <ref target="Pg521">521</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>visions of the future world, <ref target="Pg523">523</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>reference to Mithra as a mediator, <ref target="Pg590">590</ref>;</item> +<item>on the first appearance of Mithraism in Europe, <ref target="Pg590">590</ref>;</item> +<item>tales of ghosts at Chaeronea, <ref target="Pg490">490</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Politta, wife of Rubellius Plautus, courage and devotion of, <ref target="Pg49">49</ref></item> + +<item>Polybius, freedman minister of Claudius, life of, described by Seneca, <ref target="Pg108">108</ref></item> + +<item>Polybius, the historian, his attitude to Roman religion, <ref target="Pg531">531</ref></item> + +<item>Pompeii, +<list rend="nested"><item>situation and various industries of, <ref target="Pg223">223</ref>;</item> +<item>family of the Holconii, Eumachia, their gifts to the town, <ref target="Pg223">223</ref>;</item> +<item>amphitheatre and temple of Isis at, <ref target="Pg224">224</ref>, <ref target="Pg563">563</ref>;</item> +<item>election placards at, <ref target="Pg211">211</ref>;</item> +<item>tombs of Alexandrian traders at, <ref target="Pg567">567</ref>;</item> +<item>colleges of <q>late sleepers</q> and <q>late drinkers</q> at, <ref target="Pg265">265</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Pontifex Maximus, the, <ref target="Pg534">534</ref>; +<list rend="nested"> +<item>office held by the Emperors, its power, <ref target="Pg535">535</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Poppaea, her sympathy with Judaism, <ref target="Pg83">83</ref></item> + +<item>Post, the public, +<list rend="nested"><item>organisation of, <ref target="Pg206">206</ref>;</item> +<item>Pliny’s use of, for Calpurnia, <ref target="Pg189">189</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Poverty, +<list rend="nested"><item>contempt for, <ref target="Pg104">104</ref>;</item> +<item>common in Juvenal’s time, <ref target="Pg94">94</ref>;</item> +<item>D. Chrysostom on, <ref target="Pg375">375</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Prayer, +<list rend="nested"><item>an effort of adoration, <ref target="Pg394">394</ref>;</item> +<item>a colloquy with God, <ref target="Pg420">420</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Preachers, the philosophic, +<list rend="nested"><item>Apollonius, <ref target="Pg347">347</ref>;</item> +<item>Musonius, <ref target="Pg348">348</ref>;</item> +<item>Maximus of Tyre, <ref target="Pg349">349</ref>;</item> +<item>Dion Chrysostom, <ref target="Pg370">370</ref> sqq.</item></list></item> + +<item>Prudentius, description of the taurobolium by, <ref target="Pg558">558</ref></item> + +<item>Public works, +<list rend="nested"><item>mismanagement of, in Bithynia, <ref target="Pg220">220</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>curator of, <ref target="Pg220"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>undertaken by private persons, evidence of inscriptions on, <ref target="Pg225">225</ref> sq.</item></list></item> + +<item>Pythagoreanism, +<list rend="nested"><item>not extinct in the first century <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, <ref target="Pg398">398</ref>;</item> +<item>daemonology of, <ref target="Pg428">428</ref>;</item> +<item>influence of, on Virgil, <ref target="Pg493">493</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>on Seneca, <ref target="Pg515">515</ref>;</item> +<item>connection with the Mysteries, <ref target="Pg516">516</ref>;</item> +<item>spiritual influence of, <ref target="Pg517">517</ref>;</item> +<item>influence on the mythology of Egypt, <ref target="Pg562">562</ref>;</item> +<item>and on Mithraism, <ref target="Pg600">600</ref></item></list></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Quintilian, +<list rend="nested"><item>career of, as a teacher, and high moral influence, <ref target="Pg149">149</ref>;</item> +<item>treats immortality as an open question, <ref target="Pg502">502</ref></item></list></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Readings, +<list rend="nested"><item>the plague of, in Juvenal, <ref target="Pg59">59</ref>, <ref target="Pg95">95</ref>;</item> +<item>in Pliny, <ref target="Pg160">160</ref>, <ref target="Pg173">173</ref>;</item> +<item>in Martial, <ref target="Pg61">61</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Regulus, M. Aquilius, +<list rend="nested"><item>career of, as delator, <ref target="Pg37">37</ref>;</item> +<item>as pleader, his wealth, and eccentricities, <ref target="Pg155">155</ref>, <ref target="Pg156">156</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Religion, old Roman, +<list rend="nested"><item>decay of, from the second Punic War, <ref target="Pg529">529</ref>;</item> +<item>its causes, <ref target="Pg530">530</ref>;</item> +<item>attitude to, of Varro, Panaetius, Polybius, <ref target="Pg531">531</ref>;</item> +<item>Augustan restoration of, <ref target="Pg533">533</ref>;</item> +<item>conservative influence of the chief pontificate, <ref target="Pg535">535</ref>;</item> +<item>early emperors continue the Augustan policy, <ref target="Pg536">536</ref>;</item> +<item>reverence for the oldest Latin deities in the inscriptions, <ref target="Pg538">538</ref>;</item> +<item>Jupiter, <ref target="Pg543">543</ref>;</item> +<item>Hercules, Silvanus, and the Nymphs, <ref target="Pg539">539</ref>;</item> +<item>revival of the Arval Brotherhood, <ref target="Pg540">540</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>feeling of the educated to, <ref target="Pg544">544</ref>;</item> +<item>real strength of, <ref target="Pg545">545</ref>;</item> +<item>last champions of, in the fourth century, <ref target="Pg546">546</ref>;</item> +<item>its formalism compared with the eastern worships, <ref target="Pg554">554</ref></item></list></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Scepticism, +<list rend="nested"><item>from the second Punic War, <ref target="Pg530">530</ref>;</item> +<item>the scepticism of the elder Pliny, Seneca, Juvenal, etc., <ref target="Pg535">535</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Seleucus, an astrologer of Otho, <ref target="Pg448">448</ref></item> + +<item>Senate, the, +<list rend="nested"><item>prestige and ancient claims of, <ref target="Pg38">38</ref>;</item> +<item>hated and feared by bad princes, <ref target="Pg38">38</ref>, <ref target="Pg39">39</ref>;</item> +<item>respect for, under good Emperors, <ref target="Pg39">39</ref>;</item> +<item>theoretical position of, under the Empire, <ref target="Pg41">41</ref>, <ref target="Pg42">42</ref>;</item> +<item>Pliny’s <hi rend="italic">Panegyric</hi> throws light on, <ref target="Pg44">44</ref>;</item> +<item>moral degradation of, shown in 69 <hi rend="small">A.D.</hi>, <ref target="Pg50">50</ref>;</item> +<item>poverty of many great houses, <ref target="Pg51">51</ref>, <ref target="Pg71">71</ref>;</item> +<item>insults heaped on, by Emperors, <ref target="Pg51">51</ref>;</item> +<item>reduction of its numbers by massacre +<pb n="637"/><anchor id="Pg637"/>etc., <ref target="Pg71">71</ref>;</item> +<item>great families pensioned by Emperors, <ref target="Pg71">71</ref>;</item> +<item>Senators compelled to act and fight as gladiators, <ref target="Pg73">73</ref>, <ref target="Pg74">74</ref>;</item> +<item>scorn of, for freedmen, <ref target="Pg113">113</ref>;</item> +<item>frivolity of, in Pliny’s time, <ref target="Pg185">185</ref>;</item> +<item>senatorial life in the country, <ref target="Pg174">174</ref> sqq.</item></list></item> + +<item>Seneca, +<list rend="nested"><item>his experience of the tyranny, <ref target="Pg7">7</ref>, <ref target="Pg8">8</ref>;</item> +<item>sad close of his life, <ref target="Pg9">9</ref>;</item> +<item>knowledge of character, how acquired, <ref target="Pg9">9</ref>;</item> +<item>conception of the state of nature, and pessimism of, <ref target="Pg10">10</ref>, <ref target="Pg11">11</ref>, <ref target="Pg14">14</ref>, <ref target="Pg304">304</ref>, <ref target="Pg313">313</ref>;</item> +<item>ghastly picture of high society, <ref target="Pg11">11</ref>;</item> +<item>of slavery, <ref target="Pg12">12</ref>, <ref target="Pg329">329</ref>;</item> +<item>his terrors, <ref target="Pg13">13</ref>;</item> +<item>attitude to philosophic revolutionaries, <ref target="Pg15">15</ref>;</item> +<item>conception of imperial power, <ref target="Pg16">16</ref>;</item> +<item>ideal of female character and capacity, <ref target="Pg188">188</ref>;</item> +<item>anticipates the movement of the Antonine age, <ref target="Pg190">190</ref>;</item> +<item>as a spiritual director, <ref target="Pg294">294</ref>;</item> +<item>his undoubted power, <ref target="Pg295">295</ref>;</item> +<item>his experience prepared him for the work, <ref target="Pg296">296</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>his court-life and wealth, <ref target="Pg296"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>contrasts in, <ref target="Pg297">297</ref>;</item> +<item>calumnies against, <ref target="Pg298">298</ref>;</item> +<item>conception of the great office of philosophy, <ref target="Pg299">299</ref>;</item> +<item>attitude to liberal studies, <ref target="Pg300">300</ref>;</item> +<item>treatment of Physics, the moral effects and lessons of the study, <ref target="Pg301">301</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>intense earnestness of, <ref target="Pg304">304</ref>;</item> +<item>defends and quotes Epicurus, <ref target="Pg306">306</ref>;</item> +<item>yet often a Stoic dogmatist, <ref target="Pg306"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>conception of God, <ref target="Pg307">307</ref>, <ref target="Pg390">390</ref>;</item> +<item>influenced by Platonism, <ref target="Pg308">308</ref>;</item> +<item>his psychology, <ref target="Pg308">308</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>necessity and conversion, <ref target="Pg311">311</ref>;</item> +<item>the fall of man, <ref target="Pg312">312</ref>;</item> +<item>Aristotelian elements in, <ref target="Pg314">314</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>humility of, <ref target="Pg316">316</ref>;</item> +<item>his disciples of the upper class, <ref target="Pg317">317</ref>;</item> +<item>on philosophic retreat, <ref target="Pg318">318</ref>;</item> +<item>his precepts for moral growth, <ref target="Pg320">320</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>death a mere bugbear, <ref target="Pg322">322</ref>;</item> +<item>attitude to myth, <ref target="Pg322"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>on public duty, <ref target="Pg325">325</ref>;</item> +<item>on the social instinct, kindness, forgiveness, etc., <ref target="Pg327">327</ref>;</item> +<item>his ideal of womanhood, <ref target="Pg329">329</ref>;</item> +<item>Seneca and Thomas à Kempis, <ref target="Pg331">331</ref>;</item> +<item>his view of immortality approaches the Christian, <ref target="Pg5">5</ref>, <ref target="Pg13">13</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>Pythagorean influences on, <ref target="Pg515">515</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Sentinum, college of Mithra at, <ref target="Pg593">593</ref></item> + +<item>Serapis, +<list rend="nested"><item>his temple of healing at Canopus, <ref target="Pg461">461</ref>;</item> +<item>his origin, various theories of, <ref target="Pg561">561</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>linked with Jupiter in the inscriptions, <ref target="Pg562">562</ref>;</item> +<item>lofty conception of, in Aristides, <ref target="Pg572">572</ref>, <ref target="Pg574">574</ref>;</item> +<item>miracles in his temples, <ref target="Pg573">573</ref>;</item> +<item>a guide and judge of souls, <ref target="Pg575">575</ref>;</item> +<item>his boundless sway, <ref target="Pg583">583</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Sidonius Apollinaris, +<list rend="nested"><item>imitation of Pliny’s Letters in, <ref target="Pg162">162</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>refers to Sulpicia, <ref target="Pg80">80</ref>;</item> +<item>to Petronius, <ref target="Pg121">121</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Silius Italicus, +<list rend="nested"><item>Pliny’s estimate of, <ref target="Pg164">164</ref>;</item> +<item>career and tastes of, <ref target="Pg165">165</ref>;</item> +<item>a connoisseur, <ref target="Pg177">177</ref>;</item> +<item>suicide of, <ref target="Pg184">184</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Slavery, +<list rend="nested"><item>moral and political effects of, according to Seneca, <ref target="Pg12">12</ref>;</item> +<item>courage of Octavia’s slave girls, <ref target="Pg48">48</ref>;</item> +<item>transition from slavery to freedom, <ref target="Pg116">116</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>kindly feeling, <ref target="Pg117">117</ref>, <ref target="Pg257">257</ref>;</item> +<item>manumission, how obtained, <ref target="Pg118">118</ref>;</item> +<item>growing <hi rend="italic">peculium</hi> of trusted slaves, <ref target="Pg118">118</ref>;</item> +<item>tie between patron and freedman, <ref target="Pg119">119</ref>;</item> +<item>duties and generosity of patrons, <ref target="Pg119"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>rise of the freedmen, <ref target="Pg119"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>Pliny’s kindness to slaves, <ref target="Pg181">181</ref>;</item> +<item>harsh masters and their perils, <ref target="Pg182">182</ref>;</item> +<item>slave class dwindling, <ref target="Pg252">252</ref>;</item> +<item>slaves in the colleges, <ref target="Pg281">281</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Society, +<list rend="nested"><item><hi rend="italic">circuli</hi>, <ref target="Pg13">13</ref>;</item> +<item>gossip, <ref target="Pg33">33</ref>;</item> +<item>extravagant luxury, <ref target="Pg66">66</ref>;</item> +<item>respect for birth and manufacture of genealogies, <ref target="Pg69">69</ref>, <ref target="Pg70">70</ref>;</item> +<item>poverty and mendicancy of great houses, <ref target="Pg71">71</ref>, <ref target="Pg72">72</ref>;</item> +<item>wider interests among women <ref target="Pg78">78</ref>;</item> +<item>culture of Roman women from Cornelia to Serena, wife of Stilicho, <ref target="Pg80">80</ref>;</item> +<item>dangerous temptations of women’s life, <ref target="Pg85">85</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>general poverty under the Empire, <ref target="Pg94">94</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>mean trades more lucrative than cultivated professions, <ref target="Pg95">95</ref>;</item> +<item>society materialised, <ref target="Pg95"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>contempt for poverty, <ref target="Pg97">97</ref>;</item> +<item>grossness of freedmen, <ref target="Pg132">132</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>a sounder class in the worst days, <ref target="Pg143">143</ref>;</item> +<item>wholesome force of Roman tradition, and country life, <ref target="Pg144">144</ref>;</item> +<item>old-fashioned retreats of virtue, <ref target="Pg147">147</ref>;</item> +<item>love of country life, <ref target="Pg174">174</ref>;</item> +<item>suicide, <ref target="Pg183">183</ref>;</item> +<item>wedded life of Calpurnia and Pliny, <ref target="Pg188">188</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>new moral ideals in Seneca, Juvenal, and Pliny, <ref target="Pg190">190</ref>;</item> +<item>duties of wealth, <ref target="Pg191">191</ref>;</item> +<item>public spirit of the age, <ref target="Pg193">193</ref>;</item> +<item>rage for amusement, <ref target="Pg234">234</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>municipal gratitude and meanness, <ref target="Pg245">245</ref>;</item> +<item>need of association in clubs, etc., <ref target="Pg256">256</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>immense force of the movement, <ref target="Pg266">266</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>ennui and self-abandonment of upper class, <ref target="Pg304">304</ref>, <ref target="Pg319">319</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>need for popular evangelism, how the Cynics supplied it, <ref target="Pg335">335</ref>, <ref target="Pg360">360</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Socrates, theories of his daemon, <ref target="Pg438">438</ref></item> + +<item>Sophists, the, +<list rend="nested"><item>influence of, <ref target="Pg4">4</ref>;</item> +<item>frivolous subjects and showy style of, condemned by philosophers, <ref target="Pg344">344</ref>;</item> +<item>Plutarch’s opinion of, <ref target="Pg413">413</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Sotion, trains Seneca in Pythagorean asceticism, <ref target="Pg296">296</ref></item> + +<item>Spain, +<list rend="nested"><item>growth of towns in, <ref target="Pg200">200</ref>;</item> +<item>journey of Icelus in, to reach Galba, <ref target="Pg206">206</ref>;</item> +<item>little affected by Mithraism, <ref target="Pg597">597</ref>;</item> +<item>worship of Isis in, <ref target="Pg567">567</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Spectacles, the, +<list rend="nested"><item>Senators descend into the arena, <ref target="Pg73">73</ref>;</item> +<item>women present at, mingling with men at the Circus, <ref target="Pg86">86</ref>;</item> +<item>obscenities of the theatre, <ref target="Pg86"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>number of days in the year given to, <ref target="Pg234">234</ref>;</item> +<item>scene in Flavian Amphitheatre, <ref target="Pg235">235</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Spurinna, Vestricius, +<list rend="nested"><item>a verse writer, <ref target="Pg166">166</ref>;</item> +<item>his orderly life a type, <ref target="Pg175">175</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Statius, +<list rend="nested"><item>his sketches of the great imperial freedmen, <ref target="Pg109">109</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>of the villas of +<pb n="638"/><anchor id="Pg638"/>Manlius Vopiscus, and Pollius Felix, <ref target="Pg176">176</ref>;</item> +<item>reference to Mithra in the <hi rend="italic">Thebaid</hi>, <ref target="Pg589">589</ref> sq.</item></list></item> + +<item>Stoicism, +<list rend="nested"><item>the God of, <ref target="Pg307">307</ref>;</item> +<item>gospel of, in Seneca, <ref target="Pg309">309</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>freedom and necessity, <ref target="Pg311">311</ref>;</item> +<item>weakness of its moral theory, <ref target="Pg313">313</ref>;</item> +<item>instantaneous conversion, <ref target="Pg313"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>no intermediate states of character, <ref target="Pg313"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>modifications of, <ref target="Pg314">314</ref>;</item> +<item>relation to Cynicism, <ref target="Pg323">323</ref>, <ref target="Pg359">359</ref>;</item> +<item>competing tendencies in, <ref target="Pg324">324</ref>;</item> +<item>the two cities, Zeno on civic duty, <ref target="Pg325">325</ref>;</item> +<item>the brotherhood of man, <ref target="Pg328">328</ref>;</item> +<item>the religion of Stoicism breaks down, <ref target="Pg391">391</ref>, <ref target="Pg512">512</ref>;</item> +<item>later Stoic mysticism, <ref target="Pg392">392</ref>;</item> +<item>influence of Panaetius, <ref target="Pg408">408</ref>, <ref target="Pg530">530</ref>;</item> +<item>its theory of human nature assailed by Plutarch, <ref target="Pg410">410</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>older Stoic belief in a limited immortality, <ref target="Pg500">500</ref>;</item> +<item>ideal of life in M. Aurelius, <ref target="Pg509">509</ref>;</item> +<item>Stoic attitude to augury, etc., <ref target="Pg530">530</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Strabo, +<list rend="nested"><item>on oracles and augury, <ref target="Pg471">471</ref>;</item> +<item>on the temple of Serapis at Canopus, <ref target="Pg461">461</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Suetonius, +<list rend="nested"><item>career of, <ref target="Pg168">168</ref>;</item> +<item>Pliny’s friendship for, <ref target="Pg168"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>a dilatory author, <ref target="Pg168">168</ref>;</item> +<item>superstition of, <ref target="Pg452">452</ref>, <ref target="Pg535">535</ref>;</item> +<item>secretary of Hadrian, <ref target="Pg169">169</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Suffetes, title of, preserved in Africa under the Empire, <ref target="Pg203">203</ref></item> + +<item>Suicide, +<list rend="nested"><item>Pliny’s view of, <ref target="Pg183">183</ref>;</item> +<item>suicide of Euphrates, <ref target="Pg356">356</ref>;</item> +<item>Stoic view of, <ref target="Pg356">356</ref>;</item> +<item>suicide of Peregrinus, <ref target="Pg357">357</ref>;</item> +<item>of Silius Italicus, <ref target="Pg184">184</ref>;</item> +<item>of Corellius Rufus, <ref target="Pg184">184</ref>;</item> +<item>Hadrian’s wish for, <ref target="Pg356">356</ref>;</item> +<item>a suicide on Lake Como, <ref target="Pg184">184</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Sulla, recognises the Isiac cult in 80 <hi rend="small">B.C.</hi>, <ref target="Pg565">565</ref></item> + +<item>Sulpicia, verses of, mentioned by Martial and Sidonius, <ref target="Pg80">80</ref></item> + +<item>Sun worship, +<list rend="nested"><item>the highest form of nature-worship, <ref target="Pg585">585</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>Aurelian’s temple, <ref target="Pg586">586</ref>;</item> +<item>Mithra identified with the Sun at Babylon, <ref target="Pg587">587</ref>;</item> +<item>influence of, in fostering theocratic ideas in the Empire, <ref target="Pg617">617</ref> sq.</item></list></item> + +<item>Superstition, +<list rend="nested"><item>tales of, at Trimalchio’s table, <ref target="Pg131">131</ref>, <ref target="Pg136">136</ref>;</item> +<item>of Regulus, <ref target="Pg156">156</ref>;</item> +<item>of Suetonius and Pliny, <ref target="Pg168">168</ref>;</item> +<item>various conceptions of, <ref target="Pg443">443</ref>;</item> +<item>Plutarch on, <ref target="Pg443">443</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>astrology, <ref target="Pg446">446</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>superstition of the Emperors, <ref target="Pg447">447</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>of the great writers of the age, <ref target="Pg451">451</ref> sqq.;</item> +<item>its connection with medicine in the temples, <ref target="Pg459">459</ref>;</item> +<item>dream oracles, <ref target="Pg461">461</ref>;</item> +<item>Aristides has visits from the gods, <ref target="Pg466">466</ref>;</item> +<item>superstition of Rutilianus and the Roman nobles in the reign of M. Aurelius, <ref target="Pg475">475</ref>;</item> +<item>rampant in Paphlagonia, <ref target="Pg476">476</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>cult of <hi rend="italic">Genii</hi>, <ref target="Pg479">479</ref>;</item> +<item>universal belief in miracles, <ref target="Pg482">482</ref>;</item> +<item>apparitions in the <hi rend="italic">Philopseudes</hi> of Lucian, <ref target="Pg490">490</ref>;</item> +<item>encouraged by Mithraism, <ref target="Pg602">602</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Symmachus, +<list rend="nested"><item>religious conservatism of, <ref target="Pg546">546</ref>;</item> +<item>Letters of, <ref target="Pg161">161</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Syncretism, +<list rend="nested"><item>in Aristides, <ref target="Pg388">388</ref>;</item> +<item>in Apuleius, <ref target="Pg388"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>in Plutarch, <ref target="Pg424">424</ref>;</item> +<item>of the oriental worships, <ref target="Pg558">558</ref>;</item> +<item>in the worship of Isis, <ref target="Pg581">581</ref>;</item> +<item>and of Serapis, <ref target="Pg583">583</ref>;</item> +<item>Mithraism the greatest effort of, <ref target="Pg585">585</ref>, <ref target="Pg592">592</ref>;</item> +<item>at Babylon, <ref target="Pg587">587</ref>;</item> +<item>in Asia Minor, <ref target="Pg588">588</ref></item></list></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Tacitus, +<list rend="nested"><item>his attitude to the tyranny of the early Caesars, <ref target="Pg21">21</ref>;</item> +<item>early history and experience of, <ref target="Pg22">22</ref>;</item> +<item>various views of, <ref target="Pg23">23</ref>;</item> +<item>the key to his tone as a historian, <ref target="Pg24">24</ref>;</item> +<item>a moralist, rather than a politician, <ref target="Pg25">25</ref>, <ref target="Pg26">26</ref>;</item> +<item>views of the future, <ref target="Pg26">26</ref>, <ref target="Pg27">27</ref>;</item> +<item>belief in birth and traditions, <ref target="Pg28">28</ref>;</item> +<item>early training, and ideal of family life, <ref target="Pg28">28</ref>, <ref target="Pg29">29</ref>;</item> +<item>admiration for Agricola, <ref target="Pg29">29</ref>;</item> +<item>his experience had affected his ideas of human nature and of the Divine government, <ref target="Pg30">30</ref>;</item> +<item>gloomy view of the time, <ref target="Pg46">46</ref>;</item> +<item>wavering attitude to superstition, <ref target="Pg453">453</ref>, <ref target="Pg535">535</ref>;</item> +<item>faint hope of immortality, <ref target="Pg502">502</ref>;</item> +<item>account of Serapis, <ref target="Pg562">562</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Tarsus, D. Chrysostom on its vices, <ref target="Pg370">370</ref></item> + +<item>Taurobolium, the, +<list rend="nested"><item>enthralling power of, <ref target="Pg547">547</ref>;</item> +<item>first glimpse of, <ref target="Pg549">549</ref>;</item> +<item>offered for Ant. Pius in 160, <ref target="Pg549"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>suspected by the Fathers, <ref target="Pg555">555</ref>;</item> +<item>history of, <ref target="Pg556">556</ref>;</item> +<item>Anaitis and Artemis Tauropolus, <ref target="Pg556"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>question whether it became part of the worship of Mithra, <ref target="Pg556"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>, <ref target="Pg609">609</ref>;</item> +<item>its ceremonial and cost, <ref target="Pg557">557</ref> sq.;</item> +<item>its meaning and effects, <ref target="Pg609">609</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Tertullian, +<list rend="nested"><item>his tale of a priest of Cybele, <ref target="Pg549">549</ref>;</item> +<item>on the taurobolium, <ref target="Pg555">555</ref>;</item> +<item>holds up priests of Isis as an example, <ref target="Pg582">582</ref>;</item> +<item>his view of the sacraments of Mithra, <ref target="Pg613">613</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Theagenes, +<list rend="nested"><item>pupil of Peregrinus, <ref target="Pg354">354</ref>;</item> +<item>lectures in Rome, <ref target="Pg354"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Theatre, the, a great corruptor, <ref target="Pg86">86</ref></item> + +<item>Thespesius of Soli, his vision of the unseen world, <ref target="Pg524">524</ref></item> + +<item>Thrasea, his character, compared with Paetus and Helvidius Priscus, <ref target="Pg152">152</ref></item> + +<item>Thrasyllus, an astrologer of Tiberius, <ref target="Pg448">448</ref></item> + +<item>Tiberius, +<list rend="nested"><item>conservatism of, in religion, <ref target="Pg536">536</ref>;</item> +<item>little sympathy with Hellenism, <ref target="Pg88">88</ref>;</item> +<item>cost of his gladiators, <ref target="Pg241">241</ref>;</item> +<item>belief in astrology, <ref target="Pg448">448</ref>;</item> +<item>tried the lottery at Padua, <ref target="Pg472">472</ref>;</item> +<item>persecutes the eastern cults, <ref target="Pg566">566</ref>;</item> +<item>treatment of descendants of Hortensius, <ref target="Pg71">71</ref>;</item> +<item>his <hi rend="italic">mot</hi> on birth, <ref target="Pg70">70</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Timarchus, his visit to the other world, <ref target="Pg526">526</ref> sq.</item> + +<item>Titinius Capito, writes a history of the victims of the Terror, <ref target="Pg167">167</ref></item> + +<item>Titus, +<list rend="nested"><item>his love of the East and superstition, <ref target="Pg449">449</ref>;</item> +<item>visit to shrine of the Paphian Venus, <ref target="Pg472">472</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Trade, +<list rend="nested"><item>great fair at Cremona, <ref target="Pg264">264</ref>;</item> +<item><pb n="639"/><anchor id="Pg639"/>wandering traders, their colleges, <ref target="Pg264"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> +<item>immense development of, <ref target="Pg253">253</ref>, <ref target="Pg265">265</ref>;</item> +<item>Juvenal’s contempt for, <ref target="Pg98">98</ref>;</item> +<item>encouragement of, by Claudius, <ref target="Pg264">264</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Trajan, +<list rend="nested"><item>provision of, for poor children, <ref target="Pg192">192</ref>;</item> + <item>his friendship with Dion Chrysostom, <ref target="Pg369">369</ref> sq.;</item> + <item>vows of the Arval Brotherhood for, <ref target="Pg542">542</ref>;</item> + <item>Pliny’s <hi rend="italic">Panegyric</hi> on, <ref target="Pg43">43</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Travel, +<list rend="nested"><item>became general, <ref target="Pg205">205</ref>;</item> + <item>example of Hadrian, <ref target="Pg205"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> + <item>easy and luxurious, <ref target="Pg205"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> + <item>facilities of posting, <ref target="Pg206">206</ref>;</item> + <item>speed of, by land and sea, <ref target="Pg206">206</ref>;</item> + <item>passion for change of scene, <ref target="Pg330">330</ref> sqq.;</item> + <item>travels of Aristides, <ref target="Pg464">464</ref>;</item> + <item>of Dion Chrysostom, <ref target="Pg368">368</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Trimalchio, the, of Petronius, +<list rend="nested"><item>sketches his own career, <ref target="Pg129">129</ref>;</item> + <item>his estates, <ref target="Pg129"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> + <item>description of, <ref target="Pg129"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> + <item>surprises of his dinner, <ref target="Pg130">130</ref>;</item> + <item>his libraries and his ignorance, <ref target="Pg131">131</ref>;</item> + <item>treatment of his wife, <ref target="Pg137">137</ref>;</item> + <item>gives an order for his monument, <ref target="Pg136">136</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Trophonius, the oracle of, <ref target="Pg461">461</ref></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Ummidia Quadratilla, +<list rend="nested"><item>character in Pliny’s Letters, <ref target="Pg185">185</ref>;</item> + <item>builds a temple and amphitheatre for Casinum, <ref target="Pg224">224</ref></item></list></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Varro, +<list rend="nested"><item>theology of, <ref target="Pg417">417</ref>, <ref target="Pg531">531</ref> sq.;</item> + <item>on Magna Mater, <ref target="Pg547">547</ref>;</item> + <item>Saturae Menippeae of, <ref target="Pg126">126</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Veleia, tablet of, <ref target="Pg192">192</ref></item> + +<item>Verginius, Rufus, guardian of Pliny, <ref target="Pg145">145</ref></item> + +<item>Vespasian, +<list rend="nested"><item>accession of, a moral revolution, <ref target="Pg1">1</ref>;</item> + <item>his economies, <ref target="Pg32">32</ref>, <ref target="Pg227">227</ref>;</item> + <item>tolerance of the Stoic opposition by, <ref target="Pg40">40</ref>;</item> + <item>treatment of astrologers, <ref target="Pg45">45</ref>;</item> + <item>defamed by men of the Neronian circle, <ref target="Pg52">52</ref>;</item> + <item>Hellenism of, <ref target="Pg89">89</ref>;</item> + <item>love of old associations, <ref target="Pg148">148</ref>;</item> + <item>his immense task; combined economy and liberality, <ref target="Pg148">148</ref>;</item> + <item>banishes the astrologers, yet believes in them, <ref target="Pg449">449</ref>;</item> + <item>consults the oracle on Mount Carmel, <ref target="Pg472">472</ref>;</item> + <item>conservative in religion, <ref target="Pg536">536</ref>;</item> + <item>restores the shrine of Magna Mater at Herculaneum, <ref target="Pg548">548</ref>;</item> + <item>consents to work miracles at Alexandria, <ref target="Pg573">573</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Vestinus, Atticus, suicide of, under Nero, <ref target="Pg48">48</ref></item> + +<item>Vestinus, Julius, chief pontiff of Egypt, a secretary of Hadrian, <ref target="Pg568">568</ref></item> + +<item>Virgil, +<list rend="nested"><item>immense popularity of, his verses in the Graffiti of Pompeii, <ref target="Pg170">170</ref>;</item> + <item>pictures of rural scenery by, <ref target="Pg197">197</ref>;</item> + <item><hi rend="italic">Sortes Virgilianae</hi> consulted by Hadrian, <ref target="Pg450">450</ref>;</item> + <item>Inferno of, its discordant conceptions, <ref target="Pg491">491</ref> sqq.;</item> + <item>recitation of the Aeneid at Trimalchio’s table, <ref target="Pg131">131</ref></item></list></item> + +<item>Vitellius, +<list rend="nested"><item>cruelty and ghastly end of, <ref target="Pg240">240</ref>;</item> + <item>superstition of, <ref target="Pg449">449</ref>;</item> + <item>profusion of, <ref target="Pg32">32</ref>;</item> + <item>treatment of his freedman, Asiaticus, <ref target="Pg206">206</ref>;</item> + <item>employs <hi rend="italic">Equites</hi> as imperial secretaries, <ref target="Pg107">107</ref>;</item> + <item>his horoscope, <ref target="Pg449">449</ref></item></list></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Women, +<list rend="nested"><item>high ideal of, in the first century, <ref target="Pg77">77</ref>;</item> + <item>growth of wider interests in, <ref target="Pg78">78</ref>;</item> + <item>superstition among, <ref target="Pg78"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> + <item>emancipation of, began long before the Empire, <ref target="Pg79">79</ref>;</item> + <item>vices of, in the time of the elder Cato, <ref target="Pg79"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> + <item>Roman ideal of, lasted to the end, <ref target="Pg79"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> + <item>cultivated women from Cornelia to Serena, <ref target="Pg80">80</ref>;</item> + <item>growing influence of, in public life, <ref target="Pg81">81</ref>;</item> + <item><q>Mothers of the camp, <hi rend="italic">patronae</hi>,</q> <hi rend="italic">Curia mulierum</hi> at Lanuvium, <ref target="Pg81">81</ref>;</item> + <item>attractions of eastern cults for, <ref target="Pg82">82</ref>;</item> + <item>Roman girls carefully guarded till marriage, when their perils began, <ref target="Pg84">84</ref>;</item> + <item>temptations of Roman matrons, <ref target="Pg84"><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></ref>;</item> + <item>dangers of the Circus, theatre, and gladiatorial shows, <ref target="Pg86">86</ref>;</item> + <item>manners in the freedwomen class, <ref target="Pg135">135</ref>;</item> + <item>good women of Pliny’s circle, <ref target="Pg145">145</ref>;</item> + <item>others of doubtful character, <ref target="Pg185">185</ref>;</item> + <item>Calpurnia, wife of Pliny; their ideal married life, <ref target="Pg188">188</ref> sq.;</item> + <item>beautiful character of a girl, <ref target="Pg189">189</ref>;</item> + <item>ideal of, in Seneca, <ref target="Pg329">329</ref>;</item> + <item>light women keep fasts of Isis, <ref target="Pg553">553</ref>, <ref target="Pg565">565</ref>, <ref target="Pg570">570</ref>;</item> + <item>female worshippers of Magna Mater, <ref target="Pg557">557</ref></item></list></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Xenocrates, on bad daemons, <ref target="Pg431">431</ref>, <ref target="Pg433">433</ref></item> + +<item>Xenophanes, on legend, <ref target="Pg544">544</ref></item> + +</list><list> + +<item>Zoticus, freedman of Elagabalus, sources of his wealth, <ref target="Pg112">112</ref></item> + +</list> + +<p rend="margin-top: 3em; center">THE END</p> + +<p rend="margin-top: 3em; center"><hi rend="italic; font-size: small">Printed in Great Britain by</hi> <hi rend="smallcaps">R. & R. Clark, Limited</hi>, <hi rend="italic">Edinburgh</hi>.</p> + + </div> + <div> + <pgIf output="pdf"> + <then/> + <else> + <div id="footnotes" rend="page-break-before: right"> + <head>Footnotes</head> + <divGen type="footnotes"/> + </div> + </else> + </pgIf> + </div> + <div rend="page-break-before:right; x-class: boxed"> + <index index="pdf" level1="Transcriber's Note"/><index index="toc" level1="Transcriber’s Note"/> + <head>Transcriber’s Note</head> + + <p>The following changes have been made to the text:</p> + <list> + <item><ref target="corrxx">page xx</ref>, <q>Pages</q> added before <q>560-584</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr13">page 13</ref>, <q>pannelled</q> changed to <q>panelled</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr14">page 14</ref>, <q>aceticism</q> changed to <q>asceticism</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr16">page 16</ref>, comma changed to semicolon after <q>23</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr30">page 30</ref>, comma added after <q>17</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr33">page 33</ref>, <q>Bossier</q> changed to <q>Boissier</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr53">page 53</ref>, <q>proem.</q> changed to <q>prooem.</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr55">page 55</ref>, period added after <q>character</q> and +<ref target="corr55-2">after <q>v</q></ref></item> + <item><ref target="corr96">page 96</ref>, <q>sick bed</q> changed to <q>sick-bed</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr176">page 176</ref>, period added after <q>Capitol</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr205">page 205</ref>, semicolon added after <q>sq.</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr211">page 211</ref>, comma changed to period after <q>Henz</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr212">page 212</ref>, <q>Cæsar</q> changed to <q>Caesar</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr216">page 216</ref>, italics removed from <q>Marq.</q>, + <q>wechselude</q> changed to <ref target="corr216a"><q>wechselnde</q></ref></item> + <item><ref target="corr224">page 224</ref>, period added after <q>wealth</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr228">page 228</ref>, <q>mediæval</q> changed to <q>mediaeval</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr229">page 229</ref>, <q>1</q> changed to <q>i.</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr284">page 284</ref>, comma added after <q>Boissier</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr289">page 289</ref>, <q>fuhrt</q> changed to <q>führt</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr300">page 300</ref>, <q>Æneas</q> changed to <q>Aeneas</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr305">page 305</ref>, period changed to comma after <q>Burgmann</q>. + <ref target="corr305-2">period added</ref> after <q>2</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr312">page 312</ref>, <q>fastidiodosi</q> changed to <q>fastidiosi</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr320">page 320</ref>, <q>intelliges</q> changed to <q>intelleges</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr325">page 325</ref>, italics removed from <q>Laert.</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr332">page 332</ref>, comma added after <q>female</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr338">page 338</ref>, <q><foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">τά</foreign></q> + changed to <q><foreign lang="el" rend="Greek">τὰ</foreign></q></item> + <item><ref target="corr348">page 348</ref>, <q>Greich.</q> changed to <q>Griech.</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr359">page 359</ref>, <q>Phil der.</q> changed to <q>Phil. der</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr397">page 397</ref>, comma changed to period after <q>Saturn</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr405">page 405</ref>, period added after <q><foreign rend="Greek" lang="el">παραδιδούς</foreign></q></item> + <item><ref target="corr407">page 407</ref>, period added after <q>64</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr415">page 415</ref>, <q>xv;</q> changed to <q>xv.;</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr437">page 437</ref>, period added after <q>Diss</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr457">page 457</ref>, p. added before <q>1051</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr459">page 459</ref>, period added after <q>piece</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr464">page 464</ref>, period added after <q><foreign lang="el" rend="Greek">κτλ</foreign></q></item> + <item><ref target="corr475">page 475</ref>, comma added after <q>23</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr480">page 480</ref>, <q>Aesclepius</q> changed to <q>Asclepius</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr513">page 513</ref>, period removed after <q>Ad</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr517">page 517</ref>, comma added after <q>2</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr524">page 524</ref>, <q>mythopœic</q> changed to <q>mythopoeic</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr550">page 550</ref>, comma added after <q>Foucart</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr556">page 556</ref>, <q>raümliche</q> changed to <q>räumliche</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr557">page 557</ref>, parenthesis removed before <q>Puteoli</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr567">page 567</ref>, <q>Archaeol.</q> changed to <q>Archæol.</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr578">page 578</ref>, period added after <q><foreign lang="el" rend="Greek">κτλ</foreign></q></item> + <item><ref target="corr584">page 584</ref>, comma added after <q>lonely</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr587">page 587</ref>, <q>Mithrasdientes</q> changed to <q>Mithrasdienstes</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr614">page 614</ref>, italics added to <q>Mon.</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr627">page 627</ref>, <q>Caeonius</q> changed to <q>Caeionius</q></item> + <item><ref target="corr628">page 628</ref>, comma added after <q>Aurelius</q> and <ref target="corr628-2"><q>Hadrian</q></ref></item> + <item><ref target="corr629">page 629</ref>, <q>Mithriac</q> changed to <q>Mithraic</q></item> + + <item><ref target="corr633">page 633</ref>, comma added after <q><hi rend="italic">ib.</hi></q></item> + </list> + <p>Variations in hyphenation (e.g. <q>springtime</q>, <q>spring-time</q>), capitalisation + (<q>inscription</q>, <q>Inscription</q>) and spelling (<q>under world</q>, <q>underworld</q>; + <q>mediaeval</q>, <q>medieval</q>; <q>praetorian</q>, <q>pretorian</q>) have not been changed.</p> + </div> + <div rend="page-break-before: right"> + <divGen type="pgfooter"/> + </div> + </back> + </text> +</TEI.2> |